ΒΙΑΘΑÎΑΤΟΣ A DECLARATION OF THAT PARADOXE OR THESIS that Selfe-homicide is not so Naturally Sinne that it may never be otherwise WHEREIN The Nature and the extent of all those Lawes which seeme to be violated by this Act are diligently surveyed Written by IOHN DONNE who afterwards received Orders from the Church of England and dyed Deane of Saint Pauls London Jo Saresb. de nugis Curial Prolog Non omnia vera esse profiteor Sed legentium usibus inservire Published by Authoritie LONDON Printed by John Dawson TO THE Right Honourable THE LORD PHILLIP HARBERT My Lord ALthough I have not exactly obeyed your commands yet I hope I have exceeded them by presenting to your Honor this Treatise which is so much the better by being none of mine owne and may therefore peradventure deserve to live for facilitating the Issues of Death It was writâ—… long since by my Father and by him forbid both the Presse and the Fire neither had I subjected it now to the publique view but that I could finde no certaine way to defend it from the one but by committing it to the other For since the beginning of this War my Study having been often searched all my Books and al-most my braines by their continuall allarums sequestred for the use of the Committee two dangers appeared more eminently to hover over this being then a Manuscript a danger of being utterly lost and a danger of being utterly found and fathered by some of those wild Atheists who as if they came into the World by conquest owne all other mens Wits and are resolved to be learned in despite of their Starres that would fairely have enclined them to a more modest and honest course of life Your Lordships Protection will defend this Innocent from these-two Monsters Men that cannot write and Men that cannot reade and I am very confi dent all those that can will think it may deserve this favour from your Lordship For although this Booke appeare under the notion of a Paradox yet I desire your Lordship to looke upon this Doctrine as a firme and established truth Da vida osar morir Your Lordships most humble Servant Io DONNE From my house in Covâ—…nt-Garden 2â—… Authors cited in this Booke BEza B. Dorothaeus Bosquierus Athenagoras Causaeus Trismegistus Theodoricus A. Niem Steuchius Engubi Ennodius Pererius Zamb â—…us Alcoran Corpus Iur Canon Carbo Summa Summarum Polidorus Virgilius Matalius Metellus Praefat in Osor. Histor. Pierius S. Ambrosius Cardanus Tholosa Syntagm S. Cyprianus Haedri Junius Emanuâ—… Sâ Nicephorus S. Gregorius Vasques Clarus Bonarsâ—…ius Corpus Iur Civil Binnius Bracton Plowden A Gellius Tertullian Climacbus Basil Filesacus Campianus S. Hieronimus Ben Gorion Plinius Paleotus de Noth Canones Poenitenti Clemens Alex Sotus Bodin Sylvius Middendorpius Lucidus Arpilcueta Fabricius Hist Ciâ—…ro Windeckus Lipsius Porphyrius Damasus Feuardentius Eusebius Vincentii Speculum Prateolus Diodorus Siculus Tho Morus Anto Augustin P. Manutius Sebast Medices Scotus Calvinus Forestus de Venen Serarius Biblia Sacra Humfredus Angl. Mallonius in Paleotti Sindon S. Chrysostomus Pontius Paulinus Aquinas Azorius Sayr Elianus Cajetanus S. Augustinus Artemidorus I. Caesar Josephus Vegetius Acacius Jo Picus Heâ—… nius Latinus Pacatus Platina Baronius Ignatius Alfon Castro Schultingius Plato Simancha Alb. Gentilis Pruckmannus P. Pomponatius Buxdorfius Anto de Corduba Thyraeus Lavater Nauclerus Quintilianus Toletus Sulpitius Adrianus Quodlib Beccaria Vita Phil Nerii Maldonatus Bonaventura Gregor Nazianz. Canones Apostolorum Lucas de Penna Optinellus Laertius Binsfeldius Pedraça Sextus Senensis Par acelsus Metaphrastes Surius Gregor de Valentia Brentius Thâ—…phtlact Hesic ius Marloratus Schlusselburgius Agapetus Reuchlin Martialis ad Tholo Saravia Sylvester Liber Coformitatum S. Franc. et Christi Cassianus Procop. Gazaeus Ardoinus Greg. Turon Supplem Chronic. Nazarius Paneg. Menghi Ioan de Lapide Hippocrates Bellarminus Revelation Brigidae Regul Iesuit Franc. Gregorius Oecumenius Origenes Alcuinus Corn Celsus Idâ—…ota Contemplatio de morte Baldus Aristoteles Stanford Bartolus P. Martyr Declaration des Doctes en France Sedulius Minorita Io Gerson Lylius Geraldus Mariana Sansovinus Lambert Fra. a Victoria Wierus Keeplerus Lyra Bâ—…rgensis P. Lombard Sophronius Schultetus Euthymius Paterculus Cassanaeus IN citing these authors for those which I produce only for ornament and illustration I have 〈◊〉 my owne old notes which though I have no reason to suspect yet I confess here my lazines and that I did not refresh them with going to the Originall Of those few which I have not seene in the bookes themselves for there are some such even of places cited for greatest strength besides the integrity of my purpose I have this safe defence against any quarreller that what place soever I cite from any Catholique Author if I have not considered the Book it selfe I cite him from another Catholique Writer And the like course I hold in the Reformers So that I shall hardly be condemned of any false citation except to make me Accessorie they pronounce one of their owne friends principall A distribution of this Book into Parts Distinctions and Sections Preface 1 THe Reason of this Discourse 2 Incitements to charity towards those which doe it 3 Incitements to Charity towards the Author 4 Why it is not inconvenient now to handle this 5 Dessentious among schollars more and harder to end then among others 6 In such perplexities we ought to incline to that side which favours the dead 7 Why I make it so publique 8 What reader I desire to have 9 The reasons why there are so many citations 10 God punisheth that sin most which occasions most sin in others The first part first Distinction first Section 1 Why we first prove that this sin is not irremissible Sect. 2. 1 Three sorts of mistakers of this sin Sect. 3 1 That all desperation is not haynous and that Self-homicide doth not alwaies procâ—…ed from desperation 2 It may be without Infidâ—…lity 3 When it is poena peccati it is involuntarium 4 The reason why men ordinarily aggravate desperation 5 Of the second opinion which is of impenitiblenes 6 Of Calvins opinion that it may be 7 None impeccable nor impenitible Sect. 4. 1 Of the third sort which presume actuall impenitence by reason of this Act. 2 Which is the safer side in doubtfull cases 3 In Articulo Mortis the Church ever interprets favourably 4 What true repentance is by Clement 5 Witnesses which acquit more credited then they which accuse in the Cannon Law Sect. 5. 1 Why we wayve the Ordinary definition of Sin taken from Saint Augustine and follow another taken from Aquinas 2 Of the torturing practice of Casuists 3 Of the eternall Law of God in Saint Augustines Definition against which a man may doe without sinne 4 Of the Definition which we follow Sect. 6. 1 How Law of Nature and of reason and of God exhibited in this definition are all one and how diversly accepted 2 In some cases all these three Lawes may be broken at once As
3 In revealing a secret 4 In Parricide Sect. 7 1 Of the Law of Nature and that against it strictly taken either no sinne or all sinne is done 2 To doe against Nature makes us not guilty of a greater sinne but more inexcusable 3 No action so evill that it is never good 4 No evill in act but disobedience 5 Lying naturally worse then Selfe-homicide 6 Fame may be neglected yet we are as much bound to preserve fame as life 7 God cannot command a sinne yet he can command a murther 8 Orginall sin cause of all sin is from nature Sect. 8. 1 That if our Adversaries by Law of nature mean only sensitive Nature they say nothing for so most vertuous actions are against nature Sect. 9. 1 As the Law of nature is recta ratio that is Jus gentium So immolation and Idolatry are not against law of Nature Sect. 10. 1 As reason is the form and so the nature of a man every sinne is against nature yea what soever agrees not exactly with Christian Religion 2 Vertue produced to Act differs so from Reason as a medicine made and applyed from a boxe of drugs Dist. 2. Sect. 1. 1 Sinnes against Nature in a particular sense are by schoolmen said to be unnatural Lusts and This. But in Scripture only the first is so called 2 Of the example of the Levite in the Iudges where the Vulgate Edition calls it sin against Nature 3 S. Pauls use of that phrase Law of Nature in long haire 4 Vêgetius use of that phrase Sect. 2. 1 Self preservation is not so of particular Law of Nature but that Beasts naturally transgresse it whom it binds more then us And we when the reason of it ceases in us may transgresse it and sometimes â—…ust 2 Things naturall to the Species are not alwaies so to the Individuall 3 Thereupon some may retire into Solitude 4 The first principles in Naturall law are obligatory but not deductions from thence and the lower we descend the weaker they are 5 Pellicans And by S. Ambrose Bees kill themselves 6 The Reason of almost every law is mutable 7 He that can declare where the reason ceases may dispence with the Law 8 In what manner dispensations worke 9 As nothing can annull the prerogatives of Princes or of Popes though their own act seem to provide against it so no law so much destroyes mans liberty but that he returns to it when the reason of that law ceases 10 Self-preservation which is but an appetition of that which is good in our opinion is not violated by Self-homicide 11 Liberty which is naturally to be preserved may be departed withall when our will is to-doe so Sect. 3. 5 That cannot bee against law of nature which men have ever affected if it be also as this is against sensitive nature and so want the allurements which other sins have 2. There are not so many examples of all other vertues as are of this one degree of fortitude 3 Of Romane Gladiators Of their great numbers great persons and women 4 With how small persuasions Eleazar in Iosephus drew men to it 5 Wives in the Indies doe it yet 6 The Samanaei Priests in the Indies notorious for good life and death did it 7 Latinus Pacatus expresseth this desire pathetically 8 By what means the Spaniards corrected this natural desire in the Indies Dist. 3. Sect. 1. 1 After civility and christianity quenched this naturall desire in the place thereof succeeded a thirst of Martyrdome 2 How leasurely the custome of killing at funerals wore out 3 Philosophers saw and Moses delivered the state of the next life but unperfectly Sect. 2. 1 That Martyrdome was by the Fathers insinuated into men for the most part by naturall Reasons and much upon humane respects 2 So proceeded Clement 3 So did Tertullian 4 So did Cyprian 5 Externall honouurs to Martyrs 6 Monopoly of Martyrdome 7 Gods punishments upon their persecutors encouraged men to it 8 Priviledges of Martyrs extended to many 9 Contrary Reasons cherisht this desire in them 10 Libellatici or compounders with the state in Cyprian 11 Flight in persecution condemned by Tertullian 12 Death grew to be held necessary to make one a Martyr 13 In times when they exceeded in indiscreet exposings of themselvs they taught that Martyrs might be without death 14 Professors in Cyprian men who offred themselves before they were called 15 Enforcers of their own Martyrdome 16 Examples of inordinate affecting of Martyrdome 17 Lawes forbidding more executions made to despite Christians 18 Glory in their number of Martyrs Sect. 3. 1 That Hereticks noting the dignity gaind by Martyrdome laboured to avert them from it but could not correct this naturall inclination 2 They laboured the Magistrate to oppose this desire 3 Basilides denyed Christ to have been crucifâ—…ed and that therefore they dyed madly 4 Helchesar that outward profession of Religion was not needfull much â—…ffo Martyrdome 5 Which also the Gnostici taught and why they prevailed not Sect. 4. 1 That Heretiques missing their purpose herein tooke the naturall way of overtaking the Orthodox in numbers of Martyrs 2 Petilians new way of Martyrdome 3 Another new way of the Circumcelliones or Circuitores 4 The Cataphrygae exceed in number 5 The Euphemitae for their numbers of Martyrs called Martyrians Sect. 5. 1 Hereupon Councels tooke it into their care to distinguish Martyrs from those who dyed for naturall and humane respects Sect. 6. 1 Therefore later Authors doe somewhat remit the dignity of Martyrdome 2 The Jesuits still professe an enormous love to such death Distinction 4. Sect. 1. 1 Lawes and Customes of well pollished Estates having admitted it it were rash to say it to be against Law of Nature 2 True and Ideated Common-wealthes have allowed it 3. 4. Athenians Romans 5 Of Depontani 6 Ethiopians 7 All Lawes presume this desire in men condemned 8 In Utopia authorized 9 And by Plato in certaine cases 10 Conclusion of the first Part. The Second Part of the Law of Reason Distinct. 1. Sect. 1. 1 That the Law of Reason is Conclusions drawn from primary Reason or light of Nature by discourse 2 How much strength such deduced reasons have Sect. 2. 1 Of this kind of reasons generall Lawes have greatest authoritie 2 For it is of their essence that they agree with the Law of Nature 3 And there is better testimony of their producing then of particular mens opinions Sect. 3. 1 Of Lawes the Emperiall Law ought first to be considered 2 The reason of that Law is not abolished but the confession of our dependencie upon it 3 Why it is called Civill Law 4 Of the vastnes of the books from whence it is concocted and of the large extent thereof 5 That yet in this so large Law there is nothing against our case 6 Of the Law of Adrian concerning this in Souldiers 7 Of the other Law concerning this in offâ—…ndors already accused Dist. 2. Sect. 1. 1 Of the Cannon Law 2
nature Sensitive and Rationall and the first doth naturally lead and conduce to the other But because by the languor and faintnesse of our nature we lazily rest there and for the most part goe no further in our journeys therfore out of this ordinary indisposition Aquinas pronounceth that the inclination of our sensitive nature is against the law of reason And this is that which the Apostle calls the law of the flesh and opposeth against the law of the spirit Now although it be possible to sinne and transgresse against this sensitive nature which naturally and lawfully is inclined upon bonum delectabile by denying to it lawfull refreshings and fomentations yet I think this is not that law of nature which these abhorrers of SELF-HOMICIDE complaine to bee violated by that Act. For so they might aswell accuse all discipline and austeritie and affectation of Martyrdome which are as contrarie to the Law of sensitive Nature SECT IX And therefore by law of nature if they will meane any thing and speak to be understood they must entend the law of rationall nature which is that light which God hath afforded us of his eternall law and which is usually call'd recta ratio Now this law of nature as it is onely in man and in him directed upon Piety Religion Sociablenesse and such for as it reacheth to the preservation both of Åšpecies and individualls there are lively prints of it in beasts is with most authors confounded and made the same with jus gentium So Azorius and so Sylvius delivers That the law of nature as it concerns only reason is jâ—… gentium and therefore whatever is jus gentium that is practised and accepted in most especially civil'st nations is also law of nature which Artemidorus exâ—…mplifies in these two Deum colere mulieâ—…ibus vinci How then shall we â—…ccuse Idolarry or immolation of men to be sinnes against nature For not to speak of the first which like a deâ—…uge overflowed the whole world and only Canaan was a little Ark swimming upon it delivered frâ—…m utter drowning but yet not from stoâ—…mes and and leakes and dangerous weather-beatings immolation of men was so ordinary that almost every nation though not batbaâ—…ous had received it the Dâ—…uids of France made their divinations from sacrifices of men And in their wars they presaged also after the same fashion And for our times it appeares by the Spanish relations that in only Hispaniola they sacrific'd yearly 20000 children SECT X. However since this is receiv'd that the nature of every thing is the forme by which it is constituted and that to doe against it is to doe against nature since also this forme in man is reason and so to commit against reason is to sin against nature what sin can be exempt from that charge that it is a sin against nature since every sin is against reason And in this acceptation Lucidus takes the law of nature when he sayes God hath written in our hearts such a law of nature as by that we are saved in the coming of Christ. And so every act which concurres not exactly with our religion shall bee sinne against nature Which will appeare evidently out of Jeremies words where God promiseth as a future blessing that he will write his lawes in their hearts which is the Christian law So that the Christian law and the law of nature for that is the law written in hearts must be all one Sinne therefore against nature is not so enormous but that that may stand true which Navar saith that many lawes both naturall and divine doe bind onely ad veniale And so nor disputing at this time whither it be against reasonal waies or no for reason and vertue differ no otherwise than a close box of druggs and an emplaister or medicine made from thence and applyed to a particular use and necessitie and in the box are not onely aromatike simples but many poysons which the nature of the disease and the art of the Administrer make