how Page 262 The Law of nature is to be observed Page 269 Lawes of men condemne self-murder Page 277 Lawes given to men are bounded Page 294 Lawfull self-killing Page 54 Vpon lawfull calling how to adventure life Page 125 Leagues Of Leagues Page 119 Letter The Letter of the Scripture is not to be followed contrary to the true meaning Page 199 Lets of endeavour after spirituall life Page 66 Life is a thing of great importance Page 1 Of the kinds of the life of man Page 4 How mans life may be lost 43. and how taken away Page 45 Life unsure 82. It is the object of self-murder Page 159 Life eternall is here begun Page 245 Life temporary is a blessing Page 275 Light of the Spirit twofold Page 200 Live Mans care to live well Page 206 To live by faith Page 313 Love Of love and to love our neighbours as our selves expounded Page 129 Love is destroyed by self-murder Page 272 Lusts Curbing of our lusts is a good revenge upon our selves for our sins Page 234 M Mad men killing themselves Page 250 Madnesse of self-murderers Page 186 Magistrate A Soveraigne Magistrate for no crime may slay himselfe nor be slaine by his subjects Page 264 Man only is subject to self-murder Page 6 Man how subject to death Page 45 Man in greatest danger Page 56 Mans care to live well Page 206 Man onely is capable of shame Page 222 Mans-self wronged by self-murder Page 271. 273 Mankinde To mankinde self-murder injurious Page 270 Manner The manner of executing self-murder Page 187 Man-slayer What a man-slayer is to do to save his friends pursued to death for his fact Page 133 Mariners Concerning mariners Page 113 Meanes to be used for spirituall life Page 28 Of meanes of conversion why appointed of God Page 31 Meanes of preservation of spirituall life Page 39 Meanes weakening and quickning zeale Page 41 Meanes of losse of life Page 44 The meanes of the destruction of spirituall life Page 45 The meanes of self-murder Page 183. 185 Meanes for knowledge of the Scripture Page 199 Meanes of sin cut off Page 234 Meanes to prevent self-murder Page 311 Meanes against Satans motions to self-murder Page 250 Melancholick persons killing themselves Page 250 Melancholick people in danger of self-murder and why Page 254 Memory How by meanes of his memory man suffers Page 165 Men self-blinded Page 209 Merchant Of merchant men Page 139 Minde how the mindes distemperarature procures indirect self-murder Page 110 The minds calamities Page 217 Ministery of the word and its use Page 29 Mischance Of killing ones selfe by mischance Page 173 Mis-spend How men mis-spend their lives Page 19 Moderation of war for Religion Page 144 Mortifying humiliation a good revenge upon ones selfe Page 234 Motions of self-murder to be abhorred 18. They are most hardly shaken off Page 182 Motions of the devill causing self-murder 246. How knowne to bee from him Page 248 Of motions of self-murder entertained 257. Horrible motions to be withstood Page 314 Motives to self-murder c. 15. throughout Page 191 Murder In murder things observable 48. murders vilenesse 49. what it destroyes ibid. Whence murder comes 51. What kind of act it is how man is restrained from it 52. How murder is not to be desired to be done upon us Page 274 Murderers of others murder themselves by the same act Page 53 Mutes Of standers mute at Triall refusing to answer legally Page 96 Mutilation of body procuring self-murder Page 110 N Natures opposition to true obedience Page 63 Nature is against self-murder Page 269 283 Naturall How naturall life is known 6. wherein mans naturall life consists 8. The sweetnesse of it the losse of it painfull and horrible 9 How it is deare and pretious the degrees of it 10. How it is well spent and ill spent 19. How it is taken away Page 44 Necessity Vrgent necessity may make men adventurous of their lives Page 128 Necessaries The want of necessaries for the body Page 213 Neglect of outward meanes of life Page 60 Neglect of the power of the meanes of spirituall life Page 60. Neglect of meanes is tempting of God Page 95 Of neglect of duties Page 260 Negative righteousnesse Page 65 Nocent or criminall persons how and when to discover themselves Page 137 O Obedience Of actuall obedience the grounds 36. the kinds Evangelicall and Legall Page 61 Want of obedience and reasons of it Page 62 How the obedience of the Gospell differs from the obedience of the Law Page 71 Of obedience and disobedience to unjust suspension and deprivation Page 148 Of unlawfull obedience Page 162 Obey Disobedients to God forward to obey the devill Page 206 Our care to obey the truth Page 210 Observe What self-murderers observe Page 187 Observant To bee observant of occurrences Page 181 Observations from indirect self-murder Page 155 Obstinate Self-murderers are obstinate Page 187 Old-man Our old-man