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

SECT. V.

They are wholly displaced from their right Objects.

Thirdly, The great sinfulness of the affections is seen, In that they are wholly displaced from their right Objects. The objects for which they were made, and on which they were to settle, is God himself, and all other things in reference to him; our love God only challengeth in that command, Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart and soul, &c. Our hatred that is properly to be against sin, because it dishonours God; our sorrow it is principally to be because of our offences to him; so that there is not any affection we have, but it doth either primarily or secondarily relate to God, but who can bewail the great desolation that is now fallen upon us; Every affection is now taken off its proper centre; In stead of loving of God, we love the world, we love our pleasures rather then God; Instead of hating of sin we hate God, and cannot abide his pure and holy Law and Nature: Thus we fear not whom we ought to fear, viz. God, That can destroy both soul and body in hell; and what we ought not to fear, there we are afraid, as the frowns and displeasure of men, when we are to do our duties; Our sorrow likewise is not that also corrupted, How melting and grieved are we in any temporal loss, in any worldly evil, but then for the loss of God and his favour by our iniquities, there our bowels never move within us. Thus our affections, out of all order to their proper objects, ought to be groaned under, more than if all our bones were out of joint, for that is only a bodily evil, hindering a natural motion, this is a spiritual one, depriving us of our enjoyment of God. This particular pollution it is, that the Text doth immediately drive at, when it commands us, To set our affections above, it plainly showeth, where they are naturally, viz. upon things of the earth; and therefore as it was Christs divine power that made the woman bowed down with her infirmity for so many years to be strait; Thus it must also be the mighty and gracious power of God to raise up these affections that are crawling on the ground to heavenly things; Possess then thy soul throughly with this great evil, that thou hast not one affection within thee that can go to its proper object, but some thing moveth it from Go! to the vain and fading creatures;