For every man hath cause enough to fear
and think that his sin already past hath deserved it, and that it
is not without peril for a man to think otherwise.
ANTHONY: This that you say, cousin, hath place of truth in far the
most part of men. And therefore must they not envy nor disdain,
since they may take in their tribulation sufficient consolation for
their part, that some other who is more worthy may take yet a great
deal more. For, as I told you, cousin, though the best must confess
himself a sinner, yet there are many men--though to the multitude,
few--who for the kind of their living and the clearness of their
conscience may well and without sin have a good hope that God
sendeth them some great grief for the exercise of their patience
and for increase of their merit. This appeareth not only by St.
Paul, in the place before remembered, but also by the holy man Job,
who in sundry places of his disputations with his burdensome
comforters forbore not to say that the clearness of his own
conscience declared and showed to himself that he deserved not that
sore tribulation that he then had. Howbeit, as I told you before, I
will not advise every man at adventure to be bold upon this manner
of comfort. But yet know I some men such that I would dare, for
their more ease and comfort in their great and grievous pains, to
put them in right good hope that God sendeth it unto them not so
much for their punishment as for exercise of their patience.
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