wholsome This SELF-HOMICIDE is no more against the law of nature then any other sinne nor in any of the acceptations which we touch'd before And this is as much as I determined for this first Distinction Distinction II. SECT I. THere is a lower and narrower acceptation of this law of nature which could not well be discerned but by this light and fore-discoursing against which law this sinne and a very few more seeme to be directly bent and opposed For Azorius sayes That there are sinnes peculiarly against nature which are contra naturalem usum hominis which he exemplifies in unnaturall lusts and in this And of the former example Aquinas sayes That there are some kinds of lusts which are sinnes against nature both as they are generally vices and as they are against the naturall order of the act of generation In the Scriptures also this sinne of mis-using the Sexe is called against nature by S. Paul And once in the vulgar edition in the old Testament But as I intimated once before this sinne against nature is so much abhor'd not because the being against nature makes it so abominable but because the knowledge therof is so domestique so neare so inward to us that our conscience cannot slumber in it nor dissemble it as in most other sinnes it doth For in that example of the Levite in the booke of Judges if those wicked men did seeke him for that abominable use which Iosephus sayes was onely for his wife And when himself relates to the people the history of his injury in the next chapter he complains that they went about to kill him to enjoy his wife and of no other kind of injury though the Host which had harbor'd him disswade the men thus solum non operemini hoc contra naturam will any man say that the offer which he made them to extinguish their furious lust to expose to them his owne daughter a virgine and the wife of his guest which Iosephus encreases by calling her a Levite and his kins-woman was a lesse sinne then to have given way to their violence or lesse against nature because that which they sought was contra naturalem usum Is not every voluntary pollution in genere peccati as much against the law of nature as this was since it strayes and departs from the way and defeats the end of that facultie in us which is generation The violating therefore of the law of nature doth in no acceptation aggravate the sinne Neither doth the Scripture call any other sinne then disorderly lust by that name S. Paul once appeals to the law of nature when arguing about the covering of heads of men or women at publique prayer hee sayes Judge in your selves And Doth not nature teach you that if a man have long haire it is a shame Not that this was against
that law of nature to which all men were bound for it was not alwayes so For in most places shavings and cuttings aâ—…d pullings are by the Batyriques and Epigrammatists of those times reprehended for delicacy and effeminatenesse And the Romans till for rain corruption had envenom'd them were ever call'd gloriously Intonsi but because sayes Calvine it was at that time received as a custome throughout all Greece to weare short haire S. Paul calls it naturall So Vegetius sayes That from November to March the Seas are shut up and intractable lege naturae which now are tame and tractable enough and this also lege naturae And that custome which S. Paul call'd naturall in Greece was not long naturall there For the Bishops of Rome when they made their Canons for Priests shavings did it because they would have their Priests differ from the Priests of the Greek Church So that S. Paul mentioning the law of nature argues not from the weight and hainousnesse of the fault as our adversaries use but useth it as the nearest and most familiar and easie way to lead them to a knowledge of decencie and a departing from scandalous singularitie in those publique meetings SECT II. And though Azorius as I said and many others make this Selfe-homicide an example of sin against particular Law of Nature yet it is onely upon this reason that selfe-preservation is of Naturall Law But that Naturall Law is so generall that it extends to beasts more then to us because they cannot compare degrees of obligation and distinctions of duties and offices as we can For we know that some things are naturall to the species and other things to the particular person and that the latter may correct the first And therefore when Cicero consulted the oracle at Delphâ—s he had this answer Follow your owne nature And so certainly that place It is not good for the man to be alone is meant there because if he were alone Gods purpose of multiplying mankinde had beene frustrate Yet though this be ill for conservation of our species in generall yet it may be very fit for some particular man to abstaine from all such conversation of marriage or men and retire to a sollitude For some may need that counsell of Chrysostome Depart from the high way transplant thy self in some inclosed ground for it is hard for a tree which stands by the way side to keep her fruit till it be ripe Our safest assurance that we be not mislead with the ambiguity of the word Naturall Law and the perplex'd variety thereof in Authors will be this That all the precepts of Naturall Law result in these Fly evill seek good That is doe according to Reason For these as they are indispensable by any authority so they cannot be abolished nor obscur'd but that our hearts shall ever not onely retaine but acknowledge this Law From these are deduced by consequence other precepts which are not necessary alwaies as Redde depositâ—… For though this seeme to follow of the first Doe according to reason yet it is not alwaies just And as Aquinas saies The lower you goe towards particulars the more you depart from the necessitie of being bound to it So Acacius illustrates it more clearely It is naturall and bindes all alwaies to know there is a God From this is deduced by necessary consequence that God if he be must be worshipped and after this by likely consequence that he must be worshipped in this or this manner And so every Sect will a little corruptly and adulterately call their discipline Naturall Law and enjoyn a necessary obedience to it But though our substance of nature which is best understood of the foundations and principles and first grounds of Naturall Law may not be changed yet functio natâ—… a which is the exercise and application therof and deduction from thence may and must The like danger is in deducing consequences from this naturall Law of Selfe-preservation which doth not so rigorously and urgently and illimitedly binde but that by the Law of Nature it selfe things may yea must neglect themselves for others of which the Pellican is an instance or an embleme And St. Ambrose Philosophying divinely in a contemplation of Bees after he hath afforded them many other prayses sayes That whâ—…n they finde themselves guilty of having broken any of their Kings Lawes Pâ—…nitenti condemnatione se mulâ—…tant ut immoriantur aâ—…ulet sui vulnore Which magnanimity and justice he compares there with the Subjects of the Kings of Persia who in like cases are their owne executioners As this naturall instinct in beasts so rectified reason belonging onely to us instructs us often to preferre publique and necessary persons by exposing our selves to unevitable destruction No law is so primary and simple but it fore-imagines a reason upon which it was founded and scarce any reason is so constant but that circumstances alter it In which case a private man is Emperor of himselfe for so a devout man interprets those words Faciamus hominem ad iâ—…ginom nostrum id est sui juris And he whose conscience well tempred and dispassion'd assures him that the reason of selfe-preservation ceases in him may also presume that the law ceases too and may doe that then which otherwise were against that law And therefore if it be true that it belongs to the Bishop of Rome to declare interpret limit distinguish the law of God as their Doctors teach which is to declare when the reason of the Law ceases it may be as true which this Author and the Canons affirme that he may dispense with that Law for hee doth no more then any man might doe of himselfe if he could judge as infallibly Let it be true that no man may at any time doe any thing against the law of nature yet As a dispensation workes not thus that I may by it disobey a law but that that law becomes to me no law in that case wher the reason ceases So may any man be the Bishop Magistrate to himselfe and dispense with his conscience where it can appeare that the reason which is the soule and forme of the law is ceased Because as in Oathes and Vowes so in the Law the necessitie of dispensations proceedes from this that a thing which universally considered in it selfe is profitable and honest by reason of some particular event becomes either dishonest or hurtfull neither of which can fall within the reach or under the Commandement of any law and in these exempt and priviledged cases the priviledge is not contrajus universale but contra universalitem juris It doth onely succor a person not wound nor infirme a law No more then I take from the vertue of light or dignitie of the Sunne if to escape the scortching thereof I allow my selfe the reliefe of a shadow And
as neither the watchfulnesse of Parliaments nor the descents and indulgences of Princes which have consented to lawes derogatory to themselves have beene able to prejudice the Princes non obstantes because prerogative is incomprehensible and over-flowes and transcends all law And as those Canons which boldly and as some School-men say blasphemously say Non licebit Papae diminish not his fulnesse of power nor impeach his motus propriores as they call them nor his non obstante jure divino because they are understood ever to whisper some just reservation sine justa causa or rebus sic stantibus so what law soever is cast upon the conscience or liberty of man of which the reason is mutable is naturally condition'd with this that it binds so long as the reason lives Besides Selfe-preservation which wee confesse to be the foundation of generall naturall Law is no other thing then a naturall affection and appetition of good whether true or seeming For certainly the desire of Martyrdome though the body perish is a Selfe-preservation because thereby out of our election our best part is advanc'd For heaven which we gaine so is certainly good Life but probably and possibly For here it holds well which Athenagoras sayes Earthly things and Heavenly differ so as Veri-simile Verum And this is the best description of felicitie that I have found That it is reditus uniuscujusque rei ad suum principium Now since this law of Selfe-preservation is accomplish'd in attaining that which conduces to our ends and is good to us for libertv which is a faculty of doing that which I would is as much of the law of nature as preservation is yet if for reasons seeming good to me as to preserve my life when I am justly taken prisoner I will become a slave I may doe it without violating the law of nature If I propose to my selfe in this SELF-HOMICIDE a greater good though I mistake it I perceive not wherein I transgresse the generall law of nature which is an affection of good true or seeming and if that which I affect by death bee truely a greater good wherein is the other stricter law of nature which is rectified reason violated SECT III. Another reason which prevailes much with me and delivers it from being against the Law of nature is this that in all ages in all places upon all occasions men of all conditions have affected it and inclin'd to doe it And as Gardan sayes it Mettall is planta sepulta and that a Mole is Animal sepultum So man as though he were Angelus sepultus labours to be discharged of his earthly Sepulchre his body And though this may be said of all other sinnes that men are propense to them and yet for all that frequency they are against nature that is rectifyed reason yet if this sinne were against particular Law of nature as they must hold which aggravate it by that circumstance and that so it wrought to the destruction of our species any otherwise then intemperate lust or surfer or incurring penall Lawes and such like doe it could not be so generall since being contrary to our sensitive nature it hath not the advantage of pleasure and delight to allure us withall which other sinnes have And when I frame to my selfe a Martyrologe of all which have perished by their own meanes for Religion Countrey Fame Love Ease Feare Shame I blush to see how naked of followers all vertues are in respect of this fortitude and that all Histories afford not so many examples either of cunning and subtile devises or of forcible and violent actions for the safeguard of life as for destroying Petronius Arbiter who served Nero a man of pleasure in the office of Master of his pleasures upon the first frowne went home and cut his Veines So present and immediate a step was it to him from full pleasure to such a death How subtilly and curiously Attilius Regulus destroyed himselfe Wo being of such integritie that he would never have lyed to save his life lyed to lose it falsely pleading that the Carthaginians had given him poyson and that within few dayes he should dye though he stayed at Rome Yet Codrus forcing of his death exceeded this because in that base disguise he was likely to perish without fame Herennius the Sicilian could endure to beat out his own braines against a post and as though he had owed thanks to that braine which had given him this devise of killing himselfe would not leave beating till he could see and salute it Comas who had been a Captaine of theeves when he came to the to ture of examination scorning all forraigne and accessorie helps to dye made his owne breath the instrument of his death by stopping and recluding it Annibal because if hee should be overtaken with extreame necessitie he would be beholden to none for life nor death dyed with poyson which he alwaies carryed in a ring As Demosthenes did with poyson carryed in a penne Aristarchus when he saw that 72 yeares nor the corrupt and malignant disease of being a severe Critique could weare him out sterved himselfe then Homer which had written a thousand things which no man else understood is said to have hanged himselfe because he understood not the Fishermens riddle Othryades who onely survived of 300 Champions appointed to end a quarrell between the Lacedemonians and Athenians when now the lives of all the 300 were in him as though it had been a new victory to kill them over again kill'd himselfe Democles whom a Greeke Tyrant would have forced to show that he could suffer any other heat scalded himselfe to death Pâ—…rtia Cato's daughter and Catulus Luctatius sought new conclusions and as Quintilian calls them Nova Sacramenta pereundi and dyed by swallowing burning coales Poore Terence because he lost his 108 translated Comedies drown'd himselfe And the Poet Labienus because his Satyricall Bookes were burned by Edict burnt himselfe too And Zeno before whom scarce any is preferr'd because he stumbled and hurt his finger against the ground interpreted that as a Summons from the earth and hang'd himselfe being then almost â—…oo yeares old For which act Diogenes Laertius proclaimes him to have been Mira falicitate vir qui incolumis integer sine Morbo excessit To cure himselfe of a quartane Portius Latro killed himselfe And Festus Domicians Minion onely to hide the deformity of a Ringworme in his face Hippionas the Poet rimed Bubalus the Painter to death with his Iambiques Macer bore well enough his being called into question for great faults but hanged himselfe when hee heard that Cicero would plead against him though the Roman condemnations at that time inflicted not so deep punishments And so Cessius Licinius to escape Cicero's judgement by choaking himselfe with a napkin had as
