sin, such as bodily diseases and troubles and pains and sufferings, are left behind, yet, for those people who during their lives have not obtained pardon of their sins, the severest penalties for their sins begin there, and there they receive the punishment for all their offences. And since in this present lifetime and opportunity are afforded for repentance and seeking forgiveness, and since this is the season for turning back to God, therefore it is that God is now patient and does not at once punish sinners for their offences. But in that world He will inflict full punishment on the hardened and impenitent, so that no sin, whether committed in wish or thought or deed or word, shall remain unpunished. To this both man's own conscience and the word of God bear witness, as it is written in the last verse of the book of Ecclesiastes: 'God¹ shall bring every work into judgement, with every hidden thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.' So also it is said in the book of the prophet Isaiah: 'Woe² unto the wicked! it shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him.' And it is written: 'We³ must all be made manifest before the judgement-seat of Christ; that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he hath done, whether it be good or bad.' So also it is written that God 'will⁴ render to every man according to his works: to them that

by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honour and incorruption, eternal life: but unto them that are factious, and obey not the truth, but obey unrighteousness, shall be wrath and indignation, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that worketh evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Greek; but glory and honour and peace to every man that worketh good, to the Jew frst, and also to the Greek: for there is no respect of persons with God.' And the Lord Jesus Christ says: 'I’¹ say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgement.' And it is written: 'We² know him that said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.'

Therefore, whoever has not obtained pardon of his sins, when he calls to mind the day of his death and the day of judgement, feels within his heart great terror; for sin affects not only a man's body but also his spirit, it being the latter's deed as much as the former's. Hence the spirit takes its sins with it into the next world. At death man leaves behind him in the present world only bodily pain and pleasure and worldly goods and possessions. If, before he dies, he has not obtained forgiveness of his sins, if his heart has not been purged of the pollution of sin, then he bears with him into that