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sion, but in time as effectually cut off as if it had been done by virtue of a death warrant sent down upon them from heaven. Some, and

they not a few, seeing their own wicked designs defeated, have laid violent hands upon themselves, like Ahithophel, sending themselves out of the world because their wickedness was unsuccessful. If I were to attempt an history of those whom ill company has brought to destruction, it would be a black catalogue! O beware then how you join any bad party: let no Absalom beguile you with fair and flattering speeches; he is in the way to ruin himself, and you may soon be ruined along with him. Absalom and Ahithophel both perished, as we see, in a strange manner: the judgment of God hanged up the one in a tree by the hair of his head, and the other hanged himself.

It seems, further, to have been the case of our traitor, that he never opened his grief to any body; in which respect he was a more sullen sinner than Judas his successor; for Judas, in the agony of his mind, did speak out, and said, "I have betrayed the innocent blood."-He spoke it indeed to those who gave him no comfort, but left him to his distress; as it often happens among partners in iniquity: they are no "sons of consolation;" but, when calamity comes

among

among them, they leave one another to desperation and death. Indeed how can a man give comfort to another, who has none for himself? He who has wicked friends, can expect nothing but to be cast off and forsaken at last; and he is therefore debarred from that salutary relief of a troubled mind, the opportunity of telling its burthens and sufferings to a faithful counsellor; without which, and for the want of which, the mind of the wretched has been so frequently lost. The soul that cannot speak its grief, is in a like situation with the body when it is pent up in a close room; it is suffocated with its own smoke; it dies of a fulness which has no relief; as when the body is lost by an apoplexy, which might have been saved by a timely use of the lancet, to lessen the quantity of the fluids. As the apoplexy is prevented by the opening of a vein, and by other seasonable evacuations, so the mind becomes lighter and more tolerable to itself, if it can but throw off outwardly some of that noxious matter with which it is inwardly overcharged. This relief is so natural and necessary to the case, that reason can no more invent a substitute for it than the art of medicine can cure palsies, apo plexies, surfeits, and inflammations, without lessening the quantity of blood. When a person

goes

goes with a sick body to a physician, he must describe his ailments, and tell all the symptoms under which he suffers; without which, it is impossible for the physician to take such a course as will restore him to health. This parallel suggests to us, that the proper person to whom the griefs of the mind should be opened, is he whose profession makes him the physician of the soul. The practice of consulting a spiritual counsellor, and confessing of sins, was too much discountenanced at the Reformation and the Clergy are fo much disused to the custom of giving private advice, that many of them are less prepared for the office than might be expected. An opportunity of this kind is, indeed, still allowed to the people; and, upon a particular occasion, we invite them to come to us, and open their grief:-But who ever comes? few, very few, indeed. If a clergyman has any knowledge of physic, the people will be ready to apply to him for advice; and if they do not in the other case, what can we infer, but that their souls are either perfect and well, or that if sick, they are of no value? In the person of hophel we see a man brought into the ex

of misfortune, with neither inclination ortunity to open his mind. He is sulsilent, and he falls a sacrifice to his wicked

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wicked temper. Any one may see from the particulars which I have stated, that he was a man of no religion from the beginning: this world was the grand object of his attention and affection; the pride of his own wisdom had filled his heart; the desire of greatness had raised his expectations; and to humour his pride, and gratify his expectations, he was ready for any thing. A change of government seemed to promise what he wanted; and he was upon the high road toward the fulfilling of his wishes. He had formed some promising schemes; but they were not better than airy visions - mere cobwebs, which the hand of Providence, when it interfered, swept away at a stroke! Disappointment came upon him in a form he little expected; his counsel, which had been so highly valued, was now set at nought; and in consequence of that, all his projects were ruined. This wise Ahithophel was taken in his own craftiness; disgrace and punishment were before him; and for a man like him there was no refuge but in despair. From his example we may learn what is the common, and, as I may call it, the natural way to his fatal end. When a man lives without God, and has formed no expectations in another life, but has deluded himself with wicked hopes in this

VOL. VII.

I

world,

1

world, and they are all disappointed; then life becomes insupportable, and he throws it away. Some destroy themselves in a gust. of rage and passion before they have time to think (and may God have mercy upon them!) but the hardened atheist dies with deliberation and forethought, like the sinner in the text, who seems to have placed himself beyond the reach of divine mercy.

As religion lessens, despair increases; and when the true religion of Christianity decays, the false wisdom of heathenism prevails. There is therefore in this age much more of the crime of suicide (or self-murder) than there was in the last, and there will probably be more in the next than in this: for which some reasons may be given; and it may be of use to make them known. Men corrupt one another by their foolish mistakes, which pass among themselves for a sort of wisdom. It is now the fashion to dislike the authority of law, and justice, and to be tender to crimes under the name of misfortunes, though it be notorious that a sinner wilfully brings them upon himself. There are laws intended to render self-murder infamous, that men may abhor it, and be deterred from the commission of it; and history informs us, that by a shew of seve

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