consideration of nor are subject to self-murder because the law against murder is not given to them who are not properly capable of the same by meanes of their want of reason neither are they subject to this fact and sin of self-murder which by instinct of nature they abhorre and doe alwaies naturally indeavour their owne preservation 3. Rationall life The third kinde of naturall life is that which is called rationall or of reasonable creatures which is proper to men whereby they live besides the life of vegetation and sense common with other earthly living creatures according to reason or in a rationall manner both for the essentiall forme of their natures whereby they are called rationall creatures and also for their thoughts and actions which for their originall principle whence they flow and for the rule whereby they are ordered are reasonable morall and more divine in all their motions than are other earthly creatures if the same be not perverted by some other exorbitant principles or accidents In and under this rationall life of man both the other lives are comprehended as things inferior and subordinate are contained in their superiour and summary head Note Mans perfection The perfections of all other earthly creatures are in man together with or comprehended in that which is proper to himselfe whereby he transcends them all §. 2. Man only is subject to self-murder Notwithstanding that man indowed with understanding hath the greatest helps against self-murder and hath the greatest reason of all worldly creatures to preserve his life it being so excellent above theirs yet he onely of them all is subject to this fault and mischiefe of self-murder The greatnesse of the sin of self-murder And as all the aforesaid three kinds of lives are comprehended for faculty and vertue in mans reasonable life flowing from his reasonable soule as we see in the ceasing of them all in man at once upon the departure of his soule from the body Note so the killing destroying of mans life is absolutely farre greater than the destroying of the lives of all other earthly creatures because both the lives of them all for kinds and also mans own proper life that farre excells them all in the destruction of mans life are destroyed and also all other creatures were made for man for the comfort of whose life all their lives do serve §. 3. How naturall life is knowne by man in whom it is Touching the knowledge of the naturall life of man a reasonable living creature apprehends the same both by sense and understanding This life is knowne 1. by sense by sense a reasonable creature not onely descernes that it lives but also feeles this life by the effects of it to be a quickning power of inlivening the body inwardly and disposing and inabling it to action outwardly 2. By understanding By understanding a man knowes that this life is an act of the spirit or soule in the body of man or a quickning vertue of it in a continued fluxe by the personall union of the soule and body together §. 4. The soules double act of life in man The soules act of life in man This act of the soule in its union with the body is twofold 1. Making the subiect to live First that which respects the bodie it self or rather mans person in that worke or lively energie which we may in some respect call opus ad intra or a reflexe worke of man upon himselfe upon the personall union of the soule and bodie whereby he becomes a living soule Gen. 2.7 for extension in all his parts and for intensiox in fulnesse of lively power for his subsisting and growth to his appointed period and for use of all his organs and faculties for their proper function being thereby also able to discerne take notice and judge of himselfe his state and actions For not the soule only nor the body onely is to be properly said to live after their union together but the person consisting both of soule and body doth live this life which is not the life of either of the natures or parts of man by themselves considered Man lives or dies personally considered but the life of the person of man consisting of both natures personally united And therefore when one kills a man we say not properly that he hath onely killed an earthly body but we say properly that he hath killed such a person as consists of a soule and a body and therefore it is said in Scripture that there were so many soules slaine a Joshua 10.28 not that the immortall spirit is in it selfe subject to such a death or can be slaine but in regard of its Acting and working in its personall union with the bodie whereby both of them live personally together that life which is the life of the person which is destroyed and ceases upon death which is further apparent by this Reason because the murder of a man is so hainous a crime in regard of the destruction of the Image of God in man which is not onely in the body or onely in the soule but is in the whole person of man so long as the same lives 2 Making the subject to worke The second lively act of the soule in this union with the body personally considered is that whereby it makes the body organically fitly disposed and active to those duties which we call opera ad extra works about objects not it selfe which works are the common outward workes of the person consisting of those two natures and not of either of them apart Observe Upon life depends the subsisting and working of the person Whereupon wee may observe that upon this life depends both the subsisting of the person of man in its being and also all its actions naturall civill and morall so that he that kills a man destroyes his person and abolishes all his personall actions and activity whereby he might be serviceable and usefull to God to himselfe to the Church or Commonwealth And yet we see no thing more passionately and rashly enterprised than killing of men than the which nothing should be more deliberately and upon weightier causes done it being no lesser matter than to dissolve heaven and earth by destruction of a person consisting of an heavenly spirit and of an earthly body to destroy the noblest naturall life and to deprive God and the world of the most glorious and profitable workes Such a thing is this naturall life of man generally considered CHAP. 4. Of mans naturall life more specially §. 1. Wherein the naturall life of man consists Mans naturall life is fraile Phil. 1.22 expounded MAns naturall life consists as in part wee have heard in the Act of the soule united personally with the body by meanes of the animall naturall and vitall spirits which the Apostle calls living in the flesh Philip. 1.22 which is to live neither to the flesh to
meanes and instruments of their spirituall life than to the meanes of their naturall for naturall life without spirituall makes a man but subject to misery whereas the spirituall life upon the naturall makes a man everlastingly happy which should quicken in us a desire and endeavour to be borne againe according to our Saviours speech Ioh. 3.3 2 For continuance Secondly the spirituall life farre transcends the naturall in respect of its continuance the naturall life depending upon mutable and mortall ties and bonds and subject to many externall harmfull accidents is fraile and at last is swallowed up of mortality it being appointed for all men once to die Heb. 9.27 and few and evill are our dayes in this world wherein wee have no abiding city the spirituall life is eternall without subjection to death because it is in it selfe supernaturall and advanced above the reach and power of all things that can destroy life and is preserved and upheld by such a fountaine of indeficient and omnipotent life and undecaying lively vigour and meanes of divine living that never suffers the man that hath and keeps communion with the same to be subject to death but makes him passe from death to life Iohn 5.24 the faith whereof doth free a man from the feare of losing that happy estate while he continues to love it whereas others in a loseable and mutable estate of life are by feare of being deprived thereof and being without hope of a better hindered in injoying the full comfort of the present good that here is afforded 3. For effects Thirdly spirituall life surpasses the naturall in its effects the naturall life enables a man to the doing onely of naturall actions specially concerning mans naturall good agreeable unto and flowing from naturall principles in man being in the meane time dead to any divine or supernaturall good neither actively doing that of goodnesse which is truely morall or divine nor passively receiving and enjoying that thereof which is beatificall or which makes man blessed and so he may for all that life the powers and actions thereof be miserable and perish for flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God 1 Cor. 15.50 The spirituall life by so neere conjunction of a man with the fountaine of life Essentiall the well-spring of infinite goodnesse not onely by that touch and union doth it make him so live but also it causeth him to be most happy both by making him able Actively to live the life of God a Gal. 2.19 and to live to the will of God 1 Pet. 4.2 and also by endowing him with passive capacity and with reall possession of all such beatificall perfections as are necessary for his advancement to and in a glorious estate farre above all other earthly creatures in this world and in the world to come whereby he becomes so happy that nothing can make him miserable but even in tribulation he hath cause of rejoycing Rom. 5.3 and when he dyes yet still he lives in more excellent manner as Paul said touching his afflictions as dying and behold we live 2 Cor. 6.9 In regard of the aforesaid excellency of this spirituall life above the naturall it was that our Saviour did command his Disciples not to feare them that kill the body but are not able to kill the soule but rather to feare him which is able to destroy both soule and body in hell Mat. 10.28 §. 6. How to obtaine spirituall life Vse 1. To get spirituall life From the former doctrine touching the excellency of this spirituall life of man diverse very necessary uses are observable First it may provoke and stirre us up to get this life above all things in this world whereof we are borne destitute yea dead in sin to which life by our manifold actuall transgressions wee doe indispose and unfit our selves but yet the Lord of his mercy hath appointed us a way whereby we may get this spirituall life so that by our conscionable use of the meanes appointed by God By meanes wee may attaine thereunto in regard of his promise and faithfulnesse that those that seeke shall finde Amos 5.6 And why to be used These meanes are wee to use in regard both of Gods commandement who thereby tries our obedience and faith and also in respect of the dispensation of God who gives his graces onely by and in his owne way which otherwise cannot be had Also the worth and necessity of this spirituall life is such as deserves our best endeavours to get it our esteeme whereof is seene by our labours for it in Gods appointed way without which God will not give it because hee will have us active about our owne salvation that the same may cost us the price of our labours to come by it that thereby we may the more comfortably know that we have it when we know how we came by it that wee may be the more carefull to keepe what wee have so laboriously purchased and may assuredly looke for the reward of our labours which God that cannot lie hath promised to those that seeke life by his appointed meanes To use no meanes to get this spirituall life is to contemne both it and God and to indeavour to get it by using other meanes than God hath appointed for that end is to tempt God or to prescribe him his waies of dispensing his grace and to preferre our owne wits and wills above Gods whereby such men lose both their labour and expectation Which they be 1. The word of God The meanes in particular to get this spirituall life are First the word of God specially the Gospell which is as the materiall and seminall cause of it 1 Pet. 1.23 2. Application Secondly the meanes vegetating and applying the Gospell to quicken us which is fourefold 1. By the ministry First the ministrie of the word by reading and preaching of it to the enlightning of the understanding and to the moving of the affections and hearts of the hearers to embrace it for Faith comes by hearing Rom 10.17 2. Christian conference Secondly the Company and conferences of those Christians that in this kind of life are by their motion and example lively and vigorous able by their warmth and livelinesse to heat and quicken those whom they touch as Elisha by his application of himselfe to the dead child made it warme and alive 2 King 4.34 and as leaven leavens the lump and every thing affects to procreate its like 3. Prayer The third meanes of the Gospells application to quicken us is servent and effectuall prayer to God from whom is all the vertue and efficacy of it that he would make it effectuall to us for although Paul do plant and Apollo water it is God that gives the increase 1 Cor. 3.6 4. Sacraments the spirits operation in them Fourthly the Sacraments and in them the powerfull operation of the spirit of Christ is that which quickens us when
Page 311 Prevention of sinne occasioning self-murder Page 237 Prevention of error Page 199 Pride cause of self-murder Page 215. 226 Prodigality cause of self-murder Page 111 Professors How in professors gross sins are most offensive Page 178 Promises Gods promises cherish spirituall life Page 41 Properties of self-murdring sins Page 68 Prosperity of the wicked ground of self-deceit Page 156 Proud ambitious persons in danger of self-murder Page 255 Providence Gods providence how wronged by self-murder Page 268 Punishment of damage is worse than of smart Page 65 Purchase Of desperate purchase Page 112 Pusillanimity the cause of self murder in affliction Page 227 Q Questions Sixe questions resolved Page 133 135 136 137 138. R Reason Man by meanes of his reason suffers 164. Man wanting the use of reason no self-murderer Page 172 Reason abused to self-murder Page 189 Reason condemnes self-murder Page 273 Regardlesness Of regardlesness Page 260 Regenerated The regenerated preserved from self-murder Page 291 Religion For religion to adventure life 143. The defence of religion 144 Self-murder is contrary to religion 262. Religion requires the observation of the Law of nature Page 269 Repent To repent Page 157 Repentance True repentance self-murderers have not 296. 306. The use of it against self-murder Page 312 Reskue Of desperate reskue Page 112 Restraint Of forcible restraint of self-murderers Page 325 Resolution a help to obedience Page 128 What resolution is hardly altered Page 188 Resolutions of self-killing injected by Satan Page 246 Revealing Of revealing a mans own capitall faults Page 137 Revenge good and bad Page 232 Rules for understanding the Scripture Page 199 S Salvation In state of salvation none can be properly a self-murderer Page 292 Sampson proved no self-murderer Page 303 Sanctification How sanctification is wrought in us by the holy Spirit 32. 35. the degrees of it ibid. Satan To give any way to Satan is dangerous 188. Of his powerfull motions in the mind Page 247 Saved No man is saved for fulfilling the will of Gods decree Page 205 Saving For saving of soules to adventure life Page 141 Scripture mis-understood perverts judgement 195. the causes of mis-understanding of it Page 196. Abused Scripture harmefull Page 198 How rightly to understand it Page 199 It is apparent by the Scripture that men murder themselves Page 176 Sea-fight Of a sea-fight Page 138 Secrecie The reason of affectation of secrecy about self-murder Page 211 Secret When a man is to reveale his secret capitall crimes to the Magistrate Page 137 Seeming-good is cause of disobedience Page 70 Selfe Mans selfe is subject to self-murder 159. How self should behave himselfe to self Page 171 Self-blinded How man is self-blinded Page 155 Self-conceit a ground of self-deceit Page 156 Not to be self-conceited Page 210 Self-content in indirect self-murder Page 155 Self-deceived and causes of self-deceit Page 156 Self-deniall is cure of pride Page 227 Self-killing To self-killing who are most subject Page 236 Self-killing is no lawfull meanes to prevent sin Page 240 Self-killers What self-killers be not self-murderers Page 172. 290 Self-murder described what it is 2 How known by life 2. it is horrible comprehends in it murder 47. the degrees of it why slighted Page 83 Of bodily self-murder the kinds 84 defined and differenced Page 85 How self-murder is horrible and great 162. It falls our in the Church and is most blameable in Christians Page 176. 180. The meanes and way of self-murder 183. Motives of it 189 how it is heresie 233. it is proved unlawfull Page 262 How self-murder extends to the soule to hurt it 288. it is a transcendent sin and how 295. 302. It is equivalent to the sin against the holy Ghost Page 301 Self-murders antidotes 311. and how best prevented Page 323 Self-murderers many 124 how known by Scripture history and experience 178. 181. their follie 186. their secrecy 187. they are deceived 229 their goods confiscate 278. how they sin most grievously 286. they are Atheists 278. they regard not their soules 288. they are all damned 291. they want faith and true repentance 296. they are debarred from Christian buriall and why 287. their antecedent prayer and repentance is vaine and they cannot be at peace with God Page 306 Service Our service must be done before we receive our reward Page 245 Shame Of shame causing self-murder the kinds of shame Page 221 Shortnesse of life a motive to spend it well Page 19 Similies By similies self-murder condemned Page 279 Sins of commission against negative coÌ„mandements subjects to death 67 Of sins against the Gospell 70. 77. sin costs deare 77. men sin against themselves 158. how to prevent sin men murder themselves 237. sinne blinds 208. men sinning think they sin not 203. the worst sins are committed against Gods goodnesse 268 Some sins beyond Law and mercy Page 294 Sinning is a course of self-murder Page 77 Sinking or burning a ship in fight Page 138 Society with persons destinate to destruction Page 118 Solitarinesse of self-murderers Page 259 Soule The soules double act in man 7 its works in the body Page 81 The soules relation to its owne body Page 270 Soule-murder how it is self-murder 57 the degrees of it Page 58 Soule-murdering sins Page 68 Souldiers About souldiers Page 112. 127 Speeches Manner of speeches of self-murderers Page 260 Spend How to spend our lives well Page 18 Spirit Of the Spirits operation quickning us 29. how it manifests its power in the meanes 32. the evidences of its work 34. the degrees of its working 35. its worke in us about obedience 36. how it is a meanes in us to know the Scripture Page 200 Spirituall life what it is 21. the acts of it ibid. degrees of it 22. who may have it and how it is lost 24 the nature and excellency of it 26. the continuance and effects of it ibid. how to obtain it 8. 66. the signes of it 37 how preserved 39. and to be preferred 39. ibid. how it is destroyed Page 45 Spirituall-self-murder defined and differenced 58. how done by omission 59. by commission â—7 by sinning against the Gospell 70. by sinning against the Law 68. spirituall self-murder most damnable Page 78 Strictness in religious observances Page 234 Superiours For â—uperiors men should choose to die 29 Of their displeasure to be appeased and how Page 133 T Teachers False Teachers cause of mis-understanding the Scriptures Page 196 Temper of people Satan observes to tempt them Page 248 Our own tempers we should know Page 255 Temptations People under spirituall temptations are in danger of self-murder Page 254 Temptations of self-murder to be withstood Page 313 Thoughts Mans thoughts heavenly a signe of spirituall life Page 38 Our thoughts to bee rightly ordered Page 315 Torments inflicted occasion of self-murder Page 212 Transgression How transgression of Gods Law kills Page 122 Trouble of conscience and grounds thereof Page 218 Truth to be confessed 145. it is blamelesse 177. we should know and obey it
