Thomas More - Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation

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VINCENT: I pray you, good uncle, say then somewhat of that. For
methinketh, uncle, that captivity is a marvellous heavy thing,
namely when they shall (as they most commonly do) carry us far from
home into a strange unknown land.

ANTHONY: I cannot deny that some grief it is, cousin, indeed. But
yet, as for me, it is not half so much as it would be if they could
carry me out into any such unknown country that God could not know
where nor find the means to come at me!

But now in good faith, cousin, if my migration into a strange
country were any great grief unto me, the fault should be much in
myself. For since I am very sure that whithersoever man convey me,
God is no more verily here than he shall be there, if I get (as I
can, if I will) the grace to set mine whole heart upon him and long
for nothing but him, it can then make no matter to my mind, whether
they carry me hence or leave me here. And then, if I find my mind
much offended therewith, that I am not still here in mine own
country, I must consider that the cause of my grief is mine own
wrong imagination, whereby I beguile myself with an untrue
persuasion, thinking that this were mine own country. Whereas in
truth it is not so, for, as St. Paul saith, "We have here no city
nor dwelling-country at all, but we seek for one that we shall come
to." And in whatsoever country we walk in this world, we are but as
pilgrims and wayfaring men. And if I should take any country for
mine own, it must be the country to which I come and not the
country from which I came. That country, which shall be to me then
for a while so strange, shall yet perdy be no more strange to
me--nor longer strange to me, neither--than was mine own native
country when first I came into it. And therefore if my being far
from hence be very grievous to me, and I find it a great pain that
I am not where I wish to be, that grief shall in great part grow
for lack of sure setting and settling my mind in God, where it
should be. And when I mend that fault of mine, I shall soon ease my
grief.

Now, as for all the other griefs and pains that are in captivity,
thraldom, and bondage, I cannot deny that many there are and great.
Howbeit, they seem yet somewhat the more--what say I, "somewhat"? I
may say a great deal the more--because we took our former liberty
for a great deal more than indeed it was.

Let us therefore consider the matter thus: Captivity, bondage, or
thraldom, what is it but the violent restraint of a man, being so
subdued under the dominion, rule, and power of another that he must
do whatever the other please to command him, and may not do at his
liberty such things as he please himself? Now, when we shall be
carried away by a Turk and be fain to be occupied about such things
as he please to set us, we shall lament the loss of our liberty and
think we bear a heavy burden of our servile condition. And we shall
have, I grant well, many times great occasion to do so. But yet we
should, I suppose, set somewhat the less by it, if we would
remember well what liberty that was that we lost, and take it for
no larger than it was indeed. For we reckon as though we might
before do what we would, but in that we deceive ourselves. For what
free man is there so free that he can be suffered to do what he
please? In many things God hath restrained us by his high
commandment--so many, that of those things which we would otherwise
do, I daresay it be more than half. Howbeit, because (God forgive
us) we forbear so little for all that, but do what we please as
though we heard him not, we reckon our liberty never the less. But
then is our liberty much restrained by the laws made by man, for
the quiet and politic governance of the people. And these too
would, I suppose, hinder our liberty but little, were it not for
the fear of the penalties that fall thereupon. Look then, whether
other men who have authority over us never command us some business
which we dare not but do, and therefore often do it full sore
against our wills. Some such service is sometimes so painful and so
perilous too, that no lord can command his bondsmen worse, and
seldom doth command him half so sore. Let every free man who
reckoneth his liberty to stand in doing what he please, consider
well these points, and I daresay he shall then find his liberty
much less than he took it for before.

And yet have I left untouched the bondage that almost every man is
in who boasteth himself for free--the bondage, I mean, of sin. And
that it be a true bondage, I shall have our Saviour himself to bear
me good record. For he saith, "Every man who committeth sin is the
thrall, or the bondsman, of sin." And then if this be thus (as it
must needs be, since God saith it is so), who is there then who can
make so much boast of his liberty that he should take it for so
sore a thing and so strange to become through chance of war,
bondsman unto a man, since he is already through sin become
willingly thrall and bondsman unto the devil?

