Page:Sermons on the Ten Commandments.djvu/112

 it of heavenly life, which consists in goodness and truth, and to bring it into a state of spiritual death, which is a state of falsity and evil,—the state of those who are "dead in trespasses and sins". To do this, is to commit spiritual murder, which, in its effects, is as much more hurtful than natural murder, as the soul is more precious than the body. If a murderer kill a man's body,—though he will injure himself by that wicked deed, yet, under the Lord's good providence, he may do his victim little real harm; for if the sufferer be a good man, his soul but takes its flight a little sooner to heaven. But he who kills a man's soul, destroys his happiness forever.

The means of killing men's souls are in any way to inspire into them evil thoughts and feelings, or to teach them false principles which will finally lead to evil, or to do anything which has a tendency to produce these results. A man is guilty of this sin. who wantonly and maliciously writes or talks against religion and the "Word of God; for these are the means by which men's souls are saved and led to heaven. A bookseller, who sells bad books, is a criminal in this sense (and men of that class, it may be observed, have a great responsibility upon them); so also is the printer, and above all the writer of such books. And a man, who sells any article, the direct tendency of which is to lead men into evil habits, and thus injure their souls, is guilty of breaking this Commandment. And in general, bad men—men, who give themselves up, without restraint, to the indulgence of their evil inclinations—are in heart spiritual murderers; for they