HKB
And therefore, good cousin, to finish our talking for this time, lest I should be too long a hindrance to your other business:
If we lay first, for a sure ground, a very fast faith, whereby we believe to be true all that the scripture saith (understood truly, as the old holy doctors declare it and as the spirit of God instructeth his Catholic church), then shall we consider tribulation as a gracious gift of God, a gift that he specially gave his special friends; a thing that in scripture is highly commended and praised; a thing of which the contrary, long continued, is perilous; a thing which, if God send it not, men have need to put upon themselves and seek by penance; a thing that helpeth to purge our past sins; a thing that preserveth us from sins that otherwise would come; a thing that causeth us to set less by the world; a thing that much diminisheth our pains in purgatory; a thing that much increaseth our final reward in heaven; the thing with which all his apostles followed him thither; the thing to which our Saviour exhorteth all men; the thing without which he saith we be not his disciples; the thing without which no man can get to heaven.
Whosoever thinketh on these things, and remembereth them well, shall in his tribulation neither murmur nor grudge. But first shall he by patience take his pain in worth, and then shall he grow in goodness and think himself well worthy of tribulation. And then shall he consider that God sendeth it for his welfare, and thereby shall be moved to give God thanks for it. Therewith shall his grace increase, and God shall give him such comfort by considering that God is in his trouble evermore near to him--for "God is near," saith the prophet, "to them that have their heart in trouble"--that his joy thereof shall diminish much of his pain. And he shall not seek for vain comfort elsewhere, but shall specially trust in God and seek help of him, submitting his own will wholly to God's pleasure. And he shall pray to God in his heart, and pray his friends pray for him, and especially the priests, as St. James biddeth. And he shall begin first with confession and make him clean to God and ready to depart, and be glad to go to God, putting purgatory to his pleasure. If we thus do, this dare I boldly say, we shall never live here the less by half an hour, but we shall with this comfort find our hearts lightened, and thereby the grief of our tribulation lessened, and the more likelihood to recover and to live the longer.
Now if God will that we shall go hence, then doth he much more for us. For he who taketh this way cannot go but well. For of him who is loth to leave this wretched world, mine heart is much in fear lest he did not well. Hard it is for him to be welcome who cometh against his will, who saith unto God when he cometh to fetch him, "Welcome, my Maker--spite of my teeth!" But he that so loveth him that he longeth to go to him, my heart cannot give me but he shall be welcome, albeit that he come ere he be well purged. For "Charity covereth a multitude of sins," and "He that trusteth in God cannot be confounded." And Christ saith, "He that cometh to me, I will not cast him out." And therefore let us never make our reckoning of long life. Let us keep it while we can, because God hath so commanded, but if God give the occasion that with his good will we may go, let us be glad of it and long to go to him. And then shall hope of heaven comfort our heaviness, and out of our transitory tribulation shall we go to everlasting glory--to which, good cousin, I pray God bring us both!