But that they who killed themselves without giving an account of their reasons to them were cast out unburied And Plato who is usually cited against this opinion disputes in it in no severer ◅ashion nor more peremptory then thus What shall we say of him which kills his nearest and most deare friend which deprives himselfe of life and of the purpose of destiny And not urged by any Sentence or Heavy Misfortune nor extreame shame but out of a cowardlinesse and weaknesse of a fearfull minde doth unjustly kill himselfe What Purgatory and what buriall by law b◅longs to him God himselfe knowes But let his friends inquire of the Interpretors of the law and doe as they shall direct You see nothing is delivered by him against it but modestly limitedly and perplexedly And this is all which I will say of the first member of that definition of sinne which I undertooke which is transgressing of the Law of Nature Wherein I make account that I have sufficiently delivered and rescued this Selfe-homicide from any such violating of the Law as may aggravate the fact or make it hainous Second Part. Distinction I. Of the Law of Reason SECT I. THat part of the Definition of sin which wee received for the second place is That it be against the Law of Reason where if we should accept Reason for Recta Ratio especially primarily and originally it would be the same as Law of Nature Therefore I rather choose to admit such an acceptation thereof as may bring most doubts into disputation and so into clearenesse Reason therefore in this place shall signifie conclusions drawne and deduced from the primary Reason by our discourse and ratiocination And so sinne against reason is sinne against such arguments and conclusions as may by good consequence be de◅ived from primary and originall Reason which is light of nature This primary reason therefore against which none can plead lycense law custome or pardon hath in us a soveraigne and masculine force and by it through our Discourse which doth the motherly office of shaping them and bringing them forth and up it produces conclusions and resolutions SECT II. And as in earthly Kingdoms the Kings children and theirs and their race as farre as we may reasonably presume any tincture of blood have many priviledges and respects due to them which yet were forfeited if there appeared any bastardy or interruption of lawfull descent from that roote And though these respects and obsequiousnesse belong to them as they are propagated from that roote and as some sparks of that Soveraignty glimmer in them yet their Servants and Officers take them where they finde them and consider them onely as Dukes or Lords and possessors of patrimoniall estates but every mans heart and allegeance is directed and fastned upon the Prince and perchance a step or two lower with a present and immed ate relation to the father and what they have from him So whē from those true propositions which are the eldest children and issue of our light of Nature and of our discourse conclusions are produced those conclusions also have now the Nature of propositions and beget more and to all these there belongs an assent and submission on our parts if none by the way have beene corrupted and bastarded by fallacy And though as in the other case men of a weake disposition or lazey or flattering looke no farther into any of these propositions then from whose mouth it proceeds or what authority it hath now not from whence it was produced yet upon the heire apparent which is every necessary consequence from naturall light every mans resolution is determin'd and arrested by it and submitted to it And though humane lawes by which Kingdomes are policed be not so very neare to this Crown of certaine Truth and first light for if they were necessary consequences from that law of nature they could not be contrary in divers places and times as we see lawes to be yet I doe justly esteeme them neerer and to have more of that bloud royall in them then the resolutions of particular men or of Schooles Both because it is of the essence of all humane law that it agrees with nature I meane for the obligation in interiori fore without which a law hath no more strength then an usurper whom they which obey watch an oportunity to dispossesse And because Assemblies of Parliaments and Councels and Courts are to be presumed more diligent for the delivery and obstetrication of those children of naturall law and better witnesse that no false nor supposititious issue be adm◅tted then any one man can be For the law is therefore well call'd Communis Reip. sponsio because that word signifies as well that to which they have all betroth'd themselves as the securitie and stipulation which the State gives for every mans direction and assurance in all his civill actions Since therefore we have in the first part throughly examined whether this Selfe homicide be alwayes of necessitie against the law of nature it deserves the first consideration in this second part to inquire how farre humane Lawes have determin'd against it before wee descend to the arguments of particular Authors of whatsoever reverence or authoritie SECT III. And because in this disquisition that law hath most force and value which is most generall and there is no law so generall that it deserves the name of Jus gentium or if there be it will bee the same as wee said before as Rocta Ratio and so not differ from the law of Nature To my understanding the Civill or Imperiall law having had once the largest extent and being not abandon'd now in the reason and essence and nature thereof but onely least the accepting of it should testifie some dependencie upon the Empire we owe the first place in this consideration to that Law This therefore which we call the Civill Law for though properly the Municipall Law of every Nation be her Civill Law yet Romes Emperors esteeming the whole world to be one City as her Bishops doe esteeme it one Diocesse the Romane Law hath wonne the name of Civill Law being a decoction and composition of all the Regall Lawes Dec◅ees of the Senate Plebescites Responsa Prudentum and Edicts of Emperors from 1400. yeares before Justinian to so long time after as the Easterne Emperors made them authentique being of such largenesse as Iustinians part thereof consists of 150000. of those distinctions which he calls verses and is the summe and marrow of many millions extracted from 2000. Volumes This Law which is so abundant that almost all the points controverted betweene the Romane and the reformed Churches may be decided and appointed by it This Law I say which both by penalties and Ana◅hemaes hath wrought upon bodies fortunes and consciences hath pronounced nothing against this Selfe-homicide which we have now in disputation It is
remitting our selves to the learned which are our fathers instruction what ever defect be in us yet Saluamur in fide parentum And in this sort e Pindarus making an implicite prayer to God that he would give him that which he knew to be best for him died in that very petition Except therefore Saint Augustine have that moderation in his resolution That a better life never receives a man after a death whereof himselfe was guilty we will be as bould with him as one who is more obliged to him then we who repeating Augustines opinion That the Devill could possesse no body except he entred into him by sinne rejects the opinions and saies The holy Father speaks not of what must of necessity be but what for the most part uses to bee SECT II. And in our case we ought as I thinke rather to follow Saint Hieromes temper who in his exposicion upon Jonas which I wonder why Gratian cited being so farre from his end and advantage sayes In persecution I may not kill my selfe absque eo ubi cassitas periclitatur where I am so â—…arre from agreeing with Gratian that Absque eo is inclusivoly spoken and amounts to this phrase no not though as I thinke that good learned father included in that word Castitas all purity of Religion and manners for to a man so rectified death comes ever and every way seasonably and welcome For qualem mors invenit hominem ita homo inveniâ—… mortem SECT III. From this place of Saint Hierome I beleeve and some other which perchance I have not reaâ—… and some other places in others of like charitable dâ—…scent to this opinion Lavater having made his profit of all Peters Martyrs reasons almost against this act and adding some of his owne when they both handle the duties of Saul confesseth that in this case of preserving Chastity Augustine Chrysostome and Lactant us and Hierome departed from their opinion who condemned this Act. SECT IIII. Peter Martyr also presents one other reason of which he seemes glad and well contented in it which is That we may not hasten death because Mors malum But it is not worthy of his gravity especially so long after Clemens Alex. had so throughly defeated that opinion But if it be Malum it is but Malum poena And that is an evill of which God is Authour and is not that Malum quo mali suinus neither doth it alwayes prove the patient to be evill though God for all that be alwaies iust for himselfe said of the man borne blinde Neither he nor his parents have sinned And of that Malum poenae which is esteemed the greatest in this life of temporall affictions because of the neere danger of empairing our soule which is to be possessed Thyraeus from Saint Hierome and Chrysostome sayes that it is not alwayes inflicted for sinne but to manifest the glory of God And therefore the greatest evill which can be imagined of this kinde of evill which is Damnation hath not so much Rationem mali as the least sinne that drawes Damnation Death therefore is an act of Gods justice and when he is pleased to inflict it he may chuse his Officer and constitute my selfe as well as any other And if it were of the worst sort oâ—… evill â—…et as Saint Augustine sayes that in the Act of Marriage there is Bonus usus mali id est concupiscentiae quo malo male utuntur adulteri And as good Paulinus prayses Severus that he having in Conjugio peccandi licentiam departed not from his accustomed austerity so may the same be said of death in some cases as in Martyrdome For though Martyr urge farther that death is called Gods enemy and is therefore evil yea Musculus sayes upon that place It is often commended in Scriptures because towards the faithfull God useth it to good ends and makes it Cooperari ad salutem And by what authority can they so assuredly pronounce that it falls out never in our case Besides this death hath lost much of her naturall malignity already and is not now so ill as at first she was naturally for as Calvin notes here she is already so destroyed that she is not lethalis but molesta SECT V. One reason more Martyr offers of his owne which is Vita Donum life because it is the gift of God may not be profused but when we have agreed to him that it may not be unthriftily and prodigally cast away how will he conclude from thence such an ingratitude as that I shall forfake Gods glory and may in no case ponere animam How will it follow from I must not alwaies to I may never SECT VI. Lavater after many other urges this reason That because Judges are established therefore no man should take Dominion over himselfe But in the Church of England where auricular confession is not under precept nor much in practise for that we admit it not at all or refuse it so as the Waldenses did though a reverend man say it is more then I knew who is judge of sin against which no civill law provides or of which there is no evidence May not I accuse and condemne my selfe to my selfe and inflict what penance I will for punishing the past and avoiding like occasion of sinne Upon this reason depends that perplexâ—…d case whether the Pope may not give himselfe aâ—…olution from Acts and Vowes and partake his owne 〈◊〉 although by the best opinion it is agrâ—…ed that to do so is an act oâ—… jurisdiction which by Lavaters rule no man may 〈◊〉 upon himselfe The Emperiall lawes forbid iâ—… a generality any to be judge in his ownâ—… cause but all Expositors except Soveraignes And in ordinary Judges all agree with Baldus That in facto notorio if the dignity of the Iudge be concerned he is the proper Iudge of it And he sayes that it belongs to the Pretor to judge whether such a cause belong to his judgement or no And with a Non obstante even upon Naturall law as the words of the priviledge are Theodorius allowed Bishops to be Judges in their owne cause So if a sonne which had not beene Sui juris had beene made â—…onsul 〈◊〉 he have emancipated himselfe or authorized another to have adopted him And besides thâ—… it appeares that the Popes have exercised juâ—…sdiction upon themselves even before they were Popes for Ioha 22 having permission to chuâ—…e oâ—…e Pope chose himselfe which deed Naucler relates and justâ—…fies by Canonicall rules it is plaine that he may exercise jurisdiction upon himselfe in anâ—… case where there is not a distinction of persons enjoyned Iure Divine as in Baptisme which will not be stretched to our case And certainly the reason of the Law why none
and bid them injoy the favour of that indulgent Physitian Qui non concoxit dormiat FINIS 20. Sept. 1644. Imprimatur IO RUSH WORTH 1. The reason of this discourse a Epist. ante confessionem Incitements to charity towards the doer b B. Dorethcus doctrin 6. c Bosq. conc 2. d lib. de patientia e Scala paradis grad 3. f In quaest fuse disp ad q. 6. g Forest. de venen not in observat 2. h Serar Trihaeres l. 2. câ—…p 17. i Heb. 2. 17. Incitements to charity toward the Author k Serar Trihaeres l. 2. cap. 17. l 10. 5. 2. m Athenag de resur Why it is not inconvenient now to handle this point m Filesacus de authorit Epis. cap. 1. 97. Dissentions among schollars more and harder to end then others o Dan. 10. p Humf. Iesui part 2. ad rat 5 q ejusd part 1 praefat ad Com Leicest r Ratio 5. n Such perplexities wee ought to enclin to that side that favoureth the dead s Notae Mallon in Paleâ—…t Sin part 1. cap. 2. t De pietate et â—…blilosophia Why I make it so publique u Hâ—…er Apol. advers Ruffin x Theodor. a Niem l. 2. ca. 37. y Tessarid 6. What reader I wish z Gen. 3. 6. et 7. a Hom. de S. Susanna b Steâ—…ch de Valla de Don. const The reason of so many citations c Epist. Tit. Vesp. God punishes that sinn most which occasions most sinne in others d Paulin. Ep. 4. Severo e Epist. ad Astyriion a Palaeotus de notbis c. 28. 1. Why wee first prove that this sinne is not irremissible 1. Three sorts of mistakers of this sinne 1. That all desperation is not hainous and that this act doth not alwaies proceed from desperation 2. It may bee without infidelitie a Tho. 22. q. 2. ar 2. 3 When it is poena peccati it is involuntarium b Perer. Exod. c. 1. dijp 4. 4. The reason why men ordinarily aggravate it c Cau. 17. d Bosquier Con. 2. Exod. 32. 29. 5. Of the second opinion impenitiblenesso 6. Of Calvins opinion Mat. 12. 30. 7. None impeccable nor impenitible 1. Of the third sort and that we ought not to presume actuall impenitence in this case a Azor. Mor. Instit. pa. 1. l. 2. c. 16. 2. Which is the safer side in doubts b Zambran de poeniten dub 2. n. 39. 1. Inarticulo mortis the Church interprets ever favourably c Idem de bap dub 8. n. 1. d Ibid. n. 2. e Idem praelud 1. n. 7. f Idem de poenitent dub 3. nu 2. g Ibidem h Dub. 7. nu 9. i Idem de unct dub 2. nu 3. k Sayr Thesaur cas consci tom 1. l. 2. c. 21. nu 2. l Alcor azoar 19. m Stromat l. 2 4. What true repentance is n Lib. 3. ad amandum cp 1. 5. Witnesses which acquit more acceptable then accusers o Dist. 81. ca. Clerici p 12. q. 1. c. duo sunt 1. Why wee wave the ordinary definition of sinne taâ—…en from S. Augustine and follow that of Aquinas a Lib. 2. Dist. 35. 〈◊〉 Of the torturing practise of Casuists b Panegyr Traian c Thesaur Cas. Consc. l. 1. Ca. 5. d Tho. 22. q. 91. ar 2. 3. Of the eternall law of God in Augustines definition against which a man may doe without sinne e 2. Sâ—… 12. 14. f 22. q. 64. ar 1. Con. 4. Of the Denition which we follow 1. How the law of nature of reason and of God exhibited in this definition are all one and how diversly accepted a Dist. 1. Omâ—…es 2. In some eases all these three lawes may be broke at once b Soto de teg Secr. membr 1. q. 2. 3. Revealing a secret c de Rep. l. 1. cap. 4. 4. Parricide d Aelian l. 4. cap. 1. 1. Of the law of nature and that against it strictly taken either no sin or all sinne is done 2. To doe against nature makes us not guilty of a greater sinne but more inexcusable 3. Nothing so evill that is never good 4. No evill but disobedience 5. Lying naturally worse then Selfe-homicide a Thesaâ—… cas cons. l. 7. c. 9. n. 9. b sup 22. q. 37. ar 2. c de teg secr memb 1. q. 3. 6 Fame may be neglected yet we are as much bound to preserve it as life d Soto ihid e Th. 22. q. 104. ar 4. ad 2. m. 7 God cannot command a sin yet he can command murder f Aug. cont faust l. 26. ca. g Th. 1. q. 105. at 6. ad 1. n De li. Arb. l. 13. ca. 13. 8 Originall sin is from nature i 12. q. 81. ar 4. k 3. q. 8. ar 5. ad 7. l 1. q. 100. ar 1. ad 3. m 12. q. 81. ar 4. 1 That if our adversaries by law of Nature meane onely Sensitive Nature they say nothing for so most vertuous actions are against Nature a Tho. 12. q. 71. ar 2. Con. b Câ—…rbo Cas. Cons. To. 2. pa. 1. 6. 5. Rom. 7. 23. c Tho. ibid. 1 As the law of Nature is Recta Ratio it is jus gentium So Immolation of men and Idolatry are not against Nature a Mor. Inst. 〈◊〉 1. l. 5. cap. 1. b Com. ad leg Reg. prae c De Som. sign d Pol. Virg. de Invent. râ—…r l. 5. cap. 8. e Middendorp de Acad. l. 6. â—…x Io. Bormo f Casar Bell. Gall. l. 6. g Mat. Met. praef ad Oscr. Hist. 1 A reason is the forme and so the Nature of man every sin is against Nature yea whatsoever agrees not exactly with Christian Religion a 12. q. 71. ar 2. Con. b Epistola mult is epâ—…ft c 31. 33. d Manual ca. 23. nu 50. 2. Vertue produced to act differs so from reason as a medicine made and applyed from a box of druggs 1. Sinnes against nature in a particular sense are by Schoolmâ—…n said to be unnaturall lusts and this But in Scriptures onely the first is so called a Mor. Instit. p. 1. l. 4. cap. 1. b 22. q. 154. ar 11. Con. c Rom. 1. 20. d Judg. 19. 24 2. Of the example of the Levite in the Judges e Antiq. l. 5. 〈◊〉 2. 1 Cor. 11. 14. 3. S Pauls use of the phrase Law of nature in long haire f De re milit l. 4. c. 39. 4. Vegetius use of that phrase g Picrius de barbis Sacerdotum 1. Selfe-preservation is not so of particular law of nature but that beasts naturally transgresse it whom it binds more then us and we when the reason thereof ceases in us may transgresse it and sometimes must a Tho. 12. q. 51. ar 7. Con. â— Things naturall to the species are not alwaies so to the individuum b Fabricius Hist. Cicero Ann. 30. c Gen. 2. 18. 3 Therefore some may abandon the world d Homil. 36. Oper. imperf in Matth. e Th. 12. q. 94. ar 4. 4. First principles in naturall Law are obligatory but not deductions