Let us look well how many things, and of what vile wretched sort,
the devil driveth us to do daily, through the rash turns of our
blind affections, which we are fain to follow, for our faultful
lack of grace, and are too feeble to refrain. And then shall we
find in our natural freedom our bondservice such that never was
there any man lord of any so vile a bondsman that he ever would
command him to so shameful service. And let us, in the doing of our
service to the man that we be slave unto, remember what we were
wont to do about the same time of day while we were at our free
liberty before, and would be well likely, if we were at liberty, to
do again. And we shall peradventure perceive that it were better
for us to do this business than that. Now we shall have great
occasion of comfort, if we consider that our servitude, though in
the account of the world it seem to come by chance of war, cometh
unto us yet in very deed by the provident hand of God, and that for
our great good if we will take it well, both in remission of sins
and also as matter of our merit.

The greatest grief that is in bondage or captivity, I believe, is
this: that we are forced to do such labour as with our good will we
would not. But then against that grief, Seneca teacheth us a good
remedy: "Endeavour thyself evermore that thou do nothing against
thy will, but the things that we see we shall needs do, let us
always put our good will thereto."

VINCENT: That is soon said, uncle, but it is hard to do.

ANTHONY: Our froward mind maketh every good thing hard, and that
to our own more hurt and harm. But in this case, if we will be good
Christian men, we shall have great cause gladly to be content, for
the great comfort that we may take thereby. For we remember that in
the patient and glad doing of our service unto that man for God's
sake, according to his high commandment by the mouth of St. Paul,
_"Servi obedite dominis carnalibus,"_ we shall have our thanks and
our whole reward of God.

Finally, if we remember the great humble meekness of our Saviour
Christ himself--that he, being very almighty God, "humbled himself
and took the form of a bondsman or slave," rather than that his
Father should forsake us--we may think ourselves very ungrateful
caitiffs (and very frantic fools, too) if, rather than to endure
this worldly bondage for awhile, we would forsake him who hath by
his own death delivered us out of everlasting bondage to the devil,
and who will for our short bondage give us everlasting liberty.

VINCENT: Well fare you, good uncle, this is very well said! Albeit
that bondage is a condition that every man of any spirit would be
very glad to eschew and very loth to fall in, yet have you well
made it so open that it is a thing neither so strange nor so sore
as it before seemed to me. And specially is it far from such as any
man who hath any wit should, for fear of it, shrink from the
confession of his faith. And now, therefore, I pray you, speak
somewhat of imprisonment.

XIX

ANTHONY: That shall I, cousin, with good will. And first, if we
could consider what thing imprisonment is of its own nature
methinketh we should not have so great horror of it. For of itself
it is, perdy, but a restraint of liberty, which hindereth a man
from going whither he would.

VINCENT: Yes, by St. Mary, uncle, but methinketh it is much more
sorry than that. For beside the hindrance and restraint of liberty,
it hath many more displeasures and very sore griefs knit and
adjoined to it.

ANTHONY: That is, cousin, very true indeed. And those pains, among
many sorer than those, thought I not afterward to forget. Howbeit,
I purpose now to consider first imprisonment as imprisonment alone,
without any other incommodity besides. For a man may be imprisoned,
perdy, and yet not set in the stocks or collared fast by the neck.
And a man may be let walk at large where he will, and yet have a
pair of fetters fast riveted on his legs. For in this country, you
know, and Seville and Portugal too, so go all the slaves. Howbeit,
because for such things men's hearts have such horror of it, albeit
that I am not so mad as to go about to prove that bodily pain were
no pain, yet since it is because of this manner of pains that we so
especially abhor the state and condition of prisoners, methinketh
we should well perceive that a great part of our horror groweth of
our own fancy. Let us call to mind and consider the state and
condition of many other folk in whose state and condition we would
wish ourselves to stand, taking them for no prisoners at all, who
stand yet for all that in many of the selfsame points that we abhor
imprisonment for. Let us therefore consider these things in order.
First, those other kinds of grief that come with imprisonment are
but accidents unto it. And yet they are neither such accidents as
be proper unto it, since they may almost all befall man without it;
nor are they such accidents as be inseparable from it, since
imprisonment may fall to a man and none of them therein. We will, I
say, therefore begin by considering what manner of pain or
incommodity we should reckon imprisonment to be of itself and of
its own nature alone. And then in the course of our communication,
you shall as you please increase and aggravate the cause of your
horror with the terror of those painful accidents.

