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

The two confiderations above ftated, 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 deferted; by the claims that are defrauded; by the lofs, affliction, or difgrace, 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, thofe 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 trust," "rufhing uncalled into the prefence of our ma'ker," with fome others of the fame fort, not because

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

Hitherto we have purfued upon the subject 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 reasoning upon moral questions, is vain. We proceed to inquire, 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 suicide 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 instruct 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 constitute a prefumption, how they would have decided it, had it been proposed or thought of,

What

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

1. Human life is spoken of as a term affigned or prescribed to us. "Let us run with patience "the race that is fet before us."-" I have "I "finifhed my courfe."-"That I may finish my "courfe with joy."-" You have need of pa"tience, that after ye have done the will of

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God, ye might receive the promife." 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 cafe, with what propriety could life be called a race, that is fet before us, or which is the fame thing, our courfe;" that is, the course fet out, or appointed to us? The remaining quotation is equally ftrong: "that after ye have done the "will of God, ye might receive the promises.” The moft natural meaning that can be given to the words," after ye have done the will of God," is, after ye have discharged the duties of life fo long as God is pleafed to continue you in it. According to this interpretation, the text militates ftrongly against fuicide; and they who reject this paraphrase, will please to propofe a better.

2. There is not one quality, which Chrift and his Apostles inculcate upon their followers fo often, or fo 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 spared, if the disciples of his religion had been at liberty to quit the world, as foon as they grew weary of the ill usage which they received in it. When the evils of life pressed fore, they were to look forward to a "far more exceeding and eternal

weight of glory;" they were to receive them as the chaftening of the Lord," as intimations 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 seeking 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, left

ye be wearied and faint in your minds." I would offer my comment upon this paffage in thefe two queries; firft, whether a Christian convert, who had been impelled by the continuance and urgency of his fufferings, to destroy his own

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life, would not have been thought by the author of this text, 66 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 distress? And yet, fecondly, whether fuch an act would not have been attended with all the circumstances of mitigation, which can excufe or extenuate fuicide at this day?

3. The conduct of the Apostles, 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 perfuafion of the existence, as well as of the happiness, of a future ftate. They experienced in this world every extremity of external injury and distress. 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 haften 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 unlawfulness in the expedient,

Having