By the expression, "the Wrath of God," we are to understand the hostility of the Divine Mind to moral evil: the eternal antagonism of the Divine righteousness to its opposite. We are not now dealing with the question of the real or substantive existence of evil. But revelation amply confirms and enforces the conviction of our moral consciousness that, with a hatred beyond all human measures of hatred, God hates sin. It is hardly necessary to add, that that eternal and immeasurable hatred and hostility of the Divine Mind towards sin is compatible with infinite love towards His children, in whose minds and lives sin is elaborated and manifested. In fact, all attempts to reconcile the Wrath of God with His love seem to be utterly beside the mark. They only serve to obscure the truth that the Divine Wrath is itself a manifestation of the Divine Love. For if sin is, as we have already seen, in its very essence, selfishness, and if Love is the very Being of God--if He is not merely loving, but Love itself--then the Wrath of God, His hostility to sin, is His Love viewed in one particular aspect, in its outlook on moral evil, in its relation to that which is its very opposite and antithesis. Hell and Heaven, separation from God and union with Him, are alike expressions of the Eternal Love, which, because it is love, burns with unquenchable fire against all forms of selfishness and lovelessness. This is the true, the ultimate reason why, in a universe which is the expression of the Mind of God, we cannot sin, and never have sinned, with impunity. From these two fundamental truths-- (_a_) The universe is the expression of the Mind of God; (_b_) God is love, There follow, by a natural and inevitable law, the two results which accompany every act of sin. (_a_) The destruction of the true self, the Christ, the Divine Life within man. (_b_) Separation from God, which is death. We separate these results in thought; but it will now be sufficiently obvious that they are, in fact, one. Is this taking too serious a view of sin? I do not think that this can be maintained in view of our whole preceding argument. But are we taking too serious a view of little sins, of sins which spring from ignorance, of the sins of children? We have already seen that knowledge and freedom are both necessary to constitute an act of sin. If ignorance is complete, then complete also is the absence of sin. For sin lies not in any material act, but in consciousness and will. The will alone can be sinful, as the will alone can be good. And it is entirely consistent with our standpoint, to admit the existence of an almost infinite number of degrees of sinfulness. * * * * *