In all the former cases tribulation is, if we will,
medicinable. In this last case of all, it is better than
medicinable.
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.
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