of sin we should kill and how done Page 54 Omission A fourefold omission of dutie 60. Of sins of omission Page 62 Omission deprives man of life eternall Page 64 By omission how indirect self-murder is committed Page 91 Of the not omission of necessary duties upon perill of life Page 146 Opportunity self-murderers observe Page 187 Oracles occasioning self-murder Page 202 Over-charging ones selfe in doing good Page 21 Outward blessings are a ground of cheerefulnesse Page 14 P Parricide and whence it proceeds Page 256 Passions To contrary passions all earthly things are subject Page 3. Immoderate passions kill Page 123 Of passions disappointed Page 219 Patient suffering for Gods truth Page 38 Pelagia That Pelagia and such others that killed themselves were not self-murderers Page 205 Perishing That all perishing soules are self-murdered Page 57 Perseverance upholds spiritual life Page 41 Person Where the person of a man is after his death Page 50 Our persons destroyed by self-murder Page 272 Perversenesse of man Page 170 Perverted judgement hinders spirituall life 66. and occasions self-murder Page 192 Philolaus his opinion against self-murder Page 277 Phrensie the cause sometime of self-killing Page 250 Spirituall phrensie whence it arises Page 251 Phrenticks in their fits killing themselves Page 174 Physick and how it is to be used Page 14 92. 111 Platoes opinion against self-murder Page 279 Pleasure and profit hinder obedience Page 63 Practise Of unwarrantable practise of Physick and Chirurgery Page 111 Practise gives denomination Page 175 Praise Of vaine praise of self-murderers 194. and of praise more largely Page 242 Prayer a preservative of life 12. the neglect of it how hurtfull Page 94 Prayer is a help to know the Scripture 200. Of a self-murderers antecedent prayer before the fact Page 206 Of prayer to prevent self murder Page 315. 323 324 Preaching Of Common-place and metamorphozed preaching Page 196 Predestination blameless of mans destruction Page 156 Preferment How preferment hinders spirituall life Page 66 Premeditation of self-murder Page 185 Presumption Of presumption Page 67. 310 Prevent To prevent self-murder
points 1. Vncertaine death for certaine good The second Case wherein we may wittingly and willingly without danger of self-murder adventure the losse of our lives is a present urgent and unavoidable necessity for a certaine greater more eligible good which falls out in three points First not only when with an uncertaine danger of our owne lives wee seeke to redeeme the certaine destruction of our neighbours as to cast our selves into the water being skilfull to swimme to save him from assured drowning who hath no other meanes of safety or to cast our selves into desperate dangers for rescue of our wives children or friends from out of the fire or out of the hands of our enemies as did Abraham for Lot a Gen. 14.14 and David for his wives b 1 Sam. 30. or to minister to the necessities of our sick houshold that they perish not in neglect wee ought to venture our lives with them in their infectious diseases But further also to save another from certainly perishing sometimes men may object themselves to certaine death Certaine death for Superiours as if the person be a publicke Magistrate or Prince or evidently of more use and worth in Church or Common-wealth than our selves we may exchange our selves to passe for him as the Scripture intimates with commendation that peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die Rom. 6.7 and the peoples esteeme of David was that he was worth ten thousand of them and therefore would not let him adventure himselfe where if halfe of them should die the enemies would not care for them 2 Sam. 18.3 this respect and preferment of eminency and vertue is not only from love of themselves but also from love of that publike body to which those persons by their lives may be beneficiall For a friend Also a man may for preservation of his deare friend put himselfe upon assured death as our Saviour implies by way of commending the same when he sayes Greater love hath no man than this Ambros lib. 3. officiarum c. 12. de duobus Pythagoraeis Virgil. me me adsum qui seei in me converene serrwn that a man lay downe his life for his friends Therefore this degree of love hee may have and was practised by divers as betweene Nisus and Euryalus Damon and Pythias Pylades and Orestes Object The thing that may seeme to withstand the lawfulnesse of this practice is that generall rule of loving our neighbours as our selves and not otherwise Answ But this is easily answered first by the right understanding of the rule as our selves which notes not the degree or measure of our love 1. It is required that our love be sincere for then must we love all men alike if the