And likewise also the men leaving the natural use of the women,.... The very sin of "sodomy" is here designed, so called from Sodom, the place where we first hear of it, Ge 19:5, the men of which place, because theyburned in their lust one towards another, as these Gentiles are said to do, God rained upon them fire and brimstone from heaven: an exceeding great sin this is, contrary to nature, dishonourable to human nature, and scandalous to a people and nation among whom it prevails, as it did very much in the Gentile world, and among their greatest philosophers; even those that were most noted for moral virtue are charged with it, as Socrates, Plato, Zeno, and others : it is a sin which generally prevails where idolatry and infidelity do, as among the Pagans of old, and among the Papists and Mahometans now; and never was it so rife in this nation as since the schemes of deism and infidelity have found such a reception among us.
Thus God, because men dishonour him with their evil principles and practices, leaves them to reproach their own nature, and dishonour their own bodies:men with men working that which is unseemly; and of which nothing like it is to be observed in the brutal world:receiving in themselves the recompence of their error, which was meet: God punishes sin with sin; for as the Jews say , as"one commandment draws on another, so one transgression draws on another; for the reward of the commandment is the commandment, hrybe hrybe rkvw and the reward of transgression is transgression.'
' A. Gellius Noct. Attic. l. 2. c. 18. Laert. Vit. Philosoph. l. 2. in Vit. Socrat. & l. 3. in Vit. Platon. Pirke Abot, c. 4. sect.