continue
unbelievers without spiritual and moral loss. The inevitable tendency of
infidelity is to debase men's souls. And here I speak not on the
testimony of others merely, but from extensive observation and personal
experience. I have known numbers whom infidelity has degraded, but none
whom it has elevated. We do not say that every change in a Christian's
belief is demoralizing. Disbelief in error, resulting from increase of
knowledge, may improve his character; but the loss of faith in Christ,
and God, and immortality, can never do otherwise than strengthen a man's
tendencies to vice, and weaken his inclinations towards virtue. When
infidels say that their unbelief has made them more virtuous, they
attach different ideas to the word virtuous from those which Christians
attach to it. They call evil good, and good evil. The secularists call
fornication and adultery virtue. But this is fraud. That infidelity is
unfavorable to what men generally call virtue, and friendly to what men
generally call vice, infidels themselves know. Their passions and
prejudices may make them doubt the bad influence of their unbelief for a
time, but not long. I myself questioned the downward tendency of
infidelity in my own case for a time, but facts proved too strong for me
in the end. My friends could see a deterioration both in my temper and
conduct. And there was a falling off in my zeal and labors for the good
of mankind from the first. There was a falling off even in my talents.
There was a greater tendency to self-indulgence. It was owing to the
still lingering influence of my early faith, and of my early Christian
tastes and habits, that I was no worse. The virtue which I retained I
owed to the religion on which I had unhappily turned my back. When
unbelievers are moral, they are so, not in consequence, but in spite of
their unbelief. When Christian believers are bad, they are so, not in
consequence, but in spite of their religion. Infidelity tends to destroy
conscience. It annihilates the great motives to virtue. It strengthens
the selfish and weakens the benevolent affections and tendencies of our
nature, and smoothes the road to utter depravity. The farther men wander
from Christ, and the longer they remain away, the nearer they approach
to utter degeneracy.

It seldom happens that men who have lived long under the influence of
Christianity, become grossly immoral as soon as they lose their faith:
but they decline in virtue fro