danger, to make
him thereby know what he was while he took himself for so sure.
And therefore, as he suffered him then to fall for a remedy
against over-bold pride, so will God now--if the man meek himself,
not with fruitless despair but with fruitful penance--so set him up
again upon his feet and so strengthen him with his grace, that for
this one fall that the devil hath given him he shall give the
devil a hundred.

And here must he be put in remembrance of Mary Magdalene, of the
prophet David, and especially of St. Peter, whose high bold
courage took a foul fall. And yet because he despaired not of
God's mercy, but wept and called upon it, how highly God took him
into his favour again is well testified in his holy scripture and
well known through Christendom.

And now shall it be charitably done if some good virtuous folk,
such as he himself somewhat esteemeth and hath afore longed to
stand in estimation with, do resort sometimes to him, not only to
give him counsel but also to ask advice and counsel of him in some
cases of their own conscience. For so may they let him perceive
that they esteem him now no less, but rather more than they did
before, since they think him now by this fall better expert of the
devil's craft and so not only better instructed himself but also
better able to give good advice and counsel to others. This thing
will, to my mind, well amend and lift up his courage from the
peril of that desperate shame.

VINCENT: Methinketh, uncle, that this would be a perilous thing.
For it may peradventure make him set the less by his fall, and
thereby it may cast him into his first pride or into his other sin
again, the falling in to which drove him into this despair.

ANTHONY: I do not mean, cousin, that every fool should at
adventure fall in hand with him, for so might it happen to do harm
indeed.

But, cousin, if a learned physician have a man in hand, he can
well discern when and how long some certain medicine is necessary
which, if administered at another time or at that time over-long
continued, might put the patient in peril. If he have his patient
in an ague, for the cure of which he needeth his medicines in
their working cold, yet he may hap, ere that fever be full cured,
to fall into some other disease such that, unless it were helped
with hot medicine, would be likely to kill the body before the
fever could be cured. The physician then would for the while have
his most care to the cure