degrees of spirituall life which are two and subordinate Page 22 § 4. Who may have spirituall life which is denyed to none and by whose fault doth any misse of it or lose it How the Gospell was published to Adam and to all his posterity who for unbeliefe of the same are justly punishable Page 24 § 5. Of the excellency of spirituall life in three respects Page 26 § 6. How to obtaine spirituall life by meanes which wee are to use to get it and grow in it Page 28 § 7. How the Gospell works life not physically or ethically but supernaturally by the power of God working according to his owne will upon mans heart that is the subject of conversion Page 30 § 8. Why God uses meanes to convert us reasons three Page 31 § 9. How the power of the Holy Spirit is manifested and seene upon us in the meanes by foure degrees of operation And of three evidences of the Spirits application of Christ to us Page 32 § 10. How the Spirit works holinesse in us in two degrees with their uses and of three grounds of actuall obedience Page 35 § 11. Of the foure signes of spirituall life Page 37 § 12. How spirituall life may be preserved by use of six meanes Page 39 § 13. How mans care of his spirituall life should be great preferring it above his naturall life Page 42 Chap. 6. Of lifes destruction and of murder in generall § 1. How mans life maybe lost both passively and actively Page 43 § 2. How naturall life may be lost by meanes both internall and externall casuall and voluntary justly and unjustly Page 44 § 3. Of the meanes of the destruction of spirituall life by the justice of God and by the meanes of men and of mans subjection to death Page 45 § 4. Of murder in self-killing how the same is horrible and of foure things observable in it Page 47 § 5. How murder is vile in three respects Page 49 § 6. Of the originall of murder how it selfe is an act of impotency which we are to abhorre and how none can murder another without murdering themselves Page 51 Chap. 7. Of murder as it is of ones selfe § 1. Of the specificall nature of self-murder Page 53 § 2. Of the evill and greatnesse of the sin of self-murder Page 54 § 3. Of lawfull self-killing of our old-man of the kind of that killing and how it is done Page 54 § 4. Of diverse observations from the generall consideration of self-murder for informing of our judgement and directing of our practise Page 56 Chap. 8. Of spirituall self-murder in speciall § 1. That all perishing-soules are self-murdered and how soule-murder is self-murder Page 57 § 2. Spirituall self-murder defined what it is Page 58 § 3. Of soule-murder in two degrees by deprivation of life Page 58 § 4. Of mans deficiency to be saved in Adam and in our selves by a fourefold omission of doing our duties in use of meanes Page 59 § 5. Of mans neglect and contempt of the power of the meanes that he uses Page 60 § 6. Of mans defect in obedience both Evangelicall and Legall Page 61 § 7. Of the reasons of our defect of obedience which are foure Page 62 § 8. How and why grace dies by mans neglect Page 63 § 9. How the harme of omission of dutie is deprivation of life spirituall and of negative righteousnesse and how the punishment of damage is greater than that of smart Page 64 § 10. Of the endeavour after spirituall life wherein it consists and of the lets thereof Page 66 § 11. Of the second degree of spirituall self-murder which is in subjection to death by sinnes of commission Page 67 § 12. Of the meanes of mans destruction by breaking the Law of negative commands and of foure properties of soul-murdring sins Page 67 68. § 13. Of two causes of mens adventuring upon sinfull courses against the law Page 69 § 14. Of spirituall self-murder by sinning against the Gospell and how the obedience of the Gospell differs from the obedience of the Law in foure points Page 70 § 15. Of infidelity against the Gospell and of the causes and cure thereof Page 72 § 16. Of impenitency Page 72 § 17. Of the sin against the holy Ghost and things observable about it Page 73 § 18. Of finall Apostacy and of the difference of sinnes Page 75 § 19. Of the malignity of the sinnes against the Gospell above those that are committed against the Law for three reasons Page 76 § 20. The uses and improvement of the doctrine of spirituall self-murder Page 77 Chap. 9. Of bodily self-murder in speciall § 1. How bodily self-murder is defined and differenced from spirituall self-murder Page 80 § 2. Of mans body in a threefold consideration with its works and of the soules three sorts of morall works in the body and how the body suffers by and for the soule Page 81 § 3. Of the degrees of bodily self-murder and the pronenesse of man to it upon two causes which are removed by answers to both Page 83 Chap. 10. Of the kindes of bodily self-murder direct and indirect § 1. Direct and indirect self-murder are defined Page 84 § 2. Of the difference betweene direct and indirect self-murder in three things Page 85 § 3. How indirect self-murder is greater in two respects than direct Page 87 § 4. How direct self-murder is absolutely the greater in three respects Page 88 § 5. Of the degrees of sin and how to escape the greatest and its end Page 89 Chap. 11. Of indirect self-murder of the body § 1. The reasons why indirect self-murder is first treated of Page 90 § 2. How indirect self-murder is wrought two wayes by omission and commission Page 91 § 3. How indirect self-murder by omission is physically effected foure waies ibid. § 4. How indirect self-murder by omission is morally wrought two waies and that neglect of meanes of preservation is tempting of God and how Page 94 § 5. A question resolved about standers mute or those that refuse to answer legally and to submit to lawfull triall when they are arraigned at the barre for some capitall crime the reasons pro and contra with the conclusion that such mutes are indirect self-murderers Page 96 § 6. The resolution of the question concerning malefactors arraigned for capitall crimes wherof they know themselves guilty whether they ought in conscience to answer affirmatively or negatively to the question made to them at the Barre whether they be Guilty or Not Guilty the reasons on both sides with the conclusion for the negative that they may avoid indirect self-murmurder Page 100 § 7. Of indirect self-murder of commission by distemperature and needlesse mutilation of body or members whereupon death ensues Page 109 § 8. Of indirect self-murder of commission by unwarrantable practising of Physick or Chirurgery upon ones selfe thereby killed Page 111 § 9. Of indirect self-murder of commission by a mans unthriftinesse and prodigality
state life is put into us but in this latter state wee shall be put into life filled with it within us and fully compassed about with it without us as vessels cast into the sea are filled with water within and without so being comprehended by it as well as it is comprehended by us according to our modell and capacity This life is one Although these degrees of spirituall life bee severall yet the life it selfe is but one whereupon these subsist This life is begunne here in the state of grace by faith in Christ and is consummate and fully accomplished by vision or sensible fruition in the state of glory in heaven according to our hope Gods promises to us although at death faith doth cease yet the spirituall life thereby wrought in us is not extinguished for or by the introduction of the life of glory but the manner onely is altered and degree of spirituall living intended to perfection The degrees subordinate A mans severall and graduall kinds of lives do stand in subordination one to another thus to the life of glory in heaven with the Lord none can attaine but those that first live by faith in Christ in the state of grace in manner conformable to Gods word and will neither can any attaine to the life of grace but those that first live the naturall life which is the materiall or passive foundation of the other twaine for this naturall life gives beeing to a man the other two doe adde perfection and happinesse to him so that if the first be a blessing much more are the other lives blessings and highly to be esteemed These three degrees or kinds of life are like to the three roomes of the Temple where all entrance into the most Holy place was made by the Holy place and into this by the outward Court so none could come into the third but by the second and none could come into the second but by the first whereby it appeares that naturall life brings man under a possibility and capacitie of the life of grace and glory and the life of grace brings us that certainely have it into faire assurance of attaining the life of glory for that they are specifically the same but gradually different as the twilight and perfect light at noone §. 4. Who may have spirituall life and by whose fault doe any misse of it Denyed to none Although all men that doe live the naturall life attaine not to the spirituall yet spirituall life is denyed expresly to no man if they will carefully use the meanes and truly indeavour to have it for whosoever miscarries and misseth of this spiritual life he himselfe is guilty and cause thereof Lost by our owne fault for God hath given sufficient meanes of salvation and made a generall offer thereof to all men as Ioshua did call Heaven and earth to record that day that he had set before the people life and death and so did put them to their choise Ioshua 24.14 if with Mary wee choose the better part wee are happy it were better for us that wee had never lived at all than that wee should not live this spirituall life without which we are dead while we live a 1 Tim. 5.6 None can be excused by pretense of want of particular insinuation of the Gospell that is the power of God to salvation to every individuall man or because it is not naturally ingrafted in every mans heart as is the morall Law in the generall principles and matter unformed thereof though not as it is perfectly formed in every particular precept For the Gospell is not contrary to the Law but the Law both morall and ceremoniall is our Schoolemaster to drive and direct us to Christ for salvation b Gal. 3.21.24 and that for the same we should neither rest upon our selves nor upon the Law The Gospell to al published 1. To Adam Againe when God himselfe at the beginning first after the fall preached and delivered the gospell to Adam and Eve c Gen. 3.15 he did publish and give the same to every particular man and woman then in them that ever should be borne into the world to whom their parents were bound successively to preach and deliver the Gospell by a continued tradition Note If any of their children should have died before they were capable of salvation by that mean then as it is most probable they were to be saved as dying infants of beleeving parents now are 2. To his posterity Furthermore ever since the first promulgation of the gospell to Adam it hath pleased God to repeat and more and more fully to explicate the same by his servants with invitation of all men to entertaine the same from age to age in such places and companies where all men might take notice thereof if they were not wanting to themselves in adjoyning themselves to and keeping union with the Church where they might be within the hearing of the Gospell which is sufficient to leave men inexcusable in their ignorance of it Although God by his providence and prerogative Royall directs dispenses and applyes the Gospell in the ministrie of it to some people and not to others according to the good pleasure of his will after the first promulgation as wee see how the publication of Lawes and proclamations of Princes which are as little written in their subjects hearts as the gospell is in mankind Comparison being published in manner and in places as Princes please whereby and whence their subjects are to take notice of them ignorance of the same excuses not but that the disobedient and transgressors of them may justly be punished notwithstanding that they never knew them seeing every man is at his owne perill to looke after and take notice of those Lawes or ordinances whereby he is to live whether they proceed from inbred naturall notions or outwardly from the will of his Superiours §. 5. Of the excellency of spirituall life Spirituall lifes excellencie Mans spirituall life far excells his naturall life in three respects especially 1. For nature First in regard of the things where in it consists the naturall life consists but in the union of soule and body which are but naturall things and holds by a tie of naturall spirits in the blood upheld by earthly naturall meanes such as man is made and compounded of Spirituall life which is now supernaturall consists in a spirituall union with God by his eternall Sonne and Spirit and is upheld by supernaturall meanes and divine influence whereby we live the life of God and also by God and to God a Rom. 14.8 and so as the life of naturall or reasosonable men 2 Cor. 5.15.1 Pet. 4.2 farre excells the lives of brutes so doth this spirituall life of Gods regenerated people farre surpasse the lives of meere naturall and unregenerated men and therefore it is that men are farre more beholding to the
this degree followes after faith 2. Begetting faith Secondly the power of the spirit in us by the meanes is seene by the working of true saith in us which the Apostle ascribes to the same 1 Cor. 12.9 Ephes 2.8 It is by this faith that wee do divinely and spiritually live c Rom. 1.17 Halak 2.4 in the act of beleeving uniting our selves to the saving and lively object Christ Iesus with his gracious promises by us adhered unto and thereunto conforming our selves without Christ we have no life in us as himselfe tells us Ioh. 6.57 and without faith wee can neither have him nor his blessed promises but by saith we have them both that so by this spirituall instrument spirituall blessings may be spiritually enjoyed whereof the soule is the immediate subject and secondarily the body onely by the soule to this faith our Saviour attributes this spirituall life when he sayes That whosoever beleeveth in him though he were dead yet shall he live d John 11.25 therefore it neerely concernes us all to labour to get true saving faith and that we doe make use of the same in and about its proper objects And for our comfort it behooves us to know that we have this faith but because the signes how to discerne it is the generall subject of most men in their bookes and sermons I passe it over with reference to them 3. Applying of Christ Thirdly the Spirit of God manifests the power of it in us by the meanes in the application of Christ and his merits to us whereby we become one with Christ and being grafted into him have the adoption of the sonnes of God a Ephes 1.5 Rom. 8.16 and free justification from all our sins sealed up and assured to us by the same Spirit whereupon we may apprehend the sweet favour of God toward us wherein consisteth life Psal 30.5 and may be filled with a lively vigour of consolation in the apprehension of the pardon of our sinnes and upon the assurance of the graces and blessings of God to us for our eternall happinesse in which respect it is called the Spirit of Consolation b Iob. 14.26 which makes us cheerefully to endure afflictions and to runne the way of Gods Commandements when thus we are enlarged by the spirit and by the same possessed of Christ and his graces by and in whom we spiritually live there is nothing in this world that we should be so carefull of as to bring forth the fruits of the Spirit giving testimony of our adoption by our good works Evidences of the vvorke of the Spirit in us applying Christ 1. But of the aforesaid worke of the Spirit in us we may have some comfortable evidences upon these ensuing grounds First by the sense of the vertue from Christ quickning us wee may assuredly discerne that we touch him and have communion with him being in him as members under our head and partaking in and from him of all his merits and graces 2. Secondly the same is evident by the change of our estates morally considered in regard of what our dispositions and lives formerly have beene and now are touching vertue and vice goodnesse and evill concerning both which a supernaturall change cannot be but by a supernaturall efficient and divine principle and so from the effects we doe conclude the eause to precede or goe before 3. Thirdly the aforesaid worke of the Spirit is manifested and discerned by our subsisting and keeping our standing in goodnesse and in adhering to God and to his Word in states and times of great and manifold trialls wherein experiment is made of our strength and sincerities and cleaving to God in which condition when the unsound fall away those that are built upon the rocke Christ a Mat. 7.24 25. and from him are supernaturally furnished with all needfull graces by beholding and relying upon him that is invisible they doe receive from above a continual influxe of assistance and abilities whereby they stand fast and endure as did Moses Heb. 11.27 4. The Spirits vvorke in sanctisication Fourthly the Spirits worke in us by the meanes is powerfully manifested by these lively seeds and divine principles of grace which it infuseth or worketh in us called by the Apostle Peter a divine nature 2 Pet. 1.4 Whereby the regenerated man is furnished with all sufficiency of heavenly and new inherent principles for the right ordering of himselfe in divine manner even as the naturall man is stored with his principles of reason thereby to square his judgement and life in naturall manner §. 10. Of the degrees of the Spirits worke of holinesse in us The degrees of grace 1. Habituall Which is the holinesse of mans new nature The degrees of this worke of grace and holinesse of Gods Spirit in us are two First that which consists in habituall divine qualities diffused throughout all the powers and faculties of the man in whom the same is which are wrought or infused gradually from one degree to another These are opposite to mans naturall pollution of sinne and malice inherent in him upon the which they being superinducted they doc by degrees weaken dispossesse and abolish the same as the light doth the darknesse Use of it So then the office and use of this habituall holinesse and qualification of man with inherent graces of Gods spirit is threefold 1. First it serves to adorne accomplish and beautifie in spirituall manner the regenerate man 2. Secondly it subdues mortifies and expells the contrary vice in equall measure of extension and degree as it selfe is 3. Thirdly it qualifies and inables a man that hath it to the actuall doing of all holy duties according to the quality and greatnesse of those divine principles of grace that is the inherent originall of the same so being both the materiall and also exemplary cause of actuall holinesse of life this cannot be without that 2. Degree is actuall obedience which is the holinesse of mans actions The second degree of this spirituall holinesse is that which consists in actuall obedience to Gods will in all holy performances rightly ordering all our thoughts all the inclinations of our wills all the motions of our affections all the morall postures of our behaviour all the words of our mouthes and all the actions of our lives in abstaining in sustaining and in active performance exactly according to Gods commandments with perfection of integrity and sincerity The use of it 1. The use of this degree of holinesse consisting in actuall obedience is threefold First to manifest the truth and power of mans in ward and habituall grace 2. Secondly to oppose and keepe our corruption and sin out of that possession which formerly they had of our actions and hearts 3. Thirdly that the body which is to be saved with the soule may in all the organes and powers thereof bee honoured in holy imployment for good example to