rule of the measure be one for quae conveniunt in uno tertio conveniunt inter se they that agree in any one third thing doe agree within themselves but that we are to love all men alike is absurd and against the practice of our Saviour Christ who loved Iohn above the rest of the Apostles then as our selves notes the sincerity of our love for as the Apostle tells us No man ever yet hated his owne flesh Ephes 5.29 So then here is commanded first that we should love our neighbours secondly that for the quality of this love it should be in truth and as we would that others should love us which doth not exclude such a superlative degree of love as may expresse it selfe by a mans dying for his friend as if it were an unlawfull excesse 2. To dye for a friend may bee self-love and lawfull Secondly this doubt may be resolved by the true interpretation of such a mans act because in that degree of love so expressed for his friend he loves himselfe both by the consummation and earthly perfection of the vertue of friendship in him which in some sort beatifies the subject wherein it is and also thereby he gaines to himselfe the honour to be counted more worthy of a friend than a friend was of him Amicus est after ego lovers are said to live rather in those that they doe love than in themselves so that without such friends their lives would be but a languishing dying With mee in this point accords Cardinall Folet upon a Idem ibid. Iohn 15.13 and David à Mauden in his tenth discourse upon the sixt Commandement is peremptory and sayes that * Id non facit ex amore vitae alterius sed ex amore virtutis amicitiae ad ahorum exemplum quod dum sacit se plus quaÌ„ amicum diligit Certum est licitum esse vitam suam certo periculo exponere pro servanda amicivita temporali ex motivo honestatis amicitiae quandoquidem honestas virtutis majus bonum sit quà m vita propria corporalis It is certaine that it is lawfull for a man to expose his life to certaine danger for to preserve the temporall life of his friend upon the motive of honesty and friendship seeing the honesty of vertue is a greater good than his owne corporall life From hence he sayes Licitum esse aiunt Doctores amico peste laboranti inservire cum aequi certo per culo mertis in communi naufragio takulam soâ—io cedere unde si duo amici simul naufragium secissent usque residua eset tal ula cu jus subsidio alteruter ex illis tantum po Yet salvari posset quidem alter eâ non uti ut sibi cam amicus assumeret cujus saluti consultum crpit in kee tamen eventu cavendum est ne quis per positivam aliquam actionem directè neci suae ecoperetur hoc enimilliciâ—â—n est Disetus 10. in praecept 6. numer 3.5 Ema Sa in vocabulo vita that the Doctors affirme that it is lawfull to doe service to a friend that is sick of the pestilence with equally certaine danger of death and in a common shipwrack to yeeld a board to a fellow companion as if two friends have suffered shipwrack together and that there were a board remaining to them by the help whereof only one of them could be saved the one of them may forbeare to make use of the same that his friend whose safety he desires may take it to himselfe Notwithstanding in this case heed must be taken that no man doe directly by any positive action cooperate to his owne death for that is unlawfull Emanuel Sa in his Aphorismes affirmes as much §. 18. Of the second point which is concerning certaine death for certaine more publike good The second point The second point concerning present urgent necessity wherein a man may adventure the losse of his life for a greater good without any danger of self-murder is when by the losse of one or of a few lives many more are preserved Certaine death for greater pub like good for bonum commune est praeferendum proprio
evill upon them as they suppose the death that they cannot indure to see or suffer inflicted by other meanes they unnaturally and wickedly out of cruell mercy inflict themselves Note So hard a thing it is to indure to see a cruell act done over it is for ones selfe to do it evils are ever more discernable by and terrible to us when they are in others than in our selves §. 