The largenes of the subject and object thereof 3 Of Codex Canonum or the body of the Canon Law in use in the primitive Church Of the Additions to this Code since 4 Canon Law apter to condemn then the Civil and why Sect. 2. 1 That this proposition is not haereticall by the Canon Law 2 Simancha his large Definition of Haeresy 3 No dâ—…cision of the church in the point 4 Nor Canon nor Bull. 5 Of the common opinion of Fathers and that that varies by times and by places by Azoriâ—… 7 Gratian cites but two Fathers whereof one is on our side 8 That that part of Canon Law to which Canonists will stand condemns not this 9 A Catholique Bpaâ—…censure of Gratian and his decret Sect. 3. 1 What any Councells have done in this point 2 Of the Councell of Antisidore under Greg. 1. 590. 3 That it only refusd their oblations 4 That it was only a Diocesan Councell 5 The Councell of Braccar inflicts two punishments 6 The first of not praying for them is meant of them who did it when they were excommunicate 7 The second which is denying of buriall is not always inflicted as a punishment to an offendor as appeares in a punishment to an offendor as appears in a locall interdict 8 Romans buried such offendors as had satisfied the law within the Towne as they did Vestalls and Emperours Dist. 3 Sect. 1 1 Of the Laws of particular Nations 2 Of our Law of Felo de se. 3 That this is by our Law Murder and what reasons entitle the King to his good 4 That our naturall desire to such dying probably induced this customary Law 5 As in States abounding with slaves Law-makers quenched this desire lest there should have beene no use of them 6 Forbid lest it should draw too many as hunting and vsury and as wine by Mahomet 7 Upon reason of generall inclinations we have severe Laws against theft 8 When a man is bound to steale 9 Sotus his opinion of Day-theeues 10 Of a like law against Self-homicide in the Earldome of Flaunders Sect. 2. 1 Severe Laws are arguments of a generall inclination not of a hainousnes in the fact 2 Fasting upon Sundays extremely condemned upon that reason 3 So Duells in France 4 So Bull-baitings in Spaine 5 The hainousnes of Rape or Witch-craft are not diminished where the Laws against them were but easie 6 Publike benefit is the rule of extending odious Laws and restraining favourable 7 If other nations concurre in like Laws it sheweth the inclination to be generall Sect. 3. 1 The Custome of the Iews not burying till Sunn-set and of the Athenians cutting off the dead hand evict not Sect 4. 1 The reasons drawne from remedies used upon some occasions to prevent it prove as little Dist. 4. Sect. 1. 1 Of the reasons used by particular men being divines 2 Of S. Aug. and of his argument against Donatus 3 Of S. Augustine comparatively with other Fathers 4 Comparison of Navar and Sotus 5 Iesuits often beholding to Calvin for his expositions 6 In this place we differ not from S. Augustine 7 Nor in the second cited by Gratian. 8 That there may be Causa puniendi sine culpa 9 As Valens the Emperor did misse Theodosius So S. Augustine praetermitted the right case 10 Of Cordubensis rule how we must behave our selves in perplexities 11 How temporall reward may be taken for spirituall offices 12 Of Pindarus death praying for he knew not what 13 In one place we depart from S. Augustine upon the same reason as the Jesuite Thyraeus doth depart from him in another Sect. 2. 1 The place cited by Gratian out of S. Hierome is on our side Sect. 3. 1 Lavaters confession that Augustine Hierome Chrysostome Lactantius are of this opinion Sect. 4. 1 Of Peter Martyrs reason Mors malum 2 Clement hath long since destroyed that reason 3 Of Malum poenae how farre it may bee wished and how farre it condemnes 4 Possessed men are not alwaies so afflict for sinne 5 Damnation hath not so much rationem mali as the least sinne 6 If Death were of the worst sort of evill yet there might be good use of it as of Concupiscence 7 In what fense S. Paul calles Death Gods enemy 8 Death since Christ is not so evill as before Sect. 5. 1 Of Peter Martyrs reason Vita donum Dei Sect. 6. 1 Of Lavaters reason of Iudges in all causes 2 Where Confession is not in use there is no Iudge of secret sinne 3 Of the Popes Iurisdiction over himselfe 4 Of such Iurisdiction in other persons by Civil lawes 5 10 22. elected himselfe Pope 6 Iurisdiction over our selves is therefore denyed us 7 because we are presumed favourable to our selves not in cases esteemed hurtfull 8 In cases hurtfull we have such Iurisdiction 9 Oath of Gregory in the great Schisme 10 When a man becomes to be sui Juris 11 Warre is just betweene Soveraigne Kings because they have no Iudge 12 Princes give not themselves priviledges but declare that in that case they will exercise their inherent generall Priviledge Sect. 7. 1 Josephus reason of Depositum 2 A Depositarie cannot be accused De Culpa but De Dolo. 3 A secret received Data fide is In natura Depositi Sect. 8. 1 Of similitudinary reasons in Authors not Divine Sect. 9. 1 Of Josephus his reason of Hostis. Sect. 10. 1 Of Josephus reason of Servus Sect. 11. 1 Of Josephus reason of a Pilot. Distinct. 5. Sect. 1. 1 Of Saint Thomas two reasons from Iustice and Charitie 2 Of that part of injustice which is stealing himselfe from the State 3 Monastike retyring is in genere rei the same fault 4 The better opinion is that there is herein no injustice 5 Of the other Injustice of usurping upon anothers Servant 6 Though we have not Dominium we have Usum of this life And we may relinquish it when we will 7 The State is not Lord of our life yet may take it away 8 If injustice were herein done to the State then by a licence from the State it may be lawfull 9 And the State might recompence her Domage upon the goods or Heirs of the Delinquent 10 In a man necessary to the State there may bee some Injustice herein 11 No man can doe injurie to himselfe 12 The question whether it be against Charity respited to the third part Sect. 2. 1 Of Aristotles two reasons of Misery and Pusillanimitie Distinct. 6. Sect. 1. 1 Of reasons on the other side 2 Of the Law of Rome of asking the Senate leave to kill himselfe 3 Of the case upon that Law in Quintillian Sect. 2. 1 Comparisons of desertion and destruction 2 Of Omissions equall to committings Sect. 3. 3 In great faults the first step imprints a guiltines yet many steps to self-homicide are allowable 4 Dracoes lawes against homicide were retained for the hainousnes of the fault 5 Tolets five Species of Homicide 6 Foure of those were to be found
by prayer and penance We must therefore seek another definition of sinne which I think is not so well delivered in those words of Aquinas Omnis defectus debiti actus habet rationem peccati as in his other Peccatum est actus devians ab ordine debiti finis contra regulam naturae rationis aut legis aeternae For here lex aeterna being put as a member and part of the definition it cannot admit that vast and large acceptation which it could not escape in the description of S. Augustine but must in this place be necessarily intended of lex divina Through this definition therefore we will trace this act of Self-homicide and see whether it offend any of those three sorts of Law SECT VI. Of all these three Laws of Nature of Reason and of God every precept which is permanent and binds alwayes is so compos'd and elemented and complexion'd that to distinguish and seperate them is a Chymick work And either it doth only seeme to be done or is done by the torture and vexation of schoole-limbicks which are exquisite and violent distinctions For that part of Gods Law which bindes alwayes bound before it was written and so it is but dictamen rectae rationis and that is the Law of nature And therefore Jsidore as it is related into the Canons dividing all Law into divine and humane addeth Divine consists of nature Humane of custome Yet though these three be almost all one yet because one thing may be commanded divers waies and by divers authorities as the common Law a Statute and a Decree of an arbitrary Court may bind me to do the same thing it is necessary that we weigh the obligation of every one of these Laws which are in the Definition But first I will only mollify and prepare their crude and undigested opinions and prejudice which may be contracted from the often iteration and specious but sophisticate inculcatings of Law and Nature and Reason and God with this Antidote that many things which are of Naturall and Humane and Divine Law may be broken Of which sort to conceale a secret delivered unto you is one And the Honour due to Parents is so strictly of all these Laws as none of the second Table more Yet in a iust warre a Parricide is not guilty yea by a law of Venice though Bodin say it were better the Towne were sunk then ever there should be any example or president therein A sonne shall redeeme himselfe from banishment by killing his Father being also banished And we read of another state and Laws of Civil Common-wealths may not easily be pronounced to be against Nature where when Fathers came to be of an unprofitable and uselesse age the sons must beat them to death with clubs And of another where all persons of above 70 years were dispatched SECT VII This terme the law of Nature is so variously and unconstantly deliver'd as I confesse I read it a hundred times before I understand it once or can conclude it to signifie that which the author should at that time meane Yet I never found it in any sence which might justifie their vociferations upon sinnes against nature For the transgressing of the Law of nature in any act doth not seeme to me to increase the hay nousnesse of that act as though nature were more obligatory than divine Law but only in this respect it aggravates it that in such a sin we are inexcusable by any pretence of ignorance since by the light of nature we might discern it Many things which we call sin and so evill have been done by the commandement of God by Abraham and the Jsraelites in their departing from Aegypt So that this evill is not in the nature of the thing nor in the nature of the whole harmony of the world and therefore in no Law of nature but in violating or omitting a Commandement All is obedience or disobedience Whereupon our Country-man Sayr confesseth that this SELF-HOMICIDE is not so intrinsecally ill as to Ly. Which is also evident by Cajetan where he affirmes that I may not to save my life accuse my self upon the Racke And though Cajetan extend no farther herâ—…in then that I may not bely my selâ—… Yet 〈◊〉 evicts that Cajetans reasons with as much force forbid any accusation of my self though it be true So much easier may I depâ—…rt with life then with truth or with fame by Cajetan And yet we find that of their fame many holy men have been very negligent For not onely Augustine Anselm and Hierâ—… betray themselves by unurged confessi ns but St Ambrose procur'd certain prostitute women to come into his chamber that by that he might be defamed and the People thereby abstaine from making him Bishop This intrinsique and naturall evill therefore will hardly be found For God who can command a murder cannot command an evill or a sinne because the whole frame and government of the world bâ—…ing his he may vse it as he will As though he can doe a miracle he can do nothing against nature because That is the nature of every thing which he works in it Hereupon upon that other true rule whatsoever is wrought by a superior Agent upon a patient who is naturally subject to that Agent is naturall we may safely infer that nothing which we call siâ—…ne is so against nature but that it may be sometimes agreeable to nature On the other side nature is often taken so widely and so extensively as all sinne is very truely said to be against nature Yea before it come to be sinne For S. Augustine sayes Every vice as it is vice is against nature And vice is but habite which being produced to act is then sinne Yea the parent of all sinne which is hereditary originall sin which Aquinas calls a languor and faintnesse in our nature and an indisposition proceeding from the dissolution of the harmony of originall Justice is by him said to be in us quasi naturale And is as he saith in another place so naturall that though it is propagated with our nature in generation though it be not caused by the principles of nature So as if God would now miraculously frame a man as he did the first woman of another's flesh and bone and not by way of generation into that creature all infirmities of our flesh would be derived but not originall Sin So that originall sinne is traduced by nature onely and all actuall sinne issuing from thence all sinne is naturall SECT VIII But to make our approaches neerer Let us leave the consideration of the Law of nature as it is Providence and Gods decree for his government of the great world and contract it only to the law of nature in the lesse world our selves There is then in us a double law of
both be Catholik As in Germany and France by the common opinion Latreia is not due to the Crosse in Spaine by the common opinion it is it cannot appeare by the Canon law that this is the common opinion of the Fathers for Gratian who onely of the Compilers of the Canon law toucheth the point as farre as either my reading or search hath spied out cites but two Fathers Augustine and Hierome Whereof the latter is of opinion that there may be some cause to do it But in the Canon law I finde no words not onely to lay the infamous name of heresie upon it but that affects it with the mark or stile of sinne or condemnes the fact by inflicting any punishment upon the offender I speake here of the Canon law to which the Canonist will stand which are the Decretall letters and all the extravagants For of Gratians Decret that learned and ingenious Bishop of Tarracon hath taught us what we should thinke when he sayes That he is scarce worth so much reprehension who having nothing that is profiâ—…able or of use except he borrows it is admired of the ignorant and laughed at of the learned who never saw the bookes of the Councells nor the works of the Fathers nor the Registers of the Popes letters And whose compilation had not that confirmation from Eugenius 3 as is fasly attributed to it Yet allthough Gratian have not so much authority that by his inserting an imperiall law or fragment of a Father it should therefore be canoniz'd and grow into the body and strength of the Canon law for then though that law were abrogated againe by the Emperour it should still be alive and binâ—…e by a stronger obligation in the Canon which Alb. Gentilis proves to be against the common opinion yet by consent thus much is afforded him that places cited by him have as much authority in him as thâ—…y had in the Author from whom he tooke them And therefore when we come to handle the Reasons of particular Authors we will pretermit none whom Gratian hath cited for that is their proper place SECT III. And in this Distinction where we handle the opinion of the Canon Law in the point not because Gratian cites it but because the Canons of all Councels are now usurped as Canon Law we will consider a Canon of the Braccarense Councell cited by him But first although he have it not wee will not conceale the Antisidorense Councel which was before the other under Gregor 1. Anno 590. For as the Civill Lawes by limitation of persons and causes gave some restraint and correction to this naturall desire of dying when we would which they did out of a duty to sinew and strengthen as much as they were able the Doctrine of our blessed Saviour who having determined all bloudy sacrifices enlightens us to another Doctrine that to endure the miseries afflictions of this life was wholsome and advantagious to us the Councels also perceiving that this first ingraffed and inborne desire needed all restraints contributed their help This Canon then hath these words If any kill themselves Istorum oblata non recipiantur For it seemes that Preaching and Catechizing had wrastled and fought with their naturall appetite and tamed them to a perplexity whether it might be done or no and so thinking to make sure worke in an indiscreet devotion they gave oblations to the Church to expiate the fault if any were These oblations the Councell forbids to bee accepted not decreeing any thing of the point as of matter of faith but providing against an inconvenient practice Neither was it much obligatory or considerable what it had decreed being onely a Diocesan Councell of one Bishoppe and his Abbats and whose Canons Binnius presents because though some of them be out of use of which this may be one yet they are saies he some discoverers of Antiquity The other Councell which Gratian cites and besides which two I finde none hath these words For those that kill themselves there shall be no commemoration at the oblation nor shall they bee brought to buriall with Psalmes which intimates as the language of the Canon Law is Caninam sepulturam But the glosse upon this doth evict from another Canon that if the person were not under excommunication it is not so For we may communicate with him dead with whom we may communicate living Which showes that his act of dying so put him not into worse state in this respect This answers the first punishment inflicted by that Canon And for the second which is deniall of Cristian buriall it is very rigorous to conclude a hainousnesse of the fact from that since the true Canon Law denyes that to men slaine at Tilt though it afford them if they be not presently dead all the Sacraments applyable in that extreamitie as Penance Eucharist and Unction So that though since it denies buriall to men whom they esteeme in state and way of salvation the Glosse here collects reasonably That this punishment reaches not to the dead but onely to deterre the living referring to this purpose an Epistle of Gregory saying So much as a sumptuous funerall profits a wicked man so much a base or none at all hurts a godly Lastly that Clementine which reckons up many causes for which Christian buriall is denyed amongst which one is a locall interdict at what time the holyest man which dyes in that place cannot bee buried which sometimes extends to whole Kingdomes instructs us sufficiently that one may be subject to that punishment if it be any in that Law and yet not guilty of such a crime as this is reputed to be And the Romans in their Religious Discipline refused solemne buriall to any which perished by lightnings though they buried offenders in the towne as they did Vestals and Emperours because as their Dedication to God had delivered the Nunnes and Soveraigntie the Emperours from bondage of Law so did Justice to which they had made full satisfaction deliver offenders punished And since both Saint Hierome and the Bracarense Councell inflict the same punishments upon those Catechumeni who although they had all other preparations and degrees of maturity in the Christian Faith yet departed out of this world without Baptisme as they doe upon Selfe murtherers and so made them equall in punishment and consequently in guiltinesse I thinke it will ill become the Doctrines of our times and the Analogy thereof to pronounce so desperately of either of their damnations Sert. Senen lib. 6. Annot. 7. p. 311. And here wee end our second Distinction of this second Part which was allotted for the examination of the Canon Law Distinction III. SECT I. OF Arguments of this Nature which are conclusions deduced out of reason and discourse next to these generall Lawes of the Empire and of
