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

Their Deformity and Contrariety to the Rule and exemplary Pattern.

Their Deformity and Contrariety to the Rule and exemplary Patterne.

IN the next place, Herein doth their depravation appear. Because they are so full of deformity and contrariety to their rule and exemplary pattern which is in God himself, for we are to love as God loveth, to be angry as God is angry. It is disputed by the learned, Whether affections be properly in God? Now it must be, As affections do denote any passions, or imperfections intermixed with them, so they cannot be attributed to him, who is the fountain of perfection, yet because the Scripture doth generally attribute these affections unto God, he is said to love, to grieve, to hope, to be angry: Hence it is that Divines do in their Theological Tractates, besides the attributes of God, handle also of those things, which are (as some express it) analogical affections in him; They treat of his love, his mercy, his anger, which are not so properly Attributes in God, as analogical affections; As when the Scripture saith, God hath eyes and hands, these are expressions to our capacity, and we must conceive of God by those words according to the supreme excellency that is in him: Thus it is also in affections; There is an [Greek or Hebrew], in the former, and an [Greek or Hebrew] in the later. It was of old disputed by Lactantius, Whether anger was truly and properly in God? Some denied it, some affirmed it; But certainly the difference did arise from the different use of the Word; for take anger, as it signifieth an humane imperfection, so it cannot be said to be in God, but as it is a Will to revenge an impenitent sinner, so it is in God; Hence these things are said to be in God per modum effectus, rather than affectus; And some learned men like this expression better than of analogal affections, saying that metaphorical speech applied to ⟨p. 339⟩God (viz. about desire, hope, &c.) is rather equivocal then analogical, concerning desire, hope and fear in God: Some Arminianizing or Vorstizing have spoken dangerously: Yea some Socinians, as Crellius (Vide Horndeeck. Socin. Confut. lib. 2.) do positively maintain affections to be properly in God; And although to mollify their opinion, they sometimes have fair explications of themselves, yet they grant the things themselves to be in God, which we call affections; Hence they call them often, The commotions of Gods will, which are sometimes more, sometimes less;