8. Of crosses upon mans outward estate occasioning self-murder 2. Calamities upon mens externall good things The second kind of evils that give men occasion to murder themselves are those that are upon mens outward worldy estates when either having beene rich or well to live they fall to decay and goe backward 1. Upon their estates or when having meanes and carefully toyling and using their indeavours to live and grow in the world they are incountred with crosses and losses or their goods are imbesiled or wasted by wife husband children or servants that still they go behind-hand and run into debt having neither meanes nor hopes to live and keepe their charge in fashion as they would and were wont nor yet to pay every man his owne or when some rich man by the fall of the price of corne or failing of his croppe is disappointed of his gaped-for gaine the former because he cannot be but poore as he would not and the latter because he cannot be rich so as he would Note both of them resolve to kill themselves to help themselves by a mad kinde of remedy the one because he cannot have as much as he would takes a course to lose all that he hath the other because he hath so little takes a way to have nothing at all and both of them cast away their lives for that which should be but their servant The true causes of self-murder upon crosses in estate 1. Covetousnes The true ground and causes of this wicked practise is both excessive covetousnesse and high esteeme and love of the world which some doe make their god and prize it above their lives 2. Pride and also pride of heart whereby some will not stoope to be content with that estate that God would have them to be in and therefore because they cannot bee and live in state as they would they will not live at all but rather destroy themselves and so by going about thus to free themselves from their present or feared estate that they dislike they madly cast themselves into a worse Note so bad is our exchange when wee forsake the will of God to follow our owne §. 9. Of dishonour causing self-murder 2. Calamities upō their honours Secondly the calamities which are upon that which externally belongs to men which occasions men to murder themselves are those disasters that concerne their worldly honours as disappointment of their expected dignities and high respects and favour with eminent personages or the degrading and displacing of them from their preferments and honourable degrees of advancement with Princes or people or the over-clouding of them with the contempt and disdaine of those of whose favour they are ambitious and when with all dejected from their aspiring greatnesse or hopes they shall see their inferiours and enemies exalted and preferred before them as Haman did see Mordecai then are their thoughts and resolutions impatiently set to kill themselves as not able to live in such an eclypse of honour The true cause of self murder upon this motive Ambition Of this vaine ambition is the onely cause as it was in Ahitophel and Zimri but ô how vaine and wretched is that man whose happinesse is not in himselfe but in other unstable creatures that by change of their favour can every houre make him miserable when they list And ô how weake and fraile are they whom a frowne a harsh speech or one remove in Courtly favour can kill or cause them to kill themselves Who would thinke that these men were in their right wits or cared for any honor who by self-murder make themselves everlastingly miserable and infamous in the highest degree of ignominy even to the overshadowing and disgracing of their innocent posterity Mans ambition to be higher than God would have him brings him to shame §. 10. Of disasters upon friends occasioning self-murder 3. Calamities upon their friends Thirdly the evils that are upon that which externally belongs to men whereby divers times some are occasioned to murder themselves are those that concerne their neerest and dearest friends as their wives children kindred masters familiars and the like and that falls out in two cases In two cases 1. By suffering or doing evill First when such friends either do or suffer some woefull or shamefull things while they do live which makes them in their opinion that love them miserable as are the flagitious lives and practises of wife children kindred or the like or their ignominious and cruell sufferings redounding to the extreame griefe or disgrace of those to whom they so neerely belong which they cannot nor will not indure but do kill themselves that they may not live to see it or heare of the same 2. By being bereaved of them Secondly when such friends doe die or are taken away from them whereby they thinke themselves miserable in the losse of their company and of the benefit that they had by them and therefore they are so affected that in the former case they will not abide to live in this world with them nor in the latter case will live in this world without them but will needs kill themselves in the former case to be rid from them and in the latter that they may not be without them Observe So that such mens friends may seeme in these two differing respects to make them miserable the one by their presence and the other by their absence and so the cause of their comfort is made the meanes of their woe by their owne folly who will live not by the life that is in themselves but by that which is in others and do set their hearts more on such friends than on God in so much that if they cannot enjoy their friends as they desire they will not enjoy themselves as Sauls Armour-bearer who killed himselfe that hee might not out-live his Master a 1 Sam. 31.5 §. 