We reade in the tenth Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, that S. Peter fell into a traunce, sawe the heauens open, and sawe a vessell, as it were a great shéete, descend downe vnto him from heauen, knit togither at the foure corners, wherein were all maner of foure footed beastes of the earth, and wilde beasts, and créeping things, and foules of the heauen. And there came a voyce vnto him: Rise Peter, kill and eate.
Acts 16.
And in the 16. Chapter, as S. Paul was yet in Asia, comming downe towardes Troada, this vision appeared vnto him: There stoode a man of Macedonia and prayed him, saying: Come into Macedonia and helpe vs. Hereby Paule gathered, it was the will of God, that he should passe the sea, and should preach the Gospell in Macedonia.
But I purpose not to write of spirites and visions appearing vnto men in their sléepe, least my Booke grow vnto an huge volume: but only of those which we sensibly sée when we are awake.
CHAP. XVII.
That there happen straunge wonders and prognostications,
and that sodein noyses and cracks and such like, are heard
before the death of men, before battaile, and before some
notable alterations and chaunges.
T hapneth many times, that whē men lie sicke of some deadly disease, there is some thing heard going in the chamber, like as the sicke men were wont, when they were in good health: yea & the sicke parties themselues, do many times hear the same, and by and by gesse what will come to passe. Oftentimes a litle before they yéeld vp yͤ ghost, and sometime a litle after their death, or a good while after, either their own shapes, or som other shadowes of men, are apparantly séen. And diuers times it commeth to passe, that when some of our acquaintaunce or friends lie a dying, albeit they are many miles off, yet there are some great stirrings or noises heard. Sometimes we think yͤ house wil fal on our heads, or yͭ some massy & waightie thing falleth down throughout all yͤ house, rendring and making a disordered noise: and shortly within fewe moneths after, we vnderstand that those things happened, the very same house yͭ our friends departed in. There be some men, of whose stock none doth die, but that they obserue and marke some signes and tokens going before: as that they heare the doores and windowes open and shut, that some things runneth vp the staires, or walketh vp and downe the house, or doth some one or other such like thing.