counsel
of any spiritual comfort.

Howbeit, what if the man have this desire of God's comfort: that
is, that it may please God to comfort him in his tribulation by
taking that tribulation from him--is not this a good desire of
God's comfort, and a desire sufficient for him who is in
tribulation?

ANTHONY: No, cousin, that it is not. I touched before upon this
point and passed it over, because I thought it would fall in our
way again, and so know I well that it will, oftener than once. And
now am I glad that you yourself move it to me here.

A man may many times, well and without sin, desire of God that the
tribulation be taken from him. But neither may we desire that in
every case, nor yet very well in any case (except very few) save
under a certain condition, either expressed or implied. For
tribulations are, as you know well, of many sundry kinds. Some are
by loss of goods or possessions, some by the sickness of ourselves,
and some by the loss of friends or by some other pain put unto our
bodies. Some are by the dread of losing these things that we fain
would save, under which fear fall all the same things that we have
spoken of before. For we may fear loss of goods or possessions, or
the loss of our friends, or their grief and trouble or our own by
sickness, imprisonment, or other bodily pain. We may be troubled
most of all with the fear of that thing which he feareth least of
all who hath most need to do so--that is, the fear of losing
through deadly sin the life of his blessed soul. And this last kind
of tribulation, as the sorest tribulation of all, though we may
touch some pieces of it here and there before, yet the chief part
and the principal pain will I reserve to treat apart effectually at
the end.

But now, as I said, since the kinds of tribulation are so diverse,
a man may pray God to take some of these tribulations from him, and
may take some comfort in the trust that God will do so. And
therefore against hunger, sickness, and bodily hurt, and against
the loss of either body or soul, men may lawfully many times pray
to the goodness of God, either for themselves or for their friends.
And toward this purpose are expressly prayed many devout orisons in
the common services of our mother Holy Church. And toward our help
in some of these things serve some of the petitions in the Pater
Noster, in which we pray daily for our daily food, and to be
preserved from the fall into temptation, and to be delivered