The Life of the Waiting Soul in the Intermediate State

Transcribed from the 1900 Wells Gardner, Darton & Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org
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 Addresses are an attempt to explain what can be known about the Intermediate Life. There is nothing new in them. If there were, probably what is new would not be true.
The doctrines of so-called “Universalism” and “Conditional Immortality” are not touched upon. They do not belong to the period
which is covered by the Intermediate State. Moreover, I doubt whether we can ever regard those doctrines as anything more than speculations invented to answer modern and possibly ephemeral objections.
How much I have unconsciously been indebted to those who have dealt with this subject more fully, I hardly know. One reads and remembers, and reproduces in preaching, often without thought of the sources from which material has been drawn. I gratefully acknowledge in the notes what I know to be debts incurred. I can only express my regret if any have been overlooked.
R. E. S.
Easter , 1896.
“I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep.”—1 Thess. iv. 13.