the Greek Church unto this day, and was the opinion of the greatest part of the ancient Church both Latin and Greek ; and by degrees was, in the west, eaten out by the doctrine of purga- tory and invocation of saints; and rejected a little above two hundred years ago, in the Council of Florence."
It appears, therefore, that there is little difference between the advocates of an intermediate state and those who are regarded as rejecting that doctrine. Both admit, (1.) That the souls of be- lievers do at death pass into a state of blessedness. (2.) That they remain in that state until the resurrection. (3.) That at the second coming of Christ, when the souls of the righteous are to be clothed with their glorified bodies, they will be greatly ex- alted and raised to a higher state of being. Bishop Hickes in his highly commendatory review of the work of the Honourable Archi- bald Campbell just referred to, which is appended to that volume, although he lays great stress on the doctrine in question, says that those who call the state into which the righteous enter, heaven ; and that into which the wicked are introduced when they die, hell, may continue to do so, provided they mean by heaven a state which is less perfect than that which awaits them after the coming of Christ ; and by hell, a condition less miserable than that which will be assigned to the wicked.
The Church of England agrees with other Protestant churches in its teachings on this subject. In the Liturgy of Edward VI. just quoted, it is said, (1.) That the spirits of all the dead live after the dissolution of the body. (2.) That the righteous- are with God in a state of joy and felicity. (3.) That they have es- caped the gates of hell and the pains of eternal darkness into which, as is necessarily implied, the souls of those who die unrec- onciled to God immediately enter. All the members of that Church are taught to say daily : " The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee. The goodly fellowship of the Prophets praise thee. The noble army of Martyrs praise thee." These, therefore, are all with God, and engaged in his service. In one of the prayers appointed to be used in the visitation of the sick, these words occur : " O Almighty God, with whom do live the souls of just men made perfect, after they are delivered from their earthly prisons." The souls of the just, therefore, are made per- fect when they are delivered from the body.
§ 4. Doctrine of the Church of Rome. Although Romanists reiect the doctrine of an intermediate.
744 PART IV. Ch. I. — STATE OF SOUL AFTER DEATH.
state in the sense of the ancient Church, they nevertheless divide the world into which the souls of men enter at death, into many different departments.
The Limbus JPatrum.
They hold that the souls of the righteous before the coming of Christ descended into Sheol, where they remained in a state of expectancy awaiting the coming of the Messiah. When Christ came and had accomplished his work of redemption by dying upon the cross, He descended into Hades, or the under-world, where the souls of the patriarchs were confined, delivered them from their captivity, and carried them in triumph to heaven. In other words they hold the common Jewish doctrine as to the state of the dead, so far as the saints of the Old Testament period are concerned. Their views on that subject have an intimate rela- tion, whether causal or inferential is uncertain and unimportant, with their doctrine of the sacraments. Holding, first, that the sacraments are the only channels by which the saving blessings of redemption are conveyed to men ; and, secondly, that the sacra- ments of titie Old Testament signified but did not communicate grace, they could not avoid the conclusion that those who died before the coming of Christ were not saved. The best that could be hoped concerning them was that they were not lost, but re- tained in a salvable state awaiting the coming deliverer. Whether they inferred that the Old Testament saints were not saved be- cause they had no grace-bearing sacraments, or concluded that their sacraments were ineffectual, because those who had no others were not saved, it is not easy to determine. The latter is the more probable ; as most naturally they received the doctrine of Sheol from the Jews, as they did so many other doctrines ; and being led to believe that the patriarchs were not in heaven, they could not avoid the conclusion that circumcision and the passover were very far inferior in efficacy to the Christian sacraments.
The Limbus Infantum. This is the name given to the place and state pertaining to the departed souls of unbaptized infants. As this class includes, per- haps, a moiety of the whole human race, their destiny in the fu- ture world is a matter of the deepest interest. The doctrine of the Church of Rome on this subject is that infants dying without baptism are not at death, or ever after it, admitted into the king- dom of heaven. They never partake of the benefits of redemp-