This doctrine, and the theory of the conscious state of the dead, cannot exist together. There is an antagonism between them, irreconcilable, and irrepressible. If every man is judged at death, as he indeed must be, if an immortal soul survives the dissolution of the body, and enters at once into the happiness or misery of the eternal state, accordingly as its character has been good or bad, there is no occasion and no room for a general Judgment in the future; and if, on the other hand, there is to be such a future Judgment, it is proof positive that the other doctrine is not true. We affirm, then, that the Scriptures clearly teach that there is to be a general Judgment in the future, at which time such awards shall be rendered to every one as shall accord with the record of his deeds. A passage in Hebrews may seem to some minds to afford proof that the Judgment follows immediately after death, and which may, consequently, demand a brief notice at this point. Heb. 9:27: “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the Judgment.” The sentence does not end here, but is continued into the next verse: “_So_ Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many.” From this it is evident that the death to which Paul refers is some death which illustrates the death of Christ as an offering for sin: As men die, and after this the Judgment, _so_ (in like manner) Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many. It is not then the common death of human beings to which the apostle refers; for there is nothing in this death to show how Christ died as an offering for sin. This language occurs at the conclusion of an argument on the priesthood of Christ, as illustrated by the priesthood connected with the Jewish service. Under that dispensation there was a yearly round of service connected with the worldly sanctuary. On the day of atonement, when the sanctuary was to be cleansed, a goat was slain for all the people. Their life was imputed to it, and in it they in figure died. The blood of this goat, representing the forfeited lives of the people, was then ministered in the most holy place, which was a work of determination and decision in their cases, which the word here rendered judgment signifies. So Christ, the antitype, was once offered, and, if we avail ourselves of his intercession, his blood is accepted instead of our forfeited lives, and we shall stand acquitted in the real Judgment work in the sanctuary above, as Israel were acquitted when the same work was performed in figure in the worldly sanctuary of the former dispensation. This text, therefore, not referring to the end of individual mortal life, and its relation to future retribution, has no relevancy to the question under discussion.