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.
Now before I meddle with your second, your third will I join to this. For upon this answer will the solution of your examples fittingly depend.
As for Solomon, he was, as you say, all his days a marvellous wealthy king, and much was he beloved with God, I know, in the beginning of his reign. But that the favour of God continued with him, as his prosperity did, that cannot I tell, and therefore will I not warrant it. But surely we see that his continual wealth made him fall into wanton folly, first in multiplying wives to a horrible number, contrary to the commandment of God, given in the law of Moses, and secondly in taking to wife among others some who were infidels, contrary to another commandment of God's written law. Also we see that finally, by means of his infidel wife, he fell into maintenance of idolatry himself. And of this we find no amendment or repentance, as we find of his father. And therefore, though he were buried where his father was, yet whether he went to the rest that his father did, through some secret sorrow for his sin at last—that is to say, by some kind of tribulation—I cannot tell, and am content therefore to trust well and pray God that he did so. But surely we are not so sure, and therefore the example of Solomon can very little serve you. For you might as well lay it for a proof that God favoureth idolatry as that he favoureth prosperity; for Solomon was, you know, in both.
As for Job, since our question hangeth upon prosperity that is perpetual, the wealth of Job, which was interrupted with so great adversity, can, as you yourself see, serve you for no example. And that God gave him here in this world all things double that he lost, little toucheth my matter, which denieth not prosperity to be God's gift, and given to some good men, too; namely, to such as have tribulation too.
But in Abraham, cousin, I suppose is all your chief hold, because you not only show riches and prosperity perpetual in him through the course of all his whole life in this world, but after his death also. Lazarus, that poor man, who lived in tribulation and died for pure hunger and thirst, had after his death his place of comfort and rest in Abraham's—that wealthy man's—bosom. But here must you consider that Abraham had not such continual prosperity but what it was discontinued with divers tribulations.
Was it nothing to him, think you, to leave his own country, and at God's sending to go into a strange land, which God promised him and his seed forever, but in all his life he gave him never a foot? Was it no trouble, that his cousin Loth and himself were fain to part company, because their servants could not agree together? Though he recovered Loth again from the three kings, was his capture no trouble to him, think you, in the meanwhile? Was the destruction of the five cities no heaviness to his heart? Any man would think so, who readeth in the story what labour he made to save them. His heart was, I daresay, in no little sorrow, when he was fain to let Abimelech the king have his wife. Though God provided to keep her undefiled and turned all to wealth, yet it was no little woe to him in the meantime. What continual grief was it to his heart, many a long day, that he had no child begotten of his own body? He that doubteth thereof shall find in Genesis Abraham's own moan made to God. No man doubteth but Ismael was great comfort unto him at his birth; and was it no grief, then, when he must cast out the mother and the child both? As for Isaac, who was the child of the promise, although God kept his life, that was unlooked for. Yet while the loving father bound him and went about to behead him and offer him up in sacrifice, who but himself can conceive what heaviness his heart had then? I should suppose (since you speak of Lazarus) that Lazarus' own death panged him not so sore. Then, as Lazarus' pain was patiently borne, so was Abraham's taken not only patiently but—which is a thing much more meritorious—of obedience willingly. And therefore, even if Abraham had not far excelled Lazarus in merit of reward (as he did indeed) for many other things besides, and especially for that he was a special patriarch of the faith, yet would he have far surpassed him even by the merit of that tribulation well taken here for God's sake too. And so serveth for your purpose no man less than Abraham!
But now, good cousin, let us look a little longer here upon the rich Abraham and Lazarus the poor. And as we shall see Lazarus set in wealth somewhat under the rich Abraham, so shall we see another rich man lie full low beneath Lazarus, crying and calling out of his fiery couch that Lazarus might, with a drop of water falling from his finger's end, a little cool and refresh the tip of his burning tongue. Consider well now what Abraham answered to the rich wretch: "Son, remember that thou hast in thy life received wealth, and Lazarus likewise pain, but now receiveth he comfort, and thou sorrow, pain, and torment." Christ described his wealth and his prosperity: gay and soft apparel with royal delicate fare, continually day by day. "He did fare royally every day," saith our Saviour; his wealth was continual, lo, no time of tribulation between. And Abraham telleth him the same tale, that he had taken his wealth in this world, and Lazarus likewise his pain, and that they had now changed each to the clean contrary—poor Lazarus from tribulation into wealth, and the rich man from his continual prosperity into perpetual pain. Here was laid expressly to Lazarus no very great virtue by name, nor to this rich glutton no great heinous crime but the taking of his continual ease and pleasure, without any tribulation or grief, of which grew sloth and negligence to think upon the poor man's pain. For that ever he himself saw Lazarus and knew that he died for hunger at his door, that laid neither Christ nor Abraham to his charge. And therefore, cousin, this story of which, by occasion of Abraham and Lazarus, you put me in remembrance, well declareth what peril there is in continual worldly wealth; and contrariwise what comfort cometh of tribulation. And thus, as your other examples of Solomon and Job nothing for the matter further you, so your example of rich Abraham and poor Lazarus hath not a little hindered you.