Secondly actively as he is an agent in and about his owne death working to effect the same either meritoriously or efficiently and so he is a self-murderer and guilty of his owne death §. 2. Of the meanes of losing life naturall Meanes of losse of life are 1. Internall Mans life is loseable by two sorts of meanes First internall arising from and within a mans selfe that kills him as the worme that breeds of and in the tree and destroyes it so in mans bodie doe distempers and diseases breed of and from it selfe whereby hee is in deaths hands and by degrees dies daily also in the soule of man sinne doth breed that kills his spirituall life and so he hath in himselfe the principles and meanes of the destruction both of his soule and body of his life both naturall and spirituall 2. Externall The second meanes is externall inflicted from without a man tending to that taking away of his life and the same is either casuall or voluntary 1. Casuall Casuall or accidentall is when besides the intension of the agent and proper nature and end of the action it falls out and comes to passe that thereby the life of man is hurt or taken away as when in felling of wood the axe flees off the helve and unawares to him that uses it kills a man a Deut. 19.5 herein the life of man is taken away not without concurrence of the providence of God who is pleased by suffering such an accident to lay a crosse upon the agent to whom it is a kinde of calamity or punishment to be a meanes against his will of the death of any man Also to this casuall destruction of mans life belongs the perishing of the soules of those that unjustly take offence at other mens estates and lives b 1 Cor. 1.23 for that which they lawfully and necessarily doe or suffer in their callings and Christian condition whereby such persons flee off from the truth and fall into or persist in evill and damnable course to their eternall perdition without any fault of theirs by whose occasion they of their own wretchednesse stumble and miscarry and so goe guilty of their owne spirituall death by abusing of that which is good to their hurt and damnation so falling and ruinating themselves by other mens rising and standing 2. Voluntary Or else the externall meanes of taking away a mans life doe of themselves in their proper nature and direct use and in the intension of the agent tend to the effecting thereof which about our life that is naturall is done either justly upon lawfull causes in just manner Justly by those those that are sufficiently authorized to doe the same or else it is done unjustly when the same is without just cause Unjustly not by the hands of persons lawfully authorized to doe it or is not performed in a just and warrantable manner §. 3. Of the meanes of the destruction of spirituall life 2. Of the soule Also touching our spirituall life the same is externally or by meanes without a mans selfe destroyed eyther by the justice of God 1. By God when he most righteously in his act of vindicative and distributive justice punishes man with eternall destruction for his sinnes Mat. 10.28 in which case man in respect of his owne merits and deservings is guilty of his owne perishing and not God 2. By men two waies Or else our spirituall life may miscarry by meanes of men 1. who First by their corrupt doctrine and evill examples doe draw others with them to perdition as did the Scribes and Pharisees that did compasse sea and land to make one Proselyte whom when they had wonne they made him twosold more the child of hell than themselves Mat. 23.15 or by depriving them of the meanes of their salvation they are subjected to destruction 2. Secondly when men by compulsory meanes of unjust lawes and severe threatnings and punishments are driven and forced from the waies of righteousnesse into sinnefull courses as by Ieroboam Manasses c. soules are destroied with a twofold guilt both of them that force others and also of them that yeeld themselves to evill upon such constraint Life is taken avvay 1 By others 2. By a mans selfe Againe the externall meanes of depriving a man of his life is inflicted either by others sometime lawfully sometimes unlawfull or else by a mans owne hands and procurement which is ever in all cases unlawfull for him to doe mediately or immediately directly or indirectly But it is to be noted that no man loseth his spirituall life but by his owne meanes and merits procuring the same for the spirituall life of man is subject to no mans power who can kill onely the body and doe no more Mat. 10.28 And God that is esseatially and absolutely just subjects not man to suffer that which actively he hath not first some way procured by his owne doings and deservings Observ How subject man is to death From hence it is observable that the lives of no creatures are longer and with more adoe hatchedup and maintained than the lives of men and yet the lives of no creatures are subject to so many dangers inward and outward of destruction and sooner overthrowne than mans we being like brittle glasses that containe precious balsame and as choise flowers hardly cherished up and soone blasted which shewes both our weakenesse and want of self-sufficiency to uphold our selves and also how we are possessed and compassed about with things adverse and dangerous to our lives both of soule and body of all creatures man onely being a stranger and pilgrim on earth hath therefore the least kinde entertainment in this world and the most uncertaine possession of it and is alwaies neerest to be thrust out of it walking here but as a shadow Vse 1 Therefore wee should be more carefull to cleave the more closely to our God who is the preserver of men that by him we may be upheld and protected against all dangers 2. And againe we should be the more watchfull against carnall security that wee doe not presume upon our uncertaine lives nor suffer our selves to be intangled with this world and the things of it but that we be ever heavenly minded and ready for our departure hence labouring to get and keepe that spirituall and eternall life §. 4. Of murder in self-killing Killing of a mans selfe is murder 1. In a mans taking away of his owne life two things are to be considered First that it is murder in regard of the nature of the act of it 2. Secondly that it is murder of ones selfe in respect of the object thereof and so self-murder is a compounded sinne of more degrees than one and that in such a kind as is the most hainous and most to be abhorred in humane society in regard that this destroyes the substantiall being of that which ought to bee of
all worldly things most deare to us whereas other sinnes spoile the wel-being of our selves or others which so long as life lasteth is recoverable Self-murder is horrible And therefore whatsoever is to be thought of the vile quality and of the damnable deserts of murder in generall is to be conceived to be due and much worse to self-murder in speciall For murder is but the genericall or generall matter and not the speciall and formall nature of Self-murder and therefore if it be horrible to murder another man it is much more odious to kill ones selfe For by naturall reason the more that any Genus or generall matter is restrained and actuated by its superadded formes and specificall differences the more it is intended active and powerfull according to the motion of nature ab imperfectioribus ad perfectiora proceeding toward that perfection wherein it intends to termine and end Now the perfection of a vice if I may so speake consists in the highest exorbitancie of it beyond which none can passe and in murder it is certaine that none can goe beyond self-murder as afterward will fully appeare 4. Things are observable in murder In taking away specially a mans naturall life unjustly and murderously foure things are to be considered 1. That death is undeserved First that the effect done or death of a man in depriving him of his life is without due desert on his part at their hands that put him to death 2. Done without lavvfull authority Secondly that the act it selfe whereby that effect is accomplished is unlawfull on his part that doth it in regard of his want of authority and just calling to do that act and if the sufferer have deserved death and the executioner have a lawfull calling to kill him yet if his manner of doing of it bee contrary to the prescript and rules of his calling and to the minde and disposition requisite for such an agent in that act then the same is murder 3. Done wittingly Thirdly it is considerable in murder that the agent therein both knowes not onely that the nature of his action that he doth tendeth to death but also that morally it is an unlawfull act or thing to be done and also doth voluntarily and wittingly intend the doing of that action without regard of the effect or insuing of death thereupon 4. Death intended Fourthly touching murder it is remarkeable that the agent doe not onely voluntarily and wittingly a lethiferous or mortall act but that he doe also intend and desire to effect the death of a man thereby whom justly he cannot kill otherwise if a man should ignorantly or unwillingly in doing of his lawfull calling be a meanes accidentally to take away the life of a man he is not therefore guilty of murder For for such God provided Cities of refuge for their preservation against the avenger of blood Deut. 19.3 4 5. Iosbua 20.3 by the first of these wee see that an innocent suffers death by the second wee see that the Agent or executioner is such an one as ought not to kill him although he were nocent by the third and fourth it appeare that the act is formaliter murderous in regard of the knowledge and intention of the doer thereof Self-murder is most vile murder in transcendent manner So in Self-murder as it is murder an Innocent never deserving of himselfe that himselfe should kill himselfe is slaine the Actor whereof hath no authority nor calling over himselfe so to doe seeing no man can be both superiour and also inferiour to himselfe and for a man to doe an act upon himselfe which he knowes to be both mortall and unlawfull and yet will doe it with purpose and intent to bereave himselfe of his own life it cannot be denyed to be murder in the highest degree and he a murderer that doth it §. 5. How murder is vile The vilenesse of murder in its effects The vilenesse of murder is not onely seene by its contrariety to Gods Law and the heavie censures and punishments thereof and its incompatibility with humane society but also by the effects thereof upon the sufferer 1. It destroves naturall life For first the act of murder utterly so destroyes the naturall life of man upon the departure of his soule from the body that the same is never againe recovered For naturall life depends not onely upon the presence of the soule informing the body but even upon our state of being in this world insomuch that after the resurrection although soule and body shall be againe united yet as then our bodies shall be spirituall bodies a 1 Cor. 15 44. so shall our lives be So then a murderer takes that life away which he can never give nor restore and destroyes that which he can never build up 2. It destroyes mans persen Secondly the act of murder destroyes the person of man which depends upon mans life For neither is the soule alone nor the body alone the person of man but the whole man consisting of soule and body with their properties hypostatically united So that when the soule is in heaven he cannot say but Synechdochically that the person is in heaven Nor when the body is in the grave can we properly say that the person is in the grave For then either a man must be two persons one in heaven and another in the grave which is absurd or else one created person should be in diverse places at once which is impossible Observe vvhere the person is after death If you say where then is the person after death I answer it is not in actuall being but potentiall in its constitutive principles of soule and body that are to be joyned together at the day of judgment And therefore it is that the soules separate from the bodies thinke not nor worke in that manner as they did organically in the body whereupon the Psalmist saies of Princes that when they die their thoughts perish b Psal 146.4 and therefore neither remember they in that estate things past nor are capable of present under those species and notions as they did here in the body So then he that murders a man destroies a person although his distinct natures doe remaine Thirdly a murderer is injurious to God not onely in breaking his Law but also in destroying his Image which is not properly in the body or in the soule apart but in the whole person of man consisting of both soule and body with their properties personally united man was created in Gods Image now the soule alone or body alone is not the man but both united as is said so it is apparent that wrong is done to heaven and earth by a murderer §. 6. Of the originall of murder Murder whenee 1. From our selves We are to consider whence it comes that man doth monstrously First fall upon his owne kinde to destroy it and then upon himselfe Of murder in
generall mans wicked heart and the devill are the parents for the inward principle of motion to that vile sinne and also the passive subject entertaining the same is mans owne wicked disposition inclining him by inbred hatred to that horrible mischiefe For out of the heart proceeds murder a Mat. 15.19 saies our Saviour Christ which is a just recompence from God that man for his rebellion and disobedience against God should be given over in revenge of Gods quarrell to destroy with his owne hands his owne kinde and selfe So that he that will not agree with God and love him cannot agree with nor love himselfe nor his neighbour Satan is the principall and active parent of murder who was a murderer from the beginning and now is still in spite against God and man a provoker and stirrer up of man to murder affording him occasions and opportunities to doe the deed to the staining of the honor of God and defacing of mankinde and therefore murderers are most especially the children of the devill b Iob. 8.44 and obedient to him both in disposition and practise they that wilfully doe the greater sin do babitually and dispositively not stick at the lesser seeing that the lesser are ever in some sort comprehended in the greater It was an act of impotency This effect in mans taking away the life of man shewes that mans ability lyes specially in spoyling and destroying of Gods handiworks and argues rather impotency than power in him where there is no stronger power of preservation opposing of him For the proper effect of power is entity or being and non-entity or not being is the effect of weakenesse We see that although a man can kill yet he cannot restore againe to life because it is God onely that hath power over the spirit and that kills and makes alive againe Vse To bevvare of murder And therefore all men should be carefull how they take away the life of any man For although by repentance they may make their owne peace with God for their murder yet they can never restore the losse or damage none can call back the spirit but the Father of spirits to aenimate a dead body neither hath any man absolute power over the creatures to do with them as he list but as he is limited by Gods commission and will Observ To terrifie a man from killing himselfe he ought to consider how he is limited and restrained by his Soveraigne Lord God from rashly attempting or medling to hurt the lives of any men Man is restrained from murder whom he may not use or dispose of according to his owne self-will'd lust but according to the good will of God who is the supreme and absolute Lord and master of all mankinde in speciall manner Also he is to consider the odionsnesse and punishment of simple murder It is odious in any man and how loath he himselfe would be to doe it upon any other man that so he may much more abhorre to doe it upon himselfe sinnes are more discernable by us in others than in our selves as a visible object close upon the sense of seeing cannot bee seene so well as at a greater fit distance what wee doe see to be unlawfull and odious in others others doe see to be no lesse but rather more odious in us if we excell them in place or personall parts where there is no accident or circumstance that may extenuate the same A man cannot possibly kill himselfe but that thereby he is in the lesser degree of this sinne a murderer in state common with Barrabas and others that murderously kill other men than themselves and thereby is lyable to the like detestation and punishment but withall in a farre greater degree for killing himselfe Note It is remarkeable that no man can kill or murder another but withall he must kill himselfe both soule and body No man can murder another vvithout murdring of himselfe For by his sinne of murder he stabs his owne souls and subjects it to the vengeance of God And also thereby hee makes his person obnoxious to the stroke of justice by the hand either of God or man to suffer death for that horrible sinne according to the threatnings and judgements of God and the apprehension of the murderers owne conscience and the hatred wherewith all men doe prosecute such detestable persons as enemies of mankind and of humane society a Gen. 9.5 Deut 19.12 13. Gen. 4.14 CHAP. 7. Of murder as it is of ones selfe §. 1. Of the specificall difference of self-murder BEsides the consideration of murder in a mans killing of himselfe the third point in the generall description of self-murder is the efficient cause or meanes of it and that is a mans owne selfe by his owne precurement who is also the immediate object of that vile fact whereof now I am to speake Self-murders specificall difference Here is now the specificall difference of this sort of murder wherby it transcends and is distinguished from all other murders and consists in restraint of the act of killing in regard of its individual object to a mans own life self which is the greatest and cruellest act of hostility in the world when a man who by nature is most bound to preserve himself reflects upon himselfe to destroy himselfe the horriblenes whereof is so monstrous that we read no Law made against it as if it were a thing not to bee supposed possible And this sinne of all others is most against the Law of nature for that self-preservation armes a man to turne upon others unlawfully invading him to kill him And also it is against that self-love which is the rule of our love to others and therefore what wee may not lawfully in this case doe to others we can lesse lawfully doe it to our selves against this generall law of love in breaking whereof specially towards our selves we violate the whole law the generall summe whereof is love §. 2. Of the evill and greatnesse of self-murder Whence it proceeds This is the malice of Satan and our own wretchednesse to set us at division and enmity against our selves and in a monstrous manner to make a man both the active and passive subject of his owne action and utter destruction of himselfe the greatest mischiefe that can betide him in this world and so a mans selfe becomes his owne executioner by his owne hands or meanes principall or accessary by command or otherwise Comparison If parricide be a grievous sinne as wilfully to kill our owne parents children wives husbands c. who are distinct persous from our selves much more is self-murder abhominable For by unitie things are preserved and individualls are principally one and therefore if individualls be divided against themselves the world cannot stand when things shall cease to be true and amically disposed to themselves §. 3. Of lawfull self-killing Lawfull selfe-killing Of our
