VIII
VINCENT: This seemeth to me very good, good uncle, save that it seemeth somewhat brief and short, and thereby methinketh somewhat obscure and dark.
ANTHONY: We shall therefore, to give it light withal, touch upon every member of it somewhat more at large.
One member is, as you know, of them that fall in tribulation through their own certain well-deserving deed, open and known to themselves, as when we fall in a sickness following upon our own gluttonous feasting, or when a man is punished for his own open fault. These tribulations, and others like them, may seem not to be comfortable, in that a man may be sorry to think himself the cause of his own harm. Yet hath he good cause of comfort in them, if he consider that he may make them medicinable for himself if he will. For whereas there was due to that sin, unless it were purged here, a far greater punishment after this world in another place, this worldly tribulation of pain and punishment, by God's good provision for him put upon him here in this world before, shall by the mean of Christ's passion, if the man will in true faith and good hope by meek and patience sufferance of his tribulation so make it, serve him for a sure medicine to cure him. And it shall clearly discharge him of all the sickness and disease of those pains that he should otherwise suffer afterward. For such is the great goodness of almighty God that he punisheth not the same thing twice.
And albeit that this punishment is put unto the man, not of his own election and free choice but by force, so that he would fain avoid it and falleth in it against his will, and therefore it seemeth worthy of no thanks; yet the great goodness of almighty God so far surpasseth the poor imperfect goodness of man, that though men make their reckoning here one with another such, God yet of his high bounty in man's account alloweth it toward him far otherwise. For though a man fall in his pain by his own fault, and also at first against his will, yet as soon as he confesseth his fault and applieth his will to be content to suffer that pain and punishment for the same, and waxeth sorry not only that he shall sustain such punishment but also that he hath offended God and thereby deserved much more, our Lord from that time counteth it not for pain taken against his will. But it shall be a marvellous good medicine, and work as a willingly taken pain the purgation and cleansing of his soul with gracious remission of his sin, and of the far greater pain that otherwise would have been prepared for it, peradventure forever in hell. For many there are undoubtedly who would otherwise drive forth and die in their deadly sin, who yet in such tribulation, feeling their own frailty so effectually and the false flattering world failing them, turn full goodly to God and call for mercy. And so by grace they make virtue of necessity, and make a medicine of their malady, taking their trouble meekly, and make a right godly end.
Consider well the story of Acham, who committed sacrilege at the great city of Jericho. Thereupon God took a great vengeance upon the children of Israel, and afterward told them the cause and bade them go seek the fault and try it out by lots. When the lot fell upon the very man who did it—being tried by the lot falling first upon his tribe and then upon his family and then upon his house and finally upon his person—he could well see that he was deprehended and taken against his will. But yet at the good exhortation of Josue saying unto him, "Mine own son, give glory to the God of Israel, and confess and show me what thou hast done, and hide it not," he confessed humbly the theft and meekly took his death for it. And he had, I doubt not, both strength and comfort in his pain, and died a very good man. Yet, if he had never come in tribulation, he would have been in peril never haply to have had just remorse in all his whole life, but might have died wretchedly and gone to the devil eternally. And thus made this thief a good medicine of his well-deserved pain and tribulation.
Consider well the converted thief who hung on Christ's right hand. Did not he, by his meek sufference and humble knowledge of his fault, asking forgiveness of God and yet content to suffer for his sin, make of his just punishment and well-deserved tribulation a very good special medicine to cure him of all pain in the other world, and win him eternal salvation?
And thus I say that this kind of tribulation, though it seem the most base and the least comfortable, is yet, if the man will so make it, a very marvellous wholesome medicine. And it may therefore be, to the man who will so consider it, a great cause of comfort and spiritual consolation.
IX
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