Certain Sermons or Homilies (First Book of Homilies)

¹We read again, that for the filthy sin of uncleanness, Sodom and Gomorrah, and the other cities nigh unto them, were destroyed, with fire and brimstone from heaven, so that there was neither man, woman, child, nor beast, nor yet any thing that grew upon the earth, there left undestroyed. Whose heart trembleth not at the hearing of this history? Who is so drowned in whoredom and uncleanness, that will not now for ever after, leave this abominable living, seeing that God so grievously punisheth uncleanness, to rain fire and brimstone from heaven, to destroy whole cities, to kill man, woman, and child, and all other living creatures there abiding, to consume with fire, all that ever grew? what can be more manifest tokens of Gods wrath and vengeance against uncleanness, and impurity of life? Mark this history, (good people) and fear the vengeance of God.² Do we not read also, that GOD did smite Pharaoh, and his house, with great plagues, because that he ungodly desired Sarah, the wife of Abraham?³ Likewise read we of Abimelech, King of Gerar, although he touched her not by carnal knowledge. These plagues and punishments, did God caste upon filthy and unclean persons, before the law was given, (the law of nature only reigning in the hearts of men) to declare, how great ⟨image 79⟩love he had to matrimony: and again, how much he abhorred adultery, fornication, and all uncleanness. And when the law that forbade whoredom, was given by Moses to the Jews, did not God command, that the transgressors thereof, should be put to death? The words of the law be these:⁴ Who so committeth adultery with any mans wife, shall dye the death, both the man and the woman, because he hath broken wedlock with his neighbours wife. In the law also it was commanded, that a damosel and a man taken together in whoredom, should be both stoned to death. In an other place we also read, that God commanded Moses, to take all the head rulers,⁵ and princes of the people, & to to hang them upon gibbets openly, that every man might see them, because they either committed, or did not punish whoredom. Again, did not God send such a plague among the people, for fornication and uncleanness, that they dyed in one day, three and twenty thousand?