To Set the World at Nought

St. Thomas More was martyred this day, July 6, 1535.

A godly meditation, written by Sir Thomas More Knight while he was prisoner in the Tower of London in the year of our Lord 1534.¹

Give me Thy grace, good Lord,
To set the world at nought;²

To set my mind fast³ upon Thee,
And not to hang upon the blast⁴ of men’s mouths;

To be content to be solitary;
Not to long for worldly company;

Little and little utterly to cast off the world,
And rid my mind of all the business⁵ thereof;

Not to long to hear of any worldly things,
But that the hearing of worldly fantasies⁶
    may be to me displeasant;⁷

Gladly to be thinking of God,
Pituously to call for His help;

To lean unto the comfort of God,
Busily to labor to love Him;

To know mine own vility⁸ and wretchedness,
To humble and meeken myself
    under the mighty hand of God;

To bewail my sins passed;
For the purging of them patiently to suffer adversity;

Gladly to bear my purgatory here;
To be joyful of tribulations;

To walk the narrow way that leadeth to life,
To bear the cross with Christ;

To have the last thing⁹ in remembrance,
To have ever afore¹⁰ mine eye
    my death that is ever at hand;

To make death no stranger to me,
To foresee and consider the everlasting fire of hell;

To pray for pardon before the judge come,
To have continually in mind the passion
    that Christ suffered for me;

For His benefits uncessantly¹¹ to give Him thanks,
To buy¹² the time again that I before have lost;

To abstain from vain confabulations¹³
To eschew light¹⁴ foolish mirth and gladness;

Recreations¹⁵ not necessary — to cut off;
Of worldly substance, friends, liberty, life and all,
to set the loss at right nought¹⁶
    for the winning¹⁷ of Christ:

To think my most¹⁸ enemies my best friends;
For the brethren of Joseph could never have done
    him so much good with their love and favor
       as they did him with their malice and hatred.

These minds¹⁹ are more to be desired of every man
   than all the treasure of all the princes and kings,
      Christian and heathen, were it gathered and
         laid together all upon one heap.

1. This heading is from the 1557 English Works, but the text of the prayer given here is taken directly from More's handwritten version in the margins of a book of hours he had with him in the Tower.
2. set... nought: have no esteem for the world.
3. firmly.
4. utterance.
5. activity.
6. delusions.
7. disagreeable.
8. baseness.
9. last thing: last judgment.
10. before.
11. continually.
12. redeem.
13. conversations.
14. frivolous.
15. pleasurable employments.
16. right nought: absolutely nothing.
17. gaining.
18. greatest.
19. attitudes.

St. Thomas More (1478-1535)

The Tower Works: Devotional Writings (1980), ed. Garry E. Haupt, pp. 301ff.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Sun. 07/06/08 11:25:18 PM
Categorized as Historical & Literary & Religious.