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.