And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
Ver. 30. And if thy right hand offend thee, &c.] By wanton touches, by unclean dalliance; a further degree of this sin, and a greater incentive to lust; as we see in Joseph's mistress; when she not only cast her eyes, but proceeded to lay hand upon him, she became much more inflamed towards him; and had not his heart been seasoned with the true fear of God, there was so much the greater danger of his being drawn thereby to commit, not that trick of youth, as the world excuseth it, but that great wickedness, as he there counts and calls it. a Visas, colloquium, contactus, osculum, concubitus, They see, they talk, they touch, they kiss, they lie together, are the whoremonger's five descents into the chambers of death. Off therefore with such a hand by all means; cry out of it, as Cranmer did of his unworthy right hand wherewith he had subscribed; and as John Stubbes of Lincoln's Inn, having his right hand cut off in Queen Elizabeth's time with a cleaver driven through the wrist with the force of a beetle (for writing a book against the marriage with the Duke of Anjou, entitled, The gulf wherein England will be swallowed by the French match, &c.), he put off his hat with his left hand, and said with a loud voice, God save the Queen. So when God strikes a parting blow between us and our dilecta delicta, our right hand sins, let us see a mercy in it, and be thankful: let us say to these idols, Get thee hence, what have I to do any more with idols? Isaiah 30:22; that God may say, as there, "I have heard him, and observed him: I am like a green fir tree. From me is thy fruit found," Hosea 14:8; when he shall see thee pollute those idols that thou wast wont to perfume, Isaiah 30:22 .
And not that thy whole body be cast into hell] Our Saviour is much in speaking of hell. And it were much to be wished (saith St Chrysostom) that men's thoughts and tongues would run much upon this subject, there being no likelier way of escaping hell than by taking ever and anon a turn or two in hell by our meditations. b A certain hermit is said to have learned three leaves, a black, red, and white one; that is, he daily meditated upon the horror of hell, the passion of Christ, the happiness of heaven.
" Mors tua, mors Christi, flos mundi, gloria coeli,
Et dolor inferni sunt meditanda tibi. "
a Principiam dulce est, at finis amoris amarus.
Laeta venire Venus, tristis abire solet.
b Utinam ubique de gehenna disseretur. Non enim sinit iam gehennam incidere gehennae miminisse