the Church which though it might seeme for the generality thereof to have deserved the first place we handled in the second roome because the power thereof hath beene ever litigious and questionable I may justly ranke the Lawes of particular states By our Law therefore as it hath not beene long in practise for Bracton seemes not to know such a Law when allowing an intire chapter to that title he onely repeats the words in that Emperiall Law which I cited before and so admitts if he admit that Law that exception Sine justa causa he which kills himselfe is reputed felo de se and whether he be chargeable with any offence or no he sorfeits his goods which devolving to the Kings Almoner should on the Kings behalfe be employed in pious and charitable uses And it is not onely Homicide but Murder And yet the reasons alledged there are but these That the King hâ—…h lost a Subject that his Peace is broken and that it is of evill example Since therefore to my understanding it hath no foundation in Naturall nor Emperiall Law nor receives much strength from those reasons but having bâ—… custome onely put on the nature of law as most of our law hath I beleeve it was first induced amongst us because we exceeded in that naturall desire of dying so For it is not a better understanding of nature which hath reduced us from it But the wisedome of Law-makers and observers of things fit for the institution and conservation of states For in ancient Common-wealths the numbers of slaves were infinite as ever both in Rome and Athens there were 10 slaves for one Citizen and Pliny sayes that in Augustus time Isidorus had above 4000. And Vedius Pollio so many that he alwayes fed his fish in ponds with their blood and since servitude hath worne out yet the number of wretched men exceeds the happy for every labourer is miserable and beastlike in respect of the idle abounding men It was therefore thought necessary by lawes and by opinion of Religion as Scaevola is alleaged to have said Expetit in Religione Givitates falli to take from these weary and macerated wretches their ordinary and open escape and ease voluntary death And therfore it seemes to be so prohibited as a Lawyer sayes hunting and usery is Ne inescarentur homines and as Mahomet to withdraw his Nation from wine brought them to a religious beliefe that in every grape there was a Devill As therefore amongst us a naturall disease of stealing for as all other so this vice may as well abound in a Nation as in a particular man and Dorotheus relates at large the sicknesse of one of his fryars who could not abstaine from stealing though he had no use of that which he stole hath draw from a Councell holden at London under Hen 3. a Canon which excommunicates the Harbourers of Theeves quibus abundat Regio Angliae and mentions no other fault but this and from the Custome and Princes and Parliaments severe Lawes against theft then are justifiable by Nature or the Iewes Judiciall Law for our Law hangs a man for stealing in extreame necessity when not onely all things to him returne to their first community but he is bound in conscience to steale and were in some opinions though others say he might neglect this priviledge a Selfe-murderer if he stole not And Scotus disputing against the Lawes of those Nations which admit the death of a theife robbing by day because whoever kills such a theife is expresly by Gods Law a murderer ask where have you read an exception of such a theife from the Law Non occides or where have you seene a Bull fallen from Heaven to justifie such executions So it may be a naturall declination in our people to such a manner of death which weakned the state might occasion severer Lawes then the common ground of all Lawes seemes well to beare And therefore as when the Emperour had made a Law to cut off a common abuse of misdevout men that no man might give any thing to the Clergy no not by Testament Saint Hierome said I lament and grieve but not that such a Law is made but that our manners have deserved such a Law so doe I in contemplation of these Lawes mourne that the infirmity and sicknesse of our Nation should neede such Medecines The like must be said of the like Law in the Earldome of Flaunders If it be true That they allow confiscation of goods in onely five cases whereof this is one and so it is rankt with Treason Heresie Sedition and forsaking the Army against the Turk which be strong and urgent circumstances to reduce men from this desire SECT II. For wheresoever you finde many and severe Lawes against an offence it is not safe from thence to conclude an extreame enormity or hainousnesse in the fault but a propensnesse of that people at that time to that fault Thereupon Ignatius and many others even intire Councells were forced to pronounce that whosoever fasted upon Sundayes were Murderers ' of Christ. So in France the Lawes abound against Duells to which they are headlongly apr So are the resolutions of the Spanish Casuists and the Bulls of the Popes iterated and aggravated in that Nation against there Bull-bayting to which they are so enormously addicted which yet of it selfe is no sinne as Navar retracting his opinion after 70 yeares holds at last These severe lawes therefore do no more aggravate a fault then milde punishments diminish it And no man thinks Rape a small fault though Solon punish it if she be a Virgin and freeborn with so much money as would amount to our five shillings and the Salique law punishes a witch which is convict to have eaten a man pecuniarily and laâ—… no high price And therefore Bartolus allowes that in cases of publique profit or detriment the Judges may extend an odious and burdenous law beyond the letter and restraine a favourable and beneficiall law within it though this be against the Nature and common practise of both these lawes If therefore our and the Flemish law be severe in punishing it and that this argument have the more strength because more Nations concurre in such lawes it may well from hence be retorted that every where men are inclinable to it which establisheth much our opinion considering that none of those lawes which prescribe Civill restraints from doing it can make it sinne and the act is not much descredited if it be but therefore evill because it is so forbidden and binds the conscience no farther but under the generall precept of obedience to the law or to the forfeiture SECT III. It seemes also by the practise of the Jewes for Josephus speaks of it as of a thing in use that they did not bury
such as killed themselves till the Sunne set But though I know not upon what Law of theirs they grounded this and I finde not by writers of either of their Policies since their dispersion for though they have no Magistracie but bee under the Lawes of those places into which they are admiâ—…ted in all cases except where they be exempted by priviledg yet they doe also testifie a particular derestation of some sins by outward penances among themselves as in theft they binde and whip and enjoyne to publike confession and in Adultery the offender sits a day in Winter in freezing water and in Sommer upon an Anthill or amongst hives of Bees naked though I say I finde not by Galatine Sigontus Buxdorfius nor Molther that this was or is in use amongst them yet because Josephus though but Oratorily sayes it we will accept it and beleeve that it was upon the reason common almost to all Nations to deterre men from doing it and not to punish it being done And of like use that is in terrorem was also that Law of the Athenians who cut off that hand after death which perpetrated that fact which Law Josephus remembers in the same place SECT IIII. That reason which is grounded upon the Edict of Tarquinius Priscus who when this 〈◊〉 of Death raigned amongst his men like a contagion cured it by an opprobrious hanging up their bodies and exposing them to birds and beasts And upon that way of reducing the Virgins of Milâ—…sium who when they had a wantâ—…nnesse of dying so and did it for fashion were by Decree dishonourably exhibited as a spectacle to the people naked prevailes no farther then the argument before and proves onely a watchfull solâ—…citude in every State by all meanes to avert men from this naturall love of ease by which their strength in numbers would have been very much empaired And thus wee determine this Distinction Distinct. IV. WEe will now descend to those reasons which particular men have used for the detestation of this action And first we will pay our debt to Gratian in considering the places cited by him and after the other reasons of Divine Authors if they bee not grounded upon places of Scriptures which we repose for the last part shall have there ventilation in this Distinction SECT I. The first place then is in an Epistle of Saint Augustine to Donatus the Heretique who having beene apprehended by the Catholikes fell from his Horse and would have drown'd himselfe and after complaines of violence used towards him in matter of Religion wherein he claimes the freedome of Election and conscience Saint Augustine answers wee have power to endeavour to â—…ave thy soule against thy will as it was lawfull to us to save thy body so If thou wert constrained to doe evill yet thou oughtest not to kill thy selfe Consider whether in the Scriptures thou finde any of the faithfull that did so when they suffered much from them who would have forced them to do things to their soules destruction To speake a little of Saint Augustine in generall because from him are derived almost all the reasons of others he writing purposely thereof from the 17 to the 27 Chapter of his first book De Civitate Dei I say as the Confessaries of these times comparing Navâ—… and Sotuâ—… two of the greatest Casuists yeeld sometimes that Navar is the sounder and learneder but Sotus more usefull and applyable to practique Divinitie So though Saint Augustine for sharpe insight and conclusive judgement in exposition of places of Scripture which he alwaies makes so liquid and pervious that he hath scarce been equalled therein by any of all the Writers in the Church of God except Calvin may have that honour whom where it concernes not points in Controversie I see the Jesuits themselves often follow though they dare not name him have a high degree and reverence due to him yet in practique learning and morall Divinity he was of so nice and refin'd and rigorous a conscience perchance to redeeme his former licenciousnesse as it fals out often in such Convertits to be extreamely zealous that for our direction in actions of this life Saint Hierome and some others may bee thought sometimes fitter to adhere unto then St. Augustine Yet I say not this as though wee needed this medicament for this place For I agree with Saint Augustine here That neither to avoid occasion of sinne nor for any other cause wherein my selfe am meerely or principally interessed I may doe this act which also serves justly for answer to the same zealous Father in the other place cited by Gratian for with him I confesse That he which kills himselfe is so much the more guilty herein as hee was guiltlesse of that fact for which hee killed himselfe Though by the way this may not passe so generally but that it must admit the exception which the Rule of Law upon which it is grounded carries with it Nemo sine culpa puniendus nist subsit causa And so as Saint Augustine we with as much earnestnesse say Hoc asserimus hoc dicimus hoc omnibus modis approbamus That neither to avoid temporall trouble nor to remove from others occasion of sinne nor to punish our owne past sinnes nor to prevent future nor in a desire of the next life wherethese considerations are only or principally it can be lawfull for any man to kill himselfe But neither Saint Augustine nor we deny but that if there be cases wherein the party is dis-interested and only or primarily the glory of God is respected and advanced it may be lawfull So that as Valens the Emperour having surprised Jamblicus when his divining cock had described three letteâ—…s of his name who should succeede slew all whose names were Theodorâ—… Theodotes or Theodulus but escaped Theodosius who fulfilled the Prophecy So Saint Augustine hath condemned those causes which we defend not but hath omitted those wherein it is justifiable In which case being hard to be discern'd and distinguished 〈◊〉 others arising from humane infirmity it that rule which Antonius de Corduba gives in cases of simony be as he sayes it is a good guide in all perplexities it will ease very much He sayes because in the case of simony many difficulties gâ—…ow because not onely by cleare and common judgements temporall reward may be taken for spirituall offices by way of gift stipend wages almes sustenation or fulfilling the law or custome of that place but also by some Doctors even by way of prâ—…ce and bargaine if not directly for the spirituall part thereof yet for the labour necessarily annexed to it because every Curate cannot distinguish in these cures he bids him ever doe it with an intention to doe it so as God knowes it may de done and as wise men know aâ—…d would teach that it might be done For thus saith he humbly
