Chapter 20

VINCENT: In good faith, uncle, thus far I not only cannot make
resistance against it with any reason, but also I see very clearly
proved that it cannot be otherwise. For every man must be in this
world a very prisoner, since we are all put here into a sure hold
to be kept till we be put unto execution, as folk all already
condemned to death.

But yet, uncle, the strait-keeping, collaring, bolting, and
stocking, with lying on straw or on the cold ground (which manner
of hard handling is used in these special imprisonments that alone
are commonly called by that name) must needs make that imprisonment
much more odious and dreadful than the general imprisonment with
which we are every man universally imprisoned at large, walking
where we will round about the wide world. For in this broad prison,
outside of those narrow prisons, there is no such hard handling
used with the prisoners.

ANTHONY: I said, I think, cousin, that I purposed to prove to you
further that in this general prison--the large prison, I mean, of
this whole world--folk are, for the time that they are in it, as
sore handled and as hardly, and wrenched and wrung and broken in
such painful wise, that our hearts (save that we consider it not)
have with reason good and great cause to grudge against the hard
handling that there is in this prison--and, as far as pertaineth
only to the respect of pain, as much horror to conceive against
it--as against the other that there is in that one.

VINCENT: Indeed, uncle, it is true that you said you would prove
this.

ANTHONY: Nay, so much said I not, cousin! But I said that I would
if I could, and if I could not, then would I therein give over my
part. But I trust, cousin, that I shall not need to do that--the
thing seemeth to me so plain.

For, cousin, not only the prince and king but also the chief jailor
over this whole broad prison the world (though he have both angels
and devils who are jailors under him) is, I take it, God. And that
I suppose you will grant me, too.

VINCENT: That will I not deny, uncle.

ANTHONY: If a man, cousin, be committed unto prison for no cause
but to be kept, though there be never so great a charge against
him, yet his keeper, if he be good and honest, is neither so cruel
as to pain the man out of malice, nor so covetous as to put him to
pain to make him seek his friends and pay for a pennyworth of ease.
If the place be such that he is sure to keep him safe otherwise, or
if he can get surety for the recompense of more harm than he seeth
he should have if he escaped, he will never handle him in any such
hard fashion as we most abhor imprisonment for. But marry, if the
place be such that the keeper cannot otherwise be sure, then is he
compelled to keep him to that extent the straiter. And also if the
prisoner be unruly and fall to fighting with his fellows or do some
other manner of ill turns, then useth the keeper to punish him in
some such fashions as you yourself have spoken of.

Now, cousin, God--the chief jailor, as I say, of this broad prison
the world--is neither cruel nor covetous. And this prison is also
so sure and so subtly built that, albeit that it lieth open on
every side without any wall in the world, yet, wander we never so
far about in it, we shall never find the way to get out. So God
neither needeth to collar us nor to stock us for any fear of our
escaping away. And therefore, unless he see some other cause than
only our keeping for death, he letteth us in the meanwhile, for as
long as he pleases to respite us, walk about in the prison and do
there what we will, using ourselves in such wise as he hath, by
reason and revelation, from time to time told us his pleasure.

And hence it cometh, lo, that by reason of this favour for a time
we wax, as I said, so wanton, that we forget where we are. And we
think that we are lords at large, whereas we are indeed, if we
would consider, even poor wretches in prison. For, of very truth,
our very prison this earth is. And yet we apportion us out divers
parts of it diversely to ourselves, part by covenants that we make
among ourselves, and part by fraud and violence too. And we change
its name from the odious name of prison, and call it our own land
and our livelihood. Upon our prison we build; our prison we garnish
with gold and make it glorious. In this prison they buy and sell;
in this prison they brawl and chide. In this they run together and
fight; in this they dice; in this they play at cards. In this they
pipe and revel; in this they sing and dance. And in this prison
many a man who is reputed right honest forbeareth not, for his
pleasure in the dark, privily to play the knave.

And thus, while God our king and our chief jailor too, suffereth us
and letteth us alone, we think ourselves at liberty. And we abhor
the state of those whom we call prisoners, taking ourselves for no
prisoners at all. In this false persuasion of wealth and
forgetfulness of our own wretched state, which is but a wandering
about for a while in this prison of this world, till we be brought
unto the execution of death, we forget in our folly both ourselves
and our jail, and our under-jailors the angels and devils both, and
our chief jailor God too--God, who forgetteth not us, but seeth us
all the while well enough. And being sore discontent to see so ill
rule kept in the jail, he sendeth the hangman Death to put some to
execution here and there, sometimes by the thousands at once. And
he handleth many of the rest, whose execution he forbeareth yet
unto a farther time, even as hardly and punisheth them as sorely,
in this common prison of the world, as there are any handled in
those special prisons which, for the hard handling used in them,
you say your heart hath in such horror and so sore abhorreth.

