We must observe, also, that the soul, after this life, goes either into heaven or into hell, and into no other place; for the scripture mentions no other, neither purgatory, nor limbus, nor subterranean caverns, nor Lethean streams; whatever is asserted in reference to such things, is founded on pretended revelations, on false appearances, and on vain arguments. That the souls of believers are made happy in heaven, is proved from the passage which declares, that “blessed are the dead which die in the Lord;” from the words of Christ to the penitent thief, “To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise;” from the desire of Paul “to depart and to be with Christ;” and from his words elsewhere, “We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” (Rev. 14:13; Luke 23:43; Phil. 1:23; 2 Cor. 5:1.) This heaven is called “Paradise,” “the bosom of Abraham,” (Luke 16:22,) in allusion to the custom of the ancients at their feasts, in which the head of one guest reclined as it were on the bosom of another; as it is recorded of John, (John 13:23,) because, as Christ reclined on the upper part of the couch, John was nearest to him, and therefore is said to have “leaned upon his bosom.” That the souls of the ungodly are sent down into hell, the “place of torment,” is proved also from scripture, (Luke 16:28,) which describes it as “outer darkness,” (Matt. 22:13; Mark 9:43, 44,) in allusion to the suppers of the ancients, at which the interior of the house was illuminated with lamps, but on the outside there was nothing but the darkness of night.
Benedict Pictet | Christian Theology, trans. Frederick Reyroux (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, n.d.), 349.
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