Gallies the Mines and Prisons would be nothing but seminaries of Villains which by their increase would grow as ruinous as herds of Wolves and Tigers and if ever they should break into a War how many Patrimonies they would subvert and how many souls would be sent to the Regions of Darkness for want of time to perfect their Repentance is sad to consider Now if the condemned person had had never any time to repent or not squandred away the opportunities conducing to it he had never been reduced to this fatal exigent and it he hath had who is bound to give him as much as he will need And if it be unlawful for a Magistrate to put a Malefactor that has not sufficiently repented to death then no Villain shall ever die by the publick hand of Justice and the worse the man is the longer they shall live and the better he shall escape for in this case if he resolve privately that he never will repent he hath blunted the edge of the Sword and weakned the hand of Justice for ever that it shall never strike Fifthly Self-murther cuts off that Obedience that men owe to the supream commands of God by which he governs humane life and I prove it thus from parity of reason under Civil Governments here below Protection and Obedience are so complicated and interwoven that when Obedience challenges protection Protection reciprocally exacts Obedience so that divers Casuists aver that Custom and Tribute are ex natura rei intrinsecally due to the supream Power whether they be demanded or not and the reason subjoyned is this that the Prince is in possession virtually by way of right and those who by dark contrivances and surreptitious ambushes do actually defraud him are only in possession by way of Fact I may add that without a just supply the protection and defence of the Supream Power would be so lame and cripled that it could not stretch it self forth to repulse the onsets of enemies from abroad or dispel mutinies and intestine Eruptions at home Now if obedience be thus highly due to temporal Rule it is more eminently owing to the Eternal Government of God who every day by his Power Protection and Providential restraints rescues us from danger and from sin Now to put our selves to death without the command of God or his Vicegerent is impiety and rebellion against God it is like a servants running away from an indulgent Master it is a desertion of our military station and a violation of the Propriety and peculiar Rights of God who only hath power over our lives and gives it to whom he pleases God is our General and hath confin'd us to our abode and station which until he call us off must not be deserted when God gives us our pass then we must go but we must not offer it an hour before he that doth otherwise is distrustful of the Divine Providence Secondly impious by running from his service and thirdly ungrarateful to God by destroying the noblest of his works here below And this is asserted by the Platonick Philosophy which tells us that God gave us our soul and fix'd it in the prison of the body trying it there to a certain portion of work therefore without his leave we must not go forth lest we run from the work God enjoyn'd us I shall now reflect upon those examples that are brought out of the old Testament to abet the legality of Self-Homicide but before I wade farther in this Discourse I shall premise some conclusions very necessary for clearing the point in issue And first it is certain there is nothing imitable in these examples but the morality that is wrap'd up in them for the heroical actions of Pious men exhibited to us in Holy Writ that were done Plerophoria Spiritus or in Gradu Heroico that is performed by an immediate excitation of the Spirit of God as the example of Phineas's transfixing of Zimri and Cosbi are not imitable by us unless we can pretend to such an extraordinary instigation of spirit as they had Secondly sometimes the actions of good men are in themselves innocent because done before a positive Law was established to prohibit them but the symbolical actions by a supervening Law became afterwards criminal Thus the drunkenness of Noah is in Holy Writ remark'd without a black Character and plainly told without a Censure because he was not intedicted the free use of wine by any direct provision but we are and therefore it cannot legitimate it in us Thirdly the actions of holy men in Scripture are complicated and when they are propounded as Examples and the whole action described there is something naturally good and something bad or something naturally good or something peculiar and personally good which cannot pass into example Thus when it is affirm'd that Gideon Jepthah Sampson David and Baruch through Faith subdued Kingdoms here their Faith is to be imitated but not their Conquest Invasion and other Acts of Hostility because examples in War are ever the most dangerous precedents not only because men are then most violent and unreasonable but that the Rules of War are least describ'd and the necessities are contingent and many Fourthly Actions done in the old Testament as I said before do not warrant or justifie us without such an