11. Of trouble of conscience occasioning self-murder 3. Inward upon the mind The third kind of evill whereupon men take occasion to kill themselves is that which is upon their minds as in the immediate subject thereof which the neerer it is the more intollerably it doth affect all other sufferings being as whippings upon the coats but this as upon the naked skin and more intollerable than death which some men choose and voluntarily inflict with their own hands upon themselves that thereby they may be freed from the trouble of their minds This trouble of the minde is of foure sorts Foure sorts of
which hee may well do he is to be willing and therefore to kill himselfe hee should not be willing because hee cannot well do it which is against the Law both of God and of nature 17. The examples of self-murder are wicked Seventeenthly the quality and esteeme of the persons that kill themselves may demonstrate the odiousnesse of that fact in any for generally they are wicked persons and their names execrable in the Church such as were Saul Ahitophel Zimrs Iudas and the like And therefore as a man would not bee ranked with them nor be subject to their infamie in this world nor would partake with them in their estate of misery and damnation in the world to come so he should be most carefull that he have no communion with them in their ill courses and wretched practises in this world specially that he may not shut up his life with them in the same damnable manner of self murder For any godly persons that have killed themselves whose names are under a charitable censure of commendation it was done by them either out of blamelesse ignorance of the morall forme of the fact or else by speciall motion of the holy Spirit warranting them to do what they did b Ex ignorantia intalpata vel motu spectait Spiritus sancti and are charitably excused or commended not for their fact of killing themselves but for their precedent good lives and for their heavenly mindednesse and holy dispositions which apparently they had for which they did and when they did out of their weakenesse that unlawfull fact extraordinary and exempt cases which stand upon some speciall and transcendent circumstances are not to be made rules and precedents nor to bee imitated for and in ordinary practise none can dispense or make exceptions but he that hath power over the Law which is the rule of our lives who is God alone 18. The verdit of nature in the creatures condemnes self-murder Eighteenthly self-murder is abominated and condemned by the generall verdite of the furie of all the creatures inanimate and irrationall whose universall practise for self-preservation utterly condemnes all self-murderers upon natures evidence against them We see how the Hare flees before the Hound and useth many naturall slights and stratagems to escape the danger So doth the Partridge to avoyd the talons of the Falcon yea a worme trod upon turnes againe The like is observable also in senselesse creatures we see every element fleeing from its contrary to the place of the conservation of it selfe Yea even also in man himselfe it is apparent how nature abhorres and shuns self-murder where we see how by naturall instinct in suddaine perils when a man hath leasure to thinke of avoyding of them as when a blow is suddenly and unexspectedly reached at a man the hand naturally and of it selfe will instantly object it self to save life which demonstrates that for a man to turne his hands against himself to kill himself is unnaturall and monstrous 19. Man 's own indowments condemnes self-murder Lastly those indowments abilities and meanes that man hath naturally to preserve himselfe and his life utterly condemnes his self-killing as impious and monstrous For first he is indowed with self-love every man naturally is a friend to himselfe sayes the Philosopher a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereby every man may have a desire to preserve himselfe Secondly man is indowed with feare of whatsoever may hurt or destroy him Feare is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a certaine preservative whereby men labour to preserve themselves Thirdly man is qualified and furnished with understanding and memory which gives knowledge and experience whence flowes the morall habit of prudence by which man is enabled both to foresee and to prevent dangers and to be Iudge and Master of his owne actions for his owne good and preservation so that a man cannot kill himselfe without being self-condemned in the doing of the act contrary to