human
The great mass of humanity pass into a purifying region, wherein a man remains for a period varying in length according to the sins he has committed, only passing out of it into the heavenly world when he has become pure. The various communities that are called Protestant vary in their teachings as to details, and mostly repudiate the idea of _post mortem_ purification; but they agree broadly that there is an intermediate state, sometimes spoken of as
gpt
Paradise, or as a
human
The heavenly world is almost universally, in modern Christendom, regarded as a final state, with no very definite or general idea as to its nature, or as to the progress or stationary condition of those attaining to it. In early Christianity this heaven was considered to be, as it really is, a stage in the progress of the soul, re-incarnation in one form or another, the pre-existence of the soul, being then very generally taught. The result was, of course, that the heavenly state was a temporary condition, though often a very prolonged one, lasting for
gpt
--as stated in the Greek of the New Testament, the age being ended by the return of the man for the next stage of his continuing life and progress--and not