damned in hell can be for that sensible misery that they shall suffer both in respect of the differing degrees and also of the natures of the things but punishment of damage and privation of life and happinesse proceeds from want and omission of good whereof wee are to beware §. 10. Of indeavour after spirituall life and of the lets thereof 2. The second use is to stirre us up to indeavour after life spirituall both to get and keepe it by the conscionable use of the meanes thereof For as God gives not this life without our using of appointed meanes so these meanes are within the reach of our power and none do perish but such as are wanting to themselves therein For no man perishes or is saved by an absolute decree of God without respect to his owne courses in the accomplishment thereof as Act. 13.48 it is said that as many as were ordained to life beleeved By a mans constant carefulnesse in the use of the meanes and walking in the waies of salvation it is apparent that he is appointed to life as the Apostle tells us 1 Thes 1.4 Knowing your election for our Gospell came unto you in power c. this life is worth the labouring for if we doe our parts for a thing of that price we may have assurance and comfort of it against the servile feare of the contrary death Letts The lets and hinderances of this endeavour and the causes of this omission whereby men deprive themselves of this spirituall life are specially three 1. Perverted judgment First a perverted judgement and stupid understanding undervaluing the worth of that life as not so excellent and necessary as it is it being not subject to our present naturall senses nor regarded by the world 2. Mis-placed affections Secondly the preferment of the world in the profits and pleasures thereof before it in place or degree after which ungodly men doe more eagerly hunt and therein have more content because they have the same in present possession and it agrees best with their estate and disposition insomuch that it may be said of such men that it is better to be their bodies than their soules as the Emperour said of Herod Macrobius that it was better being his hog than his Son because he killed his Son but spared and fatted his hogs 3. Presumption Thirdly groundlesse presumption that either he hath that life already or that he hath time enough to get it long afterwards or that it may be easily had without meanes or at least without so much adoe makes a man to omit endeavouring after it in due time in use of the meanes and so he misses that life §. 11. Of spirituall self-murder by subjection to death through commission of evill The second degree of self-soul-murder The second degree of self-soul-murder is subjection to spirituall destruction in damnation and everlasting misery whereof man himselfe is the efficient meritorious cause by his owne activity in committing and wilfully doing those sinnes for which death and destruction is threatned a Ezek. 18.4 and is assuredly inflicted upon the impenitent perseverers therein For as by a mans omission of his duty he deprives himselfe of life so by his commission of sinnes hee subjects himselfe to the contrary death the former being as terminus à quo the terme from which men move the latter as terminus ad quem the terme to which they move both which are inseparably united in the same person in whom thereby this spirituall self-murder is consummate to the highest perfection or degree of it whereby it properly may be called self-soule-murder §. 12. Of the meanes of destruction by breaking the Law By sins of commission The deadly meanes whereby men kill their owne soules and subject the same to eternall positive destruction are the sins that they wilfully commit and continue in in such kinds and degrees and manner as cannot consist in them with grace and salvation and are of two sorts 1. Against the Law of negative commands First such as be against the prime law of Nature by transgressing the negative Commandements of God whereby the transgressours doe subject themselves to that punishment which is called poena sensus or punishment of smart or damnation in hell For by sinne entred death Rom 5.12 Rev. 21.8 Prov. 19 16. The properties of soul-murdring sinnes The properties of the course and sinnes of Commission whereby a man becomes guilty of self-murder of his soule are foure 1. They are grosse Although the nature of all sinnes be mortall deserves death and disposes a man for it yet those that be of the grossest kinds and in the highest degrees of exorbitancy such as Hosea speakes of cap. 4.2 are specially said to be mortall for their extreame contrariety that they have to God and his justice their inconsistency with grace and for their apting and disposing of those to destruction that live in them so that by committing such sinnes men doe cast their owne soules into the gulfe of perdition 2. Wilfull Secondly when they that commit those sinnes or any of them doe willingly doe the same and live in them against the light and checks of their owne consciences as our Saviour charges the Pharisees Iohn 9.41 then are they self-condemned and do wittingly destroy their owne soules without excuse of ignorance or of want of power to have avoyded the same seeing as there is in some naturall notions of the Law in the minde such as the Gentiles have Rom. 2.14 So likewise all men have some remainder of power to forbeare sinnes in their grossest kinds and degrees if they were not wanting to themselves and therefore as all men specially the wicked within the Church shall be judged by the Law so they shall have nothing to plead to excuse why they should not be damned for their grosse transgressing of it 3. Obstinate Thirdly when men commit those sinnes with eagernesse and delight from and upon advised judgment and wilfull resolution with contentment in the acting of them and defending or excusing them when they are done as did Saul 1 Sam. 13.12 and do fall to opposing censuring and condemning the contrary course of vertue and godlinesse in the persons that doe practise the same whom therefore they hate and persecute a 1 Thes 2.15 such persons are in a course of destroying their owne soules by setting themselves with a high hand against God provoking him to his face to fall upon them for revenge 4. Presevered in Fourthly by this course of sinning a man murders his own soule when he goeth on and incorrigibly perseveres therein passing from evill to worse hardning his owne heart against all reproofes and amendment storming against and abusing all the meanes of his recovery to his deeper plunging in wickednesse and destruction for although hee would willingly misse hell and bee rid of the guilt of his sinne that troubles his conscience
Law for if a man doe sinne against the Law he hath the Gospell as a City of refuge to flee to to save him from the killing and damnation of the Law but if a man doe sinne as aforesaid against the Gospell there remaines no further meanes or hope of safety but a fearefull expectation of eternall destruction by his own wilfull procurement murdering his owne soule Observe From the consideration of the aforesaid sins of Commission against the Law and the Gospell with their deadly effects we may observe 1. Sin costs deare First that there is nothing that costs so deare as sin it selfe is a thing of nought but wonderfully deare to buy and possesse and therefore before we meddle with it we should consider the price of it whether we be willing to die eternally for it otherwise abstaine from it 2. To have our wills brings destruction Secondly we may see that we cannot have our own wills in sinfull courses but with the destruction of our soules our folly is seene in undoing our selves by our owne workes and wayes so that a mans course of sinning and following of his lusts is indeed but a course of Gods heavy spirituall judgements upon him wherein he is rather to be pittied as miserable than to be envyed as formidable God will have his will in mans destruction when man will not let God have his will in his Commandements §. 20. The improvement of the knowledge of spirituall self-murder Vses The Vses of the knowledge of the aforesaid spirituall self-murder are specially Foure 1. Sin is a course of self-murder First It serves to informe our judgement what to think and esteeme of the sinfull and carelesse courses of many that live wilfully and impenitently transgressing both Law and Gospell namely that the same is a vile course of self-murder of their own soules for by those courses onely men doe perish and in those courses none escape destruction as one sayes Picol Vitium est non ens recessus ab ente vivus interitus ipsius esse virtus est vita ipsius esse Vice is a non-ens and a departure from entity and a living destruction of beeing it selfe whereas vertue is the life of being For although such men intend not directly to destroy their owne soules but to indulgere genio and live in self-content and pleasure yet the courses that they directly intend prosecute being such as of themselves destroy the soule which thing they know and are warned of they are no lesse self-murderers of their soules than they that intending to prevent or ease themselves of some present evill doe cut their own throats by a lesser evill as they thinke preventing a greater and therefore such are infamous self-murderers and cannot at the day of judgement be excused therefrom by charging the blame of their destruction upon any others And Numb 13.36 especially such persons as live under the light and profession of the Gospell in such sinfull courses and transgressions are most guilty and shall be most deepely damned in hell having least to plead in excuse for themselves and therefore our Saviour sayes that it shall be easier at the day of judgement for Tyre and Sidon than for such Mat. 11.22 Vse 2. Spirituall self-murder is most hainous and damnable The soule killed The second use of the point is to shew us that this spirituall self-murder is farre greater and worser than men ordinarily thinke it to be which is apparent in three respects First In regard of the thing killed which in spirituall self-murder is the soule of man that is much more excellent than the body both for the nature of it that cannot be valued with earthly things and also for the use thereof rationall and spirituall whereby man excells all other earthly creatures and by the murdering thereof he dejects himselfe in state beneath them all in misery and contemptiblenesse 2. The body with the soul killed Secondly for that they that kill their owne soules doe consequently thereby also kill their owne bodies because the body partakes in estate with the soule a Rev. 20.15 and so are both cast into hell Mat. 10.28 the nobler part drawes the other into identity of condition 3. The quality of this kinde of self-murder Thirdly it is the worst of murders in regard of the quality of the death it selfe this murder of the soule is spirituall and eternall not onely depriving a mans self of spirituall good but also subjecting him to all misery of sense and smart that the idevill himself the capitall enemy of mankinde cannot doe nor desire worse to man than in this case he doth to himself Murder of the body although it be vile and odious yet of it self it is but a privation from temporary good leaving the body without sense or feeling of evill and at the last day the body shall be raised againe to life in the union of it with its owne soule and therefore of all self-murderers the self-soul-murderer should be most miserable Vs 3. Endeavour to be saved and preserved from soul-destruction The third use is that as all men by naturall instinct do desire to be saved and to escape hell and damnation we should be carefull to use the meanes and to walke in the way whereby wee may attaine to life and avoide destruction for both are diversly entailed unto and depend upon severall contrary courses and appertaine to men of contrary lives and qualifications without the which they cannot have the same Although that many men doe divide the end from the meanes supposing that notwithstanding their unregenerate estate and wicked lives they shall escape destruction and that although they neither love nor practise goodnesse they shall bee saved and doe well enough and so flattering and self-beguiling themselves in their owne courses they run securely and precipitate themselves into perdition and therefore I conclude with Solomon Let thine eyes looke right on and let thine eye lids looke straight before thee ponder the path of thy feete and let all thy wayes be established turne not to the right hand nor to the lest remove thy foote from evill b Prov. 4.25 Vse 4. Our courses in this life foreshew our estates what they shall be in the world to come The fourth use is to direct us how we may rightly judge of our selves and of our spirituall estates and future ends by the courses that we take If the same bee deadly wayes of sin that we doe embrace and persist in then must we die and as those courses are of our owne voluntary choise so cannot we blame any but cry out of our selves and our owne wayes as did the Prophet Woe unto us that we have sinned Lament 5.16 that so in time we may labour to prevent our destruction by speedy repentance Againe if our wayes and state be good and such as life is promised unto wee may have assurance and
comfort that upon our perseverance we shall have happinesse and life eternall So that we need not pleade uncertainty and ignorance of whether we are going to heaven or hell or whether in the state or course we live in we shall be saved or damned seeing that the Scripture makes it manifest what shall be the reward and event of every man according to the state and course he lives and dyes in that we need neither put off the knowledge nor the blame or cause of whether we shall be saved or damned upon our praedestination when wee doe determine the same in the accomplishment thereof by our owne courses CHAP. 9. Of bodily self-murder in speciall §. 1. How bodily self-murder is defined and differenced NOw we are to prosecute the second branch of self-murder which is called bodily self-murder and is thus defined Bodily self-murder is the killing of a mans owne body in destroying of his naturall life by himself his owne voluntary meanes or procurement This kind of self-murder is differenced from spirituall self-murder by two things First by the object that is killed in this the soule and spirituall life is destroyed in that the body or mans naturall life is undone Secondly they differ in the meanes and manner of killing of them the soule or spirituall life is slaine by spirituall and morall meanes the body by naturall or bodily self-willed waies §. 2. Of Mans body and its works Touching the body of man in this case we are to consider three things 1. Considerations First that it is an essentiall part and not onely an integrall part constituting the person of man without which he cannot be a man personally considered and therefore by killing of his body he destroyes his person that it ceases from being or subsisting in this world 2. Secondly the body of man is the organ or instrument whereby the soule works organically and therefore hee that kills his owne body destroyes all those works that the soule was to worke in it and which it cannot doe without it The soules morall workes in the body 1. The morall organicall works of mans soule in the body are of three sorts First such as immediatly intend and concerne the advancement of the glory of God in this life where the living and not the dead do praise him 2. Secondly such works as are serviceable for the morall and spirituall good of the person himselfe which is to bee attained and procured by life before we can come to enjoy it by death 3. Thirdly such works as promore the good of the Church and Common-wealth of both which every Christian is a member and can onely by his life and not after death benefit the same so that by killing himselfe a man wrongs God himselfe the Church and Common-wealth in bereaving them of that service and good which they all might have by his life 3. Consideration The third thing here considerable in mans body is that it with the soule makes the person and so in that respect is the subject or seate of Gods Image and therefore a man in killing of his owne body not only dishonours but also in a sort doth what in him lieth to kill God himselfe as he is similitudinarily in him and incurres the horrible crime of Laesae majestatis divinae or treason against the sacred Majesty of God Observ The body suffers by and for the soule So then the body which is the soules instrument or servant and is no way culpable or nocent but by partnership with and inserviceablenesse to the soule is ill rewarded and indignely suffers by its owne master abusing it to sinne and subjecting it to misery and punishment who is not content to weare it out but after his owne lust breakes and spoyles it whereof hee cannot turne one haire to be white or black hee spares his soule in its sinnes which he should mortifie and in a sinfull course kills his body which he should spare Naturall life is both a blessing of it selfe and also is a meanes of blessing God and others in this world and whereby wee may attaine to everlasting blessednesse hereafter Life is unsure of all which a man deprives himselfe by thus killing of himselfe which cannot be done but against the light and reluctancie of nature in all men whereby the actors declare themselves to bee unnaturall and barbarou monsters Naturall life that is a tenant at will in man is most uncertaine and soone thrust out at doores when it is not secure from him that owes it Man is unworthy of this life that is no more thankfull for it neither more values it nor makes better use of it but after his wastefull expence of it in sinfull courses desperately destroyes it God in his Word never appointed nor commended any meanes for a man to kill himselfe by because where God appoints not the end he appoints not the meanes to attaine it yet man wants not meanes to doe it by perverting his power and skill to that end and abusing other things contrary to the use for which God made them when he purposes to doe such an act so abusing both himselfe and all other things to his owne ruine The body is passive The body is but a passive subject in respect of the soule to whose power and will it is obnoxious and therefore it is the more subject to suffer and it is the more inexcusable sinne to misuse it seeing it neither deserves to be ill intreated at his hand that owes it nor yet hath it power to resist or defend it selfe against the invasions of him to whom it is committed to preserve it In this bodily self-murder not onely doth the soule turne enemy to the body but it moreover makes an unnaturall mutinie against and amongst the members raising by faction a partie for it selfe so causing the hand to stab the body and the parts to be instruments to undoe the whole and thus by intestine opposition a man subverts and pulls downe upon his owne head the tabernacle of his owne body as Samson did the house wherein he was whereby he crushes and undoeth himselfe ordinarily in body and soule §. 3. Of the degrees of self-murder and pronenesse of men to it The degrees of self-murder This self-murder of the body is either inchoate and begun only in purposes and courses tending to the effecting thereof in time if it be not seasonably prevented or else it is consummate in the full accomplishment thereof No man falls into the highest extremities of evill but by degrees the least whereof makes way for and drawes on the greatest Causes of pronenesse to self bodily murder The causes why men often are prone to the self-murdering of their bodies are two 1. First the meannesse of it in comparison of the soule for nature and durance it being but earthly and fraile whereby it must naturally die 2. Secondly in regard that by it the soule is