should be judge in his owne cause is because every one is presumed favourable towards himselfe And therefore if it be dispensable in some cases beneficiall to a man much more may it be in cases of inflicting punishment in which none is imâ—…gined to be over rigorous to himselfe And if man were by nature as slavish as the Esseni by profession and rule who had power of themselves in nothing but juvando miserendo I see not but when this becomes an act of advantage to our selves we may have jurisdiction enough to doe it And what is more evident to prove that in some cases derogatory and prejudiciall to us we have this right over our selves then that every man may cedere suo jure And Non uti privilegio And it was by all condemned in Gregorie in the great Scisme that after hee had promised to depart from the Papacie by oath in which was a clause that he should neither aske give nor accept absolution from that oath hee induced his Mendicants to preach that it were deadly sinne in him to de-relinquish the Church So also have many Kings departed from their Government and despoiled them of their burden at their pleasure For as one sayes of the whole Church it may bee said of every particular member it was ever in Politicall bondage but not in Spirituall So that if there bee cases wherein one may assuredly or probaly after just diligence used conclude upon an illumination of the Spirit of God or upon a ceasing of the reason of the Law at that time in him that man is then Sui Iuris For though in cases where there is a proper Court I am bound to it yet as Kings which are both Soveraignes may therefore justly decide a cause by Warre because there can bee no competent Judge between them So in secret cases betweene the Spirit of God and my conscience of which there is not certainly constituted any exterious Judge we are our selves sufficient to doe all the Offices and then delivered from all bondage and restored to our naturall libertie we are in the same condition as Princes are who if in the rigour of words they may not properly bee said to give themselves Priviledges have yet one generall inherent Privilege and when they will they may declare that in that particular case they will not take a new but exercise their old Priviledge SECT VII And because Iosephus hath one reason which tasts of Divinitie we will consider it in this place He sayes our Soule is particula Dei and deposed and committed in trust to us and we may not neglect on disharbour it before he withdraw it But we are still upon a safe ground That whensoever I may justly depart with this life it is by a Sâ—…mmons from God and it cannot then bee imputed to any corruption of my will for Velle non creaitur qui obsequitur Imperio Yet I expect not ever a particular inspiration or new commission such as they are forced to purchase for Sampson and the rest but that resident and inherent grace of God by which he excites us to works of morrall or higher vertues And so when it is so called for againe it were a greater injustice in us to deny or withhold any thing of which wee were Depositaries then if we were Debtors yea not to depart from Josephus Allusion or Metaphor of Depositum If it were a fault to let goe that of which I were Depositary before it were truely called for yet in Conscâ—…entia errante I were excusable for it is Ex substantia depositi ut deposit arius tantum de dolo teneatur non de culpa Yea when I have a secret from another Data fide I have this in all respects in Natura Depositi and yet no man doubts but that I may in many cases depart with this secret SECT VIII There are many Metaphoricall and Similitudinarie Reasons scattered amongst Authors as in Cicero and Macrobius made rather for illustration then for argument or answer which I will not stand to gleane amongst them since they are almost all bound up in one sheafe in that Oration of Josephus Or else will be fitly handled in those places of Scripture which make some such allusions SECT IX Josephus then in that Oration hath one Reason drawen from the custome of an Enemy We esteeme them enemies who attempt our lives and shall we bee enemies to our selves But besides that in this place Iosephus speakes to save his owne life and may justly be thought to speak more ex animo and dispassioned wherein the person of Eleazar hee perswades to kill themselves there is neither certaine truth in the Assertion nor in the Consequence For do we esteeme God or the Magistrate our enemy when by them death is inflicted And do not Martyrs in whose death God is glorified kisse the Executioners and the Instruments of their death Nor is it unlawfull unnaturall or unexpedient for us in many caâ—…es to be so much our owne Enemies as to deny our selves many things agreeable to our sensitive nature and to inflict upon our selves many things repugnant to it as was abundantly shewed in the first part SECT X. In the same Oration he hath another allusorie argument That a Servant which runnes away is to be punished by the Law though his Master bee severe much more if we runne away from so indulgent a Master as God is to us But not to give strength or delight to this reason by affording it a long or diligent answer wee say In our case the Servant runnes not from his Master but to him and at his call obeys his voyce Yet it is as truely as devoutly sayd The devill is overcome by resisting but the world and the flesh by running away And the farther the better SECT XI His last which is of any taste is That in a tempest it were the part of an idle and treacherous Pylot to sinke the Ship But I say if in a Tempest we must cast out the most precious ware aboard to save the lives of the Passengers and the Marchant who is damnified thereby cannot impute this to any nor remedie himselfe how much more may I when I am weather beaten and in danger of betraying that precious soule which God hath embarqued in me put off this burdenous flesh till his pleasure be that I shall resume it For this is not to sinck the ship but to retire it to safe Harbour and assured Anchor And thus our fourth Distinction which was to embrace the reasons proposed by particular Authors whether Divine or Prophane and as well Oblique and Metaphoricall as Direct shall here be determined Distinction V. SECT I. ANother sort of Reasons is produced from grounds of Morall Vertues Of which S. Thomas proposeth two which we limit for this Distinction for that of Saint
Augustine That it is against Fortitude hath another roome First then Aquinas saies it is against justice and against Charity And the first in two respects both because he steales from the Universe or from that State to which his service is due one person and member of the body and also because he usurpes upon the right of God But the first of these may as well be said of all who retyring themselves from functions in the Common-wealth defraud the State of their assistance and attend onely their owne ends whether in this life or the next For certainely to doe even that so intensly as we neglect ouâ—… office of Society is in genere rei the same offence as this But as there are many which follow Aquinas herein So Navar and Sayr and others are upâ—…n better reason of opinion that this can be no sinne against Justice And for the second reason This is not to usurpe upon Gods Authoritie or to deale with another's servant if I become his Servant and his Delegate and his Commissioner in doing this when he can be no other way so much gloryfied And though the passage from this life to the next bee not generally left to our free-will and no body be properly Lord of his own life yet Though we have not Dominium we have Usum and it is lawfull for us to lose that when we will Betweene which negative killing and positive killing how little and narrow a distance tâ—…ere is and how contiguous they are we shall see in another place If therefore the reason why we may not dye thus be because we are not Lords of our own life but only God then the State cannot take away our life for That is no more Lord of our life then we are â—…hat is she cannot doe it but in cases where she is Gods Officer And if in this case there were any injury done to the State then certainly it were in the power of the State to license a man to doe it and he should upon such a license be excusable in conscience For this in the State were but Cedere in re suo which any may lawfully doe And lastly if the State were injured in this the State might lawfully recompence the dammage upon the heire and goods of the Delinquent which except in those places where expresse Lawes allow it cannot be done Yet I thinke the better opinion to judge by number of Authors will be That if that person be of necessary use to that State there are in it some degrees of injustice but yet no more then if a Generall of much use should retire into a Monasterie But if we may safely take this resolution That it is not against justice we may ease our selves of all that labour which must bee spent upon the third part for since the foundation of that will be principally the Commandement Thou shalt not kill If this killing be not against Justice it is no breach of any part of the Decalogue and so no sinne If any should thinke that it may be an injustice to our selves Aquinas in the same place cleares it And if it were possible for a man to injure himselfe which is not yet this injury might be oftentimes such an one as Cicero sayes his banishment was Non modo non propul sands sed emenda considering how much happinesse might recompence it And whether it be against Charity or no because Charity is not properly a Morall vertue nor of this place because many of those places of Scripture which we must handle in the last part are built upon this ground of Charitie we will not examine till we come thither Here I will onely say That though it be yet under Dâ—…putation and questionable whether this be against Charity or no this is certainly against Charity to pronounce so desperatly as men use to doe against them who fall into it SECT II. Of such reasons derived from the rules of Morall vertue Aristotle insinuates two For observing that this kinde of death caught men by two baiâ—…s Ease and Honour Against them who would dy to avoide Miserie Hee teaches Death to be the greatest misery which can fall upon us Which not to examine how it can consist with the rest of his Doctrine was to that purpose the most slipperie and insinuating perswasion And then that Honour and Fame might draw none he sayes It is Cowardlinesse and Dejection and an argument of an unsufferable and impatient minde But of the first of these we have spoken before in answer to one of P. Martyrs reasons And of the other we shall have occasion to say in ugh when wee come to a place where Saint Augustine sayes the same thing and so we may ease this Distinction of that businesse Distinct. VI. SECT I. HAving thus considered those Reasons which in the best Authors are to be found and shewed such Rules as serve for the true understanding of them and of all others which spring from the same or like heads before wee determine this Second Part which is of the law of Reason it shall bee requisit that wee also touch those Reasons which on our part are by others and may bee by us produced by which this Selfe-homicide may be delivered either a toto or a tanto But not to stop long upon that Law and practise in the State of Rome That any who had his causes allowed in the Senate might kill himselfe upon which Quintilian frames a Case That a Sonne who by Math maticians Predictions was first to kill many Enemies and then his Father having in the warres performed the first part makes petition to the Senate that before he come to performe the last part he may be admitted to kill himselfe and argues it for the Sonne by many reasons appliable to his particular case and to our maine question I will hasten to our chiefe strength SECT II. It may then give much light to this businesse if we compare Desertion and Destruction and consider where and wherein they differ Certainly in Almighty God it is not the same thing to forsake and to destroy because he owes us nothing and ever in his forsakings there are degrees of Mercy because hee might then justly destroy us and may after at his good pleasure returne againe to us But betweene men who are mutuall Debtors and naturally bound to one another it is otherwise For a Magistrate or Minister that abandons his charge and neglects it destroies it So sayes Agapetus the Deacon to Justinian the Emperour Privati vitium est patrare principis omittere Yea a private man which hinders not a mans wrong when it belongs to him to do it offers it Fame morientem si non paveris occidisti saith Ambrose And That Clergie man which hinders not a manslaughter if hee can is thereby irregular And he which
reach to our destruction which is the neerest step to the last act of doing it intirely our selves SECT VIII Of which last act as we spoke whilst we considered the Law of Nature and must againe when we come to understand those places of Scripture which seeme to ayme towards it so before wee conclude this part of the Law of Reason we may fitly present such deductions comparisons and consequences as may justly seeme in reason to annihilate or diminish this fault Of which because most will be grounded either upon the conscience of the Doer or upon the Churches opinion of the fact when it is done wee will onely consider how farre an erring Conscience may justifie any act and then produce some examples of persous guilty of this and yet canonized by the Church by admission into the Martyrologe and assigning them their Feasts and Offices and Vigils and like religious Celebrations Therefore to make no use of Pythagorus example who rather then hee would offend his Philosophicall conscience and either tread upon the Beanes himselfe or suffer his Scholers to speake before their time delivered up himselfe and forty of them to his Enemies sword And to avoide the ambages and multiforme entangling of Schoolemen herein we will follow that which is delivered for the common opinion which is that not onely a conscience which errs justly probably and Bona side that is after all Morall industry and diligence hath beene used yet I meane not exquisite diligence but such as is proportionall to the person and his quality and to the knowledge which that man is bound to have of that thing at that time is bound to doe according to that mis-information and mis-perswasion so contracted But also if it erre negligently or otherwise viciously and mala side as long as that errour remaines and resides in it a man is bound not to doe against his conscience In the first case if one in his conscience thinke that hee ought to lye to save an innocent or that he ought to steale to save a famished man he is a Homicide if he lye not or steale not And in the second case though he bee not bound to any Act yet it is lawful to him then to omit any thing necessary otherwise And this obligation which our Conscience casts upon us is of stronger hold and of straighter band then the precept of any Superiour whether Law or person and is so much juris naturalis as it cannot be infringed nor altered beneficio divinae indulgentiae to use their owne words Which Doctrin as it is every where to be gathered among the Casuists so is it well collected and amassed and and argued and confirmed especially by Azorius If then a man after convenient and requisite diligence despoiled of all humane affections and self-interest and Sancto bonaee impatientiae igne exardens as Paulinus speaks do in his conscience beleeve that he is invited by the Spirit of God to doe such an act as Ionas Abraham and perchance Sampson was who can by these rules condemne this to be sinne And therefore I doubt there was some haste and praecepitation in Cassianus his judgement though otherwise a very just esteemer and valuer of works of devotion and obedience who pronounces that that apparition of an Angell to Hero an Eremit after 50 yeares so intense and earnest attending of Gods service and religious negligence of himselfe that he would scarse intermit Easter day from his strict fasting and being now Victoriarum conscientia plenus as the Panegyrique saies was an illusion of the Devill to make him destroy himselfe Yet Hero being drawn out of the Well into which he had cast himselfe and living three dayes after persisted in a devout acknowledgement that it was the Spirit of God which sollicited him to that and dyed in so constant an assurance and alacrity that Paphnutius the Abbat though at first in some suspence did not number him inter Biathanatos which were persons reputed vitiously to have killed themselves Nor may it be necessarily concluded that this act was therefore evill if it appeared to be from the Devill For Wierus tells us of a maid whom the Devill perswaded to goe such a Pilgrimage and at such an Altar to hear a Masse for recovery of her health Certainly if as Vasquez holds it be not Idolatry to worship the Devill in an Apparition which I thinke to be God it can be no offence to beleeve him after I have used all meanes to discerne and distinguish For not onely those Rules which are delivered ordinarily to know him by are apparantly false which are a difference in his hands or feet or some notable deformity by hornes or a tayle of which Binsfeldius seems confident of the first and h Menghi of the second But that Rule that God alwaies infuseth or commands good things if it be understood of that which is good in the common and naturall course is not alwaies safe for it held not in Abraham nor the Israelites case Therefore though Vasquez his first excuse That such a worship is not Idolatry because by reason of our immediate relation to God we never arrest nor stop upon the Devill by the way will doe no good in our case of beleeving yet his other will which he hath in the same place That there may be an invincible ignorance and that in that any exterior act whatsoever proceeding from a sincere and pure intention of the mind is an act of true Religion For safelier then the Panegyrick could say to Constantine Suacuique Prudentia Deuâ—… est may we say of every mans conscience thus rectified If therefore they will still turn in their circle and say God concurs to no evill we say nothing is so evill but that it becomes good it God command it and that this is not so naturally evill that it requires a speciall commission from Godâ—… but as it becomes good if he commands it so it becomes indifferent if he remove the reasons with which the precept against it was conditioned If they returne to S. Augustins two reasons against Donatus whereof the first was we have authority to save thy body against thy will And the second None of the faithfull ever did this act we are thereby hastned to the other consideration how they which have done it have been esteemed of by the Catholique Church But to speake a little in passing of Saint Augustines second reason for the first hath very little force since though it may be lawfull to preserve a man willing to die yet it is not alwaies of merit nor obligatory And therefore Ignatius doth so earnestly dehort the Româ—…ns from endeavouring to succour him And Corona Civica which was given to any which had rescued a Citizen in the warres was not given though he produced witnesses of the fact except the person so rescued confessed that he
