exacteth a severe account of all the actions of all men, pouring out all the fury upon men, heaped up together from forepassed ages; because then the torrent of Almighty God's vengeance shall overflow beyond its limits, rushing with a greater violence, by how much more it was the longer detained, and at once shall overwhelm all iniquity from the creation of the world.
Consider, secondly, the dreadful signs which shall go before this day. For our Saviour saith: Erunt signa in sole, et luna, et stellis.[1] And all creatures of heaven and earth shall tremble, understanding their ruin to be at hand. Men also, as our Saviour saith, worn and withered away, perceiving the horrible raging of the sea; and they, themselves, scarce a hair's breadth distant from death. Seeing also, the mighty risings and inundations of the water; and by these conjecturing the calamities and misery these prodigious signs threaten to the world, will be amazed with such a horror, that they will be without life, without voice, without color, or human shape; they will be dead before they die, dreading their damnation before the sentence be pronounced, imagining the future pain, by their present distemper. Then every one out of exceeding fear, will be so solicitous of himself, that he will nothing regard others whosoever they be,
- ↑ Luc. c. xxi. v. 25
