...repudiates. Rather, Lincoln ties the new champions to traditions of Christianity that stress (as he puts it) "While the lamp holds out to burn, the vilest sinner may return," borrowing here from the famous English hymnody of Isaac Watts, whose eighteenth-century nonconformist...

...they deny the doctrine of unpardonable sin. As in Christianity is taught, so in this they teach, that "While the lamp holds out to burn, The vilest sinner may return." And, what is matter of the most profound gratulation, they, by experiment upon experiment, and example...