received a benefit thereby why doth S. Augustine referre Donatus in that second reason to examples For if Donatus had produced any as out of credible and authentique History he might very many and out of Scriptures Canonick in St. Augustines opinion he might have alledged the example Eleazar and of Rasis Saint Augustine was ever provided for this retrait That it was a speciall inspiration and not to be drawn into consequence or imitation Had it been a good Argument in Rome for 500. yeeres that Divorce was not lawfull because no example was of it Or almost for 2000. That a woman might not sue it against her Husband because till Herods daughter there was no example of it But now when the Church hath thus long persevered in not only justifying but solemnizing many examples hereof are not Saint Augustines Disciples guilty of the same pertinacy which is imputed to Aristotles followers who defending the Heavens to be inalterable because in so many ages nothing had been observed to have been altered his Schollers stubbornly maintain his Proposition still though by many experiences of new Stars the reason which moved Aristotle seems now to be utterly defeated Thus much being spoken by the way of Saint Augustine and having purposely sepos'd the examples recorded in the Scriptures for our third part we will consider some Examples registred in the Ecclesiastick History The Church whose dignity and constancy it becomes well that that Rule of her owne Law be ever justly said of her self Quod sâ—…mel placuit amplius displicere non potest where new reasons do not interpose celebrates upon the 9. of February the Birth that is the death of the Virgin and Martyr Appollonia who after the persecutors had beat out her teeth and vexed her with many other tortures when she was presented to the fire being inflamed with a more burning fire of the Holy Ghost broke from the Officers hands and leapt into the fire For this act of hers many Advocates rise up for her and say that either the History is not certain yet the Authors are Beda Usuardus Ado and as Barronius sayes Latinorum caeteri Or else says Sayr you must answer that she was brought very neer the fire and as good as thrown in Or else that she was provoked to it by divine inspiration But but that another divine inspiration which is true Charity moved the beholders then to beleeve and the Church ever since to acknowledge that she did therein a Noble and Christian act to the speciall glory of God this act of hers as well as any other might have been calumniated to have been done out of wearinesse of life or fear of relapse or hast to Heaven or ambition of Martyrdome The memory of Pelagia as of a virgin and Martyr is celebrated the ninth of June And though the History of this woman suffer some perplexity and giue occasion of doubting the truth thereof for Ambrose says That she and her Mother drownd themselves and Chrysostome that they slung themselves downe from a house top And Baronius saw this knot to be so hard to unentangle that he says Quid ad hac dicamus non habemus yet the Church as I said celebrates the Act as though it were glad to take any occasion of approving such a courage in such a cause which was but preservation of Chastity Their Martyrdome saith Saint Augustine was ever in the Catholique Church frequented Veneratione Celeberrima And Saint Ambrose when his sister Marcellina consulted him directly upon the point what might be thought of them who kill themselves in such cases and then it is agreed by all that the opinions of the Fathers are especially to be valued when they speake of a matter not incidently or casually but directly and deliberately answers thus We have an example of such a Martyrdome in Pelagia And then he presents her in this religious meditation Let us die if we may have leave or if we be denied leave yet let us die God cannot be offended with this when we use it but for a remedy and our faith takes a way all offence Here is no difficulty for who is willing to dye cannot since there are so many waies to death I will not trust my hand least it strike not home nor my breast least it withdraw it selfe I will leave no escape to my flesh for we can dve with our own weapons and without the benefit of an Executioner And then having drest her selfe as a Bride and going to the water Here sayes she let us be baptized this is the Baptisme where sinnes are forgiven and where a kingdome is purchased and this is the baptisme after which none sinnes This water regenerates this makes us virgines this opens heaven defends the feeble delivers from death and makes us Martyrs Onely we pray to God that this water scatter us not but reserve us to one funerall Then entred they as in a dance hand in hand where the torrent was deepest and most violent And thus dyed as their mother upon the bank called them These Prelates of virginitie Captaines of Chastitie and companions in Martyrdome And before Ambrose we finde Eusebius to have been of the same perswasion who thus produces the Mother encouraging them You know how I have brought you up in the feare of God and shall your nakednesse which the publike ayre hath not haâ—… leave to see now be prostituted in the Stewes Have not so little faith in God as to feare death Despise not Chastity so much as to live with shame but with a pure and chaste death condemne this world And so deluding their Keepers as though they withdrew for naturall necessities they drowned themselves All Authors of that time are so profuse in the praise of this fact that it is just to say thereof as Pliny sayes of Nervaes adopting Trajane It was impossible it should have pleased all when it was done except it had pleased all before it was done For no Author that I have lighted upon diminished the glory of these and such other untill Saint Augustine out of his most zealous and startling tendernesse of conscience began to seeke out some waies how these Selfe-homicides might be justified because he doubted that this act naturally was not exempt from taxation And yet ever hee brings himselfe to such perplexitie as either he must defend it and call in question the authority of a generall consonance of all times and Authors or retire to that poore and improbable defence that it was done by Divine instinct Which can very hardly be admitted in this case where not their Religion but onely their Chastitie was solicited and attempted Nor can Saint Ambrose or Eusebius be drawn to that opinion of especiall Divine instinct because speaking ex animo though in the mothers person they incite them to it with reasons from Morrall vertues Yet
Saint Augustines example as it prevailes very much and very justly for the most part hath drawne many others since to the like interpretation of the like acts For when the kingdome of Naples came to bee devided betweene Ferdinand the fifth and Lewis the twelfth the French Army being admitted into Capua upon condition to do no violence amongst many outrages a virgin not able to escap the fury of a licentious Souldier offered for ransome to lead him to treasure and so tooke advantage of a place in the wall to fling her selfe into the River Which act sayes Pedraça we must beleeve to be done by Divine inspiration because God loves chastity now as well as ever he did Which escape every side may finde easie if being pressed with reason they may say as Peter Martyr doth of the Egyptian Midwives and of Rahab and such If they did lye they did it impulsu Dei But as our custome hitherto hath been let us depart from Examples to Rules though concurrence of Examples and either an expresse or interpretative approbation of them much more such a dignifying of them as this of the whole Church and of Catholike Authors approved by that Church bee equivalent to a Rule And to ease the Reader and to continue my first resolution of not descending into many particulars I will onely present one Rule but so pregnant that from it many may be derived by which not onely a man may but must doe the whole and intire action of killing himselfe which is to preserve the scale of Confession For though the Rule in generall bee That if a Spider fall into the Chalice the Wine may be changed because Nihil abominabile debet sumi occasione hujus Sacramenti And so it may if the Priest after Consecration come to the knowledge that the Wine is poysoned Ne calix vitae vertatur in mortem Yet if hee know this by Confession from his assistant or any other and cannot by any diversion nor disguise escape the discovering that this was confessed to him without drinking it if it bee poyson he mâ—…st drinke it But because men of more abundant reading active discourse and conclusive judgement will easily provide themselves of more Reasons and Examples to this purpose it shall satisfie me to have awakened them thus much and shewed them a marke to direct their Meditations upon And so I may proceed to the third Part which is of the Law of God The Third Part. OF THE LAW OF GOD. Distinction I. SECT I. THat light which issues from the Moone doth best represent and expresse that which in our selves we call the light of Nature for as that in the Moone is permanent and ever there and yet it is unequall various pale and languishing So is our light of Nature changeable For being at the first kindling at full it wayned presently and by dedeparting further and further from God declined by generall sinne to almost a totall Eclipse till God comming neerer to us first by the Law and then by Grace enlightned and repayred it againe conveniently to his ends for further exercise of his Mercy and Justice And then those Artificiall Lights which our selves make for our use and service here as Fires Tapers and such resemble the light of Reason as wee have in our Second part accepted that Word For though the light of these Fires and Tapers be not so naturall as the Moone yet because they are more domestique and obedient to us wee distinguish particular objects better by them then by the Moone So by the Arguments and Deductions and Conclusions which our selves beget and produce as being more serviceable and under us because they are our creatures particular cases are made more cleare and evident to us for these we can be bold withall and put them to any office and examine and prove their truth or likeliehood and make them answere as long as wee will aske whereas the light of Nature with a solemne and supercilious Majestie will speake but once and give no Reason nor endure Examination But because of these two kindes of light the first is to weake and the other false for onely colour is the object of sight and we not trust candlelight to discerne Colours we have therefore the Sunne which is the Fountaine and Treasure of all created light for an Embleme of that third best light of our understanding which is the Word of God Mandatum lucerna Lex lux sayes Solomon But yet as weake credulous men thinke sometimes they see two or three Sunnes when they see none but Mâ—…teors or other apparance so are many tâ—…ansported with like facilitie or dazeling that for some opinions which they maintaine they think they have the light and authority of Scripture when God knowes truth which is the light of Scriptures is Divine truely under them and removed in the farthest distance that can bee Iâ—… any small place of Scripture mis-appeare to them to bee of use for justifying any opinion of theirs then as the Word of God hath that precious nature of gold that a little qâ—…antity thereof by reason of a faithfull tenacity and ductilenesse will be brought to cover 10000. times as much of any other Mertall they extend it so farre and labour and beat it to such a thinnesse as it is scarce any longer the Word of God only to give their other reasons a little tincture and colour of gold though they have lost all the waight and estimation But since the Scripture it self teaches That no Prophâ—…cie in the Scripture is of private interpretation the whole Church may not be bound and concluded by the fancie of one or of a few who being content to enslumber themselves in an opinion and lazy prejudice dreame arguments to establish and authorize that A professed interpreter of Dreames tells us That no Dreame of a privatâ—… man may be interpreted to signifie a publike businesse This I say because of those places of 〈◊〉 which are aledged for the Doctrin which we now examine scarce any one except the Precept Thou shalt not kill is offered by any two Authors But to one one place to another another seemes directly to governe in the point and to me to allow Truth her naturall and comely boldnesse no place but that seemes to looke towards it And therefore in going over all those sentences which I have gathered from many Authors and presenting convenient answers and interpretations thereof I will forbeare the names of those Authors who produced them so impertinently least I should seeme to discover their nakednesse or insimulat them even of prevarication If any Divine shall thinke the cause or persons injured herein and esteeme me so much worth the reducing to the other opinion as to apply an answer hereunto with the same Charitie which provoked me and which I thanke God haâ—…h accompanied me from the beginning I beseech him to take thus much advantage
purposes Conformably to which Law Paracelsus sayes It is all one whether God or the Devill cure so the Patient be well And so the Canons have prescribed certain rules of doing evill when we are overtaken with perplexities to chuse the least of which S Gregory gives a naturall example That a man attempted upon a high wall and forced to leape it would take the lowest place of the wall And agreeably to all these the Casuist say That in extreame necessitie I siâ—… not if I induce a man to lend me mony upon usury And the reason is because I incline him to a lesse sinne which is usury when else he should be a hâ—…icide by not releiving me And in this fashion God him selfe is said to work evill in us because when our heart is full of evill purposes he governs and disposes us rather to this then to that evill wherin though all the vitiousnesse be ours and evill yet the order is from God and good Yea he doth positively encline one to some certain evill thus That he doth infuse into a man some good thoughts by which he out of his vitiousnesse takes occasion to thinke he were better doe some other sinne then that which he intended Since therefore all these lawes and practises concurre in this that we sometime doe such evill not onely for expresse and positive good but to avoid greater evill all which seems to be against this doctrine of S. Paul And since whatsoever any humane power may dispence withall in us we in extream necessity in impossibility of recourse to better counsell in an erring conscience and in many such cases may dispence with our selves for that Canon of duo mala leaves it to our naturall reason to judge and value and compare and distinguish betweene those two evills which shall concurre And since for all this it is certaine that no such dispensation from another or from my selfe doth so alter the nature of the thing that it becomes thereby the more or the lesse evill to mee there appeares no other interpretation safe but this That there is no externall act naturally evill and that circumstances condition them and give them their nature as scandall makes an indifferent thing hainous at that time which if some person go out of the roome or winke is not so The Law it selâ—…e which is given us as a light that we might not stumble and by which we see not what is evill naturally for that we see naturally and that was so even to us before the law declared it but what would bee evill that is produce evill effects if we did it at that time and so circumstanced is not absolutely good but in such measure and in such respects as that which it forbids is evill And therefore Picus comparing the Law to the firmament as Moses accepts the word as he observes that the second day when God made the firmament he did not say that it was good as he did of every other days work and yet it was not evill for then saith Picus it could not have received the sunne as if it had beene good it had not needed it So he reprehends the Manichees for saying that the Law was evill yet he sticks to that of Ezechiel That it was not good That evill therefore which by this place of S. Paul is forbidden is either Acts of infidelity which no dispensation can deliver from the reach of the Law or els such acts as being by our nature and reason and approbation of nations reputed evill or declared by law or custome to be such because of there ordinary evill effects doe cast a guiltines upon the doer ordinarily and for the most part and ever except his case be exempt and priviledged This moved Chrysostome whom I cited before to think aâ—…ly and a consent to adulttery not evill in Sarah and this rectified S. Augustines squeamishnes so farre as to leave us at liberty to think what we would of that wifes act which to pay her husbands debt let out her self one night For if any of these things had been once evill naturally they could never recover of that sicknesse but as I insinuated before as those things which we call miracles were written in the history of Gods purpose as exactly and were as certainly to come to passe as the rising and setting of the sunne and as naturally in 〈◊〉 compagine naturae for there is no interlining in that book of God So in that his eternall Register where he foresees all our acts he hath preserued and defended from that ordinary corruption of evill purpose of inexcusable ignorance of scandall and of such other inquinations of indifferent things as he is said to have done our B. Lady from originall sinne in her inanimation Some of those acts of ours which to those who doâ—… not studiously distinguish circumstances or see not the doers conscience and testimony of Gods spirit may at the first tast have some of the brachishnes of sin Such was Moses killing of the Egyptians for which there appears no especiall calling from God But because this falls not often S. Paul would not embolden us to do any of those things which are customarily reputed evill But if others be delighted with the more ordinary interpretation of this place that it speaks of all that which we call sinne I will not refute that interpretation so they make not the Apostles rule though in this place this be not given properly and exactly for a rule more strickt than the morall praecepts of the Decalogue it self in which as in all rules there are naturally included and incorporated some exceptions which if they allow in this they are still at the beginning for this case may fall within those exceptions Otherwise that the generall application of this rule is not proper as by infinite other places so it appears evidently by that in Bellarmine where he says that by reason of this rule a man may not with neglecting a poore neighbour adorne a church Yet there are a great many cases wherein we may neglect this poore neighbour and therefore that is not naturally evill And certainly whosoever is delighted with such arguments and such an application of this text would not only have objected this rule to Lot when he offered his Daughters for there it might have colour but would have joyned with Iudas when the woman anointed Christ and have told her that allthough the office which shee did were good yet the wast which shee made first was evill and against this rule SECT IIII. The same Apostle doth in divers other places use this phrase That we are the Temples of the Holy Ghost And from thence is argued that it is an unlawfull Sacriledge to demolish or to deface those Temples But wee are so the Temples of God as we are his Images that is by