express Command as they had If the Command was special and personal the Obedience was just so limited and could not pass beyond the person for actions of good men if perform'd upon a violent cause or a vehement necessity are not to be imitated unless it be in a like case or an equal necessity Now then to the great Examples and Precedents mentioned in Scripture I shall afford this answer that Sampson did primarily and directly intend only to kill the enemies of God which was properly his work to which he was design'd by the Spirit of God in his whole Calling but that he died himself in the ruine was his suffering not his design it was like a Souldier fighting against his enemies at the command of his General who undertakes the service though he knows he shall die for it Thus did Eleazar the Brother of Judas Maccabeus he supposing the grand enemy Antiochus to be upon a towred Elephant goes under the Beast and kills him who with his fall crush'd the Magnanimous Prince to death He intended not to kill himself but Antiochus he would venture himself or suffer death The fact of Saul is no imitable Precedent because it hath the grim aspect of despair upon it but the Jewish Rabbins soften the fact and say that it is not lawful for any man to perish by his own hands unless the prolongation of his life be a manifest dishonour to God and to a Cause of Religion And upon this account they excuse both Saul and Sampson for they knew if they should fall or abide respectively in the hands of scorners the dishonour of their persons would disparage their Religion directly and so obliquely
praecedebat unde Abraham Amicus Dei deputatus si non de Aequitate Justitia Legis hujus Naturalis Out of these general descriptions of the Law of Nature I may spin out this Definition The Law of Nature is the universal Law of the World concerning some common necessities to which we are inclin'd by Nature invited by Consent prompted by Reason and bound upon us by the command of God and the first part of this Definition is strengthened and made evidently true by the aptnesses of the Heathen to Justice and disposition to Laws concreated with their understandings which are stil'd by the Schools Species congenitae concreatae and by Minsinger and Civil Law they are nam'd Praecepta seu formulae honestatis praeceptae signatures or draughts of moral honesty stamp'd upon the hearts of men in their first creation by God Himself which super-induce and imprint upon their Consciences such Fears and Opinions that pass upon mankind the obligation and reverence of Laws But as in the body of man there is great variety of Accidents and mutability of matter but still that variety is govern'd by the various flexures of Reason which remains unchang'd in all its revolutions and vicissitudes or if you will in all the complications and twistings about the collateral Accidents and is the same though working otherwise so it is in the Law whose Reason and Obligation continues even when it is made to comply with changing Instances Now God being the prime Law-giver can by his eternal Legislative power contract or inlarge this Law of Nature by Interpretation or Dispensation especially when the publick good of mankind is concerned as in the case of Cain's marriage with his Sister or when his Power Jurisdiction Dominion and Property is to be evidenced as in the case of the Israelites devesting and spoiling the Aegyptians of their Ear-rings or Thirdly when the Faith Obedience and Patience of good men is to be tried and exemplified as when he commanded Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac but God say Divines will not it being inconsistent with his Justice absolutely root up and extinguish the Law of Nature because it is that Law by which he will arraign Pagans Infidels and Heathens at the last General Audit of the last day for then they shall receive their final doom and sentence not that they lived out of the Pale of Christianity or did not believe in Christ or the Christian Law for alas they never heard of either but because they did not live up to the Law of Nature and the light diffused from it or if you please up to that moral rectitude that was the result of both whose beams were sufficient to have made them shun the foul obliquities and irregular pollutions of human life Now the Law of Nature being thus stated cannot be dispensed with by any humane power whatsoever and this Cicero clearly saw by a Ray darted from it when he defin'd it to be Vera ratio naturae congruens diftusa in omnes constans sempiterna And my Assertion is fortified by these reasons the Laws of Nature being bound upon us by the Law of God cannot be dispenced withal unless by a power equal to the same or superior to that which made the sanction but that cannot be at all neither can they be dispenced with at all unless by God Himself Secondly whatsoever is forbidden by the Natural Law cannot be permitted by the Civil because when the Highest Power hath interposed then the inferior and subordinate hath no Authority for since it hath its Being from the superior it cannot be suppos'd it can prejudice that from whence