Chapter 9
1029 Words
VINCENT: Verily, mine uncle, this first kind of tribulation have
you to my mind opened sufficiently. And therefore, I pray you,
resort now to the second.
ANTHONY: The second kind, you know, was of such tribulation as is
so sent us by God that we know no certain cause deserving that
present trouble, as we certainly know that upon such-and-such a
surfeit we fell in such-and-such a sickness, or as the thief
knoweth that for a certain theft he is fallen into a certain
punishment. But yet, since we seldom lack faults against God worthy
and well-deserving of great punishment, indeed we may well
think--and wisdom it is to do so--that with sin we have deserved it
and that God for some sin sendeth it, though we know not certainly
for which. And therefore thus far is this kind of tribulation
somewhat in effect to be taken alike unto the other. For you see,
if we thus will take it, reckoning it to be sent for sin and
suffering it meekly therefor, it is medicinable against the pain of
the other world to come for our past sins in this world, And this
is, as I have showed you, a cause of right great comfort.
But yet may then this kind of tribulation be, to some men of more
sober living and thereby of more clear conscience, somewhat a
little more comfortable. They may none otherwise reckon themselves
than sinners, for, as St. Paul saith, "My conscience grudgeth me
not of anything, but yet am I not thereby justified," and, as St.
John saith, "If we say that we have no sin in us, we beguile
ourselves and truth is there not in us." Yet, forasmuch as
the cause is to them not so certain as it is to the others
afore-mentioned in the first kind, and forasmuch as it is also
certain that God sometimes sendeth tribulation to keep and preserve
a man from such sin as he would otherwise fall in (and sometimes
also for exercise of their patience and increase of merit), great
cause of increase in comfort have those folk of the clearer
conscience in the fervour of their tribulation. For they may take
the comfort of a double medicine, and also of that thing that is of
the kind that we shall finally speak of, that I call "better than
medicinable."
But as I have before spoken of this kind of tribulation--how it is
medicinable in that it cureth the sin past and purchaseth remission
of the pain due for it--so let us somewhat consider how this
tribulation sent us by God is medicinable in that it preserveth us
from the sins into which we would otherwise be like to fall. If
that thing be a good medicine that restoreth us our health when we
lose it, as good a medicine must this one be that preserveth our
health while we have it, and suffereth us not to fall into that
painful sickness that must afterward drive us to a painful remedy!
Now God seeth sometimes that worldly wealth is coming so fast upon
someone (who nevertheless is good) that, foreseeing how much weight
of worldly wealth the man may bear and how much will overcharge him
and enhance his heart up so high that grace should fall from him,
God of his goodness, I say, doth anticipate his fall, and sendeth
him tribulation betimes while he is yet good. And this he doth to
make him know his maker and, by less liking the false flattering
world, to set a cross upon the ship of his heart and bear a low
sail thereon, so that the boisterous blast of pride blow him not
under the water.
Some lovely young lady, lo, who is yet good enough--God seeth a
storm come toward her that would, if her health and fat feeding
should last a little longer, strike her into some lecherous love
and, instead of her old-acquainted knight, lay her abed with a
new-acquainted knave. But God, loving her more tenderly than to
suffer her to fall into such shameful beastly sin, sendeth her in
season a goodly fair fervent fever, that maketh her bones to rattle
and wasteth away her wanton flesh. And it beautifieth her fair skin
with the colour of a kite's claw, and maketh her look so lovely
that her love would have little pleasure to look upon her. And it
maketh her also so lusty that if her lover lay in her lap she
should so sore long to throw up unto him the very bottom of her
stomach that she should not be able to restrain it from him, but
suddenly lay it all in his neck!
Did not, as I before told you, the blessed apostle himself confess
that the high revelations that God had given him might have
enhanced him into so high a pride that he might have caught a foul
fall, had not the provident goodness of God provided for his
remedy? And what was his remedy but a painful tribulation, so sore
that he was fain thrice to call to God to take the tribulation from
him. And yet would not God grant his request, but let him lie
therein till he himself, who saw more in St. Paul than St. Paul saw
in himself, knew well the time was come in which he might well
without his harm take it from him.
And thus you see, good cousin, that tribulation is double
medicine--both a cure of the sin past, and a preservative from the
sin that is to come. And therefore in this kind of tribulation is
there good occasion for a double comfort; but that is, I say,
diversely to sundry diverse folk, as their own conscience is
cumbered with sin or clear. Howbeit, I will advise no man to be so
bold as to think that his tribulation is sent him to keep him from
the pride of his holiness! Let men leave that kind of comfort
hardly to St. Paul, till their living be like his. But of the rest
men may well take great comfort and good besides.
- Writer