VINCENT: The rest will I not gainsay, for methinketh I see it so
indeed. But that God, our chief jailor in this world, useth any
such prisonly fashion of punishment, that point must I needs deny.
For I see him neither lay any man in the stocks, nor strike fetters
on his legs, nor so much as shut him up in a chamber, neither.

ANTHONY: Is he no minstrel, cousin, who playeth not on a harp?
Maketh no man melody but he who playeth on a lute? He may be a
minstrel and make melody, you know, with some other instrument--a
strange-fashioned one, peradventure, that never was seen before.

God, our chief jailor, as he himself is invisible, so useth he in
his punishments invisible instruments. And therefore are they not
of like fashion as those the other jailors use, but yet of like
effect, and as painful in feeling as those. For he layeth one of
his prisoners with a hot fever as ill at ease in a warm bed as the
other jailor layeth his on the cold ground. He wringeth them by the
brows with a migraine; he collareth them by the neck with a quinsy;
he bolteth them by the arms with a palsy, so that they cannot lift
their hands to their head; he manacleth their hands with the gout
in their fingers; he wringeth them by the legs with the cramp in
their shins; he bindeth them to the bed with the crick in the
back; and he layeth one there at full length, as unable to rise as
though he lay fast by the feet in the stocks.

A prisoner of another jail may sing and dance in his two fetters,
and fear not his feet for stumbling at a stone, while God's
prisoner, who hath his one foot fettered with the gout, lieth
groaning on a couch, and quaketh and crieth out if he fear that
there would fall on his foot no more than a cushion.

And therefore, cousin, as I said, if we consider it well, we shall
find this general prison of this whole earth a place in which the
prisoners are as sore handled as they are in the other. And even in
the other some make as merry too as there do some in this one, who
are very merry at large out of that. And surely as we think
ourselves out of prison now, so if there were some folk born and
brought up in a prison, who never came on the wall or looked out at
the door or heard of another world outside, but saw some, for ill
turns done among themselves, locked up in a straiter room; and if
they heard them alone called prisoners who were so served and
themselves ever called free folk at large; the like opinion would
they have there of themselves then as we have here of ourselves
now. And when we take ourselves for other than prisoners now,
verily are we now as deceived as those prisoners would be then.

VINCENT: I cannot, uncle, in good faith deny that you have
performed all that you promised. But yet, since, for all this,
there appeareth no more but that as they are prisoners so are we
too, and that as some of them are sore handled so are some of us
too; we know well, for all this, that when we come to those prisons
we shall not fail to be in a straiter prison than we are now, and
to have a door shut upon us where we have none shut upon us now.
This shall we be sure of at least if there come no worse--and then
there may come worse, you know well, since it cometh there so
commonly. And therefore is it yet little marvel that men's hearts
grudge much against it.

ANTHONY: Surely, cousin, in this you say very well. Howbeit, your
words would have touched me somewhat the nearer if I had said that
imprisonment were no displeasure at all. But the thing that I say,
cousin, for our comfort in the matter, is that our fancy frameth us
a false opinion by which we deceive ourselves and take it for sorer
than it is. And that we do because we take ourselves for more free
before than we were, and imprisonment for a stranger thing to us
than it is indeed. And thus far, as I say, I have proved truth in
very deed.

But now the incommodities that you repeat again--those, I say, that
are proper to the imprisonment of its own nature; that is, to have
less room to walk and to have the door shut upon us--these are,
methinketh, so very slender and slight that in so great a cause as
to suffer for God's sake we might be sore ashamed so much as once
to think upon them.

Many a good man there is, you know, who, without any force at all,
or any necessity wherefor he should do so, suffereth these two
things willingly of his own choice, with much other hardness more.
Holy monks, I mean, of the Charterhouse order, such as never pass
their cells save only to the church, which is set fast by their
cells, and thence to their cells again. And St. Brigit's order, and
St. Clare's much alike, and in a manner all enclosed religious
houses. And yet anchorites and anchoresses most especially, all
whose whole room is less than a good large chamber. And yet are
they there as well content many long years together as are other
men--and better, too--who walk about the world. And therefore you
may see that the lothness of less room and the door shut upon us,
since so many folk are so well content with them and will for God's
love choose to live so, is but a horror enhanced of our own fancy.

