Thomas Creed

“ To have permitted Adam and Eve to become deathless and to remain so, in a state of good and evil such as the world experience, would have been a disproportionate and unmerciful punishment. It would have been to populate the earth with deathless sinners; and to convert it into the abode of deathless giants in crime; in other words, the earth would have become, what creed theologists describe "hell" to be in their imagination. ”

“ No historical fact is better established, than that the doctrine of one God, pure and uncompounded, was that of the early ages of Christianity; and was amoung the efficacious doctrines which gave it triumph over the polytheism of the ancients, sickened with the absurdities of their own theology. Nor was the unity of the Supreme Being ousted from the Christian creed by the force of reason, but by the sword of civil government, wielded at the will of the fanatic Athanasius. ”

“ The third, because when all other sects beget horror in the hearers by the outrageousness of their blasphemies against God, this of the Leonists have a great show of piety; because they live justly before men, and believe all things rightly concerning God and all the articles which are contained in the Creed; only they blaspheme the Church of Rome and the clergy, whom the multitude of the laity is easy to believe. ”

“ No man was more active than he, in revivals. He would go many miles to assist in carrying them on, and in getting outsiders interested in religion. His house being one of the holiest, if not the happiest in St. Michael's, became the "preachers' home." These preachers evidently liked to share Master Thomas's hospitality; for while he starved us, he stuffed them. Three or four of these ambassadors of the gospel—according to slavery—have been there at a time; all living on the fat of the land, while we, in the kitchen, were nearly starving. ”

“ But He who sees into the hearts of all—looking in his benevolence more at the intention than the outward form, may perhaps sometimes find in it the workings of a true christian piety, and so reward it with his love. Let us trust so in the charity of our faith, and proceed to notice that portion of the old record which is more intimately connected with our subject. We read that
"Thomas had brought with him to the convent, on his entering, many books, of both canon and civil law; as well as the books by which he had regulated the schools of Oxford and Exeter before he became a monk. ”

“ The doctrines of those illustrious men, like the scattered members of a body, Thomas collected together and cemented, distributed in wonderful order, and so increased with important additions that he is rightly and deservedly esteemed the special bulwark and glory of the Catholic faith. With his spirit at once humble and swift, his memory ready and tenacious, his life spotless throughout, a lover of truth for its own sake, richly endowed with human and divine science, like the sun he heated the world with the warmth of his virtues and filled it with the splendor of his teaching. ”

“ No doubt, many good Christians and some heretics have been shocked at the tour de force by which they felt themselves suddenly seized, bound hand and foot, attached to each other, and dragged into the Church, without consent or consultation. To religious mystics, whose scepticism concerned chiefly themselves and their own existence, Saint Thomas's man seemed hardly worth herding, at so much expense and trouble, into a Church where he was not eager to go. ”

“ Master Thomas seemed to be aware of my hopes and expectations concerning him. I have thought before now that he looked at me in answer to my glances, as much as to say, "I will teach you, young man, that though I have parted with my sins, I have not parted with my sense. I shall hold my slaves, and go to heaven too."
There was always a scarcity of good-nature about the man; but now his whole countenance was soured all over with the seemings of piety, and he became more rigid and stringent in his exactions. ”

“ At Canterbury the monks received him as an angel of God, crying, "Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord." "I am come to die among you," said Thomas in his sermon. "In this church there are martyrs," he said again, "and God will soon increase their number." A few days later he made a triumphant progress through London on his way to visit the young king; his fellow-citizens crowded round him with loud blessings, while a procession of three hundred poor scholars and London clerks raised a loud Te Deumas Thomas rode along with bowed head scattering alms on every side. ”

“ But one that stood by whispered in my ear that the bishop himself do not spend one groate to the poor himself. The sermon done, a good anthem followed with violls, and the King come down to receive the sacrament.
"1662-3—February 1st.—This day Creed and I walking in White Hall did see the King coming privately from my Lady Castlemaine's; which is a poor thing for a Prince to do: and so I expressed my sense of it to Creed in terms which I should not have done, but that I believe he is trusty in that point."
The court of James II. is hardly worth mention. ”

“ The school at Paris, unlike that at Koeln, being a branch of the university, its lectures were open to all comers, and the renown of the Italian who had been more than a match for the ablest of the secular doctors would draw hearers. And those who came once, if they had any love for the play of pure intelligence and the fearless handling of great questions, would come again. Thomas, with all his orthodoxy, was a pretty thorough rationalist. He had full faith in the capacity of the human understanding to deal fruitfully and safely with the deepest mysteries. ”

“ The reconciliation of revealed truth and philosophy to which St. Thomas devoted his life must doubtless be regarded as the great intellectual triumph of the thirteenth century; and when we contemplate the group of illustrious men who took part in that work, it is impossible not to render homage to the good providence of God, who, in the hour of need, supplies His Church with fit instruments with which to effect His own purposes. ”

“ Hoskyns’ dissipated clerk. As already stated, Tom had known Creede when he himself was a youth in the same office, but the two men were so dissimilar in every respect that that of itself did not seem sufficient to account for the intimacy which now existed between them—an intimacy which was evidently of Tom’s own seeking.
Creede, whose life seemed to be one chronic round of debt and dissipation, would have been friendly with anybody who would have used him as Tom used him—who would have played cribbage with him so badly that he, Creede, always rose from the table a winner ”

