III. Pass we now downward from man's intellect and will to the
passions, which have their residence and situation chiefly in the
sensitive appetite. For we must know that inasmuch as man is a
compound, and mixture of flesh as well as spirit, the soul, during its
abode in the body, does all things by the mediation of these passions
and inferior affections. And here the opinion of the Stoics was
famous and singular, who looked upon all these as sinful defects
and irregularities, as so many deviations from right reason, making
passion to be only another word for perturbation. Sorrow in their
esteem was a sin scarce to be expiated by another; to pity, was a
fault; to rejoice, an extravagance; and the apostle's advice, "to be
angry and sin not," was a contradiction in their philosophy. But in
this they were constantly outvoted by other sects of philosophers,
neither for fame nor number less than themselves: so that all
arguments brought against them from divinity would come in by way of
overplus to their confutation. To us let this be sufficient, that our
Savior Christ, who took upon Him all our natural infirmities, but none
of our sinful, has been seen to weep, to be sorrowful, to pity, and
to be angry: which shows that there might be gall in a dove, passion
without sin, fire without smoke, and motion without disturbance.
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