ll make no attempt to build arguments upon any other foundation than
Holy Scripture. But let us, in GOD'S Name, get out of Holy Scripture all
that can, according to the proportion of the faith, be deduced from it.
It is as perilous, not to say as undutiful towards GOD, the Revealer, to
neglect what He has for our sakes revealed, as it would be to invent
speculations of our own about that which He has not revealed.

The unseen world is not easy to apprehend, and to our matter-of-fact
English mind and temper is especially difficult. Yet, with the awful
future in our mind, which awaits not only those who are very dear to
ourselves, but ourselves also, we must be dull indeed, if we have no
concern for it. Then if sober questioning may reveal more clearly to us
what Holy Scripture can tell us of things that shall befall each of us,
we may hope to gain fresh confidence, and to renew our trust in Him Who
launched us into time, that we may live with Him in eternity through
Jesus Christ our Lord.

II.

"Jesus said unto him, Verily I say onto thee, To-day shall thou be
with Me in Paradise."

--S. LUKE XXIII. 43.

If we should ask what happens to the soul of a good man when he dies, the
answer would probably be that he has gone to heaven. Of a little child
it would be said at his death, that he has become an angel in heaven. But
this would be quite untrue, because it contradicts the Bible. The Bible
teaches that there will at the end of the world be a day when all the
dead shall rise and stand before the Judgment Seat of Christ, to be
judged for the deeds done in the body, whether they be good, or whether
they be evil. But if a good man's soul goes straight to heaven at death,
without waiting for the Day of Judgment, he practically has no Day of
Judgment at all. He escapes it. The Bible also teaches that before the
Day of Judgment there will be a general Resurrection of all, both of the
just and of the unjust. {14} But how can one who is already in heaven,
while his body lies in the grave of corruption,--how can he, being
already glorified and even now beholding the vision of GOD, to any
intelligible purpose, or for any conceivable end, take part in the
general Resurrection? Why should he, as it were, come away from heaven
and rise from the dead, in order to be judged?

Thus the popular belief, that the souls of the righteous pass straight to
heaven, and the souls of the wicked go straight to hell