We hold it axiomatic that fear of torment is not a worthy motive to obedience. It incites no love, and a religion without love is lifeless.

Love and fear are directly opposite in their effects. The former always attracts, the latter always repels. So, as God is love, no doctrine in which his goodness is not incorporated can have any connection with the Gospel message, for that is all glad tidings, good news. Love is an affection of the mind, excited by worth of any kind, or by those qualities of an object which communicate pleasure. Thus, love to God is awakened by just views of his attributes or recognition of the excellencies of his character. He, by revelation, brings these within the scope of our comprehension, and teaches us to know ourselves, that, finding our need of redemption, we may no longer trust in ourselves, but lay hold on the hope which he has set before us in the Gospel.

Reply: But when what "We hold" contradicts what is in the Word of God, it is the part of wisdom on man’s side to take what God holds. The foregoing excerpt smacks deeply of Universalism, and no doubt is a very palatable tidbit to the Adventists, who likewise try by "All kinds of twisting and turning" to get rid of the hell God has put in the Bible

Yes, the gospel is good news, glad tidings. Now, if Mr. Thorne were in the fifth story of a burning hotel, and all escape from the inside were cut off, he would be in a strait. And if the fireman had coupled ladders leading to a window in his room, and one should mount, and tell him of the way of escape, would he not call it good news, and would he not love the fire chief and fear the flames enough to avail himself of the proffered mercy? It is "axiomatic" that he would, if he is sane. And if the fireman should rush in, saying, "There is no fire," and the man took his word for it, and was devoured by the flames, you would call the fireman a brute. And this is another thing that is "axiomatic." In the gospel, God gives the warning—"Tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil," Rom. 2:9. This is torment. As the man fears the flames, his love of the fireman swells high; and as man fears the torment to which he is tending, as set forth in the gospel, his love of God and his goodness (Rom. 2:4) leads him to "repentance." And the man who palliates one iota the torment of the gospel, and thus leads others to ruin, is worse than a brute; he is a minister of Satan.