subjected to manifold sufferings here in this life and is hindered from that ease and advancement that freed out of the body it might have Answer to 1. But touching the first it should make us the more tender over it chary to use it and to consider that by self-murderously destroying our bodies wee do contaminate and defile our soules whereby wee make them far more vile than any carion can be seeing sinne is the onely excrement and morall defilement for which God detests and abhorres men as loathsome Ansvver to 2. For answer to the second it is to be observed that by self-murder of the body a man is so farre from bettering of himselfe that thereby he deprives himselfe of happinesse and subjects himselfe to that wofull misety which otherwise living he might escape and therefore our bodies and naturall lives are to be respected and cherished not onely for their worth but also for their use for which God hath given them to us So that we are not to force a divorce of those things that God hath coupled so neere together nor to thrust away or reject that which God requires us not then and that way to lay downe CHAP. 10. Of the kindes of bodily self-murder §. 1. Direct and indirect self-murder defined 1. Direct self-murder THe kindes of bodily self-murder are two Direct and Indirect Self-murder is not such a generall as in the Schooles is called Genus univocum so predicated of them both as equally communicating it self to both those species or specialls under it but is genus analogum ab uno or commune genus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for that the same doth properly and primarily belong to direct self-murder Direct bodily self-murder is the killing of a mans bodie or naturall life by himself or his owne meanes advisedly wittingly and willingly intending and effecting his owne death 2. Indirect self-murder Indirect self-murder of the body is when a man advisedly wittingly and willingly intends and doth that which he knowes may be of it self the meanes of the destruction of his naturall life Although he doth not purposely intend to kill himself thereby Or it is the killing of a mans owne body by unlawfull either morall or naturall meanes of his owne using without intending of his death thereby §. 2. Of the differences between direct and indirect self-murder 1. They differ in their ends The proper differences between direct and indirect self-murderers consists specially in three things First in the ends directly and immediately intended by the self-murderers of both kindes in their severall acts the end that is immediately intended in direct self-murder is death it self of their bodies that kill themselves although not for it self but in respect of some benefit conceited to be had thereby which is their ultimate end whereunto death is in the murderers intention subordinate as for a man to kill himself that he may be out of trouble The end that in indirect self-murder is immediately aimed at is the attainment of some good really or apparent in or by the meanes that an indirect self-murderer doth use without any respect or expectation of death thereupon ensuing as in surfeiting by drunkennesse or gluttony 2. In their meanes Secondly they differ in the meanes that are used by them for accomplishing those ends in direct self-murder the meanes abused to that effect and end are not proper of themselves nor by Gods appointment but are perverted by him that kills himself thereby as knives or the like for God never appointed meanes for any man lawfully to use for effecting that which he would never have men to doe a direct self-murderer uses not the meanes for any pleasure he hath in them but for the consequent effects that he intends by them In indirect self-murder the meanes and course used are such as doe properly kill in the end if that they bee persisted in as drunkennesse and the like although they have in them a shew of present good which gives the users of them a kinde of delight and contentment in them whereof they shall be disappointed when in the end they shall in stead thereof finde death which they least expected and most abhorred and would resist the same if it were inferred or offered to them by others 3. In the good aimed at Thirdly direct and indirect self-murder doe differ in the good that is aimed at by them and in the time wherein they looke to enjoy it A direct self-murderer doth fancy his good intended by him in his act of self-murder not to be in the meanes that he uses to kill himself but in or by death in his freedome from evill or enjoying of good the time of his reaping of which benefit he conceives to be after that he is dead and gone An indirect self-murderer conceits the good that hee aymes at by his course to bee and rest in the very meanes themselves that he uses therein expecting the present enjoyment thereof before and not after his death the cogitations and inflicting whereof hee abhorres although he doe prosecute with eager delight the courses that doe hasten and bring his death §. 3. How indirect self-murder is greater in some respects than direct Which of them is the greater sinne It is demanded whether direct or indirect self-murder be the greater sinne Answer In some respects Indirect self-murder I answer if we consider the freenesse of the will with lesse inforcement and with more delight prosecuting those deadly courses of indirect self-murder there can be in that respect lesse said to excuse it than for direct self-murder 1. For freenesse of willing An indirect self-murderer is at last in respect of the mortall meanes he uses and persists in untill the effect be accomplished as sure of death which he abhorres as a direct self-murderer is of the same that he desires and indeavours for and longs after 2. Obstinatenesse Againe an indirect self-murderer is more hardly diverted from his unlawfull dangerous course than at first a direct self-murderer Because this man may be sooner convinced of the vilenesse of his purposed fact in excuse whereof he hath so little to say and also the danger of it is more apparent and ghastfull to the mind that advisedly in cold blood considers of it The other is taken up with looking upon the present contentment in the meanes that he uses not considering death and danger thereupon attending and insuing but self-deceives himselfe with excuses and colourable pretenses and so doth wink as it were that he may not see the blow of death that he is giving himselfe with his owne hands Of direct self murder the cause or occasion is ordinarily from discontentment and sorrow but of Indirect self murder the cause commonly is pleasure and delight Delores serre sacilius est quam â—â—voluptatibus absunere Arist 3 Eth. c. 12. of these two motives pleasure is the strongest and their motion
unlawfull Ergo. To be more carefull to provide for the safety of their worldly goods than of their soules is wretchednesse and desperate folly which all those doe which by unlawfull meanes would preserve their estates Such mutes are so farre from being worthy of having their estates preserved by this course that therefore they should the rather lose them and themselves be the more cruelly and ignominiously entreated for being guilty of two horrible crimes first that whereof they are indited and for which they refuse to answer to be legally tryed the second is their contumacious rejecting of all just and legall courses of tryall and active obedient subjection to authority requiring their submission Touching their second and third motives of standing mute with respect onely to the matter of their worldly credit the same is meere folly because by this course they doe farre more discredit and make themselves infamous in regard that ipso facto they make themselves guilty of a double crime both of that whereof they are indited and also of contumacy against authority and law and the death of pressing that they suffer is the just reward of their obstinate mutenesse besides all their other demerits it is chiefly the morall manner of dying that is comfortable and honourable wherein such mutes are wanting Their fourth motive which is from feare proud impaciencie of suffering uniustly or inimically by others in the course of ordinary legall triall is most vaine for why should we wrong our selves that we may escape being wronged or insulted over by others this was the practise of Saul to kill himself that he might prevent being insulted over and mocked by the uncircumcised Philistims the matter of the greatest triumph to our enemies over us is to give them a victory by our owne hands both over our bodies and mindes as such mutes doe to their eternall destruction Such mutes are not onely guilty of their owne deaths but also by that course they subiect themselves to everlasting damnation both in soule and body both because they die impenitently and wilfully in a sinfull way of their owne obstinate procurement and choise and also doe cast away their soules in departing this world in uncharitable manner without either confession or clearing of themselves in lawfull manner of the crimes for which they are indited and arraigned and so perish as outlaws against both God and humane authority whose fact is equivalent to direct self-murder by wittingly and willingly doing that unlawfull act which they know will inevitably subiect them to death without hope of escape §. 6. About malefactors arraigned for crimes how they are to answer to the question Guilty or not guilty Question 2. A second question considerable about the foresaid subject is touching malefactors indited and arraigned at the barre of Iustice before a lawfull magistrate to be tryed upon their lives for some capitall crimes that they have done as petty treason burglary murder or the like touching their lives whether when they hold up their hands at the barre and are in legall manner asked the question whether they be guilty or not guilty of such a fact whereof they are indited and which indeed they themselves know they have done whether I say are they bound in conscience and may they answer affirmatively that they are guilty without any danger of being indirectly guilty of self-murder Answer They that confesse themselves to be guilty are indirect self-murderers For resolution of this question I answer that when a man is accused of such a capitall crime and is therefore brought to a legall triall whereunto he is subjected for finding or not finding him to be guilty of that fact upon the verdict of which enquiry Law and Authority is satisfied and determines their proceeding with the party for him upon that question whether he be guilty or not guilty before the triall to confesse himselfe to be guilty so by his owne onely witnesse and verdict casting himselfe upon the losse of his life hee may in a strict construction and in some sort be accompted culpable of indirect self-murder Exception Except it be in case to save innocents from suffering wrongfully for his fault or that it be for greater good of the State of the Church or of his owne Soule when the fact can no otherwise be knowne or proved against him but by his owne confession Touching a voluntary and full confession after conviction and condemnation I know none that is not of opinion that it is necessary for the salvation of the malefactors soule although his body do perish as Achan did Ioshua 7.20 That such an affirmative answer of guilty to that question makes the answerer I say in some sort indirectly guilty of self-murder although they are not the worst men morally considered that doe so I will make it plaine Reasons 1. First a malefactor by such an affirmative answer anticipates and deprives himselfe of that legall triall whereby it were possible for him to have escaped and not to have beene found guilty of that capitall fact for which he is indited and therefore by dying upon his owne onely confession witnesse and verdict which hee needed not to have done he is guilty of indirect self-murder Now for a man that hath in danger of life lawfull choise of two waies the one most certainely mortall the other more doubtfully deadly if hee choose and perish by the former he is indirectly a self murderer because he willingly rejected the latter and safer whereby he might have lived thus it is in this case of answering guilty before the triall 2. Secondly it is a naturall axiome that no man is bound to betray himself Nemo tenetur prodere seipsum quisque tenetur defendere seipsum Vnusquisque praesupponitur esse bonus donec probetur esse malus and that every one is tied to defend himselfe A Traytour saies D. Kellet Miscel li. 1. p. 164. may without sin plead not guilty that is not proved guilty at your barre where every one is presupposed to be good untill he is proved to be bad I am not guilty so farre that I am bound to accuse my selfe and this is saies hee the allowed generall acceptation of that usance For further manifestation hereof it is to be considered that the question and answer is made in a humane civill Court wherein hee is demanded not whether in Conscience but whether in Law he be guilty whereby he is bound to confesse no more against his life than can be legally proved against him specially seeing he answers not upon oath or adjuration which binds the examinate or prisoner at the barre in conscience upon obligation of religion to depose the truth concerning himselfe knowne onely to that deponent and according to whose owne testimony hee is to be acquited or condemned Of answering upon oath about crimes concerning a mans selfe but this being most unreasonable to make a man witnesse Jurie and Judge in his owne cause
Of indirect self-murder by doing of capitall crimes against humane Lawes and authority 8. Branch Capital crimes Eightly men doe commit indirect self-murder by their breaking out into capitall courses and crimes in transgressing and violating capitall good humane Lawes the penalty whereof is death whereby they bring themselves under the sword of Iustice thereby to lose their lives as do Traitors and rebellious persons against the King State or Kingdome spoylers of other mens lives or goods as murderers Pirates Robbers and the like which is a thing both just and expedient in reason that for preserving upholding of the whole body publick or the more noble parts thereof inferiour and rotten members should suffer amputation who by their owne vile practises have subjected themselves to the penall censure of death by their misdeserving courses being indirectly self-murderers their blood being upon themselves and not upon the Magistrate by whose hands they justly fall as is apparent Levit. 20.9 where the blood of him that was put to death for cursing his Father is said to be upon himselfe and 2 Sam. 1.16 touching him that David killed for saying that hee had slaine Saul he said that his blood was upon his head as also 1 King 2.32 37. touching Ioab for his murder and Sbimei for his railing it is said that their blood was upon their owne heads for that they were the wilfull meritorious cause although not the immediate instruments of their owne deaths And so thus all men that die by the merits of their owne actions morally or civilly considered are murderers of their owne naturall lives and bodies as man may truly be said to be the overthrower of the salvation of his owne soule by the merits of his owne sins §. 14. Of indirect self-murder by wilfull transgression of Gods Lawes 9. Branch Transgression against Gods Law Ninthly men indirectly murder their owne bodies by wilfully and impenitently walking in a course of transgression of Gods Law in such kinds and degrees as are accompanied with fearefull threatnings of death and destruction to bee inflicted not onely upon the soules but also upon the bodies of such transgressours by fearefull judgments even in this life as we see it was done to Pharaoh which is performed two waies 1. Kills after a naturall manner First in a physicall or naturall manner by the very nature and act of some sinnes themselves immediatly wasting filling the body with diseases and at last killing it as by drunkennesse and gluttony distempring and surfeiting the body according as Solomon saies that to those that tarrie long at the Wine and that do goe to seeke mixt Wine is woe sorrow contentious babling wounds without cause and rednesse of the eyes Prov. 23.29.30 Also by whoredome and bodily uncleannesse the strength is wasted as the Apostle shewes how such doe sin against their owne bodies 1 Cor. 6.18 and Solomon tells us that the house of a strange woman inclines to death Prov. 2.18 and by her a mans flesh and body is consumed Prov. 5.11 and the adultresse hunteth after the pretious life Of Passions And also by the immoderatenesse of the passions of the minde in giving way and liberty to them to break out and have dominion over us wherby the vitall spirits are suffocated or wasted as by excesse of choler fretfulnes or griefe or the like extinguishing the life of man as a fire is put out by oppressing it with water or by wastefully burning up suddenly the fewell of the maintenance of it therefore it is needfull that we suffer no commotion to be raised in our passions and affections but upon just cause and ground and that then therein we do keepe due moderation by the command of reason Note and by the possessing and taking of them up with divine and heavenly objects and imployment about things concerning a better life it is a very dangerous and costly contentment that a man hath by giving immoderate scope to his unruly affections and passions with the consumption of his owne life thereby in this course of indirect self-murder 2. A morall meritorious manner of self-killing Secondly men by their self-willed sinfull courses are indirect self-murderers of their bodies efficiently in a moral manner and by way of merit according to the justice of God threatning and punishing disobedient prophanenesse and wickednesse from heaven not onely inwrapping transgressors into publick generall judgements with others but also by inflicting particular personall destruction upon them as God did upon Corah Dathan and Abiram a Numb 16.38 and upon some for their unworthy and prophane receiving of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper did die b 1 Cor. 11.30 by their owne meritorious procurement and wee are taught in the Proverbs c Prov. 1.8 31 32. that sinners do lay waite for their owne blood and eate the fruit of their owne way and that the turning away of the simple shall slay him In the Prophet Ezekiel Robbers adulterers and usurers d Ezek. 18.13 are threatned with death and there it is said that their blood shall be upon their owne heads which intimates that they are guilty of their own deaths And againe secure persons not repenting after admonition are threatned with death and that their blood shall be upon their owne heads e Ezek. 33.4 5. Yea all the damned in hell whose bodies with their soules shall be subject to the second death by meanes of their owne sins are and shall be guilty of their own deaths both of soule and body and so are self-murderers also of their bodies at least indirectly In Adam and by his first sin all men naturally are self-murderers Moreover Adam and all mankinde in him lapsed are indirectly self-murderers by merit of that first transgression for and through which death entred into the world according to the testimony of the Apostle who saith that by one man sin entred into the world and death by sin so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned Rom. 5.12 So that no man can blame any for his death in regard of originall merit and desert but himselfe Now that this death of our selves may not be imputed to our selves that we should stand guilty before God of this indirect self-murder we must labour to get our pardon from God in Christ for the comfort of our consciences and for our security from the avenger of blood upon our reconciliation with our God and bee carefull that we live not wilfully and impenitently in any knowne sinne without which care all stand guilty before God of this sinne of self-murder and shall suffer for it Observe The world is full of self-murderers From hence we may observe that there are many more self-murderers than the world takes notice of or that do thinke themselves to be such yea the world is full of them whose sinnes are more haynous than they conceive and specially against themselves most pernicious and therefore it is no