naturall instinct to reason and to all the indowments and meanes that he hath to the contrary and must perish without all plea of excuse I will conclude the arguments against self-murder with the grave and most serious judgement and determination of Iosephus disswading his Countrey-men from the same De bello Iudaico lib. 3. cap. 14. when they were most desperately and instantly urging the doing thereof to whom he said as followeth Wherefore ô my friends quoth he are wee become murderers of our selves Wherefore doe we make war betweene things so united as are the soule and the body If the Romans our adversaries thinke good to spare their enemies should not we think it good likewise to spare our owne selves it is meere folly to do that to our owne selves for which we sight against our enemies He is not onely to be judged a coward who refuseth to die when need requireth but aelso he that will die when no need urgeth Shall we make that certaine to our selves that wee feare at our enemies bands You will say it is the part of him that is valiant to kill himselfe nay truly it is the part of a very coward For I thinke him to bee a timorous sea-man who perceiving a tempest coming before it fall sinketh the ship wherein he is Moreover it is against the Law of nature and the nature of all creatures to kill themselves and thereby wee should commit a hainous crime against God there is no living creature that of his owne seeking would willingly die for every one feeleth in himselfe the strong and forcible law of nature whereby they desire to live and for this cause wee judge them for our enemies that seeke to take it from us and doe punish them that doe take it indeed And doe you thinke it is not a greater contempt of God for a man to despise his gift For we of him received our first beeing and from him let us expect our ending The body is mortall framed of corruptible matter but our soules are immortall and there is a little part of God placed in our bodies If any one abuseth that which another man putteth him in trust with presently we thinke him a perfidious and wicked man and shall we thinke that if we cast away out of our bodies that which God hath put us in trust withall and placed in the same that he shall not know of it whom we have so abused we hold those slaves worthy to be punished that run away from bad masters and shall not we then be held for impious who flee from so good a master as God is doe you not know that they who according to the Law of nature depart out of this life and render that to God which they received of him when he who gave it requires it shall leave behind them a perpetuall name to their posterity and family And that unto those soules who are obedient to their Creator when he calls them he gives a holy and sacred mansion in
constant practise thereof seeing such do alwaies live impenitent wretches in their sins without godly remorse and new life 2. Actuall repentance Secondly for such persons actually and indeed to repent soundly and to life at or in their act of this transcendent self-murder they cannot in regard that either they want time to doe it if it were possible for them to repent or they want rather a heart savingly to repent which requires both a divine principle within them whereby they may be able to do it and also some blessed meanes of Gods ordination to exuscitate and stirre up that power into act the former a self-murderer hath not for the latter God never ordained vile self-murder to be a meanes of a self-murderers repentance neither attends such mens leisure to give them repentance when they list who would not repent at his call By the transcendency of their sin these self-murderers over-set themselves beyond the pitch of recovery And if any such should happen to have time betweene his vile act and his expiration his sorrow for such an extraordinary and odious fact cannot be true saving repentance because repentance in such extremities and also late where there is no time to trie and give proofe of the soundnesse of it is forced and rarely true and also repentance for one grosse fact or for a few is not sound nor sufficient for salvation where a man stands guilty and impenitent for abundance of other finnes and corruptions whereof he ought to repent as well as of the other And when and where was it ever knowne certainly that any such transcendent self-murderer did savingly repent although he had time betweene the blow and his departure And therefore as no proper and transcendent self-murderer doth or can truly repent so can he not be saved but is damned by and upon accomplishment of that enormious and odious fact §. 