Note C. All the creeds of the large Christian denominations agree in the following, viz.: that God created angels and our first parents with a "holy nature," and also created such a constitution of things, that by a single sin they changed their holy nature to a "depraved nature" and also transmitted to all their posterity not the holy nature but the depraved one. In consequence of this constitution of things made by God, all our race, except those who are "regenerated," go to everlasting misery in Hell.
As intelligence and Christian feeling have increased, multitudes educated in these views deny the doctrine of future punishments and hold that the righteous and the wicked all go to Heaven at death.
Others hold that God creates all infant minds perfect as to nature, being "in his image," yet imperfect in development, and that holy character and action can be secured only by training, knowledge and self-control; that "the deeds done in the body" influence character and happiness through an eternal existence; that some form such a character in this life as secures eternal happiness and that some, by voluntary resistance to the highest possible good influences, form a changeless character of selfishness and consequent misery, so that it were "better never to have been born"; that with others the training to virtue goes on during the intermediate state, in Hades where Christ, at his death, went and preached to those that lived before the flood; (see I Peter, 3: 18, 19, 20,) that the day of judgment is the time when the final separation of the righteous and the wicked will take place; that the punishment of the wicked is only the natural result of perpetuated selfishness in a world from which all the good are removed; and that this separation will not take place until God and all good beings have done all in their power to rescue as many as possible from selfishness and sin.
There are many modifications of these general views in various denominations; but all except a small number agree that Christ teaches that there are awful dangers in the life to come; and that it should be the chief aim of every parent and educator to train all within the reach of their influence so to live and act in view of these dangers as to follow Him in self-denying labors to save as many as possible.
It will be found that in all ages the fear of dangers in the life to come has been the basis of the most earnest labor and self sacrifice to save men from ignorance and sin. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," and those who throw aside this principle loose the most powerful motive in training to safety both for this and the future life. And there are modes of presenting this doctrine so as not to implicate the justice and mercy of our Heavenly Father as do some representations from which humanity more and more revolts.
The fact that sin and suffering exist in a universe created by a perfectly benevolent, wise, and almighty Being, is proof that "almighty power" is not the power to work contradictions, and therefore in this respect is limited. In the words of my venerated father, "God cannot govern the stars by the ten commandments, nor free agents by the attraction of gravity." This limitation of God's power in governing free agents, is expressly taught in the Bible. For our only idea of power is causing anything by willing it, and want of power is inability to cause a thing by willing it. And God repeatedly declares that he is not willing that any should perish; and that he did all for the people of Israel that he could do to make them obedient.
The parents and teachers who hold that all are to come out good and happy at last, however negligent or criminal in this life, or that all have a second probation, never can train the young to the self-denying labors to save men which Jesus Christ has taught by both precept and example, to be the duty of his followers. It is very certain that the whole course of my life would have been changed for the worse had I believed either that there was little or no danger in the life to come or that all had a second probation after death.