effect the killing of a mans selfe by his owne hands or meanes whereby it is perfected and consummated with self-perdition in a wicked conspiracy of self-destruction by soul and body against themselves Observe Abuse of power and of obedience Wherein is to be observed and condemned both the wretched abuse of the authority and power of mans understanding and will directing and commanding the inferiour faculties and body to doe that which tends directly to destruction both of their parts and-whole and also we may see herein a patterne of unwarrantable obedience in the bodies yeelding to doe that which is unlawfull and ruinates it selfe the superiority of the understanding derstanding and will frees not the body from blame for then why should it suffer with the soule for that act But the sin is the greater by how much the further it extends to involve partizans or accessaries and makes many guilty of the same crime who are to be condemned not only for the fact done by them but also for violating the rights and duties of their places in unlawfully commanding and obeying in that which is evill contrary to an higher rule §. 2. Of the imaginary good conceited to bee in self-murder Object Excl cannot be an end It may be objected that for a man advisedly wittingly and willingly to propound to himselfe and to ayme at that for his end that is his destruction is against nature because the end is or ought ever to be the perfection of the thing that desires it and endeavours to have it and good only is desirable and to be sought after which may content us in the enjoying thereof and therefore the conclusion may seeme to be good that no man can advisedly wittingly and willingly purpose and endeavour to kill himselfe Answ Death is not the ultimate cad Whereunto may be answered although death bee the immediate end intended and sought in direct self-murder yet it is not the ultimate or last end neither is it sought for at any time for it selfe but accidentally and for another thing which is good for obtaining whereof a self-murderer would use that as a meanes Comparison As Physick is immediately desired and taken not for it selfe but for health thereby which is the patients ultimate end in taking of medicines therefore one sayes Mors ut malum non estoptabilis nec optatur per se sed gratiâ alteriê° Death as it is an evill thing is not desirable neither is it of it selfe desired but in respect of some other thing and so is desired per consequutionem non per se by consequution and not of it selfe for death is never desired by a naturall appetite as opposite to that appetite or desire that followes reason either right or depraved because nature is materiatum quid some materiated thing belonging to the person in respect both of matter and forme soule and body so long as they are united and therefore ever desired the good and preservation of the person in that union The imaginary good of self-murder The good ultimately intended and conceited to bee obtained by self-murder is twofold 1. Freedome from evill First freedome from greater evill felt or feared reall or but imaginary which in a self-murderers opinion is no other way avoidable and they despaire to be able to beare it measuring themselves by themselves so as if they cannot shake off the yoke then will they violently dissolve themselves Causes 1. Conceited badnesse of estate The true causes hereof are first the self-murderers conceit that his present or feared condition is worse than any other that can betide him or that he can shift into by death 2. Want of meanes Secondly his want of having or foreseeing meanes of prevention or deliverance from the evils that he despaires to be able to beare causes him to fall upon this wicked damnable course of ridding himselfe from them 3. Impatience Thirdly disobedient impatiency that will not let a man in all things submit to bee ordered by God and an evill heart of unbeliefe that hinders him from trusting and depending upon God for supportation and deliverance Note 1. By meanes of his reason man suffers Man by meanes of his understanding and reason is subject to many more miseries and troubles than any bruite beasts because he fancies many imaginary calamities to himselfe from possibilities in reason that doe as much sometimes affect and trouble the minde as if they were reall although they never be insticted And present troubles men doe aggravate in their esteeme and opinion for measure and extent beyond that which they are in truth and sense so making them needlesly the more importable 2. By meanes of memory And troubles future and past man by his imagination makes present by helpe of his memory and feare overcharging himself with the burden of more than ever God did lay upon him at once Spirituall afflictions And finally in his minde he is capable by meanes of reason of manifold spirituall afflictions farre exceeding those that are upon the body and where of no irrationall creature is capable Imagination And yet of all these troubles the greatest part is imaginary of mans owne needlesse and voluntary contracting by meanes of his abused reason and doe worke most reall and desperate effects even to self murder Although that self-murder be no fit or appropriated meanes to preserve or deliver a man from misery or troubles yet a self-murderer doth use it deeming according to the Philosophers that a lesser evill compared with a worse obtaines the place of good and is to be desired for good a Arist ad Nicom lib. 5. c. 6. Picol grad pol. Minus malum comparatu cum detertore obtinet lotie boni pro bono optabile est which is onely to be understood of the evill of punishment and not of the evill of sin for for to avoid all punishment we are to doe no sin which to doe were a greater punishment and would draw punishment more abundantly upon the doers of the same in evils of sinne there is no choise or lawfull election where all is forbidden 2. Advancement to good The second imaginary good conceited to be had by self-murder is the advancement of a mans selfe thereby to more good or to a better estate than he hath at present either to an estate really better as to absolute good in heavenly happinesse or to fancied or comparative good in comparison of greater evill in the self-murderers apprehension that he may be in an estate lesse miserable as he thinks than that is which he feeles or feares which in that respect he esteemes to be better than the present In these regards self-murderers are willing to exchange their lives by death but of evill properly there comes no good For men gather not grapes of thornes neither will any expect it that is not spiritually mad Oh miserable state of life that is more tedious to a
that are godly and wise both about what they are to do and also upon what grounds and reasons that they may not be deceived Note But this is remarkable that ever the worse the thing is that is to be done and the weaker the reasons of doing of the same are the lother the doers thereof are to reveale the same lest they should bee crossed of their purpose or shamed for their weaknesse and enterprise so disclosed §. 7. Concerning afflictions upon the body occasioning self-murder Second generall motive of self-murder Calamities The second generall motive occasioning self-murder is immoderate affectation of freedome from evill of punishment that sinfull man is liable unto for bearing of which he hath neither comfort nor strength as he apprehends The sorts of them These evills are either reall and true or but fancied and conceited and are either present or feared and are such as a self-murderer despaires either to be able of himselfe to beare or that God will uphold him in them or will deliver him from them and therefore hee resolves not to endure them but out of obstinacy of minde and will purposes to remove himselfe by self-murder from that which hee cannot remove from himselfe As wee see in part by the pettish humour of Ionah Ion. 4.8 Three sorts of them These evills whereby men take occasion to kill themselves are of three sorts 1. Vpon the body First they are those that are upon their bodies which doe also much affect their soules because of their neere union together whereby they doe make one person and doe so sympathise together that what is proper to the one nature in matter of action or passion is deemed to bee common to the other in regard of the unity of the person consisting of them both Whereupon it is that the sufferings of the body doe drive the soule into strange passions and undertakings on the bodies behalfe Evills upon the body are threefold These evills upon the body occasioning self-murder are of three kindes 1. Inbred diseases First they are inbred diseases and torments of continuall grievous painfulnesse being in the judgement of sense importable both for intensive greatnesse and also for extensive multitude Non est vivere sed valere vita or unintermitted continuance as may be the gout stone strangury racking aches furious fevers incurable gangreenes and the like desperately raging or noysome diseases Better eye out than alwayes aking from which to be rid as from an irksome long and painfull death many doe make choise to kill themselves dispatching that by a voluntary short death which they see will otherwise cost them a tedious and long death As did Pomponius Atticus Tullius Marcellinus and other like starve themselves to death thereby to cure such desperate griefes 2. Inflicted torments Secondly the evills upon the body that often occasion self-murder are either sense of inflicted torments or of ignominy by man greater and more shamefull than they can or will endure Or else they are such as they horribly feare shall be inflicted upon them if they doe live and are strongly perswaded that they shall not be able to endure the fame but that they shall if they live disgrace both themselves and their cause by their sinking under the burden or by their unseemly manner of behaviour in their troubles and therefore divers to prevent the latter and to be delivered out of the former have murderously killed themselves As Iosephus reports of Eleazar and his companions Joseph de bello Judaico lib. 7. cap. 28. who killed themselves that they might not bee punished by the Romanes but might escape from their tyranny that their wives might die undefiled and their children not taste of servile captivity Alleadging but unjustly that it was misery to live and not to die because death freeth our soules from prison unto their most pure and proper place where never after they shall be touched with calamities Vpon which motive it was that the Stoick Seneca said that for our readie dispatch every veine of our body is a way to liberty a Quarr cunque venam nostri corporis esse viam ad libertatem meaning by bleeding to death and upon this reason it was that Saul killed himselfe b 1 Sam. 31.4 and whereupon also the Iaylor would have done the like c Acts 16 27. so farre doth the forerunners and feare of death prevaile with some that the same makes them to cast themselves headlong into that which they would most shun Note 3. Want of necessaries for the body Thirdly the evils on the body whereupon some people doe precipitate themselves into the jawes of self-murder are want of necessaries of livelyhood being without meanes or hope of supply thereof whereby they and theirs depending upon them are pinched with famishing hunger starved with piercing cold vexed with intolerable oppression and neglect that makes a wise man mad Eccles 7.7 Which fills them with painfull smart for their owne particular oppresses them with sorrow and griefe to behold the miseries and to heare the ruefull complaints and lamentations of those they dearely love as of their Wives Children and neerest friends walking as living and forlorne ghosts upon the earth which possesses them with comfortlesse and hopelesse desperation especially when they consider what plenty they have had and what others their inferiours still have whose bowells of compassion they finde shut up against them and theirs An image of which estate we may see in the Lamentations of Ieremie d Iam. 2 11 14. Mine eyes do faile with teares my bowels are troubled my liver is powred upon the earth for the destruction of the daughter of my people because the children and the sucklings swouned in the streets of the City they say to their Mothers where is corne and wine When they swouned as the wounded in the streets of the City when their soule was powred out in their mothers bosome the tongue of the sucking child cleaving to the roofe of his mouth for thirst the young children aske bread and no man breaketh it unto them b Chap. 2.20 By which necessity it came to passe that women did eate their fruit and children of a span long the hands of the pitifull women have sodden their owne children they were their meate in the destruction of the daughter of my people c Cap. 4.10 according both to the threatnings of the breach of the Law d Deut. 28.53 and also to practise in besieged townes e 2 King 6.29 In which regard it is said that they that be slaine with the sword are better than they that be slaine with hunger f Lam. 4.9 Therefore diverse persons that they may prevent what they or theirs may uncomfortably doe or suffer in such felt or feared distresse doe with their owne hands kill their Wives or Children and then themselves that they may not feele or behold a greater
troubles of mind 1. Trouble of conscience for sinne First extreame griefe of minde and trouble of conscience in respect of sin which by the guiltinesse thereof and by the terror of the expected punishment thereof distresses and overcharges the wounded conscience when withall a man apprehends himselfe to bee wholly destitute of true grace and deserted and forsaken of God given over to a reprobate sense whereby he cannot rest but is comfortlesse and at last is swallowed up of utter desperation living as if he were continually in hell sensibly seeling as he thinks the flames and tortures of the damned in his conscience For ease out of which estate men many times kill themselves hoping to mend themselves by change although it bee but as skipping out of the frying-pan into the fire Grounds of this trouble of mind The grounds of which perplexities of the mind about sinne are three 1. Greatnesse of sin and its punishment First a mans thorow apprehension of the greatnesse and deformity of his sinne and of the fearefull judgements due to him for the same which affrights the conscience and drives it to runne into any course to hide it selfe from the same 2. Emptinesse of grace c. Secondly the soules emptinesse of repentance and grace and the possession and dominion that noysome lusts disorderly affections and fearefull temptations have of the same whereby it seemes to be a cage of uncleane spirits from which when a man can no other wayes be rid then resolves hee to kill himselfe to free himselfe from that horror of minde that he is not able to indure 3. Conceit of time of grace to be past Thirdly when the soule conceives that its time of grace is past and that it is too late to repent and get grace against which when men find themselves hardned and shut up then falling under desperation they resolve to destroy their owne lives that seeing they have no hope that they shall be better by living they may not thereby make their estates worse by what they may indure both in this life and in the life to come Observ 1. Men deceived by sinne We may here observe how men are deceived by sinne which promiseth at first all contentment and happinesse to the clients and entertainers thereof but in conclusion paies them with destruction and shuts up their dayes and life with a tragicall conclusion Note None are more faithfull drudges to any Master than sinners are to sin and none are so ill rewarded by their Masters for their service as they 2. No case of conscience frō our selves Againe from hence it is remarkable that so long as men in distresse of conscience for their sinne looke not out off or beyond themselves for ease and comfort they cannot but sinke under their owne burden For our blessed Saviour directs us to a better course in this case when he sayes Come unto me all yee that labour and are heavie laden and I will give you rest a Mat. 11.28 §. 12. Of discontentment of minde Ths second sort of trouble of minde is discontentmēt The second sort of the troubles of mind which occasions self-murder is mens excessive discontentment for being crossed or disappointed of their desires or wills in which respect it was that Ieremy did wish his own death b Ier. 10.17 at least was weary of his life 1. Grounds of it This discontentment of minde arises from two causes First from want of that good true or seeming which we desire or expect 2. Kinds of discontentment Secondly from suffering of that evill which we would not This discontentment of minde is twofold 1. From disappointment of mens passiōs and affections First that which ariseth from the crossing or disappointment of the will of mens affections and lusts as those that immoderately affect and love to have and enjoy others of the other sexe and are deeply overset in carnall or conjugall love which is an unruly passion and being disappointed occasions people therefore to kill themselves a wife kills her selfe because her husband crosses her will that either he will not doe as she would have him or that he will not let her have her will to goe and doe as she list or is displeased with her match which proceeds from hatred to her husband whom she envies the enjoying of her and so I might instance in many like particulars but it is most unreasonable that because a body cannot have their love or will that therefore such an one sould revenge the same upon himselfe by an act of the greatest hatred and hostility in the world and that one should rather choose to kill himselfe than to live after a repulse in suite of love or to see another brooke what they impotently affected to enjoy The second kinde of discōtentment crossing the will of reason in three particulars Secondly discontentment of minde is that which proceeds from the crossing or frustrating of the will of sound and naturall reason in three particulars 1. Concerning a mans selfe Iustice First in things concerning a mans self as if he cannot have equity and justice done him hee in discontentment therefore kills himselfe or as a childe because his parents will not give him fit maintenance as they are able nor dispose of him or her as they might and ought murders himselfe 2. Concerning a mans family Secondly in things concerning a mans family or friends as Rebeccah was weary of her life because of her daughters in law a Gen 27.46 and as if parents should for their being crossed of their wills in and about their children kill themselves 3. Concerning Church or Common-wealth Qui non poterat serre dominatum Caesaris Filli. Thirdly in things concerning the generall body of Church or Common-wealth whereof a man is a member as if for the ill government or miscariage of either or of both of them he should kill himselfe as did Cato Viicen sis But all this may bee uneffectuall to move a man or woman to kill themselves if they would deny their owne wills and submit themselves wholy to Gods who suffers and orders all these evills and brings good out of them And if they would consider that not by dying but by living things are reformed and by self-murder disorders are increased and judgements provoked and deserved and not prevented nor amended §. 13. Of shame and confusion Third kinde of troubles of minde Shame The third kinde of troubles of minde that sometimes occasions self-murder is shame and confusion either for what a man hath ignominiously done or suffered or is certainly like to do or suffer whereby he falls under contempt scorne and importable disgrace with those whose respect he overvalues and so apprehending himselfe to bee dejected and used more indignly and unworthily than he thinkes he hath deserved or can indure he resolves to kill himselfe to free him from the same or
