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.
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