1. That when the spirit leaves the body, it immediately "returns to God who gave it." "Absent from the body, it is present," in some peculiar sense, "with the Lord."1

2. That it enters Hades, or the invisible state, into which all human souls, whether good or bad, when separated from the body, are received. 2

3. That it does not remain insensible till the resurrection, but is in a state of active consciousness, being made cognizant of its future doom immediately on its separation from the body.

4. That every soul, after receiving this communication, enters upon a state of happiness or misery, according as its day of grace has been improved or neglected.

4

5. That the measure of joy or sorrow, of which each participates, will not be filled up and completed until the reunion of the soul and body at the

1

Eccles. xii. 7.

Luke xxiii. 46. 2 Cor. v. 8. Acts ii. 27. Luke xvi. 23. Lightfoot, vol. ii. p. 478. London, 1684.

2 Ps. xvi. 10.

Homily ix. pt. 3.

Creed. Art. 5.

2 Cor. v. 6, 8.

3 Heb. ix. 27. Luke xvi. 22-31; xxiii. 43. Philip. i. 21-23. Rev. v. 12; xiv. 13. 1 Sam. xxviii. 15. Wisdom iii. 1. Thus Justin Martyr says, "All departed souls continue in sensation." See Note E, p. 380. See also Usher's Body of Divinity, p. 445. London, 1649. Lightfoot, vol. ii. p. 1118. London, 1684. Bishop Andrews' Sermons, p. 312. London, 1641. Gil on the Creed, Art. vii. pp. 90. 99. 108. London,

1635.

4 Isa. xxii. 14; lvii. 2. Luke xxiii. 43. John v. 24; viii. 24; ix. 4. Acts vii. 59. Rom. vi. 10. Rev. xiv. 13, compared with 1 Thess. iv. 16.

resurrection; when, having been partners in working good or evil, they will together partake of that eternal happiness or misery which awaits the just and unjust in heaven and in hell.'

6. That the bliss or wo entered upon at death will differ perhaps only in degree from that which will be the consequence of the final judgment.2

It follows also from what has been advanced in the preceding chapters,

7. That it was their belief in this imperfection of the saints' happiness prior to the resurrection, which induced the early Christians to offer their prayers in behalf of the departed, for the purpose of increasing it.

8. And lastly, that, with whatever views any member of the primitive Church sought the pardon of the sins of those who had died in the Lord, and the increase of their rest, peace, and happiness, one thing at least is certain, that there is not a scintilla of evidence to shew that they prayed with the intention of delivering their souls out of the flames of Purgatory.3

Granting, then, that there is a third place, an intermediate state, for the reception of the soul between death and the resurrection, it still by no means follows that that state, or place, is necessarily one

1 1 John iii. 2. See Archbishop Sharpe's Sermons, vol. vii. p. 145. Bishop Bull's Sermons, vol. i. pp. 127, 129. Bingham's Antiquities, vol. v. p. 118. London. 1840.

2

3

Archbishop Secker's Lect. on Catech. Lect. ix.

Archbishop Usher's Answer to a Jesuit, chap. vii. Camb. 1835.

of torture, where the soul must undergo the most dreadful sufferings, by way of expiation for sins committed on earth. Such an inference is altogether unauthorized and unscriptural. Christ was in Hades, but it cannot be maintained that in this third place he endured satisfactory sufferings, after his already "full, perfect, and sufficient" offering upon the Cross. Dives also was in Hades, and there received in tortures the foretaste of eternal sorrow, and without one thought that his misery was satisfactory, or likely to terminate. Throughout the parable he seems to be fully conscious that his doom was irrevocably fixed: and though he begs that warning might be sent to his surviving brethren who were alive, he entertains no hope that the living could help him now departed. Lazarus was in Abraham's bosom: but in this third place, so far from undergoing satisfactory sufferings for his venial sins, the Evangelist affirms that he was comforted. The penitent thief was in Paradise; but Christ promised him in this third place the blessing of mercy, not the expiatory torments for venial sins.

This intermediate state, then, this third place,— need not be, cannot necessarily be a place of misery and wretchedness, where the justified are to fill up, by personal tortures, the sufferings of Christ, by way of satisfaction to the injured justice of Almighty God, and, for the deliverance from which tortures, the prayers of the living are in any degree available.

