The substance of his teaching is that righteousness _is_ life eternal; sin _is_ eternal death. This is no arbitrary penalty inflicted at the close of man’s earthly career, or on some future day of judgment; it is the intrinsic and natural result of evil action. The popular distinction between a man and his actions is delusive and unreal. He could not hate the sin and love the sinner. The actions _are_ the man. If the actions are predominantly evil there is nothing left to save. The divine work of regeneration is at one and the same time the salvation of the good and the destruction of the evil. Both results are effected by one and the same natural operation of the divine power. “The righteousness of God is of eternal worth and duration; But the one and the other [course of life] being wrought into a change at one and the same time, thence comes the capacity of an eternall life, and of an eternall destruction.” Mr. Gorton distinguishes four distinct stages in the historical development of religious ideas: the family, the national, the apostolic, and the spiritual or universal.[77] Considering the period in which he wrote, and the fact that the Bible seems to have been almost his only text-book, his conclusions are remarkably consistent with those of modern students of sociology and comparative religion. The temptation is great to continue this line of exposition and quotation, but I must bring it to a close with one or two additional passages further illustrative of the ethical quality of his thought. All virtue, he taught, even the goodness of God, consists wholly in the service of others. “The goodnesse of God’s nature is such,” he says, “that it cannot subsiste or bee without communicating it selfe with another, otherwise his goodnesse should bee uselesse, which can not bee admitted for one moment of time, for there is an impossibility thereof; The naturall temporary or tipicall goodnesse of any creature is uselesse unlesse it bee communicated with another; God never made any creature in heaven or in earth simply for it selfe, but for the use of another; how infinitely more is this true of God, who hath made him selfe in Christ to bee the goodnesse of the world.” Heaven, Samuell Gorton taught, is not to be sought in a future life or in some distant part of the universe. The soul is even _now_ in eternity. Heaven is a condition of the soul. It may exist here and now. “Such doctrine,” he says, “as sets forth a time to come, of more worth and glory than either is, or hath been, keeps the manna for tomorrow, to the breeding of worms in it.” With Theodore Parker, he taught that the divine nature is both masculine and feminine;[78] and in one of the most striking and eloquent passages in his Commentary on the Lord’s Prayer he argues for the equal recognition of woman in the Church, and as a teacher of religion.