evil, and with great reason, because they abused them to the injury of their Creator. And although they now dissemble this wrong then they shall manifest it with terrible signs.
2. Secondly, I will ponder their terror, reasoning on some of them. " The sun shall be turned into darkness, the moon into blood " the stars or comets shall fall from heaven " like lightning; and " the powers of heaven shall be moved; " [1] for they shall make a fearful noise, as an alarum-bell when it is let loose to strike the hour; the earth shall dreadfully tremble, opening itself in many parts, and, like Mount AEtna, casting forth fire; the sea shall be in a tumult with terrible waves; the winds, encountering one another, shall raise horrible tempests; dreadful thunderclaps, with fearful "shafts of lightnings," [2] shall sound in the air; and there shall appear affrighting visions [3] and horrid monsters, much more horrid than in Egypt and Jerusalem. The wild and savage beasts and venomous serpents shall stray up and down, running in all parts with horrible howlings, roarings and hissings.
3. But how terrible soever these signs be, they will afflict much more with the terror of the things which they signify, and which men apprehend, because all these are but as a foreshadowing of the dreadful evils which they expect, for the world shall be the very portraiture of hell. The " darkness" of " the sun " menaces eternal darkness, in chastisement of the darkness of the soul. The "blood" of "the moon" is the sign of the indignation of Almighty God, which shall take vengeance of them for staining themselves with the blood of sins. The falling of "the stars" from heaven is the sign of the most unhappy fall which they shall make from the heaven of the Church to the bottomless
