Not free from infirmities

Even Christians therefore are not so perfect as to be free either from ignorance or error. We may, thirdly, add: nor from infirmities. Only let us take care to understand this word aright. Only let us not give that soft title to known sins, as the manner of some is. So, one man tells us: Every man has his infirmity, and mine is drunkenness. Another has the infirmity of uncleanness; another that of taking God's holy name in vain. And yet another has the infirmity of calling his brother, You fool (Matthew 5:22), or returning railing for railing (1 Peter 3:9). It is plain that all you who thus speak, if you repent not, shall with your infirmities go down alive into hell (Psalm 55:15). But I mean here not only those which are properly termed bodily infirmities, but all those inward or outward imperfections which are not of a moral nature. Such are weakness or slowness of understanding, dullness or confusedness of apprehension, incoherency of thought, irregular quickness or heaviness of imagination. Such (to mention no more of this kind) is the want of a ready or retentive memory. Such in another kind are those which are commonly in some measure consequent upon these: namely, slowness of speech, impropriety of language, ungracefulness of pronunciation, to which one might add a thousand nameless defects, either in conversation or behavior. These are the infirmities which are found in the best of men, in a larger or smaller proportion. And from these none can hope to be perfectly freed till the spirit returns to God who gave it (Ecclesiastes 12:7).