Now I say further, cousin, that if this be true, as indeed it is,
that such trouble is tribulation, and thereby consequently an
interruption of prosperous wealth, no man meaneth precisely to pray
for another to keep him in continual prosperity without any manner
of discontinuance or change in this world. For that prayer, without
other condition added or implied, would be inordinate and very
childish. For it would be to pray either that they should never
have temptation, or else that if they had they might follow and
fulfil their affection. Who would dare, good cousin, for shame or
for sin, for himself or any other man, to make this kind of prayer?
Besides this, cousin, the church, you know, well adviseth every man
to fast, to watch, and to pray, both for taming of his fleshly
lusts and also to mourn and lament his sin before committed and to
bewail his offence done against God, as they did at the city of
Nineve, and as the prophet David did for his sin put affliction to
his flesh. And when a man so doth, cousin, is this no tribulation
to him because he doth it himself? For I know you would agree that
it would be, if another man did it against his will. Then is
tribulation, you know, tribulation still, though it be taken well
in worth. Yea, and though it be taken with very right good will,
yet is pain, you know, pain, and therefore so is it, though a man
do it himself.
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