For you
know well that to take a sour and bitter potion is great grief and
displeasure, and to be lanced and have the flesh cut is no little
pain. Now, when such things are to be ministered either to a child
or to some childish man, they will by their own wills let their
sickness and their sore grow, unto their more grief, till it become
incurable, rather than abide the pain of the curing in time. And
that for faint heart, joined with lack of discretion. But a man who
hath more wisdom, though without cause he would no more abide the
pain willingly than would the other, yet, since reason showeth him
what good he shall have by the suffering, and what harm by refusing
it, this maketh him well content and glad also to take it.
Now then, if reason alone be sufficient to move a man to take pain
for the gaining of worldly rest or pleasure and for the avoiding of
another pain (though the pain he take be peradventure more, yet to
be endured but for a short season), why should not reason, grounded
upon the sure foundation of faith, and helped toward also with the
aid of God's grace--as it ever is, undoubtedly, when folk for a
good mind in God's name come together, our Saviour saying himself,
"Where there are two or three are gathered together in my name,
there am I also even in the very midst of them.
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