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

SECT. XVI.

The Privacy of the Affections.

Another particular is, The privacy of them, they do inordinately impropriate all things to a mans self, so that they are self-affections, not affections for Gods glory, or the public good, they are private affections, not public affections; so that herein they are greatly distempered, in that they are not carried out to the most common and universal good, but to what is selfish and particular, whereas if our affections did retain their primitive integrity, they would have been in the first and most principal manner carried out to what is the chiefest, and most principal object, whereas naturally every man is a Nero, and will [Greek or Hebrew] Let Heaven and Earth be mingled together when I am dead; And thus though God have no glory, though the public be ruined, so as he have his self-affections promoted, he mattereth not! This is that which you have heard, that man in his Apostasy from God did cadere à Deo in seipsum, he fell from God into himself, and hereupon referreth the whole world, even God himself to his own welfare, as if God were for him, and he not made for God: It was not thus from the beginning; but as we see in natural things, they all deny their particular motions to serve the public; or as Philosophers say about the Orbs, they are carried on by the motion of the primum mobile, even contrary to their particular motions: Thus it was also in the first constitution of man, yea better; for the affections had no private particular propensity to any object, which the rational part did not direct unto: But oh the sad change that now sin hath made upon our affections in this particular, making them to monopolize all things, and to prefer our selves more then the honour of God himself, especially in two particulars we may greatly lament the sin of our private affections, in opposition to public.