ecclesiastical history of the english nation

Also he would make many songs of the dread of judgment to come, of the terror of the pains of hell, and of the sweetness of the kingdom of heaven moreover, many other songs of the divine benefits and judgments, in all which his endeavour was to pull men away from the love of wickedness and stir them up to the love and readiness to do well. Now he sang of the creation of the world, and beginnings of mankind, and all the story of Genesis, of the going of Israel out of Egypt, and their entering in the land of promise, and of very many other histories of Holy Scripture, of the incarnation of the Lord, of His passion, resurrection and ascension into heaven, of the coming of the Holy Ghost, and the teaching of the apostles. Himself upon all that he could hear and learn, and chewing thereon as a clean beast cheweth the cud, would turn it into very sweet song and by melodiously singing the same again would make his teachers to become in their turn his hearers. Rogavit ergo ministrum suum vespere incumbente, nocte qua de saeculo erat exiturus, ut in ea sibi locum quiescendi Erat autem in proxime casa, in qua infirmiores et qui prope morituri esse videbantur, induci solebant. Nam propinquante hora sui decessus, quatuordecim diebus, praeveniente corporea infirmitate, pressus est adeo tamen moderate, ut et loqui toto eo tempore posset et ingredi. Erat enim vir multum religiosus, et regularibus disciplinis humiliter subditus adversum vero illos qui aliter facere volebant, zelo magni fervoris accensus: unde et pulchro vitam suam fine conclusit.

Item de terrore futuri iudicii, et horrore poenae gehennalis, ac dulcedine regni caelestis multa carmina faciebat sed et alia perplura de beneficiis et iudiciis divinis, in quibus cunctis homines ab amore scelerum abstrahere, ad dilectionem vero et sollertiam bonae actionis excitare curabat. Canebat autem de creatione mundi, et origine humani generis, et tota Genesis historia, de egressu Israel ex Aegypto et ingressu in terram repromissionis, de aliis plurimis sacrae Scripturae historiis, de incarnatione Dominica, passione, resurrectione, et ascensione in caelum, de Spiritus Sancti adventu, et apostolorum doctrina. Quae audiendo discere poterat, rememorando secum et quasi mundum animal ruminando, in carmen dulcissimum convertebat suaviusque resonando, doctores suos vicissim auditores sui faciebat.

Ecclesiastical history of the english nation