BX 9747 •C7 cop./ Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1834, by ASA RAND, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts. March, 1877. Mers. This. Whillemore OBSERVER PRESS.... LOWELL. 1587 1-09 INDEX. Page. CHAPTER 1. On the Immortality of the Soul; or the Soul's Existence in the Intermediate State, CHAP. II. On the subject of the Future Judgment, Collateral Proofs of a Judgment to come, CHAP. IV. Is the Eternal Life, promised to believers in the New Testament, a Life to be enjoyed beyond the CHAP. V. The signification of the words Everlasting, CHAP. VIII. Meaning of Hades. Meaning of Tartarus, 120 CHAP. IX. The meaning of Gehena, 136 156 183 INTRODUCTION. THE following pages exhibit the substance of a course of Lectures, prepared and delivered by the writer to his own people. And the reasons which led him to think it expedient to give the lectures the form of a reply to Mr. Balfour, as the best means of counteracting the efforts of Universalists among the people of his charge, are equally good to show that this is the best mode of meeting the wants of the community in general. With regard to the immediate effect of the lectures, all the expectations of the writer, to say the least, have been realized. For offering the substance of them in this form to the public, I shall attempt no apology. For if the contents of the book do not avail to carry my justification to the reader, no prefatory apologies will do it. I have been for some time satisfied that a reply to Mr. Balfour, which shall embrace all the main principles of his theory, as published in his first and second "Inquiry," in his "Essays," and in his "Reply to Stuart," is called for by the existing state of things. Replies to him in respect to parts of his system have been published, while the system has been in process of development. But I know of no attempt that has been made to meet all the main points as they are presented in the books above alluded to. The reasons on which rests my opinion that these books ought to be systematically answered, are― In the first place, that they embody the main and fundamental principles of the most modern form of Universalism, and contain the ablest and most systematic statement of them, and are most appealed to by Universalists as a satisfactory expression and defence of their views. Their tracts, sermons, and conversational arguments, as far as my observation extends, are built on the principles here inculcated. So that a refutation of these books subverts the foundation of the whole. Though comparatively few of those who believe in no punishment in the future world, have ever read these books, yet these are their oracles, and the fountain head of all their opinions and arguments. These books may, therefore, be regarded as, in a sense, the sources of that influence which goes to spread the pestilence of Universalism in the community. And an exposure of the errors and absurdities which they contain, seems to be the most obvious method of resisting that influence. In the second place, Universalism, as it now exists, is something very different in respect to the grounds on which it chooses to rest, from what it has been in all former ages. A few years have developed almost entirely a new system. Grounds which most Universalists before have conceded, are now |