VINCENT: Verily, good uncle, so may you well do, for you have
brought it unto a very good pass.
And now, I pray you, come to the other kind, of which you purposed
always to treat last.
ANTHONY: That shall I, cousin, very gladly do. The other kind is
the one which I rehearsed second, and (sorting out the other two)
have kept for the last. This second kind of tribulation is, you
know, of those who willingly suffer tribulation, though of their
own choice they took it not at first.
This kind, cousin, we shall divide into twain; the first we might
call temptation, the second persecution. But here must you
consider that I mean not every kind of persecution, but only that
kind which, though the sufferer would be loth to fall in, yet will
he rather abide it and suffer than, by flying from it, fall into
the displeasure of God or leave God's pleasure unprocured.
Howbeit, if we well consider these two things, temptation and
persecution, we may find that either of them is incident into the
other. For both by temptation the devil persecuteth us, and by
persecution the devil also tempteth us. And as persecution is
tribulation to every man, so is temptation tribulation to a good
man. Now, though the devil, our spiritual enemy, fight against man
in both, yet this difference hath the common temptation from the
persecution: Temptation is, as it were, the fiend's snare, and
persecution his plain open fight. And therefore will I now call
all this kind of tribulation here by the name of temptation, and
that shall I divide into two parts. The first shall I call the
devil's snares, the other his open fight.