they knew was the way to lose it b Reos suae mortis melior post mortem vita non suscipit August as we see by the practise of the Apo Paul who although he had a desire to depart and to bee with Christ which he deemed to be best c Phil. 1.23 yet would he not kil himself upon pretence the sooner to have his desire Who if that had beene a way to it would not have omitted it Also old Simeon having seene Christ and being desirous to be translated into a better life did not kill himselfe to effect it but said Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace d Luke 2.29 If self-killing were a lawfull meanes the sooner to have life eternall why should not all Gods dearest servants have used it who were to omit no lawfull course to advance themselves to that estate Wee are to wait Gods apponted time for heaven Secondly we are to waite our appointed time of God and not to stint or cut it short as we list as we see was the practise of Iob who said All the daies of my appointed time will I waite till my change come a Iob. 14.14 wee are not our owne Masters and therefore may not leave our stations when we list 3. We are to do all our service before we have the reward Thirdly wee should not affect and flie upon the reward before that wee have done all the service for the same appointed us of God in the spending of our lives to that period determined by him our day must bee at an end before we can receive our pennie Mat. 20.8 the which day we must not precipitate by making the light of our lives to set at noone or before its due time by a self-murdring hand He that beleeves makes not haste the promises are attained by patient waiting which is a part of our obedience best pleasing to God delay brings increase of glory 4. Eternall life is here begun Fourthly wee have a certaine and comfortable enjoying of eternall life begun here in this world by grace in faith holy life and communion with God as the Apostle tels us that the Kingdome of God is in righteousnesse peace and joy of the holy Ghost b Rom. 14.17 without which in this life wee shall never inherit the Kingdome of God in the life to come and if we have this in this life then may wee well waite for the accomplishment of it in the life to come when we have such possession assurance and comfort of it here Observ Hope of advancement abused to evill Here we may observe that Satan will abuse the hope of advancement to make man venture upon the doing of my sin as he did Eve by this baite more mischiefe hath beene done and more soules hooked into hell than by any one other meanes in the world Note And hereby it is that ambitious men and persons of parts and of aspiring spirits do most frequently perish The present estate of the godly is best for that present We are to consider that the present estate wherein we are by Gods appointment and will is the estate of our best advancement for the present beyond which for us by our self-willed courses to transgresse is but the way for us to come downe and catch a fall §. 21. Of the motions of the Devill to self-murder The sixt generall motive to self-murder Impulsus diaboli The instigation of the devill The sixt generall motive whereupon self-murderers do kill themselves is the strong impulse powerfull motions and command of the Devill who is himselfe a murderer and also moves man to practise it both upon others and upon himselfe thereby to dishonour God in the destruction of his Image and in the contempt and breach of his Law and that by the same he may destroy mankind overthrow the works of God and fill the world with confusion hee attempted it against Christ himselfe a Mat. 4. he caused the Swine to drowne themselves b Mat. 8. he endeavoured to have made the possessed child to have killed it self Mar. 9.22 Whence the devill hath his power That the devill hath such power sometime over man proceeds from the leave and permission of God without which hee can do nothing and also it is from his spirituall nature whereby hee is naturally superiour to man and can strangely affect him that hee so farre prevailes over him sometimes that hee can make him kill himselfe How thereby self-murder is effected This infernall command or powerfull inclination of self-murder is given or wrought by Satan two wayes 1. In visible apparition First in some visible apparition of the devill speaking to and perswading a man to kill himselfe 2. Outwardly Which hee doth either outwardly in some bodily shape as he spake to Eve and to our Saviour Christ 1. Inwardly or else inwardly to the fancie whereby a man thinks that he heares or sees the devill or some other that can be none else but hee bidding or perswading him to stab himselfe or to fling himselfe into the water or out of a window or the like to kill himselfe thereby Persons haunted 1. Wicked The persons thus haunted by Satan are either notorious wretches mancipated to the devils service and guilty of horrible crying crimes 2. Melancholick or else they are persons extreamly melancholick fearefull or discontented whose tempers and imaginations give the devill advantage this way to worke upon them 2. Satans powerful motions in the minde Secondly the devill doth powerfully move a man to kill himselfe in manner equivalent to a commandement by internall suggestions and raising of such inward powerfull motions of self-killing in the minde as can hardly be put out or withstood in regard of the deepe and firme impression of them in man and of the intimate entertainement and commanding possession that they have in him by meanes of his corruption conspiring with Satan to mans owne destruction Satans grounds of working to prevaile The grounds that Satan works upon after this manner to prevaile with man to kill himselfe are three 1. The advantage of all other motives First he takes advantage of all other motives to self-murder both furthering and powerfully intending all occasions to that effect perverting the judgement and kindling pride or impatiencie as is apparent by his dealing with Iob whose afflictions he both procured and poysoned with the leaven of his intermingled malitiousnesse He injects resolutions of self-killing And also hee workes and injects into the minds of men upon those crosse occasions such self-killing resolutions as puts them upon that vile act in a mans sufferings and distractions the devill is most busie to worke his owne ends thereby who subtilly intermingles himselfe in all stormes of troubles against man 2. Prophanenesse and idlenesse The second ground whereby Satan prevailes with man to kill himselfe is mans wretched
prophanenesse and idlenesse for a heart emptie of goodnesse and filled with wickednesse is a fit receptacle for Satan especially when such an one is not taken up with holy thoughts and with good and warrantable imployment in some calling then is there roome and fit time for the devill to cast in his firie temptations to take possession of such a man and forcibly to incline him to what horrible evils he list even to self-destruction 3. Peoples fit temper and disposition The third ground whereupon Satan overswaies men to kill themselves is the speciall temper and disposition of people whereby they are in differing manner capable of severall impressions 1. Naturall this disposition or temper is either naturall as melancholick fearefull proud ambitious or the like which kind of persons are naturally aptest to resolve upon and attempt dismall acts of self-murder upon the devils suggestion in the fits and pangs of their distemperature 2. Morall Or else the temper most capable to receive the impressions of self-murder from Satan is morall as in people surcharged with the bondage and horror of their sinnes and with the feare of the punishment due for them which the devill aggravates to such a man to drive him to desperation and obscures or overshadowes the grace and mercy of God from him and so perplexes a distressed conscience with conceit of unpardonablenesse of his sins from apprehension of the excessive greatnesse of the same of the kind of them as if they were against the holy Ghost and from conceit that either the time of grace to him is past or that God will never pardon him although he should seeke to him for forgivenesse then such an one resolves by the devils perswasion to kill himselfe that he may prevent the making of his estate worse than presently it is and to ease himselfe of the present distresse of conscience that he is in How these motiōs be knovvn to be frō Satan That we may know whether this self-murderous impulsion and strong motion be from the devill we are to observe three things 1. By natures and reasons abhorring of them First if the motion of self-murder so raised or injected be such as upon the first sight thereof nature in a man abhorres it and reason and grace withstands with a continuall strife and conflict against it then the same is of Satan 2. When they are from some secret impelling power Secondly if the forciblenesse of the motion to self-murder for effecting the act be not so much from the apparent occasious as from secret impelling power then the same is from Satan because the thing whereunto a man is moved is evill and therefore cannot be from God or any good principle Satans deceitfull craft That the devill may make a man to murder himselfe he both hides the uglinesse of the sinne and the greatnes of the danger and also he makes a false representation of great or pleasing good by it to man more than he can have by living Insufficiency of this motive from Satan to kill ones selfe The insufficiency of this motive from Satan to warrant a man to kill himselfe is apparent by two things 1. Beleeve him not First we ought neither to beleeve the devill who is a lyar nor to obey him but to resist him and give him no place a Jam. 4.7 Ephes 4 27. For God is our Lord whom we are to respect and not Satan and whatsoever motions doe come from the devill we are the more to abhorre them because they come from him 2. Contrarie to reason and religion Secondly such a vile motion is contrary to right reason and Gods will both because it flowes originally from Satan and also is grounded neither upon reason nor religion but upon fond conceits and self-will a reasonable man and Christian should do nothing advisedly neither warrantably can doe any thing but according to sound reason and religion Observe Men are in danger by the Devill Wee are to observe from this generall motive of self-murder the danger that men are in by the devill who indeavours the destruction both of soule and body and of the body hee desires the over-throw specially by a mans owne hands because thereby he also ruinates the soule in its horrible act of transgression by self-murder which is the thing that hee specially aimes at And therefore wee need to observe diligently the Apostle Peters direction to be sober and vigilant because our adversary the devill as a roaring Lion walketh about seeking whom he may devoure b 1 Pet. 5 8. Note And also wee should be carefull to cleave to God by faith in beleeving in him through Christ and to depend alwaies upon him by prayer who is the preserver of men and so we shall be safe walking in the waies of Gods appointment and adbering to the direction of his word §. 22. Of Phrensie occasioning self-killing The seventh generall motive of self-murder Phrensie The seventh motive occasioning self-killing is phrentick distemperatures 1. Voluntary Ira furor brevis est which are either voluntarily contracted and entertained as in violent passions of love anger and the like whereby some kill themselves 2. Involuntary or else they are involuntary and such as a man is but passively affected with and subject to whereby a man being deprived of the use of reason doth most unreasonable actions as to kill himselfe or his dearest friends led onely by a brute passion without reason or understanding Kinds of it 1. Naturall This involuntary phrentick distemperature is either naturall or spirituall 1. Fooles Naturall is first in persons from their birth wanting the use of reason and disposed to mad prancks by a depraved disposition or deficiency as fooles having instead of reason a spice of phrensie when passion is provoked in them not sticking to do themselves mischiefe 2. Mad men Secondly it is in mad men and lunaticks who are inclined to do unreasonable harmefull acts without any respect of good to themselves in that which they do 3. Melancholick persons Thirdly it is in extreame melancholick persons who are possessed with direfull apprehensions and oppressed with uncomfortable sadnesse and are driven into fearefull resolutions sometimes of self-murder upon deepe impressions in them of heavie things and terrible flowing from their owne fancies and strong imaginations which often never comes to passe 2. Spirituall The distemperature of spirituall phrensie in a man which occasions self-murder is that which deprives a man of the use of spirituall reason and divinity that hee hath in him and inclines him to do acts contrary to grace and naturall reason The grounds of spirituall phrensie This kinde of distemperature arises from two grounds especially 1. Abused judgement First from an abused or perverted judgement either upon mistaken principles from conceit of the motion of Gods Spirit or by over-clouding of a mans minde by mad error
unlawfull by the rules of religion is because it is against nature it selfe and against that naturall affection and propensnesse whereby it endeavours to preserve and cherish it selfe and to withstand and repell all that is destructive of it and inimicall to it Religion requites the observation of the law of nature that religion requires the observation of the law of nature is manifest because religion and natures law are not repugnant but differ in extent and degrees of perfection the law of nature being more universall and lesse divinely perfit The Scripture it selfe commends the keeping and condemnes the transgressing of the law of nature In which respect the Apostle blames the Gentiles that knowing God by nature they did not glorifie him as God a Rom. 1.21 And againe he commends them for doing by nature the things contained in the Law b Rom. 2.14 15. and which naturally was written in their hearts Hee blames the Incestuous Corinthian for doing a sin so hainous as is not so much as named amongst the Gentiles c 1 Cor. 5.1 And further he condemnes mens wearing of long haire contrary to the law of nature when he sayes Doth not even nature it selfe teach you that if a man have long haire it is a shame unto him d 1 Cor. 11.14 Thomas Aquinas sayes e Quod aliquis scipsum occidat est contra inelinationem naturalem contra charitatem that for any man to kill himselfe is against naturall inclination and charity The devill knew that man naturally will give all he hath for his life Iob 2.4 the soule and body of a man doe naturally affect to be united together because of the unity of the person that consists of them both personally joyned together by whose dissolution it is destroyed The soule and body are neither of them perfit without the other and therefore affect to be united together And the soule and body are so made one for another that they are not nor can be perfit the one without the other neither with naturall nor beatificall perfection for beside a partiall perfection there is that full perfection that is of the whole and in the whole The soule doth not willingly leave the body but with respect of advancement of the person whereof it is the soule by entring upon possession of that partiall perfection whereof it is capable and the whole for measure and degree is due to the person constituted of soule and body and for which union and adeption of perfit glory of the person there shall be a resurrection of the body at the last day 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore is the body in the meane time called Nephesh a Psal 16.10 by the Hebrewes And God is said by our Saviour himselfe speaking of the dead to be the God of the living b Mat. 22.32 whose bodies although they were dead yet themselves are said to be alive in regard of their living soules who cannot be personally considered but in their union together that by death cannot be dissolved in Gods consideration of us and in respect of the naturall inclination of each mans proper soule and body the one to the other for their full perfection and in regard of the resurrection when they shall be united everlastingly to live together betweene which time and the day of our death there is no sensible distance of time to us nor length of time with God §. 4. How self-murder is injurious to mankinde 4. Self-murder wrongs mankinde The fourth particular that makes it evident that self-murder is condemned by religion is because it is injurious to mankinde and to the common-wealth whereof the self-murderer is a member who by that fact of killing himselfe hurts humane society by such hainous disorders and pernicious examples for others to follow to their destruction and by the unrecoverable damage and losse of its members and of the good that the same might have by their lives For as Thomas sayes Every man is a part of a Commonalty and he that kills himselfe doth an injury to that Commonalty a Quilibet homo est pars comunitaetis qui scipsum intersicit injuriam sacit Communitati Examples The commendable examples and practise of the godly hath ever beene opposite to self-murder as well as their opinion and have had a care to preserve their lives not only for their own good but also for the good of others who had an interest in them as is manifest by the Apostle Paul Phil. 1.24 25. and 2.17 Who seeing his life to be needfull for the Philippians was willing to abide and continue with them For the furtherance and joy of their faith and did joy and rejoyce to be offered upon the sacrifice and service of the same It is hurtfull to the common-wealth If self-murder were not unlawfull even in respect of the wrong thereby done to the common-wealth why should David have commanded to take away the life of the yong man the Amalekite that did help Saul to kill himselfe whom David asked How he was not affraid to stretch forth his hand to destroy the Lords annointed and so caused to put him to death not simply for unjustly killing an innocent man but specially in consideration of killing of the King the head of the land which by his death was wronged and was a dangerous president to passe unpunished § 5. How self-murder wrongs mans selfe doing it 5. It wrongs a mans selfe and how The fifth particular demonstrating how unlawfull self-murder is by religion is the sin and wrong which the self-murderer doth thereby to himselfe in three speciall respects 1. It overthrowes faith and love in a man First in regard of the principall saving graces of God in man which are faith and love self-murder is against faith and trust in God and overthrowes the same by desperation that neither in adversity can a person that is resolved to kill himselfe have any true comfort nor any hope of life eternall by a course that he knowes is the way to damnation Touching love we have heard before how it cannot consist with self-murder they being contrary For as one sayes Quisque debet plus amare seipsum quam proximum Filliue Every one ought to love himselfe more than his neighbour For the neerenesse of our selves to our selves and for the perfection that should be in the rule or measure whereby we are to love others 2 It marres our duty Secondly in regard of our duty which is not to dispose of or doe that which is not in our power nor within our authority such as to kill ones selfe is For when a man kills himselfe he either kills an innocent and so in that respect grievously sinnes or else hee kills a malefactor and then he sinnes that doth it without lawfull authority to warrant his action which no man hath to kill himselfe but expresse command to the contrary 3.