it had all its Being Thirdly I argue from the difference between Divine and Humane Laws Divine Laws do originally and immediately oblige by their own prime Efficiency and Authority but Humane Laws bind the Conscience not intrinsecally formally and primarily from themselves but by Power Virtue and Efficacy transfus'd and deriv'd into them by the Divine Command by whose Efficiency they work obedience to themselves mediately and instrumentally Again Divine Laws bind the will and the understanding Humane Laws only the will which is the subject of Humane Laws Humane Laws only consider the outward action not the inward opinion you must obey man when at the same time without sin you may believe the Law to be imprudent imperfect or fit to be disannull'd because there was a weakness in the sanction they could not foresee the evil that was future the inconveniences of some men the impossibilities of many things and the intolerable burden and pressure upon sundry persons But in the Laws of God we must submit our most secret thoughts and we must be sure so to obey Humane Laws as we keep for God the Prerogative of his having unveil'd the Law of Nature as much as I could I come now to demonstrate that Self-Murther breaks up and dismantles those defensatives the Law of Nature has erected against it by making a bloody Onset or Invasion upon two prime Branches or Ingredients of it that is self-preservation and do as you would be done unto Now self-preservation is of universal extent and latitude and so wound up with the Law of Nature that it is made by Vlpian to be the Law itself for thus he defines it Jus naturale est says he quod natura omnia animalia docuit a natural right that Nature hath taught every creature and this is evident in the youngest creatures in whom though there be but slender principles of Life and faint evidences of a Being yet if you attempt to destroy them by drowning or any other engine of ruine with what strugling and reluctancy will they endeavour to decline their early and angry fate is notoriously obvious and if it hold good in these creatures that are guided only by such a glimmering principle of sense then should it be much more eminently manifest in man in whom God hath planted reason to check and controul the unruly and disordered passions of the soul and especially to repress those two imperious and insolent Tribunes of it the irascible and concupâ—scible appetite And this is evident from the practice of the most barbarous Nations who appoint subservient Officers and Executioners to inflict death upon Delinquents because they know that is abhorrent to all natural Instinct and destructive of the Law of Nature which obliges every man to preserve himself as long as possibly he can for Criminals and Malefactors to unsluce their lives by laying violet hands upon themselves I come now to assert that Self-Homicide overturns and breaks down that other prime principle of the Law of Nature do as you would be done unto which is the great Conservatory of commutative Justice which is the great Ligament that fastens and ties together all Humane Society and without which they would become as wild and sanguinary as an herd of Wolves or Tigers Now if it be a breach of Justice to strike my neighbour it is a
Circumstances of performance Therefore whatever good thing they intend let them do it when they can when it is pleasant profitable honest or convenient but let them alwaies as much as they can reserve their liberty To summ up all the Casuists generally advise where persons are apt to be benighted with an erroneous Conscience or stung and afflicted with a scrupulous one before they embrace or give themselves up to any opinion they should entertain it under these Notions and Qualifications 1. That it be that which advances most the Glory of God the Reputation of his Name and is most agreeing with his Attributes Secondly that which is most agreeable with the Letter of Scripture and complies most practically with the purpose and design of it Thirdly that which Prudent Pious and Just Men have first asserted and then practised and whole Nations have approved Fourthly that which is agreeable to common Life Fifthly that which is best for the publick Sixthly that which is more Holy Seventhly that which gives least confidence to sin or sinners Eighthly that which is most charitable to others Ninthly that which gives least offence and scandal And Tenthly and Lastly in destitution of all things else that which primarily is most useful to the publick and secondarily to our selves in the Conduct of Humane Life He that admits an opinion without these salutary cautions may possibly suffer it so long without disturbance to dwell in his Conscience until at length it become a Native which should have been suddenly dislodged and turned out as an intruding destructive Inmate and then like an ingrateful Serpent having warm'd its venome in his bosome it will at last destroy him Since then Self-killing is opposite to the Eternal Law of God of which the Law of Nature is but a Transcript repugnant to the Law of Reason and declared unlawful by a Superfaetation of