VINCENT: I am sorry that I did interrupt your tale, for you were
about, I see well, to take an orderly way therein. And as you
yourself have devised, so I beseech you proceed. For though I
reckon imprisonment much the sorer thing by sore and hard handling
therein, yet reckon I not the imprisonment of itself any less than
a thing very tedious, although it were used in the most favourable
manner that it possibly could be.

For, uncle, if a great prince were taken prisoner upon the field,
and in the hand of a Christian king, such as are accustomed, in
such cases, for the consideration of their former estate and
mutable chance of war, to show much humanity to them, and treat
them in very favourable wise--for these infidel emperors handle
oftentimes the princes that they take more villainously than they
do the poorest men, as the great Tamberlane kept the great Turk,
when he had taken him, to tread on his back always when he leapt on
horseback. But, as I began to say, by the example of a prince taken
prisoner, were the imprisonment never so favourable, yet it would
be, to my mind, no little grief in itself for a man to be penned
up, though not in a narrow chamber. But although his walk were
right large and right fair gardens in it too, it could not but
grieve his heart to be restrained by another man within certain
limits and bounds, and lose the liberty to be where he please.

ANTHONY: This is, cousin, well considered of you. For in this you
perceive well that imprisonment is, of itself and of its own very
nature alone, nothing else but the retaining of a man's person
within the circuit of a certain space, narrower or larger as shall
be limited to him, restraining his liberty from going further into
any other place.

VINCENT: Very well said, methinketh.

ANTHONY: Yet I forgot, cousin, to ask you one question.

VINCENT: What is that, uncle?

ANTHONY: This, lo: If there be two men kept in two several
chambers of one great castle, of which two chambers the one is much
larger than the other, are they prisoners both, or only the one who
has the less room to walk in?

VINCENT: What question is it, uncle, but that they are both
prisoners, as I said myself before, although the one lay fast
locked in the stocks and the other had all the whole castle to walk
in?

ANTHONY: Methinketh verily, cousin, that you say the truth. And
then, if imprisonment be such a thing as you yourself here agree it
is--that is, but a lack of liberty to go whither we please--now
would I fain know of you what one man you know who is at this day
out of prison?

VINCENT: What one man, uncle? Marry, I know almost none other! For
surely I am acquainted with no prisoner, that I remember.

ANTHONY: Then I see well that you visit poor prisoners seldom.

VINCENT: No, by my troth, uncle, I cry God mercy. I send them
sometimes mine alms, but by my troth I love not to come myself
where I should see such misery.

ANTHONY: In good faith, Cousin Vincent (though I say it before
you) you have many good qualities, but surely (though I say that
before you, too) that is not one of them. If you would amend it,
then should you have yet the more good qualities by one--and
peradventure the more by three or four. For I assure you it is hard
to tell how much good it doth to a man's soul, the personal
visiting of poor prisoners.

But now, since you can name me none of them that are in prison, I
pray you name me some one of all those whom you are, you say,
better acquainted with--men, I mean, who are out of prison. For I
know, methinketh, as few of them as you know of the others.

VINCENT: That would, uncle, be a strange case. For every man is
out of prison who may go where he will, though he be the poorest
beggar in the town. And, in good faith, uncle (because you reckon
imprisonment so small a matter of itself) meseemeth the poor beggar
who is at his liberty and may walk where he will is in better case
than is a king kept in prison, who cannot go but where men give him
leave.

ANTHONY: Well, cousin, whether every way-walking beggar be, by
this reason, out of prison or no, we shall consider further when
you will. But in the meanwhile I can by this reason see no prince
who seemeth to be out of prison. For if the lack of liberty to go
where a man will, be imprisonment, as you yourself say it is, then
is the great Turk, by whom we fear to be put in prison, in prison
already himself, for he may not go where he will. For if he could
he would go into Portugal, Italy, Spain, France, Germany, and
England, and as far in the other direction too--both into Prester
John's land and into the Grand Cham's too.

