Page:A Defence of Revealed Religion.pdf/46

46 sinner, but, on the contrary, punishment is the more galling when self-inflicted, and the bad man has no one to blame but himself. And the thought of hell as an eternal home will act as a more powerful deterrent than the contemplation thereof as a temporary abode. Many a young man on the verge of manhood, gazing into the future, would fain have his fill of the alluring fruits of sinful pleasures, but the thought of the future, the eternal future, causes him to pause, and he resolves to refrain. The fear of hell is not an exalted motive, but it is the only motive that can deter some men from sin, just as the thought of the jail and the gallows alone deter many from crime. It is not an exalted motive, but it may ultimately prove the stepping-stone to higher ones.

And, more than all, the view we have advanced cleanses the dark stains that the prejudices of human painters have fixed upon the picture revealed to us of the spotless purity of the Lord our God. We should believe nothing that dishonours God, by attributing to Him conduct and passions that would disgrace humanity. We cannot too jealously spurn every notion that degrades Deity, and we cannot picture Him as too free from the attributes of anger, and vengeance, and similar tokens of frailty. It were easier, indeed,