We are all conceived in close prison; in our mothers wombs, we are close prisoners all; when we are born, we are born but to the liberty of the house; prisoners still, though within larger walls; and then all our life is but a going out to the place of execution, to death.

The whole life of Christ was a continual Passion; others die martyrs but Christ was born a martyr. He found a Golgotha even in Bethlehem, where he was born; for to his tenderness then the straws were almost as sharp as the thorns after, and the manger as uneasy at first as his cross at last. His birth and his death were but one continual act, and his Christmas day and his Good Friday are but the evening and morning of one and the same day. And as even his birth is his death, so every action and passage that manifests Christ to us is his birth, for Epiphany is manifestation.

Love's mysteries in souls do grow, But yet the body is his book.

Man hath weaved out a net, and this net throwne upon the Heavens, and now they are his own.

If every gnat that flies were an archangel, all that could but tell me that there is a God; and the poorest worm that creeps tells me that.

All other things to their destruction draw, Only our love hath no decay.

I am a little world made cunningly.