Anger
is a passion, a suffering from something outside oneself, and God can
have no passions; God cannot be moved by the sins and follies of such
paltry atoms as we human beings are: the answer is, Man's anger--even
just anger--is, too often, a passion; weak-minded persons, ill-educated
persons, especially when they get together in mobs, and excite each
other, are carried away when they hear even a false report of cruelty or
injustice, by their really wholesome indignation, and say and do foolish,
and cruel, and unjust things, the victims of their own passion. But even
among men, the wiser a man is, the purer, the stronger-minded, so much
the more can he control his indignation, and not let it rise into
passion, but punish the offender calmly, though sternly, according to
law. Even so, our reason bids us believe, does God, who does all things
by law. His eternal laws punish of themselves, just as they reward of
themselves. The same law of God may be the messenger of His anger to the
bad, while it is the messenger of His love to the good. For God has not
only no passions, but no parts; and therefore His anger and His love are
not different, but the same. And His love is His anger, and His anger is
His love.

An awful thought and yet a blessed thought. Think of it, my friends--
think of it day and night. Under God's anger, or under God's love, we
must be, whether we will or not. We cannot flee from His presence. We
cannot go from His spirit. If we are loving, and so rise up to heaven,
God is there--in love. If we are cruel, and wrathful, and so go down to
hell, God is there also--in wrath: with the clean He will be clean, with
the froward man He will be froward. In God we live and move, and have
our being. On us, and on us alone, it depends, what sort of a life we
shall live, and whether our being shall be happy or miserable. On us,
and on us alone, it depends, whether we shall live under God's anger, or
live under God's love. On us, and on us alone, it depends whether the
eternal and unchangeable God shall be to us a consuming fire, or light,
and life, and bliss for evermore.

We never had more need to think of this than now; for there has spread
over the greater part of the civilised world a strong spirit of disbelief
in the living God. Men do not believe that God punishes sin and wrong-
doing, either in this world or in the world to come. And it is not
confined to th