know Him there, and knowing Him may choose Him, and choosing Him
may be His and He theirs even to the end.

VIII.

"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 being purified
and fitted for the vision of GOD in Heaven may be legitimately called "a
purgatory." But "The Romish Doctrine concerning Purgatory" means much
more than this. It is a belief which, originating in what was true and
Scriptural, gradually became so overlaid with subsequent additions, that
the original truth was at length buried and lost sight of. What the
Twenty-second Article condemns is not any and every conceivable doctrine
concerning Purgatory, but the Romish doctrine only. And here it is well
to note that all false beliefs which have had for any length of time a
wide currency among men have been founded upon and have retained in them
some element of truth. This it is which enabled them to survive: this
and nothing else gives to error its vitality. These false beliefs are
not mere error, but contain truth and error mixed together. The error
perverts and makes void the truth; but without the truth the error could
not live.

In the case of the doctrine of Purgatory, the true and Scriptural
doctrine of the progressive purification of the soul in the Intermediate
State is the element of truth on which has been based the Romish Doctrine
of Purgatory. Wherein then lies the error of it?

1. In the first place, whereas the Bible teaches, as we have seen, that
every soul at death enters the Intermediate State, the souls of the
greatest saints as well as the souls of the greatest sinners, "the Romish
Doctrine" teaches that the souls of very many never enter the
Intermediate State at all. The souls of the holy patriarchs of old, of
Christian martyrs, and of canonized Saints, it is held, pass straight to
heaven. On the other hand, the souls of those who die in mortal sin, and
of excommunicated persons are believed to go straight to hell. Thus
practically the Intermediate Sta