ot of anything, but yet am I not thereby justified," and, as St.
John saith, "If we say that we have no sin in us, we beguile
ourselves and truth is there not in us." Yet, forasmuch as
the cause is to them not so certain as it is to the others
afore-mentioned in the first kind, and forasmuch as it is also
certain that God sometimes sendeth tribulation to keep and preserve
a man from such sin as he would otherwise fall in (and sometimes
also for exercise of their patience and increase of merit), great
cause of increase in comfort have those folk of the clearer
conscience in the fervour of their tribulation. For they may take
the comfort of a double medicine, and also of that thing that is of
the kind that we shall finally speak of, that I call "better than
medicinable."

But as I have before spoken of this kind of tribulation--how it is
medicinable in that it cureth the sin past and purchaseth remission
of the pain due for it--so let us somewhat consider how this
tribulation sent us by God is medicinable in that it preserveth us
from the sins into which we would otherwise be like to fall. If
that thing be a good medicine that restoreth us our health when we
lose it, as good a medicine must this one be that preserveth our
health while we have it, and suffereth us not to fall into that
painful sickness that must afterward drive us to a painful remedy!
Now God seeth sometimes that worldly wealth is coming so fast upon
someone (who nevertheless is good) that, foreseeing how much weight
of worldly wealth the man may bear and how much will overcharge him
and enhance his heart up so high that grace should fall from him,
God of his goodness, I say, doth anticipate his fall, and sendeth
him tribulation betimes while he is yet good. And this he doth to
make him know his maker and, by less liking the false flattering
world, to set a cross upon the ship of his heart and bear a low
sail thereon, so that the boisterous blast of pride blow him not
under the water.

Some lovely young lady, lo, who is yet good enough--God seeth a
storm come toward her that would, if her health and fat feeding
should last a little longer, strike her into some lecherous love
and, instead of her old-acquainted knight, lay her abed with a
new-acquainted knave. But God, loving her more tenderly than to
suffer her to fall into such shameful beastly sin, sendeth her in
season a goodly fair fervent fever, that maketh her bones to rattle
and wasteth away her