The Project Gutenberg EBook of The State of the Blessed Dead, by Henry Alford

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Title: The State of the Blessed Dead

Author: Henry Alford

Release Date: June 16, 2010 [EBook #32830]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STATE OF THE BLESSED DEAD ***

Produced by Keith G. Richardson

The Blessed Dead.

THE STATE

OF THE

BLESSED DEAD.

By

HENRY ALFORD, D. D.,

DEAN OF CANTERBURY.

LONDON:

HODDER AND STOUGHTON,

27, PATERNOSTER ROW.

MDCCCLXIX.

_The following Discourses were delivered in Canterbury Cathedral
during Advent,_ 1868, _and appeared in the_ "Pulpit Analyst," 1869.

The State of the Blessed Dead.

I.

I HAVE already announced that during this Advent season I would call
your attention to the state of the blessed dead. My object in so doing
is simply that we may recall to ourselves that which Scripture has
revealed respecting them, for our edification, and for our personal
comfort. And I would guard that which will be said by one or two
preliminary observations.

With Death as an object of terror, with Death from the mere moralist's
point of view, as the termination of human schemes and hopes, we
Christians have nothing to do. We are believers in and servants of One
who has in these senses abolished Death. Our schemes and hopes are not
terminated by Death, but reach onward into a state beyond it.

Again, with that state beyond, except as one of blessedness purchased
for us by the Son of God, I am not at present dealing. It is of those
that die in the Lord alone that I speak.

And this being so, it is clear that the first point about them
demanding our attention is, the very commencement of their state at
the moment of death. And this will form our subject to-day.

We shall be guided in its consideration by two texts of Holy
Scripture. The one is that where Our Lord answers the prayer of the
dying thief that He would remember him when He came into His kingdom,
Luke xxiii. 43: "VERILY I SAY UNTO THEE, TO-DAY SHALT THOU BE WITH ME
IN PARADISE."

And the other is an expression of St. Paul, Phil. i. 23, not
improbably taken from those very words r