positive Laws both Canon and Civil if acted by deliberation choice and consent and fortified by the concurrent usage of elder Nations who customarily threw some Character of Disgrace and Obloquie upon the bodies of those who had wilfully destroyed themselves I may justly wind up this Discourse in this Determination That Self-Homicide is wilful Murder The POSTSCRIPT WHereas in that elaborate unhappy Treatises stil'd Biathanathos there is exhibited a Copious Register of some Elder and Braver Romans who embezeld their Lives by an Imprudent and Extra-Judicial-Violence offered to themselves as namely Cato Uticensis a man that durst be severely honest in a loose and licentious Age and Brutus his Son in Law that great Exemplar of a Virtuous Life of whom it may be said so far as it relates to the Guidance and Conduct of a Practical Morality that he saw more at the Noon of Night than many do at the Noon of Day and others of a less Estimate and Repute who out of Animosity Regret and Passion by an unnatural and injurious Violation demolished the Prison of their Bodies and so Enfranchis'd and Releâ—s'd their Souls from the Natural Restraints and Confinements of their Flesh. But to this I Answer that these Tragedies and Bloody Impressions perform'd by these Persons upon themselves were not the Legal Results of Common Natural Instinct or the Vniform and Regular Products of the Law of Nature But rather the prodigious Issue and mishappen Births of those three Furies Impatience Emulation and Ambition which in elder Times not only lash'd the wisest Romans into those Excesses and wild Exorbitancies Posteritie hath since generally concluded them Guilty of But likewise at the last precipitated the Common-wealth of Rome it self into a final Ruin and Extinction And this was well observed by Julian Sirnamed the Apostate who in his last Scene of Life and Agony of Death concluded and Expir'd with this Rational Expression as it is Recorded by that Judicious Historian Ammianus Marcellinus in the Description of his Life Aequo enim Judicio says the Dying Emperour as he Relates it Timidus est ac Ignavus qui cum non oportet Mori Desiderat qui Refugiat cum sit opportunum Now this Evil Principle of Self-Homicide had possibly shed a Malignant Operation and Influence upon some of the Greeks which discover'd it self in some unnatural Violences Acted upon themselves which mov'd and incited Aristotle not to allow it to be so much as Brave and Magnanimous for a Man to Kill himself for the avoiding any evil for thus in the Third and Fifth Book of his Ethicks he determines to Die that we may avoid Povertie The Torments of Love or any evil Affliction is not the part of a valiant Man but of a Coward And that the Grecians generally did abominate this Fact of Self-Killing is evident from the example of the Milesians who to cast some signal Obloquie upon the memory of those Virgins that hang'd themselves expos'd their Bodies to be a publick Spectacle And Strabo informs us that the Indian Priests and Wise men blam'd the Fact of Calanus and that they resented with Regret and Hatred the hasty Deaths of Proud and Impatient Persons and this made Aristotle in his Ethicks to aver that they that kill themselves hastning their own Deaths before the publick command enjoyns them are injurious to the Common-wealth from whose service and profit they substract themselves if they be Innocent and if they be Criminal they withdraw themselves from her Justice And therefore certainly it was an Heroick Determination of dying King Darius when he was mortally wounded by Bessus and his Barbarious Complices in that Assasination as his Tragedy is Pathetecally Related by Q. Curtius Alieno mori malo scelere quam meo I had rather dye by another mans Impiety than my own I shall wind up this Postscript in that excellent Assertion of St. Austin Magis enim mens Infirma deprehenditur quae ferre non potest duram Corporis sui Sanitatem aut stultam vulgi Opinionem It is not greatness but littleness of Spirit it is Impatience or Pride that makes a man Kill himself to avoid trouble and disquiet to his Body or dishonour to his Name amongst Fools FINIS An Advertisement ☞ DOctor Sermons most Famous and Safe Cathartique Diuretique Pills wherwith was Cured the late Lord General Monck of the Dropsie in June and July 1669 many hundreds before since having received absolute Cure thereby which beyond all universal Pills are very well known to be the most certain Purging Remedy ever yet invented against the Dropsie and Scurvy with all other sharp salt and watry Humors they purifie the Blood help the Kings-Evil and causeth all old Ulcers Cancers and spreading Sores the sooner to be made whole And often by Experience have been found to expel all those poisonous Humors caused by taking Mercurial Medicines too many now abroad and the people so much deceived thereby that they have been almost ready to perish before that they would be perswaded to make use of these effectual Pills which are really prepared for the benefit of those that are troubled with the forementioned Diseases c. 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