AS RELATED TO THE DOCTRINE OF A FUTURE LIFE. Thartes Frederick BY C. F. HUDSON. "THE wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ "Evil things are not entities; but good things are entities, since they are of God, "Here, at least, [i. e. respecting the view here offered] let us hesitate, and suspend "Even now, after eighteen centuries of Christianity, we may be involved in some BOSTON: PUBLISHED BY JOHN P. JEWETT AND COMPANY. CLEVELAND, OHIO: H. P. B. JEWETT. 1857. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by C. F. HUDSON, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of Massachusetts. LITHOTYPED BY COWLES AND COMPANY, At the Office of the American Stereotype Company, PHOENIX BUILDING, BOSTON. PRESS OF GEO. C. RAND & AVERY, BOSTON. PREFACE. THREE opinions respecting the ultimate destiny of bad men, differing from each other by one or two alleged measures of infinitude, yet each held by confessedly good men, must be held with a common modesty and command a degree of common respect. So wide a divergence of honest belief reminds all that they belong to an erring race. In the minds of some the fact encourages a general scepticism respecting the future destiny of man; and the same persons tell us that the Scriptures, whence so opposite views are supposed to be derived, must give little information and be of little value. Of those who prize the Scriptures as a Revelation, some doubt whether clear light on the perplexed subject was designed for man; it is better for us, they say, not to know precisely that with which duty does not concern us; others are solicitous that the import of the Revelation here should be better understood; and all, that it should be more deeply felt, and also that the occasion for scepticism should be somehow done away. In a question of so transcendent importance, neither of the contested opinions can by a sober mind be easily exchanged for another. Such change can rarely be the result of a merely logical process; it will generally be attended with change or development of the moral feelings, and will meet friendly gratulations or fears. Yet because such changes often do not |