In vain does the Son of God come from heaven and take human flesh and die on the cross.

In spite of him, the devil carries off to hell the vast majority of mankind, in whom, not misery only, but _Sin_ is triumphant for ever and ever.

Thus Christ not only does not succeed in destroying the works of the devil, but even aggravates them .-- Again: what sort of _gospel_ or glad tidings had I been holding?
Without this revelation no future state at all (I presumed) could be known.

How much better no futurity for any, than that a few should be eternally in bliss, and the great majority[2] kept alive for eternal sin as well as eternal misery! My gospel then was bad tidings, nay, the worst of tidings! In a farther progress of thought, I asked, would it not have been better that the whole race of man had never come into existence?
Clearly! And thus God was made out to be unwise in creating them.

No _use_ in the punishment was imaginable, without setting up Fear, instead of Love, as the ruling principle in the blessed.