Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation

Chapter 8

VINCENT: Verily, good uncle, so may you well do, for you have

brought it unto a very good pass.

And now, I pray you, come to the other kind, of which you purposed

always to treat last.

ANTHONY: That shall I, cousin, very gladly do. The other kind is

the one which I rehearsed second, and (sorting out the other two)

have kept for the last. This second kind of tribulation is, you

know, of those who willingly suffer tribulation, though of their

own choice they took it not at first.

This kind, cousin, we shall divide into twain; the first we might

call temptation, the second persecution. But here must you

consider that I mean not every kind of persecution, but only that

kind which, though the sufferer would be loth to fall in, yet will

he rather abide it and suffer than, by flying from it, fall into

the displeasure of God or leave God's pleasure unprocured.

Howbeit, if we well consider these two things, temptation and

persecution, we may find that either of them is incident into the

other. For both by temptation the devil persecuteth us, and by

persecution the devil also tempteth us. And as persecution is

tribulation to every man, so is temptation tribulation to a good

man. Now, though the devil, our spiritual enemy, fight against man

in both, yet this difference hath the common temptation from the

persecution: Temptation is, as it were, the fiend's snare, and

persecution his plain open fight. And therefore will I now call

all this kind of tribulation here by the name of temptation, and

that shall I divide into two parts. The first shall I call the

devil's snares, the other his open fight.