datur regressus but when a man hath killed himselfe he cannot make himselfe alive againe that hee may amend the errors of his course and therefore expedient it is for him to keepe his life as long as hee can when hee hath it 11. It crosses a mans last arme Eleventhly no man is to doe that which may crosse his last aeyme and end which is his salvation but for a man to kill himselfe crosses him in this end and deprives him of attaining the same because thereby he termines and finishes his life with and in an act of most damnable sin and also deprives himselfe of all meanes of reformation and salvation in time to come 12. Self-murder is condemned by similies Twelfthly self murder is condemned by Macrobius and Picolomineus under similies as a servant may not kill himselfe because he is not sui juris his owne 1. So we being Gods servants not only as they say by creation and subordination in place and duty but also by covenant and redemption we may not kill our selves 2. No man may dispose as hee list of other mens goods although he bee usis fructuarius of them for a time having the propertie of them for his profitable use with reservation and preservation of the substance of them we are such and therefore have not such soveraigne and absolute right and authority over our selves that we may kill our selves seeing we are bound as Gods tenants to the upholding and reparations of our selves as much as we can 3. A man committed to prison by lawfull and just authority although unjustly may not make an escape by breaking of ward to prevent punishment because thereby he condemnes and makes himselfe a transgressor and worthy of punishment neither are we to rid our selves out of this life of troubles into which God hath put us untill he shall againe himselfe call us out and free us as Paul and Silas would not come out of prison untill the Magistrates brought them out that had put them in a Act. 16.37 39 4. Plato sayes that as wee may not kill another mans servant in regard that thereby we wrong his Master and as Souldiers may not forsake their stations and places without order from their Commander b Injussa imperatoris deserere stationem so may no man kill himselfe seeing thereby he wrongs God that is his Master and forsakes the place and condition that God his Commander hath set him in there to serve him as a Souldier in this world during his good pleasure a 1 Tim. 1.18 August de C.D. lib. 1. c. 20. Augustine sayes that as he is a false witnesse as well and rather more that wittingly deposes salsely against himselfe so he that kills himselfe is a murderer as much and more then if he killed another man 5. Parricide as to kill Wife Husband or children is odious but self-murder is worse because it is neerest a mans selfe and most against the rule 13. It is the grossest murder Thirteenthly wee are specially bound to shun the most grossa and worst facts and sinnes for that if we do them wee are most inexcusable and culpable and justly damned beeause they are most against conscience they being most within the light of mans understanding whereby the conscience being convinced it inexcusably condemnes the doers of them which also are most within the power of man to resist and against which he hath most helps and therefore the doing of them imports more wilfulnesse than frailty or want of power in those that do the same But self-murder is a sinne of this kind because it is the grossast and most odious sort of murder that can be and therefore most to be shunned 14. It makes a bad exchange Fourteenthly we are advisedly to make no exchange that may be for the worse but a man by killing himselfe makes an exchange for the worse because hee gives his life in exchange for death or at the best for freedome from worldly troubles discontentment which is a price farre above the worth of the purchase and God never allowed of this kinde of truckage nor appointed self-murder to be the means of any good but thereby men cast themselves into greater misery and destruction than otherwise they should ever have beene subject to 15. It puts man into a bad estate to die in Fifteenthly every man should strive to be in such an estate of favour with God and to bee found of him so doing when he dies as may be allowable before God and most comfortable to a mans selfe Blessed is that servant whom his Lord when hee commeth shall finde so doing a Math. 24.46 But a self-murderer in his act of killing of himself can neither have any comfort that hee is in the estate of Gods favour nor that his act is allowable before him whose law thereby hee transgresses with a high hand concluding his last gaspe with an act of horrible sinne having his soule in the passing thereof out of his body filled with disordered passions and perturbations of discontent griefe hatred feare diverted upon unlawfull objects and acts and filled with horror and environed with devils and so by self-murder the soule is most diverted from God and infected when the same should be most neerely converted to God and bee best fitted and perfited for him at death that by the hands of the blessed Angels it may be caryed into heaven and eternall happinesse 16. Man hath not authority to kil himselfe Sixteenthly a man is to do no more than hee hath lawfull right and power to do lest he make himselfe a transgressor but mans power over himselfe is not supreame but as a usu-fructuarie he hath dominium utile profitable dominion of himselfe being bound by God his highest Lord not to commit waste upon himselfe Comparison As mans dominion over the earth is not supreame for the Lord is King the earth may be glad of it but onely to take the profit of it and not to destroy it the creatures he may kill for to enjoy a better use of them But the best use that a man can have of himselfe is by his life and not by his death and therefore he is to avoid self-murder because it deprives a man of that use of himselfe for which God hath given a man to himselfe Comparison As the wife hath not power of her owne body to dispose thereof as she list in regard of that interest and proprietie that her husband hath over her so cannot man do with himselfe what he pleases in regard that we are the members of Christ his body and spouse a Ephes 5.23 24 and therefore are subject to him The object of mans will Man is Lord of his naturall and morall actions because they are the subjects of his will and therefore he is culpable and punishable if they be not well ordered and so to the doing only of that
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
heaven and that they who wrought their owne death goe into dark hell and that God punisheth this their offence upon all their posterity Hence it is that God is displeased therewith and it is forbidden by our most wise Law giver For if any amongst us kill themselves it is decreed that till the Sunne goe downe they shall be unburyed yet we hold it lawfull to bury our enemies Other nations cause their right hands to be cut off who have killed themselves Iudging that as the soule thereby was made a stranger to the body even so by that fact was the hand made a stranger unto it Thus farre Iosephus §. 8. Of certaine uses The uses or observations from all these arguments proving the unlawfulnesse of self-murder are three First hereby we may see the bainousnesse and damnablenesse of self-murder For the more lawes that any sin transgresses the greater it is and the more directly and in the higher degrees it violates those lawes and the more and eminenter the persons bee that it wronges and the more and greater the reasons be that are against it the more grievous it is Self-murder transgresses the lawes of God of nature and of men it is against them in their most prime and literall sense so smiting justice spightfully on the face of it it is against God and against men it is against all publicke bodyes of society and against every private person it is against heaven and against earth it empties these to fill hell in so much that well it may be a question or rather a certaine conclusion that not any who hath true grace can in its full formality commit this sinne neither any that doth so perpetrate this sinne can be saved 2. Self-murderers doe sinne most grievously Secondly from the consideration of that which is said against self-murder it is to be observed that they that kill themselves wittingly and willingly doe sinne thereby against a great light and strength of arguments to the contrary whereby they are self-convinced in their consciences that it is a grievous sinne and are self-condemned upon their resolution to doe it and therefore they must have a great and horrible conflict within themselves before they doe it that they may first overcome and remove the many and strong obstacles that stand in their way to hinder them that they may blind-fold themselves from sight of the truth and may subdue their wills and faculties against all reason to bee obedient to doe it Whereby a self-murderer is guilty and damnable not onely for his horrible fact of self-murder simply considered but also for his holding of the truth in unrighteousnesse a Rom. 1.18 opposing checking and withstanding the graces and worke of God in him and by others which tend to and labour for his preservation and for his abusing and perverting of Gods ordinances and blessings to his owne destruction so that in spight of heaven and earth hee will not be saved but in a high and uncontrouleable manner will domineere to over-rule all things according to his owne peevish self-will to his owne wicked ends and ruine that safety may not save him having heaven and earth God and Angells men and himselfe against himselfe 3. To take heed of self-murder Thirdly we are here to observe how much it concerns all men to take beed and be ware of self-murder For we being reasonable creatures and Christians it concernes us that we doe nothing contrary to reason and religion but that we doe advise with and frame all our courses according to the same that being in qualification men and in profession Christians we may not in degenerate manner bee in our practice worse than brute beasts or incarnate devils who will not be divided against themselves or destroy themselves a Math. 12.26 Now we see that there is no one point that hath more reason religion against it than self-murder hath therefore one might think that there is no feare that any Christian creature should bee in danger of it but alas the devill labours to make men break their necks over the highest rocks that so they may be unrecoverable when they shal have climbed past over so many obstacles lets of arguments over the top of them all have cast themselves headlong into the gulph of self-murder And man that is a rationall creature having transgressed and rejected the direction and command of reason and religion is subject to breake out into the most damnable exorbitances and unbounded excesses having nothing left to stay him from comming into most horrible extremities and therefore to be preserved from self-murder it is requisite to keep our selves and our courses within the compasse of sound reason and true religion Note For such sinnes as are done against the greatest reason and power of resistance and upon the least temptation and those that are more from self-will than from frailtie and want of power are neerest to the sinne of the devill and makes men likest to him in quality state and damnation CHAP. 18. Whether all self-murderers bee damned everlastingly with the Devill in hell §. 1. Of the extent of self-murder to the soules hurt Circumspection in determining INdetermining of this question about the finall estate of salvation or damnation of self-murderers wee must deale warily that wee may neither dash our selves against the rocke of extreamity rigorous uncharitablonesse in adjudging all to damnation whereof wee may finde some at the last day to be inheritours of heaven and contrariwise that we may not by an excesse of charity extenuate that horrible sinne or excuse the doers thereof whereby wee may adjudge those to heaven which are fire-brands of hell and may encourage others to doe the like fact or at least to make men lesse to regard or to abhorre and beware of it Self-murder doth prejudice the soule most I will begin and shew that the execrable fact of detestable self-murder concernes not onely the body the life and substance whereof it destroyes but also it specially in a higher nature touches the soule both in polluting of it with a most shamefull and odious sinne and also by thrusting of it out off its bodily habitation and condition wherein it was placed and injoyed peaceable possession by God himselfe and where it might doe good and get grace and salvation most wretchedly and desperately expelling it to its unavoydable place of the darkest hell and everlasting destruction It respects not onely this life present whereof and of all blessings and comforts in this world it utterly deprives the man that commits it but also it farre more neerely concernes a mans future and eternall estate in the world to come wherein a self-murderer debarres himselfe from all beatificall happinesse subjects himself to everlasting misery by that woefull exchange Observe Whereof men should be most carefull And therefore are all men that have any care of the good and comfort of their soules or of
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
over-ruling providence hindering the execution and turning his will 2. Be observant of the tempted Secondly men should bee observant of such persons 1. To spie out the causes both to fish and spie out the outmost hidden lurking undiscovered causes thereof that the same may be removed that hinders the cure 2. To watch him that he do it not and also to watch him against all oppertunities and meanes whereby hee may accomplish his act of self-murder 3. Humane forcible restraint Thirdly they are to use outward forcible restraint to such an one as to a mad man shutting him up and keeping meanes of self-destruction from him as much as may be The putting by of the violent attempts and passions of self-murder which comes by fits ague-like not only restraines the act for the time beeing but may also counter-check and abate the rage of it that by degrees it may be prevailed against and asswaged Comparison as agues many times are cured accidentally by very impertinent modicines putting by the fits Observe None are self-murdered but by their owne fault From that which hath beene said touching the Antidotes for self-murder we may observe that it is a mans owne fault if he perish by self-murder in neglect of using the meanes against it Comparison For as there are medicines for all diseases so are there meanes of preservation against all sinnes too how great soever they be to prevent them and these meanes are within the reach of a mans power to use Note The benefits of recovery frō the temptatiōs of self-murder If a man once deeply plunged into these temptations of self-murder do christianly overcome the same and be soundly recovered he hath thereby a good pledge never to be so tried againe and hath a pawne and evidence of victory against other sinnes if he doe his best against them Vse of it And also for this deliverance such a one is bound to be ever exceeding thankefull to God Vpon the cure dangers Upon preservation and freedome out of these temptations of self-murder a man is to take heed of two great dangers 1. Security c. First security self-confidence and presumption whereby those corruptions and sinnes may closely grow upon him that may bring him into as dangerous a condition for his salvation as we see how Hezechia after his recovery out of his mortall sicknesse fell into other sins as he manifested by his oftentation to the messengers of Babylon in boastingly-shewing them his treasure and strength all which cost him deare a 2 King 20.13 2. Vnprofitable life to goodnesse The second danger to be avoided after such a recovery is unprofitable living when such a man spends not the life that God hath given him in speciall manner to Gods glory to the good of others and to his owne salvation which is the maine end why God gives us our lives and for the attainement thereof if we spend them not it were better for us not to live Observe The various states and great dangers that God carieth man through are very remarkable and Gods worke therein is gracious and wonderfull for which we should ever praise his glorious and blessed name with constant dependance upon and dutifull obsequiousnesse to him in all our life and wayes which God grant we may do Amen FINIS AN ALPHABETICALL Table of the materiall Contents of this Treatise directing to the Page where the same is contained or begun A ABsurdity Page 204 Abuse of power Page 162 Abuse of lawfull things procures indirect self-murder Page 109 Abused Scripture most harmefull Page 198 Act How one act of self-murder gives denomination to the doers Page 175 Actions are good not onely from intention Page 241 Adam In Adam all are self-murderers Page 124 Advancement Hope of advancement abused to evill Page 245 Adventuring Of mans adventuring upon sinfull courses the causes Page 69 Of adventuring for saving of soules and for Religion Page 141. 143. Adversity Persons in adversity how to be observed and helped Page 231 Advise To advise the tempted Page 323 Advisedly a self-murderer kils himselfe Page 160 Afflictions spirituall Page 164 Afflictions not simply evill Page 228 Of afflictions occasioning self-murder Page 211. c. In afflictions how men should order themselves Page 231 Afflicted persons doubly burdened ibid. Affections Head-strong affections and ambition are causes of mis-understanding the Scripture Page 197 Ambition cause of self-murder Page 216 241 Amorous discourses how hurtfull Page 195 Anger the cause of self-murder Page 232 Anger against a mans selfe for his sins Page 234 Antidotes for self-murder Page 311 Antiquity of self-murder Page 177 Apostacy Of finall apostacy Page 75 Apparent How it is apparent that men murder themselves Page 176. 178. 181 Apparent good affects the understanding Page 208 Appearing of fellons voluntarily at Assizes Page 135 Application of the meanes of self-killing Page 185 Application of the Word against temptations Page 315 Arguments against self-murder Page 262 274 How arguments are deemed weak or strong Page 191 Ashamed to do good Page 222 Authority man hath not to kill himselfe Page 281 B Badnesse Conceited badnesse of estate cause of self-murder Page 164 Baile for Fellons how by them to be freed Page 135 Being Goodnesse of being Page 259 Behaviour Godly behaviour signe of spirituall life Page 39 Gastly behaviour a signe of subsequent self-murder Page 260 Beleeve To beleeve errors men are strong Page 206 Benefit the benefit of well spending our lives Page 19 Benefit of death encourages against dangers Page 126 The benefits of recovery from temptations of self-murder Page 325 Beware of self murder Page 182 Blame Men blame God to excuse themselves Page 207 Blessing A blessing may become a judgement Page 166 Blindes What blindes men Page 209 Body of mans body and its works 81 with its threefold consideration ib. How the body suffers by and for the soule Page 82 The bodies imployment in murdring it self Page 162 Braves Of Braves Page 112 Publishing Of publishing the Gospell amongst Heathens Page 142 Burning Of burning of a Ship in fight by her own Master or company Page 138 C Calamities The diverse sorts of calamities Page 211 Calling Killing ones self in discharge of calling is not self-murder Page 174 Capacity Shallow capacity is cause of mis-understanding the Scripture Page 197 Capitall-crimes against human laws procuring death Page 121 Capitall-crimes how a man is to reveale against himselfe Page 137 How capitall-crimes make way for self-murder Page 256 Care Mans care of his naturall and spirituall life Page 4 Mans care ought to be most for his spirituall life Page 42 Our care to be preserved from soule-destruction Page 79 Mans care to live well Page 206 Our care to know and obey the truth Page 210 Carefull of what men should be most carefull Page 289 Carnall reason dislikes of strict obedience Page 62 Cases of leagnes and society of warre of infectious places or
description wee are to observe two things First the generall and then the specificall nature of direct self-murder Generall nature of it Touching the genericall or generall nature of direct self-murder which is as the matter of it 1. A morall act we are to consider first that it is a morall act proceeding from mans will and therefore is good or bad and so wee are to bee the more carefull how we doe purpose or performe it 2. The object of it Life Secondly we are to observe touching that action the object thereof about which it is exercised and that is the naturall life of man who hath no such other precious worldly thing and therefore we should be very wary how we venture to deale therewith 3. The subject of it Mans selfe Thirdly the subject of this action is a mans selfe by whom and upon whom the same is done and so is both the active and passive subject of the same act and so it doth neerely concerne a man that he may well consider both what he doth and suffers in that case seeing he may bee guilty of a double blame if he doth both doe and suffer that which he ought not by his owne hands 4. The end of it To destroy Fourthly the end of this action is remarkable that it is not to cherish and preserve but to destroy and take away a mans owne life It is the end that makes or marres even a good action and increases the maliciousnesse of an evill And therefore it concernes us much in all our actions to consider well their ends whether the same be good or evill The specificall nature of it The specificall nature of direct self-murder is that which is the true forme of it whereby it is properly and directly self-murder This specificall nature of it is remota proxima remote and next Remote The remote nature of direct self-murder consists in two things 1. Restraint of the act it selfe First in the restraint or limitation of the act of killing for agent and patient for choise and application of the meanes to a mans owne selfe who thereby reflects and returnes upon himselfe in an act of the greatest hostility and cruelty that can be in the world to destroy himselfe and his owne life by his owne meanes so becomming his owne Burrio and executioner 2. The Agent understanding what he doth Secondly the remote nature of direct self-murder consists in the disposition of the agent both in his understanding and will in respect of his understanding the actour of it doth the same advisedly and wittingly Advisedly Advisedly he doth it when after premeditation in his minde of killing of himselfe and after approbation of the fact in his judgement he resolves upon his unwarrantable motives to doe it and devises and plots the meanes and manner how to doe it after deliberation and conflict with himselfe betweene oppofite reasons and when withall the understanding works and prevailes upon the will to draw the same to concurre in the resolution to doe it and to command and imploy the body in consent with both the understanding and the will to execute their pleasure to its owne destruction as is manifest in the practise of Ahitophel a 2 Sam. 17.23 and Iudas b Mat. 27.5 Then it is an advised act done by a man in such advised manner and so cannot be excused by ignorance or inconsiderate haste but is done with the fullest careere of morall motion and with the greatest ingagement of the whole man in an action of the highest nature of self-mischiefe Note The vilest actions are often done upon greatest advisement and deliberation which makes them the worse and more odious Mans wisdome is madnesse when he is left to himselfe and a depraved judgement perverts the will and leads a man into many vile practises seeing the will followes the last determination of the practicall understanding If the light of understanding that is in man be darknesse how great then is that darknesse Wittingly Wittingly a man doth take away his owne life when at the very time of doing the act hee knowes both that he is doing such an act materially considered and also that the same act for the nature and forme of it tends directly to his own destruction and is wicked and unlawfull to be done and yet for all that doth not desist whereby man that is a rationall creature able to judge of his owne actions is self-condemned in his own conscience while he is about and in doing the act it selfe Willingly The disposition of the agent or actour in direct self-murder in respect of his will is that he doth it willingly as to bang or stab or poyson himselfe or the like For violence or inforcement cannot be done to the will in its act of willing which necessarily must be free either absolutely or conditionally Willingnesse This willingnesse in a man to kill himselfe is twofold 1. Antecedent Ahitophel accessit sobrius ad perdendm scipsâ—â— ut Caesar ad perdendam Rempub First that which is antecedent before the fact whereby he wills not only that he were dead but also wills that such a murderous act should be done by himselfe upon himselfe to take away his owne life which by a contrary act and change of his will might be prevented as it is said of Ahitophel that he came sober to destroy himselfe as Caesar came sober to ruinate the common wealth Concomitant Secondly he hath a willingnesse concomitant at the act doing so that when it is in his power to suspend his act and not to doe it yet he wills and doth it indeed which is so much the more grievous by how much the more it hath of wilfulnesse as will is both the originall fountaine of sin and is so essentiall to it that absolutely against or without mans will he hath no actuall sin neither can have any The proximate or neerest nature of direct self-murder The next or neerest specificall nature of direct self-murder consists of two subordinate branches 1. Mans intention First in the immediate intention of a men which is to kill himselfe and doth conclude the joynt act therein both of his judgement and will because such an intention is grounded upon and proceeds from advisement and deliberation and doth also respect the fact that he minds to doe sub ratione finis under consideration of an end and so in his judgement good and therefore it includes his will desiring and endeavouring that it may be done and so to him such a fact falls not out by acdident or unexpected or not intended but it is the thing he aymes at 2. The bodies imployment The second branch of the neerest specificall nature of direct self murder is the actuall imployment of the body and the strength thereof upon direction of the understanding and command of the will fully to accomplish his intention and