Another pre-eminence of tribulation over wealth, in occasion of merit and reward, shall well appear upon certain considerations well marked in them both. Tribulation meriteth in patience and in the obedient conforming of the man's will unto God, and in thanks given to God for his visitation. If you reckon me now, against these, many other good deeds that a wealthy man may do--as, by riches to give alms, or by authority to labour in doing many men justice--or if you find further any other such thing; first, I say that the patient person in tribulation hath, in all these virtues of a wealthy man, an occasion of merit which the wealthy man hath not. For it is easy for the person who is in tribulation to be well willing to do the selfsame thing if he could. And then shall his good will, where the power lacketh, go very near to the merit of the deed. But the wealthy man, now, is not in a like position with regard to the will of patience and conformity and thanks given to God for tribulation. For the wealthy man is not so ready to be content to be in tribulation, which is the occasion of the sufferer's deserving, as the troubled person is to be content to be in prosperity, to do the good deeds that the wealthy man doth. Besides this, all that the wealthy man doth, though he could not do them without those things that are counted for wealth and called by that name--as, not do great alms without great riches, nor do these many men right by his labour without great authority--yet may he do these things being not in wealth indeed. As where he taketh his wealth for no wealth and his riches for no riches, and in heart setteth by neither one, but secretly liveth in a contrite heart and a penitential life, as many times did the prophet David, being a great king, so that worldly wealth was no wealth to him. And therefore worldly wealth is not of necessity the cause of these good deeds, since he may do them (and he doth them best, indeed) to whom the thing that worldly folk call wealth is yet, for his godly-set mind, withdrawn from the delight thereof, no pleasure nor wealth at all.