378

NOTES TO CHAPTER IX.

Note A, p. 358.

Tertium postremo receptaculi genus est, in quo

animæ sanctorum

ante Christi Domini adventum excipiebantur; ibique sine ullo doloris sensu, beata redemptionis spe sustentati, quieta habitatione fruebantur. Horum igitur piorum animas, qui in sinu Abrahæ salvatorem expectabant, Christus Dominus ad inferos descendens liberavit. Catech. ad Paroch. p. 72. Lugd. 1579.

Note B, p. 358.

Sinus Abrahæ, requies beatorum pauperum, quorum est regnum cœlorum; in quo post hanc vitam recipiuntur. August. Quæst. Evang. lib. ii. c. 38, tom. iii. col. 264. Paris, 1689. "The bosom of Abraham' is the rest of the blessed

poor, whose is the kingdom of heaven; into which, after this life, they are received."

Proinde, ut dixi, nondum inveni, et adhuc quæro, nec mihi occurrit inferos alicubi in bono posuisse Scripturam, duntaxat canonicam; non autem in bono accipiendum sinum Abrahæ, et illam requiem, quo ab angelis pius pauper ablatus est, nescio utrum quisquam possit audire: et ideo, quomodo eam apud inferos credamus esse, non video. August. de Genesi ad Litt. lib. xii. c. 33, tom. iii. col. 321, C. Paris, 1689.

"I have not yet discovered, and am still searching in vain for any passage in the Scriptures, at least in the canonical Scriptures, wherein hell is put in a good sense: nor am I aware that any one would venture to interpret Abraham's bosom, and that rest into which the pious poor man was conveyed, in a bad sense: so that I cannot see how we can believe it to be hell."

Non utique sinus ille Abrahæ, id est, secretæ cujusdam quietis habitatio, aliqua pars inferorum esse credenda est. August. Ep. cliv. ad Evodium; tom. ii. col. 575, F. Paris, 1689.

66

'Verily that bosom of Abraham, i. e. a habitation of a certain quiet rest, is not to be believed to be any part of hell."

Note C, p. 359.

Paradisum nominemus divinæ amoenitatis recipiendis sanctorum spiritibus destinatum. Tertull. Apol. c. 47, p. 42, B. Paris, 1634.

For Rabbinical Traditions respecting Paradise, see Allen's Modern Judaism, ch. x. London, 1816.

Note D, p. 361.

Quid opus sit spiritibus defunctorum corpora sua in resurrectione recipere, si potest eis, etiam sine corporibus, summa illa beatitudo præberi? August. de Genesi ad Litt. lib. xii. c. 35, sec. 68, tom. iii. col. 322, E. Paris, 1689.

"What need is there that their bodies should be reunited to the spirits of the dead in the resurrection, if, being without their bodies, they are capable of that most exalted beatitude?"

Illas etiam, quæ post contractam peccati maculam, vel in suis corporibus, vel eisdem exutæ corporibus, prout superius dictum est, sunt purgatæ, in cœlum mox recipi, et intueri clare ipsum Deum trinum et unum, sicuti est, pro meritorum tamen diversitate alium alio perfectius: illorum autem animas, qui in actuali mortali peccato, vel solo originali decedunt, mox in infernum descendere, pœnis tamen disparibus puniendas. Definitio Conc. Flor. apud Labbe, tom. xiii. col. 515, C. Paris, 1672.

In the Council of Florence, A.D. 1439, it was first decreed against the sense of antiquity, "that those souls which, having contracted the blemish of sin, are cleansed either in their bodies, or when they have put off their bodies, go forthwith to heaven, and clearly behold the Deity as he is, one God in three persons; but one more perfectly than another, according to their different merits and that the souls of those who die in actual mortal sin, or merely in original sin, descend immediately into hell, to be punished with different degrees of punishment." The object of this ordinance was partly to favour the superstition of praying to the saints departed, but chiefly to introduce Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead.

Bishop Bull, Sermon iii. p. 115. See also Bishop Pearson on the Creed, art. v. p. 225. edit. 1715; and Gil on the Creed, art. iv. ch. 28, p. 45. Bellarmine observes that this doctrine of the