to sin, and yet does
not change his religious creed in order to escape the reproaches of
conscience and the fear of retribution, there is hope that the orthodoxy
of his head may result, by God's blessing upon his own truth, in sorrow
for the sin and a forsaking thereof. A man, for instance, who amidst all
his temptations and transgressions still retains the truth taught him
from the Scriptures, at his mother's knees, that a finally impenitent
sinner will go down to eternal torment, feels a powerful check upon his
passions, and is often kept from outward and actual transgressions by his
creed. But if he deliberately, and by an act of will, says in his heart:
"There is no hell;" if he substitutes for the theory that renders the
commission of sin dangerous and fearful, a theory that relieves it from
all danger and all fear, there is no hope that he will ever cease from
sinning. On the contrary, having brought his head into harmony with his
heart; having adjusted his theory to his practice; having shaped his
creed by his passions; having changed the truth of God into a lie; he
then plunges into sin with an abandonment and a momentum that is awful.
In the phrase of the prophet, he "draws iniquity with cords of vanity,
and sin as it were with a cart-rope."

It is here that we see the deep guilt of those, who, by false theories of
God and man and law and penalty, tempt the young or the old to their
eternal destruction. It is sad and fearful, when the weak physical nature
is plied with all the enticements of earth and sense; but it is yet
sadder and more fearful, when the intellectual nature is sought to be
perverted and ensnared by specious theories that annihilate the
distinction between virtue and vice, that take away all holy fear of God,
and reverence for His law, that represent the everlasting future either
as an everlasting elysium for all, or else as an eternal sleep. The
demoralization, in this instance, is central and radical. It is in the
brain, in the very understanding itself. If the foundations themselves of
morals and religion are destroyed, what can be done for the salvation of
the creature? A heavy woe is denounced against any and every one who
tempts a fellow-being. Temptation implies malice. It is Satanic. It
betokens a desire to ruin an immortal spirit. When therefore the siren
would allure a human creature from the path of virtue, the inspiration of
God utters a deep and bitter curse against her. But when th