And therefore, I say, of all the devil’s temptations, this temptation, this persecution for the faith, is the most perilous.

VINCENT:  The more perilous, uncle, this temptation is—­as indeed, of all the temptations, the most perilous it is—­the more need have those who stand in peril of it to be well armed against it beforehand, with substantial advice and good counsel.  For so may we the better bear that tribulation when it cometh, with the comfort and consolation thereof, and the better withstand the temptation.

ANTHONY:  You say, Cousin Vincent, therein very truth.  And I am content therefore to fall in hand with it.

But forasmuch, cousin, as methinketh that of this tribulation you are somewhat more afraid than I—­and of truth somewhat more excusable it is in you than it would be in me, mine age considered and the sorrow that I have suffered already, with some other considerations upon my part besides—­rehearse you therefore the griefs and pains that you think in this tribulation possible to fall unto you.  And I shall against each of them give you counsel and rehearse you such occasion of comfort and consolation as my poor wit and learning can call unto my mind.

VINCENT:  In good faith, uncle, I am not wholly afraid in this case only for myself, but well you know I have cause to care also for many others, and that folk of sundry sorts, men and women both, and that not all of one age.

ANTHONY:  All that you have cause to fear for, cousin, for all of them, have I cause to fear with you, too, since almost all your kinsfolk are likewise kin to me.  Howbeit, to say the truth, every man hath cause in this case to fear both for himself and for every other.  For since, as the scripture saith, “God hath given every man care and charge of his neighbour,” there is no man who hath any spark of Christian love and charity in his breast but what, in a matter of such peril as this is, in which the soul of man standeth in so great danger to be lost, he must needs care and take thought not only for his friends but also for his very foes.  We shall therefore, cousin, not rehearse your harms or mine that may befall in this persecution, but all the great harms in general, as near as we can call to mind, that may happen unto any man.

III

Since a man is made of the body and the soul, all the harm that any man can take, it must needs be in one of these two, either immediately or by the means of some such thing as serveth for the pleasure, welfare, or commodity of one of these two.

As for the soul first, we shall need no rehearsal of any harm that may attain to it by this kind of tribulation, unless by some inordinate love and affection that the soul bear to the body, she consent to slide from the faith and thereby do herself harm.  Now there remains the body, and these outward things of fortune which serve for the maintenance of the body and minister matter of pleasure to the soul also, through the delight that she hath in the body for the while that she is matched with it.