But was not fear of punishment used as a guard to innocence while man
remained upright? "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely
die." Had the influence of fear, operating to duty, been wrong, God
would not have urged it as a motive to obedience. "Let no man say
when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: For God cannot be tempted
with evil, neither tempteth he any man." If God useth this as an
argument to excite to duty, it must be a proper argument. That it is
thus used in all his word, admits no dispute. Every teacher whom God
hath sent to teach the way of life, and persuade men to walk in it,
hath used it. The divine teacher is not to be excepted--"Fear him who
is able to destroy soul and body in hell, yea, I say unto you, fear
him." And when he delineates the process at the great day, after
declaring that the righteous and the wicked will be separated from
each other, the whole is closed with that solemn declaration--"These
shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life
eternal."

To be influenced by promises is no less mercenary than being driven by
terror. And this is also proposed as an incitement to obedience. "God
hath given us exceeding great and precious promises, that by them we
should become partakers of a divine nature."

Every inspired teacher hath called men to repentance in the same
manner, and urged it by the same arguments. Proof is needless. To
pretend that application is not made, by divine order, to the hopes
and fears of mankind, is trifling--Yea to pretend that they are not
urged by the dread of eternal punishment, is to deny the most obvious
truth.

And is there no cause for his fear? Doth God frighten men with vain