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

Suppose that this globe of Earth on which we tread were hollow, and that it were filled with great folio Books, as full as it could hold; and moreover there were Books; heaped up upon it to fill the whole circumference of the dire round about i•; yea that the whole space of place to the uttermost verge of the Empyrean Heavens were filled with Books; and all this vast number of Books were filled with figures in the highest degree of multiplication; O what a number of Books would there be in the whole space of place? what a number of figures in these Books and what a vast number would there be deciphered by these figures? A bit of paper half as broad as an half […] ⟨p. 113⟩penny will hold the figure of the number of as many years as have been since the creation of the World; what then would a whole leaf of a great folio hold? what would a whole folio hold: what then would a room full of folios hold? but what would the whole World full of folios hold? now if at the end of time, when the wicked go […] Hell, God should fill the whole space of the World with folios full of figures of numbers; and tell the wicked that every thousand year one of these numbers should be subtracted, and promise them when all the numbers were subtracted out of all these Books, they should have a release out of their torments; they would have a small spark of hope, that after the subtraction of so many Millions, Millions, Millions of innumerable numbers, in the revolution of so many Millions, Millions, Millions of innumerable years, yet at last there would be an end; there would be time then set and a wearing towards an end; yet if we could cast our thoughts so far in a supposition, that all this number of years, wherein all this number of figures were subtracted by one in a thousand years were past and gone; yea wherein they were all subtracted, as many thousand times as the number of figures in all those Books would a mount unto; yet even then the punishment of the damned would be as far from ending, as at the very first beginning of them.

Suppose that this globe of Earth on which we tread were hollow, and that it were filled with great folio Books, as full as it could hold; and moreover there were Books; heaped up upon it to fill the whole circumference of the dire round about i•; yea that the whole space of place to the uttermost• verge of the Empyrean Heavens were filled with Books; and all this vast number of Books were filled with figures in the highest degree of multiplication; O what a number of Books would there be in the whole space of place? what a number of figures in these Books and what a vast number would there be deciphered by these figures? A bit of paper half as broad as an half