1917_The_Finished_Mystery_Text

taught Christendom the truth. By faithfultestimony he delivered himself from liability.Ezekiel 3:20, 21.Again, When a righteous man doth turn fromhis righteousness, and commit iniquity, and Ilay a stumblingblock before him, he shall die:because thou hast not given him warning, heshall die in his sin, and his righteousnesswhich he hath done shall not be remembered;but his blood will I require at thine hand.Nevertheless, if thou warn the righteous man,that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin,he shall surely live, because he is warned; alsothou hast delivered thy soul.— Anothercardinal teaching of God's Word, clearly taughtby Pastor Russell, is the nature of the eternalpunishment to be visited upon the incorrigiblebackslider.Clergy, bishops and popes have taught forcenturies on this subject an irrationalcombination of extreme symbolism with grossliteralism, as suited their ambition to exerciseworldly power and hold the muses insubjection— minds, bodies and pocketbooks.They have interpreted one symbolismsymbolically and the next literally. They havesaid that the "Lake of Fire" and the "torment" areliteral, but that the "beast" and the "falseprophet" are symbolic (Rev. 19:20), even thoughit involved the absurdity of a symbolic beastgoing into a literal lake of fire! Blind and deaf toFM389those who have pointed out the unreasonablenessof such foolishness, they have turned savagelyupon those that have the Truth. In eighteencenturies they have killed fifty million adherentsof Christ, and persecuted innumerable others. Itis impossible to compute the number that theywill do to death in this, the close of the Gospel-Age Harvest, when governmental protectionshall be withdrawn from lovers of truth, exceptthat, this time, they will get all such!An important feature of Pastor Russell's teachingis that the Scriptural punishment of the