perhaps, than the most proftrate devotion; afford an edifying example to all who observe them; and may hope for a recompence among the most arduous of human virtues. Thefe Thefe qualities are always in the power of the miferable; indeed of none but the miferable.

The two confiderations above stated, belong to all cafes of fuicide whatever. Befide which general reasons, each cafe will be aggravated by its own proper and particular confequences; by the duties that are deserted; by the claims that are defrauded; by the lofs, affliction, or disgrace, which our death, or the manner of it, causes to our family, kindred, or friends; by the occafion we give to many to suspect the fincerity of our moral and religious profeffions, and, together with ours, those of all others; by the reproach we draw upon our order, calling, or fect; in a word, by a great variety of evil confequences, attending upon peculiar fituations, with fome or other of which every actual cafe of fuicide is chargeable.

I refrain from the common topics of " de"ferting our poft," "throwing up our truft," "rushing uncalled into the presence of our Maker," with fome others of the same sort, not

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because they are common (for that rather affords a presumption in their favour), but because I do not perceive in them much argument to which an answer may not easily be given.

Hitherto we have purfued upon the fubject the light of nature alone; taking into the account, however, the expectation of a future exiftence, without which our reafoning upon this, as indeed all reafoning upon moral queftions, is vain. We proceed to enquire, whether any thing is to be met with in Scripture, which may add to the probability of the conclusions we have been endeavouring to fupport. And here I acknowledge that there is to be found neither any express determination of the question, nor fufficient evidence to prove that the case of fuicide was in the contemplation of the law which prohibited murder. Any inference, therefore, which we deduce from Scripture, can be fuftained only by conftruction and implication; that is to fay, although they, who were authorized to inftruct mankind, have not decided a queftion, which never, fo far as appears to us, came before them; yet, I think, they have left enough to conftitute a prefumption how they * would have decided it, had it been proposed or thought of,

What

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What occurs to this purpose is contained in the following obfervations:

1. Human life is

or prescribed to us.

1

"the race that is

spoken of as a term affigned "Let us run with patience

fet before us."" I have ❝ finished my courfe."-"That I may finish my "courfe with joy."-" You have need of pa

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tience, that, after ye have done the will of

God, ye might receive the promise.”—Thefe expreffions appear to me inconfiftent with the opinion, that we are at liberty to determine the duration of our lives for ourfelves. If this were the case, with what propriety could life be called a race that is fet before us; or, which is the same thing," our courfe;" that is, the courfe fet out or appointed to us? The remaining quotation is equally strong-" That, after ye have done the "will of God, ye might receive the promises.' The most natural meaning that can be given to the words," after ye have done the will of "God," is, after ye have discharged the dutics of life fo long as God is pleafed to continue you in it. According to this interpretation, the text militates ftrongly against suicide; and they who reject this paraphrafe, will please to propose a better.

C 4

2. There

2. There is not one quality which Chrift and his Apostles inculcate upon their followers fo often, or so earnestly, as that of patience under affliction. Now this virtue would have been in a great measure fuperfeded, and the exhortations to it might have been fpared, if the disciples of his religion had been at liberty to quit the world, as foon as they grew weary of the ill ufage which they received in it. When the evils of life preffed fore, they were to look forward to a far more exceeding and eternal

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weight of glory;" they were to receive them "as the chaftening of the Lord," as įntimations of his care and love; by these and the like reflections they were to fupport and improve themselves under their fufferings; but not a hint has any where escaped of feeking relief in a voluntary death. The following text in particular ftrongly combats all impatience of distress, of which the greatest is that which prompts to acts of fuicide- Confider him that endured fuch "contradiction of finners against himself, lest

ye be weared and faint in your minds." I would offer my comment upon this paffage in thefe two queries; firft, Whether a Chriftian convert, who had been impelled by the continuance

and

and urgency of his fufferings to destroy his own life, would not have been thought by the author of this text "to have been weary," to have "fainted in his mind," to have fallen off from that example which is here proposed to the meditation of Chriftians in diftrefs? And yet, fecondly, Whether fuch an act would not have been attended with all the circumftances of mitigation, which can excufe or extenuate suicide at this day?

3. The conduct of the Apoftles, and of the Christians of the apoftolic age, affords no obfcure indication of their fentiments upon this point. They lived, we are fure, in a confirmed persuafion of the existence, as well as of the happiness, of a future ftate. They experienced in this world every extremity of external injury and diftrefs. To die was gain. The change which death brought with it was, in their expectation, infinitely beneficial. Yet it never, that we can find, entered into the intention of one of them to hasten this change by an act of fuicide; from which it is difficult to fay what motive could have fo univerfally withheld them, except an apprehenfion of fome unlawfulncfs in the expedient.

Having