Christ's certain and sudden appearance to judgment. By Thomas Vincent, sometime Minister of Maudlins…

The damned souls have been lying in Hell many years, full of anguish in their separation, and they know that their anguish will be increased by the torment of their bodies in their union: and no wonder if they be exceedingly unwilling and fearful to enter into their old lodging: their bodies have been sleeping ⟨p. 38⟩all this while in the Dust, and have felt no pam at all: and O how unwelcome a guest will their Souls then be: Never was Death so terrible unto them, as Life will be at that day: they had rather sleep still in their Grave, and continue in their rottenness and corruption: they had rather lie hid for ever in the dust of oblivion, or be quite annihilated like Beasts, than to rise again unto such torments: as now they must undergo: but they must arise, willing or unwilling: It is said that the vile bodies of the righteous shall at the last day be fashioned like unto Christs glorious body, Phil. 3. 21. They shall be made like unto Christs body in beauty and glory: but the bodies of the wicked will have another hue and fashion: i• it were possible to fashion bodies like Devils, those impure and foul spirits, such spiritual bodies the wicked should have: be sure their bodies shall have no glory put upon them: but they lay down vile bodies, they shall rise up more vile: they lay down in dishonour, and they shall be raised in far greater dishonour: indeed they will be raised incorruptible and Immortal: but this will not be for their glory, but that they may be capable of the greater and longer torment and misery: their bodies will be so far from being made beautiful like unto Christs, that I believe they will not regain that natural beauty which they had here upon the Earth: now some of them out-shine Gods own Children (whose chief beauty lies inward) in external comeliness: then none but the Bodies of Gods Children will shine: And then the bodies of the wicked most probable will be swarthy, black, ugly monstrous bodies: if there be a ghastliness upon the bodies of the most beautiful, when they are dead, what ghastliness will there be upon the bodies of all the wicked, when the second death shall seize upon them? were their bodies never so beautiful in themselves, yet their features would quickly be altered by the horrible passions of their mind: the blackness and dread of the soul would quickly appear in their countenance: