The common views on this subject are perhaps fairly repre- sented in the elaborate work of the Honourable Archibald Camp- bell, on "the doctrine of a middle state between death and the resurrection." 1 He thus sums up the points which he considers himself to have proved to be the doctrine of the Bible, of the Fathers, and of the Church of England.
" First. That the souls of the dead do remain in an interme- diate, or middle state between death and the resurrection."
" That the proper place appointed for the abode of the right- eous during the interim between death and the resurrection, called paradise, or Abram's bosom, is not the highest heavens where alone God is at present, fully to be enjoyed, but it is, however, a very happy place, one of the lower apartments or mansions of heaven, a place of purification and improvement, of rest and refreshment, and of divine contemplation. A place from whence our blessed Lord's humanity is sometimes to be seen, though clouded or veiled if compared with the glory He is to appear with, and be seen in, at and after his second coming. Into which middle state and blessed place, as they are carried by the holy angels, whose happy fellowship they there enjoy; so afterward at the resurrection, after judgment, they are led into the beatific vision by the Captain of our salvation, Jesus Christ Himself, where they shall see Him fully as He is, and there they shall enjoy God for ever and ever, or sempiternally."
The souls of the wicked at death do not go into hell, but into a middle state, " which state is dark, dismal, and uncomfortable, without light, rest, or any manner of refreshment, without any company but that of devils and such impure souls as themselves to converse with, and where these miserable souls are in dismal apprehensions of the deserved wrath of God."
" Secondly, That there is no immediate judgment after death, no trial on which sentence is pronounced, of neither the righteous nor the wicked, until Christ's second coming. And that, there- fore, none of any age or class from the beginning of the world to the glorious appearing of our blessed Saviour at his second coming, are excepted from continuing in their proper middle state, from their death until their resurrection, whether they be patriarchs, prophets, Apostles, or martyrs."
" Thirdly, That the righteous in their happy middle state, do improve in holiness, and make advances in perfection, and yet
1 The Doctrines of a Middle State between Death and the Resurrection, of Prayert for Vie Dead, etc., etc., by Honourable Archibald Campbell. London, 1721, folio, p. ii.
742 PART IV. Ch. I.— STATE OF SOUL AFTER DEATH.
fchey are not for all that carried out of that middle state into glory, or into the beatific vision, until after their resurrection."
" Fourthly, That prayers for those who are baptized according to Christ's appointment, and who die in the pale and peace of his Church, which the ancients called dying with the sign of faith, I say that prayers for such are acceptable to God as being fruits of our ardent charity, and are useful both to them and to us, and are too ancient to be popish."
" Lastly, That this doctrine for an intermediate state between death and the resurrection, as I have proved it, does effectually destroy the popish purgatory, invocation of the saints departed, popish penances, commutations of those penances, their indul- gences, and treasures of merits purchased by super erogation.',
As an example of the prayers for the dead he gives the follow- ing extract from the Office to be used at the Burial of the Dead in the first Liturgy of King Edward the Sixth : l u'0 Lord, with whom do live the spirits of them that be dead, and in whom the souls of them that be elected, after they be delivered from the burden of the flesh be in joy and felicity ; grant unto this thy servant that the sins which he committed in this world be not im- puted unto him, but that he, escaping the gates of hell and pains of eternal darkness, may ever dwell in the region of light, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in the place where is no weeping, sorrow, nor heaviness ; and when that dreadful day of the general resurrection shall come, make him to rise also with the just and righteous, and receive this body again to glory, then made pure and incorruptible."
Jeremy Taylor, bishop of Down and Connor, says : 2 " Paradise is distinguished from the heaven of the blessed; being itself a receptacle of holy souls, made illustrous with visitation of angels, and happy by being a repository for such spirits, who, at the day of judgment, shall go forth into eternal glory."
Again, he says : 3 " I have now made it as evident as ques- tions of this nature will bear, that in the state of separation, the spirits of good men shall be blessed and happy souls, — they have an antepast or taste of their reward ; but their great reward itself, their crown of righteousness, shall not be yet ; that shall not be until the day of judgment This is the doctrine of
1 Published at London in the year 1549; folio cxlix. p. 2.
2 Life and Death of Jesus Christ, in. xvi. ad. 1; 3d edit. London, 1657, p. 588.
8 Sermon at Funeral of Sir George Dalston ; Works, edit. London, 1828, vol. vi. pp. 553, 557.