7. The Churches Iudgement of self-murderers 5. Reason That all self-murderers are damned By the Iudgment of the Church The fifth and last argument that makes it apparent that no proper self-murderer is saved is the ancient and constantly continued Iudgement of the Church touching the finall estate of such persons which is expressed by her order and practise in excluding them from the priviledges of Christian buriall as hath beene formerly said a Chap. 17. §. 7. Argument 9. that she will neither permit nor allow that their bodies shall be brought to the grave with Christian solemnity as with ringing of Bells or singing of Psalmes or the like nor that they shall be interred or buried in consecrate ground or Christian buriall Pecreti secunda pars causa 23. quaest 5. c. 12. Vlacuit in common with the bodies of those all whose soules the Church hopes in charity are saved in Heaven neither at their buriall where ever it be else will the Church suffer any prayers or reading of Scriptures to be used Quise laqueo pertmunt aut ense recant wanifestum si seclus borum sit nobiscum non tumulentur Rarmundus as may intimate to others any comfort or hope of their salvation Their wills she makes void as of persons that having cast away their soules have nothing left nor power to dispose of any thing she deemes it unreasonable for such to have their wills stand who do in so high a degree withstand and counterveen the will of God Barring them from Christian buriall Neither at any time after their buriall will the Church allow or permit that any commemoration shall be made of the names of any such in the suffrages or solemnities of her divine service as anciently the manner was to deale with those of whose salvation shee did not despaire That by this omission it might be manifest how shee abhorred self-murderers and their vile practise and that their names might bee extinct and rot whose soules shee conceived were damned she would not have them remembred or registred by her to their honor that were so dead or to the comfort of the living either in regard of the fact or in respect of the finall estate of the persons whose names she conceives are razed out of the booke of life For if so bee that the Church did in charity conceive that the soules of any proper self-murderers had communion after death in place state and blessednesse with the soules of those that are saved why then should shee or could shee justly exciude the bodies of those self-murderers from communion in Christian buriall with the bodies of the godly and heires of salvation And if the Church had any hope of the salvation of self-murderers why should she deny the use of those meanes of solemnities of reading of Scripture of saying godly prayers and of making honourable commemorations of their names in publick divine assemblies and service whereby the Church her self might be comforted and also the disconsolate friends of such parties might be cheered touching the goodnesse of the finall estate of such self murderers Why should the Church deny any of her common priviledges to any that she conceives to inherit the priviledge of enjoying the kingdome of Heaven it cannot be done only for terror to the living that they may not dare to do the like because the Church the pillar and ground of truth a 1 Tim. 3.15 will not do so much wrong and injustice to the dead to effect any good for doing whereof she hath other and those warrantable meanes sufficient yea even the Roman Church leaves no place of hope for self-murderers so much as in purgatory but abandons them all to hell without redemption by all which the Church makes it manifest that it is her Judgement that none such are saved but are all damned whose very externall goods are judged by the Church and Common-wealth to be execrable and in that respect are made a deodand And therefore upon all the foresaid reasons and arguments I conclude that no proper self-murderer in manner aforesaid can be saved but are all damned §. 8. Of certaine uses Observe From what hath beene said touching the finall estate of proper self-murderers we may observe for our use 1. first that none but reprobates and damned persons do breake out into this transcendent direct and proper self-murder so that it is proper only for reprobates and damned persons to do it in the perfit height and greatest enormity of it and is not incident to any good body that shall be saved to do it in that manner 2. Secondly the consideration of the finall damnable estate of those self-murderers in respect of that fact may make self-murder odious and formidable to all people lest by their venturing and approaching neere to the brinks of that desperate gulph they should fall in to the everlasting destruction both of soule and body which shewes the desperate madnesse of those that wilfully ruinate themselves for ever in this manner by self-murder §. 9. Certaine objections answered and first touching the