“T’is ill-proportioned theology that teaches the doctrine, that the only motive in redemption was a regard to God’s glory.
It receives no countenance from the Bible. Does not God “pity us, as a father pitieth his children?”. Taught to address him by the endearing appellation of Father, oh, what affection, love, and loving-kindness are expressed in that tender term!
And if, on seeing some earthly father, whom a child’s scream has reached and roused, rush up the blazing stairs, or leap into the boiling flood, it were wrong, it were cruel, it were a shame, to suspect him of being destitute of affection—of being moved to this noble act by no other motive than a regard to his own honor, and by no other voice than the calm command of duty—how much more wrong were it to harbor such suspicions of “our Father who is in heaven.”—GUTHRIE.