"'if your right hand causes you to sin'"

"all they that continue in their evill wayes. . . . must depart:  how far?  first, they must be avoided, Declinate, saith S. Paul, I beseech you brethren, marke them diligently which cause division and offences, and avoid them.  And this corrects our desire in running after such men, as come with their owne inventions, Schismaticall Separatists, Declinate, avoid them; if hee be no such, but amongst our selves, a brother, but yet a worker of iniquity, If any one that is called a brother, be a Fornicator, or covetous, with such a one eate not.  If we cannot starve him out, wee must thrust him out; Put away from among you, that wicked man.  No conversation at all is allowed to us, with such a man, as is obstinate in his sin, and incorrigible; no not to bid him God speed, For he that biddeth him God speed, is partaker of his evill deeds.  In this divorce, both the generality, and the distance is best exprest by Christ himselfe, If thine eye, thine hand, thy foote offend thee, amputandi & projiciendi, with what anguish or remorse soever it be done, they must bee cut off, and being cut off, cast away; it is a divorce and no super-induction, it is a separating, and no redintegration.  Though thou couldest be content to goe to Heaven with both eyes, (thy selfe, and thy companion) yet better to goe into Heaven with one, thy selfe alone, then to endanger thy selfe to be left out for thy companions sake."

     John Donne, Sermon on Ps. 6:8-10, April, May, or June of 1623, John Donne Sermons 6.