VINCENT: Surely, uncle, you have shaken my examples sorely, and
have in your aiming of your shot removed me these arrows,
methinketh, further off from the mark than methought they stuck
when I shot them! And I shall therefore now be content to take them
up again.
But meseemeth surely that my second shot may stand. For of truth,
if every kind of tribulation be so profitable that it be good to
have it, as you say it is, then I cannot see why any man should
either wish, or pray, or do any manner of thing to have any kind of
tribulation withdrawn either from himself or from any friend of his.
ANTHONY: I think indeed tribulation so good and profitable that I
might doubt, as you do, why a man might labour and pray to be
delivered of it, were it not that God, who teacheth us the one,
teacheth us also the other. For as he biddeth us take our pain
patiently, and exhort our neighbours to do also the same, so
biddeth he us also not forbear to do our best to remove the pain
from us both. And then, since it is God who teacheth both, I shall
not need to break my brain in devising wherefore he would bid us to
do both, the one seeming opposed to the other.
If he send the scourge of scarcity and great famine, he will that
we shall bear it patiently; but yet will he that we shall eat our
meat when we can get it. If he send us the plague of pestilence, he
will that we shall patiently take it; but yet will he that we let
blood, and lay plasters to draw it and ripen it, and lance it, and
get it away. Both these points teacheth God in scripture, in more
than many places. Fasting is better than eating, and hath more
thanks of God, and yet will God that we shall eat. Praying is
better than drinking, and much more pleasing to God, and yet will
God that we shall drink. Keeping vigil is much more acceptable to
God than sleeping, and yet will God that we shall sleep. God hath
given us our bodies here to keep, and will that we maintain them to
do him service with, till he send for us hence.
Now we cannot tell surely how much tribulation may mar the body or
peradventure hurt the soul also. Therefore the apostle, after he
had commanded the Corinthians to deliver to the devil the
abominable fornicator who forbore not the bed of his own father's
wife, yet after he had been a while accursed and punished for his
sin, the apostle commanded them charitably to receive him again and
give him consolation, "that the greatness of his sorrow should not
swallow him up." And therefore, when God sendeth the tempest, he
will that the shipmen shall get them to their tackling and do the
best they can for themselves, that the sea eat them not up. For
help ourselves as well as we can, he can make his plague as sore
and as long-lasting as he himself please.
And as he will that we do for ourselves, so will he that we do for
our neigbour too. And he will that we shall in this world have pity
on each other and not be _sine affectione,_ for which the apostle
rebuketh them that lack their tender affection here. So of charity
we should be sorry too for the pain of those upon whom, for
necessary cause, we ourselves be driven to put it. And whosoever
saith that for pity of his neighbour's soul he will have no pity of
his body, let him be sure that, as St. John saith, "He that loveth
not his neighbour whom he seeth, loveth but little God, whom he
seeth not," so he who hath no pity on the pain that he seeth his
neighbour feel before him, pitieth little (whatsoever he say) the
pain of his soul that he seeth not.
Yet God sendeth us also such tribulation sometimes because it is
his pleasure to have us pray unto him for help. And therefore, the
scripture telleth that, when St. Peter was in prison, the whole
church without intermission prayed incessantly for him, and at
their fervent prayer God by miracle delivered him. When the
disciples in the tempest stood in fear of drowning, they prayed
unto Christ and said, "Save us, Lord, we perish," and then at their
prayer he shortly ceased the tempest. And now see we proved often
that in sore weather or sickness by general processions God giveth
gracious help. And many a man in his great pain and sickness, by
calling upon God is marvellously made whole. This is the goodness
of God who, because in wealth we remember him not, but forget to
pray to him, sendeth us sorrow and sickness to force us to draw
toward him, and compelleth us to call upon him and pray for release
of our pain. When we learn thereby to know him and to pray to him,
we take a good occasion to fall afterward into further grace.