Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation

Chapter 3

All manner of tribulation, cousin, that any man can have, as far

as for this time cometh to my mind, falleth under some one at

least of these three kinds: Either it is such as he himself

willingly taketh; or, secondly, such as he willingly suffereth;

or, finally, such as he cannot put from him.

This third kind I purpose not to speak of now much more, for there

shall suffice, for the time, those things that we treated between

us the other day. What kind of tribulation this is, I am sure you

yourself perceive. For sickness, imprisonment, loss of goods, loss

of friends, or such bodily harm as a man hath already caught and

can in no wise avoid--these things and such like are the third

kind of tribulation that I speak of, which a man neither willingly

taketh in the beginning, nor can (though he would) afterward put

away.

Now think I that, just as no comfort can serve to the man who

lacketh wit and faith, whatsoever counsel be given, so to those

who have both I have, as for this kind, said in manner enough

already. And considering that suffer it he must, since he can by

no manner of means put it from him, the very necessity is half

counsel enough to take it in good worth and bear it patiently, and

rather of his patience to take both ease and thanks than by

fretting and fuming to increase his present pain, and afterward by

murmur and grudge to fall in further danger of displeasing God

with his froward behaviour.

And yet, albeit that I think that what has been said sufficeth,

yet here and there I shall in the second kind show some such

comfort as shall well serve unto this last kind too.