When we do right,
God will make the errors, and even the sins of our enemies, work for our
good.
6. Another lesson which I have thoroughly learnt is, that though men may
become unbelievers through other causes than vice, they cannot 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.
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