them simply with the hope and desire of gaining relief, but because it is the Will of God that you should use them; for we know not whether it will please His Divine Majesty by this means to free us from our troubles. From any other way of acting you will fall into further evils; for if the thing did not turn out according to your mind and desire, you would easily grow impatient, or your patience would have some defect about it, and not be wholly pleasing to God, and would be of little worth.
Lastly, I would warn you against a hidden deceit of our self-love, which is wont under certain circumstances to excuse and justify our faults. Thus, for example, a sick man, who is very impatient under his affliction, conceals his impatience under the cloak of zeal for some apparent good. He says that his vexation does not arise from real impatience at the pain he has to suffer in consequence of the disease, but is a reasonable grief, because he has brought it upon himself, or else because others who wait on him are being worn out and injured.
Thus the ambitious man, who frets that he has failed to gain some honour, does not attribute his discontent to his own wounded pride, but to certain other causes, which he knows very well, at another time when they did not bring trouble upon himself, would give him no concern; so
