A14992:130
A care-cloth
A care-cloth: or a treatise of the cumbers and troubles of marriage intended to advise them that may, to shun them; that may not, well and patiently to bear them. By William Whately, preacher of the word of God in Banbury, in Oxfordshire.A care-cloth: or a treatise of the cumbers and troubles of marriage intended to aduise them that may, to shun them; that may not, well and patiently to beare them. By William Whately, preacher of the word of God in Banbury, in Oxfordshire.
London: printed by Felix Kyngston for Thomas Man, 1624
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
3. First, the whole corruption of our evil nature,1 is in Scripture compared to a mans body, and called, The body of death; wherefore the several corruptions are fitly termed members, or parts, concurring to the full constitution of the whole body. You know, that Nature hath prepared for man, head, shoulders, arms, breast, belly, thighs, legs, feet, and the rest; in the fit and apt joining together of which, the being of the humane body doth consist. So doth our wickedness consist in many particular disorders, pride, unbelief, rebellion, impatience, hypocrisy, carnal sorrow, carnal confidence, wrath, uncleanness, earthly-mindedness, and divers others as bad as these; the joining of which together, doth make up the universal sinfulness of our nature, called, The flesh & the old man. Again, they are called members upon the same consideration, wherein our Saviour (enjoining the same ⟨p. 96⟩duty that here the Apostle) is pleased to use this figurative kind of speech;2 If thy eye offend thee, pull it out, and cast it from thee: if thy foot offend thee, cut if off, and cast it from thee: and if thine hand offend he, cut it off, and fling it from thee. Because to a man now corrupted, his corruptions are as natural as his members; he brings them into the world with him, together with his hands, eyes, feet; they begin and grow in him, with the beginning and growing of his limbs, and, in his account, they are as necessary, useful, pleasing, and as dear and tender to him, as his arms, or his legs, or his very eyes, yea, the apple of his eye. Nothing in the world is more precious to the unsanctified and unregenerate man, then his lusts; he could as easily part with the joints of his body, as with them, yea, with his whole hart, he would be content to redeem the liberty of following them, by the loss of his eye. Well are they termed members, because to the carnal man, they are as well-beloved, as his members; and he will as loathly part with them, and as il spare them, as his members; yea, a man already in part sanctified, finds it as much to do to wrestle against them (till they be not thoroughly mastered, as it were a member mortified and deadened) as if he were to wound and mangle his own flesh, and with the right hand to chop off the left.