A treatise of original sin ... proving that it is

¶. 3.

3. In respect of their Progress and Degrees.

Thirdly, As these affections are not in subjection to the noble power of the soul in respect of their rise, so neither in respect of their Progress or Degrees; but they grow hotter and more vehement, sometimes even like Nebuchadnezzar's furnace, and we cannot repress them, so that in all things wherein they put forth themselves, there is an excess, we over-love, we over-fear, we are over-angry; Indeed the having of affections is not a sin, no nor the workings of them, but the immoderate excess of them. It was a great Dispute between the Stoics and the Peripatetics about these passions; The Stoics said, They were to be wholly eradicated, they were not to be moderated, but to be extirpated, therefore they pressed their wise and good men to an [Greek or Hebrew], to be without affection, which yet the Apostle reckoneth amongst the notorious sins; And we know Christ himself wept; These held all affections to be sins; The Peripatetics held the excess only to be a sin, when they did go beyond the bounds of Reason; but some learned men think there was but a mere Logomachy between those two great Sects, that they did agree in the same thing, only quarrelled about words; Howsoever all agree in this, That when the affections do overflow the banks, when they swell higher than they ought to do, then sin lieth at the door: But who can command these winds and waves to be still? Do not these passions like armed men prevail over us, that as it is with paralitical bodies, the members do continually shake and trepidate, because of some corporeal infirmity that they cannot keep them in uniform and equal motions? Thus it is with us in regard of these commotions of the soul, as they begin not at the command, so neither do they stop at the guidance of reason, but from a natural, they turn into a preternatural and feverish heat immediately.