Page:A Defence of Revealed Religion.pdf/43

Rh upon them. His retributive punishments, have hidden the Lord from men. Poor simple souls have been made to be as frightened of God as of sin. Some heathen nations, it is recorded, believe in two gods: one a power for good, and another a power of evil. It is said that they pray more to the evil than the good one, not because they like him better, but because they imagine that unless he is kept in a good humour by presents and flattery he will do them some mischief, while they are sure the other will not under any circumstances. We smile at this, and think what a poor deluded people they are; and yet the belief of modern Christendom is substantially the same, when it teaches that God the Father created men in happiness, and gave them a law—that this law was perfect, and though man was imperfect, He demanded from him a full obedience; and that upon the commission of the first sin He cursed the human race, and doomed them to endure an eternal existence in a state of torment, wherein they should be perpetually roasted, yet never consumed. Some ingenious people have essayed to describe the fires of hell, and the complacency with which God regards the writhings of the lost as a fitting penalty to be paid by those who have failed to pay Him due honour.

Not content with detailing horrid tortures inflicted by God upon deliberate and confirmed sinners, these tortures have been spoken of as the just penalty inflicted upon His transgressors for the sin of Adam;