liss of heaven or writhing in
the flames of hell, what need of a future judgment? The teachings of God's
word on these important points are neither obscure nor contradictory; they
may be understood by common minds. But what candid mind can see either
wisdom or justice in the current theory? Will the righteous, after the
investigation of their cases at the judgment, receive the commendation,
"Well done, thou good and faithful servant, ... _enter thou_ into the joy
of thy Lord,"(975) when they have been dwelling in His presence, perhaps
for long ages? Are the wicked summoned from the place of torment to
receive the sentence from the Judge of all the earth, "Depart from Me, ye
cursed, into everlasting fire"?(976) Oh, solemn mockery! shameful
impeachment of the wisdom and justice of God!

The theory of the immortality of the soul was one of those false doctrines
that Rome, borrowing from paganism, incorporated into the religion of
Christendom. Martin Luther classed it with the "monstrous fables that form
part of the Roman dunghill of decretals."(977) Commenting on the words of
Solomon in Ecclesiastes, that the dead know not anything, the Reformer
says: "Another place proving that the dead have no ... feeling. There is,
saith he, no duty, no science, no knowledge, no wisdom there. Solomon
judgeth that the dead are asleep, and feel nothing at all. For the dead
lie there, accounting neither days nor years, but when they are awaked,
they shall seem to have slept scarce one minute."(978)

Nowhere in the Sacred Scriptures is found the statement that the righteous
go to their reward or the wicked to their punishment at death. The
patriarchs and prophets have left no such assurance. Christ and His
apostles have given no hint of it. The Bible clearly teaches that the dead
do not go immediately to heaven. They are represented as sleeping until
the resurrection.(979) In the very day when the silver cord is loosed and
the golden bowl broken,(980) man's thoughts perish. They that go down to
the grave are in silence. They know no more of anything that is done under
the sun.(981) Blessed rest for the weary righteous! Time, be it long or
short, is but a moment to them. They sleep; they are awakened by the trump
of God to a glorious immortality. "For the trumpet shall sound, and the
dead shall be raised incorruptible.... So when this corruptible shall have
put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then
shall be bro