Great Britain -- History -- Anglo-Saxon period, 449-1066; Middle Ages -- Sources
§ 32. And thou too, Cuneglasse,[244] why art thou fallen into the filth
of thy former naughtiness, yea, since the very first spring of thy
tender youth, thou bear, thou rider and ruler of many, and guider of the
chariot which is the receptacle of the bear, thou contemner of God, and
vilifier of his order, thou tawny butcher, as in the Latin tongue thy
name signifies. Why dost thou raise so great a war as well against men
as also against God himself, against men, yea, thy own countrymen, with
thy deadly weapons, and against God with thine infinite offences? Why,
besides thine other innumerable backslidings, having thrown out of doors
thy wife, dost thou, in the lust, or rather stupidity of thy mind,
against the apostle's express prohibition, denouncing that no
adulterers can be partakers of the kingdom of heaven, esteem her
detestable sister, who had vowed unto God the everlasting continency, as
the very flower (in the language of the poet) of the celestial nymphs?
Why dost thou provoke with thy frequent injuries the lamentations and
sighs of saints, by thy means corporally afflicted, which will in time
to come, like a fierce lioness, break thy bones in pieces? Desist, I
beseech thee (as the prophet saith) from wrath, and leave off thy deadly
fury, which thou breathest out against heaven and earth, against God and
his flock, and which in time will be thy own torment; rather with
altered mind obtain the prayers of those who possess a power of binding
over this world, when in this world they bind the guilty, and of loosing
when they loose the penitent. Be not (as the apostle saith) proudly
wise, nor hope thou in the uncertainty of riches, but in God who giveth
thee many things abundantly, and by the amendment of thy manners
purchase unto thyself a good foundation for hereafter, and seek to enter
into that real and true state of existence which will be not transitory
but everlasting. Otherwise, thou shalt know and see, yea, in this very
world, how bad and bitter a thing it is for thee to leave the Lord thy
God, and not have his fear before thine eyes, and in the next, how thou
shalt be burned in the foul encompassing flames of endless fire, nor yet
by any manner of means shalt ever die. For the souls of the sinful are
as eternal in perpetual fire, as the souls of the just in perpetual joy
and gladness.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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