Now, the beggar that you speak of, if he be (as you say he is) by
reason of his liberty to go where he will, in much better case than
a king kept in prison, because he cannot go but where men give him
leave; then is that beggar in better case, not only than a prince
in prison but also than many a prince out of prison too. For I am
sure there is many a beggar who may without hindrance walk further
upon other men's ground than many a prince at his best liberty may
walk upon his own. And as for walking out abroad upon other men's,
that prince might be withstood and held fast, where that beggar,
with his bag and staff, might be suffered to go forth and keep on
his way.

But forasmuch, cousin, as neither the beggar nor the prince is at
free liberty to walk where they will, but neither of them would be
suffered to walk in some places without men withstanding them and
saying them nay; therefore if imprisonment be, as you grant it is,
a lack of liberty to go where we please, I cannot see but the
beggar and the prince, whom you reckon both at liberty, are by your
own reason restrained in prison both.

VINCENT: Yea, but uncle, both the one and the other have way
enough to walk--the one in his own ground and the other in other
men's, or in the common highway, where they may both walk till they
be weary of walking ere any man say them nay.

ANTHONY: So may, cousin, that king who had, as you yourself put
the case, all the whole castle to walk in. And yet you deny not
that he is prisoner for all that--though not so straitly kept, yet
as verily prisoner as he that lieth in the stocks.

VINCENT: But they may go at least to every place that they need,
or that is commodious for them, and therefore they do not wish to
go anywhere but where they may. And therefore they are at liberty
to go where they will.

ANTHONY: I need not, cousin, to spend the time about impugning
every part of this answer. Let pass by that, though a prisoner were
brought with his keeper into every place where need required, yet
since he might not when he wished go where he wished for his
pleasure alone, he would be, as you know well, a prisoner still.
And let pass over also that it would be needful for this beggar,
and commodious for this king, to go into divers places where
neither of them may come. And let pass also that neither of them is
lightly so temperately determined by what they both fain would so
do indeed, if this reason of yours put them out of prison and set
them at liberty and made them free, as I will well grant it doth if
they so do indeed--that is, if they have no will to go anywhere but
where they may go indeed.

Then let us look on our other prisoners enclosed within a castle,
and we shall find that the straitest kept of them both, if he get
the wisdom and grace to quiet his mind and hold himself content
with that place, and not long (as a woman with child longeth for
her desires) to be gadding out anywhere else, is by the same reason
of yours, while his will is not longing to be anywhere else, he is,
I say, at his free liberty to be where he will. And so he is out of
prison too.

And, on the other hand, if, though his will be not longing to be
anywhere else, yet because if his will so were he should not be so
suffered, he is therefore not at his free liberty but a prisoner
still, since your free beggar that you speak of and the prince that
you call out of prison too, though they be (which I daresay few be)
by some special wisdom so temperately disposed that they will have
not the will to be anywhere but where they see that they may be
suffered to be, yet, since if they did have that will they could
not then be where they would, they lack the effect of free liberty
and are both twain in prison too.

VINCENT: Well, uncle, if every man universally is by this reason
in prison already, after the proper nature of imprisonment, yet to
be imprisoned in this special manner which alone is commonly called
imprisonment is a thing of great horror and fear, both for the
straitness of the keeping and for the hard handling that many men
have therein. Of all the griefs that you speak of, we feel nothing
at all. And therefore every man abhorreth the one, and would be
loth to come into it. And no man abhorreth the other, for they feel
no harm and find no fault therein.

Therefore, uncle, in good faith, though I cannot find fitting
answers with which to avoid your arguments, yet (to be plain with
you and tell you the very truth) my mind findeth not itself
satisfied on this point. But ever methinketh that these things,
with which you rather convince and conclude me than induce a
credence and persuade me that every man is in prison already, are
but sophistical fancies, and that except those that are commonly
called prisoners, other men are not in any prison at all.

