by R. E. SANDERSON , D.D. , st. michael , brighton ; canon residentiary of chichester cathedral ; formerly head master of lancing college . London: wells gardner , darton & co. , 3 paternoster buildings , e.c. First Edition , May , 1896. Second ,, Sep. , ,, Third ,, Feb. , 1897. Fourth ,, Jan. , 1898. Fifth ,, Feb. , 1900....

These Addresses were delivered in Chichester Cathedral, and subsequently, with slight alterations, at Hastings.  They would not have been printed but at the urgent request of very many who heard them preached.  It should be remembered that they are not a theological treatise, but a course of plain words addressed to an ordinary congregation.  It seemed desirable to awaken interest in a subject which has dropped out of English Christian thought, and almost out of people’s knowledge.  The Addresse

“I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep.”—1 Thess. iv. 13. There are moments in the lives of every one of us, when the mind is irresistibly drawn on to wonder what our own personal future shall be, as soon as life is over and death has overtaken us.  We cannot help the speculation.  However bound by present duties and absorbed in present interests, often, in quiet hours, in times of solitude or bereavement, or under the sense of failing hopes or failing h

“Jesus said unto him, Verily I say onto thee, To-day shall thou be with Me in Paradise.” —S. Luke xxiii. 43. If we should ask what happens to the soul of a good man when he dies, the answer would probably be that he has gone to heaven.  Of a little child it would be said at his death, that he has become an angel in heaven.  But this would be quite untrue, because it contradicts the Bible.  The Bible teaches that there will at the end of the world be a day when all the dead shall rise and stand b

“To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”— Rom. viii. 6. So far we have examined the witness which the Bible affords in support of the truth that there is such a sphere as the Intermediate State, in which the spirit dwells alone, apart from the body, awaiting the Day of Judgment.  We have now to see what can be known as to the condition of the spirit in that disembodied state.  It is one thing to be assured on good grounds that there is such a life, and qu

“And when he had said this he fell asleep.” — Acts vii. 60. At death, as we have seen, the spirit and the soul are separated from the body, and, still united together, are launched into the unseen world.  For though the soul is not the spirit, these two form the incorporeal parts of our compound nature, are the two immaterial elements of that trinity of life,—body, soul, spirit, which are united to make one human being.  They both survive death.  For death is the separation of the soul from the

“Being confident of this very thing, that He which began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ.”— Phil. i. 6 ( R.V. ) The Intermediate Life is not a state of sleep, but a waiting time.  But is it a time of mere waiting, and of unemployed quiescence?  This would be no better than sleep.  There must be a reason for the waiting.  And what other reason can there be than that, during it, there is something to be done which can only be done then?  S. Paul speaks, in the text

“Being confident of this very thing, that He which began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ.”— Phil. i. 6 ( R.V. ) The ground is now cleared for an answer to the question,—How is the purification of the soul effected in the Intermediate Life, and what is the nature of the process?  We have seen, 1st, that this waiting time is not an idle time, but a time when something has to be done which can only be done then; 2nd, that what has to be done then is the work of clea

“Being put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the spirit: in which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison, which aforetime were disobedient, when the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing.” —1 Peter iii. 18, 19, 20 ( R.V. ) So far we have considered the case of those who die in the favour of God , and, though as yet unfit for the vision of God in Heaven itself, are nevertheless capable of becoming so in the course of the Intermediate Li

“Not handling the word of God deceitfully, but by the manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God .” —2 Cor. iv. 2. The Scriptural doctrine of the Intermediate Life, as I have tried, so far, to set it forth, is a very different thing from what our Twenty-second Article calls “The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory.”  The word “purgatory” simply means the sphere or life of cleansing.  The Intermediate State, therefore, during which the soul is b

“The Lord grant unto him that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day.”—2 Tim. i. 18. We must now bring to a close the discussion which has been occupying our attention: not that everything has been said that can or ought to be said about it; for the interest of the subject grows with the handling of it, as the various features of it open out to view. So far we have been dealing with the condition of the faithful dead as it affects themselves, with the mode of their own conscious life in the I