"In response to those who believed that virtue was its own reward, it was commonly argued that this was insufficient motive for the moral life; morality needed to be supported by fear of divine justice. Some preachers feared that sin was so attractive, and the possibility of avoiding the evil consequence here on earth so great, that without the curb of retribution vice would predominate even more than it did. In fact, the belief in the value of hell as a deterrent for immoral behavior was one of the major reasons why the doctrine of hell was so rarely attacked in the seventeenth century."
-- Shaftesbury's Philosophy of Religion and Ethics -- A Study in Enthusiasm, Stanley Grean, 1967, p. 188.
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