Genesis 19:4-11 But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young… Their shameless speech to have the men brought out that they might know them, very notably discovereth unto us the impudency that sin effecteth in time, when it once getteth rule. Surely it taketh all modesty, and shame, and honesty away, and proveth the saying to be most true: Consuctudo peccandi tollit sensum peccati. The custom of sin taketh away all sense and feeling of sin. At the beginning men shame to have it known what they do, though they fear not to do it, and they will use all cloaks and covers that possible they can to hide their wickedness. But at last they grow bold and, impudent, as these men did, even to say what care we. And why? Certainly because this is the course of sin in God's judgment, that it shall benumb and harden the heart wherein it is suffered, and so sear up the conscience, and conceit in time, that there shall be no shame left, but such a thick vizard pulled over the face, that it can blush at nothing, either to say it or do it. Behold these brazen-brewed wretches here, who, after long use of sin (no doubt at first more secret), are now come to require these men openly and to tell the cause, that they might know them without all shame or spark of shame, in, and at so horrible abomination. Marvel not then any more, that the adulterer blusheth not, the drunkard shameth not, nor the blaspheming swearer hideth not his face. You see the reason; custom to do evil in that kind hath utterly bereaved him of feeling and shame as it did these Sodomites. A heavy and fearful case for God's plague is even at the door of such people, as you see it was here for these Sodomites. It was well said of him that said it, if God take from a man his bodily eye that he cannot see, or his bodily ear that he cannot hear, every man seeth the judgment and perceiveth the loss; but when God in wrath taketh away the inward eye and ear of the mind and heart, that what sin soever he committeth, he neither seeth, nor heareth, nor feeleth, no man thinketh this a plague, or any rod of God. But O fearful plague! etc. (Bishop Babington.) Parallel Verses KJV: But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter: |
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