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 d