“ Thomas of Canterbury, and falleth within the Octave of the Lord’s Nativity—died Brother Gerard that was called Cortbeen, whose death befell after supper, and before the hour of Vespers. Before he entered the Religious Life he was a Priest, and he was born at Herderwyjc, but for ten years past he had lived the Religious Life amongst us in piety and devotion. Often he endured much toil in time of harvest, and in winter also he would cut wood in the marshland, for he was a strong man and apt for coarse and heavy toil, yet he neglected not the inner things of God. ”

“ It is not easy to prevail on Tom to speak of those good people, with whom he is said to hold frequent and intimate communications. To the faithful, who believe in their power, and their occasional delegation of it to him, he seldom refuses, if properly asked, to exercise his high prerogative, when any unfortunate being is struck [8] in his neighbourhood. ”

“ In virtue of a decree of Synod, they sued for an augmentation of stipend; Sir Thomas resisted; and to such extremities did they urge matters against him, as to “outlaw and declare him rebel, by open proclamation, at the market-cross of the head town of his [Pg 98] own shire.” He joined issue with Mr. Gilbert Anderson, the minister of Cromarty, on a different question. The church he regarded as exclusively his own property; and the minister, who thought otherwise, having sanctioned one of his friends to erect a desk in it, Sir Thomas, who disliked the man, pulled it down. ”

“ This want of faith was wrong: Thomas knew that the other Apostles would not say anything that they did not believe to be true; and it was impossible that all the ten, should have merely fancied that they had seen and talked with their beloved Lord and Master.
Thomas was now left for one whole week in his unbelief; and a good many of the disciples, who had not themselves seen Jesus, took his view of the matter: though the ten Apostles, and a great number of the disciples, were convinced that Christ was indeed risen. ”

“ And we ought to remember that we do not bring Christ amongst us, or procure graces from Him, by frequenting the assemblies of His disciples, but that we should go to them because He is there speaking peace, and revealing Himself to those who are willing to be members of a body, and who wish for no privileges which all cannot share with them. Whatever reproof Thomas needed, whatever encouragement we can desire, is gathered in our Lord's last words to him. If he required the aid of seeing to sustain his belief, it might be afforded him. But faith itself is a higher evidence. ”

“ So eager was He to win one poor soul to Himself and blessedness, that He said unto Thomas, "Reach hither thy finger, and behold My hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side; and be not faithless but believing."
I do not suppose that Thomas availed himself of the invitation. It was sufficient to see. Such an act of cold scrutiny would hardly have been compatible with his joyous shout, "My Lord and my God." Christ's voice and form, omniscience and humility, in taking such trouble to win one to Himself—these were sufficient to convince him, and dispel all doubt. ”

“ How it would have strengthened the faith of those Christians who had not yet seen the vision of their risen Lord to have seen the light even upon the gloomy face of Thomas! But Thomas missed the privilege of giving. I cannot rob myself without robbing you. I cannot starve myself spiritually without helping to starve you. I cannot sin alone. If I do that which lowers my spiritual vitality, by that very act I help to lower yours also. "Thomas was not with them when Jesus came," and he missed a double blessing, the privilege of receiving and the privilege of giving. ”

“ Henry of Winchester took his stand on the side of Thomas. "If the authority of the king was to prevail," he argued, "what remains but that nothing shall henceforth be done according to law, but all things shall be disturbed for his pleasure—and the priesthood shall be as the people," he concluded, with a stirring of the churchman's temper. The Bishop of Exeter added another plea to induce Thomas to stand firm: "Surely it is better to put one head in peril than to set the whole Church in danger." Not so, thought the Bishop of Lincoln, "a simple man and of little discretion;" ”

“ But if I did not believe it, if I believed him to have been in the past all that his opponent has said; even if I believed that, only last evening, spurned, driven from his child, penniless and hopeless, he had yielded to the weakness which has been his curse all his life—even if I believed that, still I should demand that Henry Thomas, repentant and earnest as you see him now, should be given his rightful opportunity to become a man again. He is poor, but he is not—shall not be—friendless. ”

“ Thomas has enriched the world lay embedded in the mind of a Missionary priest: if he more than rivalled Suarez as a casuist, and Bellarmine as a controversialist, yet if he failed to acquire a mastery over the only instrument by which he could bring to bear the riches of his own intellect on the minds of those around him, of what value is all the wealth entombed within his head? ”

“ From these two incidents we may form some idea of his character: [Pg 246] courageous and affectionate, but not inclined to take things for granted; or, as a French writer expresses it, ‘brusque et résolu, mais d’un esprit exigeant.’ After the ascension, St. Thomas travelled into the East, preaching the Gospel in far distant countries towards the rising sun. It is a tradition received in the Church, that he penetrated as far as India; that there meeting with the three Wise Men of the East, he baptized them; that he founded a church in India, and suffered martyrdom there. ”

“ Master Thomas was Master Thomas still. The fruits of his righteousness were to show themselves in no such way as I had anticipated. His conversion was not to change his relation toward men—at any rate not toward black men—but toward God. My faith, I confess, was not great. There was something in his appearance that in my mind cast a doubt over his conversion. Standing where I did, I could see his every movement. I watched very narrowly while he remained in the pen ”

“ For I nothing doubt but that, though not in this realm, yet in Christendom about, of these well learned bishops and virtuous men that are yet alive, they be not the fewer part that be of my mind therein. But if 1 should speak of those that already be dead, of whom many be now holy saints in heaven, I am very sure it is the far, far greater part of them that all the while they lived, thought in this case that way that I now think; and therefore am I not bound, my lord, to conform my conscience to the council of one realm, against the general council of Christendom. ”