Pillars of salt. An history of some criminals executed in this land, for capital…

These are the Judgments of God now before us. The Apostle of the Gentiles, is here declaring, the Means to know God, which the Gentiles and particularly, the Romans, had Enjoyed is the Light of Nature; and relating how they neglected and abused those Means, in their not Glorifying Him as God; but Inventing, and Erecting and Adoring vain Images of Him. The progress of the Divine Judgments, against the Forlorn Gentiles, for their not Glorifying of God, […] here described unto us. God Left them, Fo• this cause, in the first place, to become vain in thei• Imaginations. It is a marvellous Thing, I hav• often marvelled at it! That while the more Barbarous Nations have Worshipped the Sun, th• Moon, the Stars, and the more specious and gli••tering Objects of Idolatry; such Learned Nations as the Egyptians worshipped a Bull, a Dog and a Rat; The Learned Graecians, worship Fevers, and Passions, for their Gods; and o• most Learned Romans worshipped the very Fur• ⟨p. 5⟩of Hell. Truly, there was the Just Wrath of God, in this Thing, That the Nations, who had most of Light, whereby to know God, and yet Glorified Him not as God, should become thus Vain in their Imaginations. But stopped they here? No; There is mentioned a further Depravation whereto God loft them, in His Just Wrath against them, for their Idolatries: For this cause God gave them up to Vile Affections; which also imply and comprise Vile Practices in them. It is here indeed, Three Times over noted, That God punished their Idolatries, by leaving the wretched Idolaters to other and farther Abominations; Especially, He punished the Spiritual Uncleannesses of Idolatry, by leaving them to the Corporal Uncleannesses of Debauchery: They who worshipped God under the Shape, it may be, of Brutes, were left by God, unto the Sins, which made them worse than Bruits. If you Read the Old Pagan Suetonius his life of Nero, you'll see those very Villainies acted, in the Unclean Court of Rome, which our Apostle here Brands with Infamy. The Christians at Rome, knew where to find a Court, that at this very Time▪ would afford an Exemplification, and Explication, of what the Apostle thus wrote unto them.