And indeed I knew a woman once who came into a prison, to visit of
her charity a poor prisoner there. She found him in a chamber that
was fair enough, to say the truth--at least, it was strong enough!
But with mats of straw the prisoner had made it so warm, both under
foot and round about the walls, that in these things, for the
keeping of his health, she was on his behalf very glad and very
well comforted. But among many other displeasures that for his sake
she was sorry for, one she lamented much in her mind. And that was
that he should have the chamber door made fast upon him by night,
by the jailor who was to shut him in. "For, by my troth," quoth
she, "if the door should be shut upon me, I think it would stop up
my breath!" At that word of hers the prisoner laughed in his
mind--but he dared not laugh aloud or say anything to her, for
indeed he stood somewhat in awe of her, and he had his food there
in great part of her charity for alms. But he could not but laugh
inwardly, for he knew well enough that she used to shut her own
chamber door full surely on the inside every night, both door and
windows too, and used not to open them all the long night. And what
difference, then, as to the stopping of the breath, whether they
were shut up within or without?

And so surely, cousin, these two things that you speak of are
neither one of so great weight that in Christ's cause they ought to
move a Christian man. And one of the twain is so very childish a
fancy, that in a matter almost of three chips (unless it were a
chance of fire) it should never move any man.

As for those other accidents of hard handling, I am not so mad as
to say that they are no grief, but I say that our fear may imagine
them much greater grief than they are. And I say that such as they
be, many a man endureth them--yea, and many a woman too--who
afterward fareth full well.

And then would I know what determination we take--whether for our
Saviour's sake to suffer some pain in our bodies, since he suffered
in his blessed body so great pain for us, or else to give him
warning and be at a point utterly to forsake him rather than to
suffer any pain at all? He who cometh in his mind unto this latter
point--from which kind of unkindness God keep every man!--he
needeth no comfort, for he will flee the need. And counsel, I fear,
availeth him little, if grace be so far gone from him. But, on the
other hand, if, rather than to forsake our Saviour, we determine
ourselves to suffer any pain at all, I cannot then see that the
fear of hard handling should anything stick with us and make us to
shrink so that we would rather forsake his faith than suffer for
his sake so much as imprisonment. For the handling is neither such
in prison but what many men, and many women too, live with it many
years and sustain it, and afterward yet fare full well. And yet it
may well fortune that, beside the bare imprisonment, there shall
happen to us no hard handling at all. Or else it may happen to us
for only a short while--and yet, beside all this, peradventure not
at all. And which of all these ways shall be taken with us, lieth
all in his will for whom we are content to take it, and who for
that intent of ours favoureth us and will suffer no man to put more
pain to us than he well knoweth we shall be able to bear. For he
himself will give us the strength for it, as you have heard his
promise already by the mouth of St. Paul: "God is faithful, who
suffereth you not to be tempted above what you may bear, but giveth
also with the temptation a way out."

But now, if we have not lost our faith already before we come to
forsake it for fear, we know very well by our faith that, by the
forsaking of our faith, we fall into that state to be cast into the
prison of hell. And that can we not tell how soon; but, as it may
be that God will suffer us to live a while here upon earth, so may
it be that he will throw us into that dungeon beneath before the
time that the Turk shall once ask us the question. And therefore,
if we fear imprisonment so sore, we are much more than mad if we
fear not most the imprisonment that is far more sore. For out of
that prison shall no man ever get, and in this other shall no man
abide but a while.

In prison was Joseph while his brethren were at large; and yet
afterward were his brethren fain to seek upon him for bread. In
prison was Daniel, and the wild lions about him; and yet even there
God kept him harmless and brought him safe out again. If we think
that he will not do the like for us, let us not doubt that he will
do for us either the like or better, for better may he do for us if
he suffer us there to die. St. John the Baptist was, you know, in
prison, while Herod and Herodias sat full merry at the feast, and
the daughter of Herodias delighted them with her dancing, till with
her dancing she danced off St. John's head. And now sitteth he with
great feast in heaven at God's board, while Herod and Herodias full
heavily sit in hell burning both twain, and to make them sport
withal the devil with the damsel dance in the fire before them.

Finally, cousin, to finish this piece, our Saviour was himself
taken prisoner for our sake. And prisoner was he carried, and
prisoner was he kept, and prisoner was he brought forth before
Annas, and prisoner from Annas carried unto Caiphas. Then prisoner
was he carried from Caiphas unto Pilate, and prisoner was he sent
from Pilate to King Herod, and prisoner from Herod unto Pilate
again. And so was he kept as prisoner to the end of his passion.
The time of his imprisonment, I grant you, was not long. But as for
hard handling, which our hearts most abhor, he had as much in that
short while as many men among them all in a much longer time. And
surely, then, if we consider of what estate he was and also that he
was prisoner in that wise for our sake, we shall, I think, unless
we be worse than wretched beasts, never so shamefully play the
ungrateful coward as sinfully to forsake him for fear of
imprisonment.

Nor shall we be so foolish either as, by forsaking him, to give him
the occasion to forsake us in turn. For so should we, with the
avoiding of an easier prison, fall into a worse. And instead of the
prison that cannot keep us long, we should fall into that prison
out of which we can never come, though the short imprisonment
should have won us everlasting liberty.

Book I

Book II

Book III

Chapter 20