ANTHONY: Well fare thine heart, good Cousin Vincent! There was, in
good faith, no word that you spoke since we first talked of these
matters that I liked half so well as these that you speak now. For
if you had assented in words and your mind departed unpersuaded,
then, if the thing be true that I say, yet had you lost the fruit.
And if it be peradventure false, and I myself deceived therein,
then, since I should have supposed that you liked it too, you would
have confirmed me in my folly. For, in good faith, cousin, such an
old fool am I that this thing (in the persuading of which unto you
I had thought I had quit me well, and yet which, when I have all
done, appeareth to your mind but a trifle and sophistical fancy) I
myself have so many years taken it for so very substantial truth
that as yet my mind cannot give me to think it any other. But I
would not play the part of that French priest who had so long used
to say _Dominus_ with the second syllable long that at least he
thought it must needs be so, and was ashamed to say it short. So to
the intent that you may the better perceive me and I may the better
perceive myself, we shall here between us a little more consider
the thing. So spit well on your hands boldly, and take good hold,
and give it not over against your own mind, for then we would be
never the nearer.

VINCENT: Nay, by my troth, uncle, that intend I not to do. Nor
have I done it yet since we began. And that may you well perceive
by some things which, without any great cause, save for the further
satisfaction of my own mind, I repeated and debated again.

ANTHONY: That guise, cousin, you must hold on boldly still. For I
purpose to give up my part in this matter, unless I make you
yourself perceive both that every man universally is a very
prisoner in very prison--plainly, without any sophistry at all--and
also that there is no prince living upon earth who is not in a
worse case prisoner by this general imprisonment that I speak of,
than is many a simple ignorant wretch by that special imprisonment
that you speak of. And beside this, that in this general
imprisonment that I speak of, men are for the time that they are in
it, so sore handled and so hardly and in such painful wise, that
men's hearts have with reason great cause to abhor this hard
handling that is in this imprisonment as sorely as they do the
other that is in that.

VINCENT: By my troth, uncle, these things would I fain see well
proved.

ANTHONY: Tell me, then, cousin, first by your troth: If a man were
attainted of treason or felony; and if, after judgment had been
given of his death and it were determined that he should die, the
time of his execution were only delayed till the king's further
pleasure should be known; if he were thereupon delivered to certain
keepers and put up in a sure place out of which he could not
escape--would this man be a prisoner, or not?

VINCENT: This man, quoth he? Yea, marry, that would he be in very
deed, if ever man were!

ANTHONY: But now what if, for the time that were between his
attainder and his execution, he were so favourably handled that he
were suffered to do what he would, as he did while he was free--to
have the use of his lands and his goods, and his wife and his
children to have license to be with him, and his friends leave at
liberty to resort unto him, and his servants not forbidden to abide
about him. And add yet thereunto that the place were a great castle
royal with parks and other pleasures in it, a very great circuit
about. Yes, and add yet, if you like, that he were suffered to go
and ride also, both when he wished and whither he wished; only this
one point always provided and foreseen, that he should ever be
surely seen to, and safely kept from escaping. So though he had
never so much of his own will in the meanwhile (in all matters save
escaping), yet he should well know that escape he could not, and
that when he were called for, to execution and to death he should
go.

Now, Cousin Vincent, what would you call this man? A prisoner,
because he is kept for execution? Or no prisoner, because he is in
the meanwhile so favourably handled and suffered to do all that he
would, save escape? And I bid you not here be hasty in your answer,
but advise it well that you grant no such thing in haste as you
would afterward at leisure mislike, and think yourself deceived.

VINCENT: Nay, by my troth, uncle, this thing needeth no study at
all, to my mind. But, for all this favour showed him and all this
liberty lent him, yet being condemned to death, and being kept for
it, and kept with sure watch laid upon him that he cannot escape,
he is all that while a very plain prisoner still.

ANTHONY: In good faith, cousin, methinketh you say very true. But
then one thing must I yet desire you, cousin, to tell me a little
further. If there were another laid in prison for a brawl, and
through the jailors' displeasure were bolted and fettered and laid
in a low dungeon in the stocks, where he might lie peradventure for
a while and abide in the meantime some pain but no danger of death
at all, but that out again he should come well enough--which of
these two prisoners would stand in the worse case? He that hath all
this favour, or he that is thus hardly handled?

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