so great.  Now if he who careth not for God think that this trouble is but a trifle, and that with such tribulation prosperity is not interrupted, let him cast in his mind if he himself come upon a fervent longing for something which he cannot get (as a good man will not), as perchance his pleasure of some certain good woman who will not be caught.  And then let him tell me whether the ruffle of his desire shall not so torment his mind that all the pleasures that he can take beside shall, for lack of that one, not please him a pin!  And I dare be bold to warrant him that the pain in resisting, and the great fear of falling, that many a good man hath in his temptation, is an anguish and a grief every deal as great as this.

Now I say further, cousin, that if this be true, as indeed it is, that such trouble is tribulation, and thereby consequently an interruption of prosperous wealth, no man meaneth precisely to pray for another to keep him in continual prosperity without any manner of discontinuance or change in this world.  For that prayer, without other condition added or implied, would be inordinate and very childish.  For it would be to pray either that they should never have temptation, or else that if they had they might follow and fulfil their affection.  Who would dare, good cousin, for shame or for sin, for himself or any other man, to make this kind of prayer?

Besides this, cousin, the church, you know, well adviseth every man to fast, to watch, and to pray, both for taming of his fleshly lusts and also to mourn and lament his sin before committed and to bewail his offence done against God, as they did at the city of Nineve, and as the prophet David did for his sin put affliction to his flesh.  And when a man so doth, cousin, is this no tribulation to him because he doth it himself?  For I know you would agree that it would be, if another man did it against his will.  Then is tribulation, you know, tribulation still, though it be taken well in worth.  Yea, and though it be taken with very right good will, yet is pain, you know, pain, and therefore so is it, though a man do it himself.  Then, since the church adviseth every man to take tribulation for his sin, whatsoever words you find in any prayer, they never mean, do you be fast and sure, to pray God to keep every good man (nor every bad man neither) from every kind of tribulation.

Now he who is not in a certain kind of tribulation, as peradventure in sickness or in loss of goods, is not yet out of tribulation.  For he may have his ease of body or mind disquieted (and thereby his wealth interrupted) with another kind of tribulation, as is either temptation to a good man, or voluntary affliction, either of body by penance or of mind by contrition and heaviness for his sin and offence against God.  And thus I say that for precise perpetual wealth and prosperity in this world—­that is to say, for the perpetual lack of all trouble and tribulation—­no wise man prayeth either for himself or for any man else.  And thus I answer your first objection.