Bishops(i)
1 For great are thy iudgmentes [O Lorde] and can not be expressed: therefore men do erre that wyll not be refourmed [by thy wysdome.]
2 For when the vnrighteous thought to haue thy holy people in subiection, they were bounde with the bandes of darknesse and long night, shut vp vnder roofes, and lay there to escape the eternall prouidence.
3 And whyle they thought to be hyd in the darknesse of their sinnes, they were scattered abrode in the very middest of the darke couering of forgetfulnesse, put to horrible feare, and wonderouslye vexed.
4 For the corner where they lay hyd, might not kepe them from feare, because the soundes came rounde about them and vexed them, yea many terrible and straunge visions appeared vnto them.
5 No power of the fire might geue them light, neither might the cleare flambes of the starres lighte the horrible night:
6 But there appeared vnto them a sodayne fire only, very dreadfull: At the which sight, wherin they sawe nothing throughly, they were so afrayde, that they thought the thing whiche they sawe to be the more fearefull.
7 As for the illusions of the magicall art, they came to naught: and it was a most shamefull reproche of the pryde that they had of their owne wysdome.
8 For they that promised to driue away the feares and troubles from the sicke soule, were sicke them selues with feare worthy to be laughed at.
9 For though no terrible thing did feare them, yet were they afrayde at the beastes whiche passed by them, and at the hissing of the serpentes.
10 Insomuch that with trembling they sowned, and sayde they sawe not the ayre, whiche no man yet may escape.
11 For malice is a dreadfull thing, that is condempned by his owne witnesse: and beyng pressed with conscience, it euer suspecteth cruel thinges.
12 For feare is nothing els but a betraying of the succours whiche reason offereth.
13 And looke howe muche the lesse his hope is within, the greater doth he recount his ignoraunce of that cause that bryngeth the torment.
14 But they [that dyd indure] the night that in deede was intollerable, and that came from the dungeons of intollerable hell, sleping the same sleepe,
15 Were somtimes chased with monsterous apparitions, and sometymes they sowned, as their owne soules had betrayed them: for an hastie feare, & that was not looked for, came vpon them.
16 And thus, whosoeuer was there fallen, he was in pryson, but without chaines:
17 For whether a man had occupied husbandrie, or had ben an heardman or labourer in the woods, if he were taken, he suffred intollerable necessitie.
18 For they were all bounde with one chayne of darknesse: whether it were a blasing winde, or a sweete song of the byrdes among the thicke braunches of the trees, or the vehemencie of hastie running water,
19 Or great noyse of the falling downe of stones, or the runnyng of playing beastes whiche they sawe not, or the mightie noyse of roaring wilde beastes, or the sounde that aunswered agayne in the holonesse of mountaynes: these terrible thinges made them sowne [for very feare.]
20 For all the earth shined with cleare light, and no man was hindered in his labour.
21 Onlye vpon them there fell a heauie night, an image of darknesse that was to come vpon them: Yea they were vnto them selues more heauie then darknesse.