[2.] Secondly, Because men's giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are such high and horrid sins against the light and laiu of nature, that God commonly preserves his chosen from them. He shall be an Apollo to me that can produce any one instance in the Old or New Testament of any one person that, after real and through conversion, did ever give himself over to fornication, and to go after strange flesh. Aristotle calls beastiality a surpassing wickedness. By the laws of those two emperors, Theodosius and Arcadius, Sodomites were adjudged to the fire. In the Council of Vienna the templars who were found guilty of this sin were decreed to be burnt. And among the Eomans, it was lawful for him who was attempted to that abuse to kill him who made the assault. Tertullian brings in Christianity triumphing over paganism, because this sin was peculiar to heathens, and that Christians never changed the sex^ nor accompanied with any but their own wives. This and such like, as Tertullian speaks, being not so much to be called offences as monsters, and not to be. named without holy detestation by saints, though they be committed without shame by Sodomites. The Saxons, who of old inhabited this land, strangled the adulteress being taken, and then burnt her body with fire, and hanged the adulterer over a flaming fire, burning him by degrees till he died, [Boniface.] Opilius Macrinus, an emperor, caused the body of the adulterer and the whore to be joined together, and so burnt with fire, [Julius Capitolinus.] Aurelianus caused the adulterer's legs to be bound to the boughs of two trees bent together, and then violently being lifted up again, his body was torn asunder. And the Julian law, among tlie Romans, punished adultery with death, by cutting off the heads of those that were guilty of that fact. And the Turks stone adulterers to death. Zaleucus, king of the Locrians, ordained that adulterers should have their eyes put out ; and therefore, when his son was taken in adultery, that he might both keep the law and be compassionate to his son, he put forth one of his o^vn eyes to redeem one of his son's. i I have read of some heathens that have punished this sin with a most shameful death, and the death was this : they would have the adulterer's or ' Aelian V. H. xiii. 24 ; Val. Max. V. v. § 3.— G.
104 London's lamentations on [Isa. XLII. 24, 25.
adulteress's head to be put into the paunch of a beast, where lay all the filth and uncleanness of it, and there to be stifled to death. This was a fit i)unislinient for so filtliy a sin. In old time the Egyptians used to punish adultery on this sort : the man with a thousand jerks with a reed, and the woman with cutting off her nose ; but he who forced a free woman to his lusts, had his privy members cut oflf, [Dii)dorus.] But,
[3.] Tlfirdly, Such who give themselves over to fornication, over- throw the state of mankind, lohile no man knoweth his own loife, nor no wife knoweth her own husband, and luhile no father knows his own children, nor no children know their own father. Affinities and con- sanguinities are the joints and sinews of the world; lose^ these and losei all. Now what affinities or consanguinities can there be when there is nothing l)ut confusion of blood — the son knoweth not his father, nor the father the son ? But,
[4.] Fourthly, These expressions of giving themselves over to forni- cation, and going after strange flesh, implies —
First, Their making constant provisions for their base lusts, Rom. xiii. 14. Oil the time, the pains, the cost, the charge that such are at to make provision for their unsatiable lusts !
Secondly, It implies an excessive violetit spending of their strength beyond all measure and bounds in all lasciviousness and Sodomitical uncleanness. Pliny tells of Cornelius Gallus and Q. Elerius (?) two Eoman knights, tliat died in the very action of filthiness.2 Theodebert, the eldest son of Glotharius, died amongst his whores ; so did Bertrane Terrier at Barcelona, in Spain ; Giachet Geneve of Saluces, (?) who had both w^ife and children of his own, being carnally joined with a young woman, was suddenly smitten with death ; his wife and children wondering why he stayed so long in his study, wdien it was time to go to bed called him, and knocked at his door very hard, but when no answer was made, they broke open the doors, that were locked on the inner side, and found him lying upon the woman stark dead, and her dead also.^ Claudus of Asses, (?) counsellor of the parliament of Paris, a desperate jjersecutor of the Protestants, whilst he was in the very act of committing filthiness with one of his waiting- maids, was taken with an apoplexy, which immediately after made an end of him. Many other instances might be produced, but let these suffice.
Thirdly, It implies their impudency and shameless7iess in their filthiness and uncleanness. They had a whore's forehead ; they pro- claimed their lasciviousness before all the world ; they were not ashamed, neither could they blush : hence it is that the men of Sodom are said to be sinners before the Lord — that is, they sinned openly, publicly, and shamelessly, without any regard to the eye of God at all, Jer. iii. 3, and vi. 15 ; Isa. iii. 10 ; Gen. xiii. 13. ' Bring them out to us, that we may know them,' Gen. xix. 5. Oh faces hatcht"* with im- pudency ! they shroud not their sins in a mantle of secrecy, but pro- claim their filthiness before all the world, they had out-sinned all shame : and therefore they gloried in their shame : they were so
' Ijiiery, ' loose ?' —Ed. * Pliny, lib. vii.
•* rontanus. Fuljjos, lib. vi. c. 12. * ' Lined' or marked. — G.
^SA. XLII. 24, 25.] THE LATE FIERY DISPENSATION. 105
arrogant and impudent in sinning, that they proclaimed their filthiness upon the house-top. But,
Fourthly, It implies their resolvechiess and obstinacy in sinning in the face of all the terrible warnings and alarms that God had formerly given them by a bloody ivar, and by the spoiling and plundering of their cities, and by taking away of their victuals — fulness of bread' ivas apart of their sin, and noiu 'cleanness of teeth' is made a piece of their punishment in God's just judgment — and by Lot's adjnonition and mild oppositio7i, Gen. xiv. 10-12, and xix. 11. It is observable, that when they were smitten with blindness, they wearied themselves to find the door. God smote them with blindness, both of body and mind ; and yet they continued groping to find the door, being highly resolved upon buggery and bestiality, though they died for it. Oh the hideous wickedness and prodigious madness of these Sodomites, that when divine justice had struck them blind, their hearts should be so desperately set upon their lusts, as to weary themselves to find the door ! But what will not Satan's bond-slaves and firebrands of hell do ? Sottish and besotted sinners will never tremble when God strikes, Phil. ii. 12. But,