CHAPTER LX – Q.10: How far must we deny our reason?
Quest. 9. 'WHETHER self-denial consist in the laying by of all passions, and bringing the soul to an impassionate serenity?'
Answ. The Stoics and some of the Behmenists think so: but so doth not God, or any well-informed man. For, 1. God would not have made the affections in vain. It is not the passions, but the disorder of them, that is sinful, or the fruit of sin. 2. We are commanded to exercise all the affections or passions for God, and on other suitable objects. We must love God with all the heart, and soul, and might, which is not without affection, or passion. We must love his servants, his church, his word, his ways. We must fear him above them that can kill us. We must hunger and thirst after his righteousness, and pant after him as the hart doth after the water-brooks. We must be angry and sin not. A zeal for God is the life of our graces: we must
"always be zealous in a good matter; fervent in spirit, serving the Lord." We must "hate evil," and "sorrow for it," when we are guilty, and grieve under the sense of our miscarriages, and God's displeasure. And all these (expressly commanded in the word) are holy affections or passions of the soul.
3. Yea, it is the work of the Holy Ghost to sanctify all these passions that they may be used for God; and they are called by the names of the several graces of the Spirit. And it is not passion, but disordered passion, that must be denied.
CHAPTER LX
How far must we deny our own Reason?
Quest. 10. 'How far must we deny our own reason?'