of dying as much as in any thing els he was a Type of Christ. SECT V. The next example is Saul And whether he did perfect and consummat the act of killing himself or the Amalekite contribute his help it makes no difference to our purpose But that the latter was true may wel enough consist with the relation of the history in the first place and it appeares to be the more likely and probable out of the second And by Iosephus it is absolutely so delivered And the scholastique history saith also that Saul was too weake to force the sword through his body Two things use to be disputed of Saul Whether hee were saved or no And whether if hee perished it was for impenitence testified or presumed by this act of his The Iewes are generally indulgent to him And the Christians generally severe upon this reason that it is said of him Saul dyed for his transgressions against the Lord and his word and asking counsaile of a witch But this doth not necessarily conclude an impenitence or a second death For the Iews say That beleeving the sentence of Samuel in the apparitions and accepting that decree as from God he repented his formet life and then presented and delivered up himselfe and his sonnes conformably to the revealed will of God there in the field to be sacrificed to him understanding Samuells words you shall be with me to be spoken not generally of the state of the dead but of the state of the just because both Samuel himself was so and so was Jonathan whose condition in this promise of being with Samuel was the same as his Fathers And therefore saith Lyra all Iews and some Christians agree that least by his reproach dishonour might redound upon God a good and Zealous man may kill himself as Samson did and the Virgins And he addeth If other reasons were not sufficient to excuse Saul this also might justly be applied to him that he did it by divine instinct Out of which I observe these two things that he presumes there are other reasons sufficient in some cases whether they were in Sauls case or no. And then the reason upon which Lyraâ—… presumes he dyed well because the contrary is not declared in Scriptures nor determined by the Church And Saul hath a good testimony of sanctity in this act from Mallonius That as Christ died when he would so did Saul thinking it dishonourable to dye by the hand of his and Gods enemies That argument which Burgensis bringeth to the contrary suffereth more force and violence in being brought in then it giveth strength to his opinion It is That if the fact were justifiable in Saul it had beene so too in the Amalekite if his profession to David were true That he had killed Saul and consequently David unjust in that execution But besides that that Amalekite had no conscience nor inward knowledge of Sauls just reasons nor other warrant but his commandement which might and was to him likely to proceed from Sauls infirmities it might well appeare to David by his comming to tell him the newes that he had humane respects in doing it and a purpose onely to deserve well of David And when both Judge and prisoner are innocent oft times the Executioner may be a Murtherer And such humane respects of wearinesse and despaire and shame and feare and fidelity to his Master and amazement and such stand in the way betweene Sauls Armour-bearer and all excuses to our understandings For though the phrase of Scripture impute nothing to him for that fact of killing himselfe yet I have found none that offer any particular excuse in his defence SECT VI. Neither doe I finde any thing to excuse Achitophels death though as I said of the other the History doe not accuse that particular fact The Text calles his counsaile good and it seems he was not transported with passion because he set his house in order And he was buried in his Fathers grave when Absalou slaine by anothers hand was cast into a pit But if it were upon a meere dispute of his owne disgrace or feare of ill successe or upon any selfe respect without proposing Gods glorie and he repented not he perished SECT VII Of Judas the most sinnefull instrument of the most mercifull Worke the common though not generall opinion is that he killed himselfe but whether by hanging or no is more controverted For from the words in the Acts That he threw himselfe downe headlong and burst asunder and his bowels gushed out Euthymius thinks That he was rescued whilst he hanged and carryed away and that after that hee killed himselfe by throwing himselfe headlong And Brentius leaves that indifferent to us to thinke what we will thereof But it seemes by Oecumenius that he did not only overlive this hanging but that he grew to so enormous a bignesse and burden to himselfe that he was not able to withdraw himselfe out of a Coaches way but had his guts crushed out so which he receives from Papias the Disciple to Saint Iohn whose times cannot be thought ignorant or incurious of Iudas History And it is there said further that by others it was said that being swolne to that vastnesse and corrupted with vermine hee laid himselfe down upon his field and there his guts broke out And this Theophilact followes And it falls out very often that some one Father of strong reputation and authority in his time doth snatch and swallow some probable interpretation of Scripture and then digesting it into his Homilies and applying it in dehortations and encouragements as the occasions and diseases of his Auditory or his age require and imagining thereupon delightfull and figurative insinuations and setting it to the Musique of his stile as every man which is accustomed to these Meditations shall often finde in himselfe such a spirituall wantonnesse and devout straying into such delicacies that sense which was but probable growes necessary and those who succeed had rather enjoy his wit then vexe their owne as often times we are loath to change or leave off a counterfeit stone by reason of the well setting thereof By this meanes I thinke it became so generally to be beleeved that the fruit which Eve eat was an Apple And that Lots wife was turned to a pillar of Salt And that Absalon was hanged by the haire of the head And that Iephthe killed his Daughter And many other such which grew currant not from an evidence in the Text but because such an acceptation was most usefull and applyable Of this number Iudas case might be But if it were not that act of killing himselfe is not added to his faults in any place of Scriptures no not in those two Psalmes of particular accusations and bitter imprecations against him as they are ordinarily taken to be Prophetically purposed and directed
from thence and the lower we descend the weaker they are f De privilegiis Juris l. 1. c. 8. g Sylvius Comment ad leg reg proefat c. 1. 5 Pellicans and Bees by S. 〈◊〉 kill themselves h Heaâ—… 5. cap. 1. 6 The reason of almost every Law is mutable i B. Dorotheus Doctrinâ 12. k Windeck â—…anonum legum consens dissens ca. 12. 7 He that can declare when the reason ceases may dispence with the Law l 25. q. 1. suâ—… quidâ—… m Tho. 22. q. 88. ar 10. 8. How dispensations worke n Tho. 32. q. 89. ar 9. o Acacius de privilegijs l. 1. ca. 3. 9. As nothing can annull the prerogative of Princes or Popes though their own act seeme to provide against it so no law doth so destroy mans liberty but that he returnes to it when the reason of the law ceases 10. Selfe-preservation being but an appetition of that which is good to us is not violated by this act p De resurrect q Heptapl 10. Pici. l. 7. proem r Sylvius Com. ad leg reg praefat l. 1. 11. Liberty which is naturally to be preserved may be departed with 1. That cannot be against Law of Nature which men have ever affected if it be also as this is against sensitive Nature and so want the alluremeÌ„ts of other sins a De Subtil lib. 5. 2. There are not so many examples of all other vertues as of this one degree of Fortitude Petr. Arbiter Attil Regulus Codrus Herennius Comas Annibal Demosthenes Aristarthus Homer Othryades Democles Pâ—…rtia Luctatiâ—… Declam 17. Terence Labienus Zeno. Por. Latro. Festus Hippionas Macer Licinius Annalâ—…ib 〈◊〉 Charondas 3. Of the Romane Gladiators in great persons and great numbers b L 1. cap. 12. de Gladiator c Idem l. 2. cap. 3. d De bell Judai l. 7. c. 28. 4 Small perswasions drew men to it 5 By the Soldurii in France it may be gathered that more dyed so then naturally e Lib. 3. com Bell. Gall. f Tholosa Synt. lib. 14. cap. 10. N. 14. 6. Wives in Bengala doe so yet 7. The Samanaei which were Priests in the Indies used to doe it g Porphyr de Abstin antiq h Heurnius de philosoph Barbar l. 2. ca. 2. i Panegyr Theodosio 8. Lat. Pacat. expresseth this death pathetically k Matal Metel praefat in hist. Osorij 9. How the Spaniards corrected this naturall desire in the Indians a Sylvius Com. ad leg reg c. 24. 1 After civility and christianity quen ched this naturall desire in the place therof there succeeded a thirst of Martyrdome 2 How leisurely the custome of killing at funerals wore out 3 Moses delivered and the philosophers saw the state of the next life but unperfectly 1 That this was for the most part insinuated into men by Naturall reasons and much upon humane respects Stromat l. 4. 2 So proceeded Clement L. cont Gnostic 3. So did Tertullian Lib. de exhort Martyrii ad fortunatum So did Cyprian a Tertul. de Corona Milit. b Damasc. Platin. 4 Externall Honours to Martyrs c Hadr. Junius in Eunapii vita 5 Monopolie of Martyrdom d Fevardentius l. 8. c. 13. Baron Martyr cap. 0. e Carbo Cas. Cons. To. 2. pa. 2. c. 6. f De poeuiten Dist. 1. Si qui auteÌ„ Ex Aug. de poenitent 6 Gods punishments upâ—…n their persecutors encouraged men to Martyrdome g Ad Scapulam 7. Extending priviledges of Martyrs to many h Aug. Epist. ad Hieron 28. De Nat. Orig. Anim. i Aphâ—…ris Eman Sa. verbo Martyr k Tho. 22 r q. 124. ar 4. ad quart 8. Contrary reasons cheerished this desire in them 9 Cyprian Libellatici Compounders with the State l Sermâ—… de lapsis m De suga prâ—…positio 2. 10 Terâ—…llian condemnes flying in persecution 11 Death became to bee held necessary to make one a Martyr n Hist. l. 5. 6. 2. 12. In times when they exceeded in discreet exposing themselves they taught that Martyres might be without dying o Azor. Mor. Inst. p. 2. l. 5. cap. 7. Ad Polycarp p Ad Smirnen q Exed 12. 7. r Severâ—… cp 2. s De Contempt mortis 13 Cyprian profes Men who offered their lives before they were called t Baroni Mar. 2. Ian. H. 14 Enforcers of their owne Martyrdome u Euseb. Hist. l. 8. c. 9. x Hict l. 4. c. 14. 15 Examples of inordinate affecting of Martyrdome Germanus y Hist. l. 4. c. 10. Meir Iosep. z Ioseph de bel Iud. l. 7. c. 11. a Ignati epist. ad Roman 16 Ignatius solicitation for it b Nicephor l. 11. c. 21. Edissenae c Speculum vinc To. 4. l. 11. c. 40. 17 Lawes forbidding more executions made to despite Christians d Bod. Daemon l. 4. c. 3. ex Tertulli e Alc. 72. Az. f Ex Tertâ—…l Bodâ—… sâ—…ra 18 Glory in the nuâ—…bers of Martyrs g Stecul Vin. To. 4. l. 10 c. 88. h Supra so 66. i Barom Mart. 22. Iune k Homil. 27. in Evangel l Martyrolog cap. 8. 1. That Heretiques seeing the dignity gained by Martyrdome laboured to avert them from it but could not correct this naturall inclination a Lib. 4. cap. 2. 2. The Devill laboâ—…s the Magistrates to 〈◊〉 their dâ—…sire of dying b Specul Vinc. To. a. cap. 102. lib. 10. Basilides heref Anno 13â—… 3. Basilides denyed Christ to have been crucifyed that therefore they dyed madly c Alfon. Castr. verb. Martyr ex Philast d Prateolus l. 5. ex Niceph. 4. Helchesar that outward profession of Religion was not needfull 5. That also the Gnostici taught and why they prevailed not 1. That Hetiques failing herein tooke naturall ways of overtaking the Orthodox in Numbers of Martyrs a Alf. Castr. ver Martyrium 2. Petilian new way of Martyrdom 3. Another new way of the Circumcelliones Circuitores b To. 2. Ep. 50. 4. The Cataphrgyae exceed in Number c Prateolus d Baron Martyr C. 10. e Hist. l. 5. c. 15 f Baron Martyrol ca. 10. Ex Epiph. Haer. 80 g Schulâ—…ingius To. 3. ca. 177. 10. Euphemitae therefore called Martyrians 1. Hereupon Councels took it into their care to distinguish true Martyrs from those who dyed for naturall and humane respects a Conc. Laodic Can. 33. b Conc. Carth. 1. C. 2. 1 Therefore later Authors do somewhat remit the Dignity of Martyrdome a 2â—… q. 124. ar 3. b De Adoratione l. 1. N. 42. c Navar. Man c. 1. Nu. 40. d Carbo Cas. Cons. To. p. 2. c. 6. 2 The Iesuits still professe an enormous love to such death e Clarus Bonarsicus Amphitheat Hono. l. 1. 〈◊〉 4. 1 Lawes and customes of well policed estates having admitted it it is not likely to be against law of Nature 2 True and Idaeated common-wealths have allowed it At benians Romans Depontum a Hierogliph l. 17. Ceans b Aelianus l. 3. cap. 26. c Diod. Sicul. l. 2. bib Aethiopians d Dig. l. 48. tit 3. leg final 3 Civill law and all
others presume it in condemned men e Vtop l. 2. c. de servis 4 In Vtopia authorised f De leg 9. 5 And by Plato in certaine cases 6 Conclusion of the first part 1. That the law of reason is conclusions drawne from primary reason by discourse 2. How much strength Reasons deduced have 1. Of this sort of Reasons generall lawes have the greatest authority 2. For that is of there essence that they agree with law of Nature 3. And there is better testimony of their producing then of private mens opinions a Dig. l. 1. tit 3. le 1. lex est 1. Of lawes the Imperiall law ought first to be considered a Dig. l. 1. T. 1. le 9. omnes 2 The reason of that law is not abolished but our dependency upon it 3 Why this is called civill Law 4 Of the vastnes of the books from whence it is concocted and and of the extent thereof b Iustinian ep ad Trebonian c Iustinian cpi. ad DD. de Jur. docend arte d Wind. Theolog Iur. 5 Nothing in this law against our case 6. Of the law of Adrian d Dig. lib. 48. tit 19. le 38. Si quis aliquid § Qui miles e Dig. lib. 49. tit 10. le 6. Omne delictum h Dig. l. 48. tit 21. le 3. Qui rei 7 Of the other law for guilty men 1 Of the Canon Law 2 The largnes of the subject and object thereof 3 Of Codex Canonum or the body of the llaw in use in the primitive Church a Dist. 10. certum est b Dist. 10. vestrâ—… 4 Of the Additions to this Codex 5 Canon law apter to condemne then Civill and why c Paleotus de nothis c. 19. 1 That this proposition is not hereticall a Simancha Enchirid. Iud tit 24. nu 2. 2 A large definition of heresie 3 No definition of the Church in the point 4 Nor Canon 5 Nor Bull. 6 Of the comon opinion of Fathers how it varies in times and places b Moral Instit. to 1. l. 2. c. 13. c 23. q. 5. 7 Gratian cites but two fathers one of which is of our side 8 Of that part of the Canon Law to which Canonists will stand d Auto. Augustin l. de â—…mendat Gratian. l. 1. dial 1. de titulo e Idem dial 4. 9 A Cathol Bishops censure of Gratians Decret f Idem dial 3. g De libris juris Canon c. 2. 1 What any Councels have done in this point a 23. q. 5. placuit b Concll Antisidor sub Greg. 1. An. 590. c Canon 17. 3 The Councel of Antisid onely refused their oblations 3 This was but a Diocesan Councell d Notae Binnij in Conc. Antis To. 2. fo 955. e 23. q. 5. placuit 4 The Braccar Councel inflicts two punishments f 24. q. 2. Sane quid 5 The first not praying for them is of them who did it when they were excommunicate g Decret l. 5. tit 13. de torneamentis 6 The second which is deniall of buriall is not alwayes inflicted for offences as appears in an interdict locall h 13. q. 2. anim i Li. 3. tit 7. de sepulchris Eos qui. k Sylv. ad leg Reg. c. 11. l P. Manut. de leg Rom. 7 Romans buried such offenders as had satisfied the Law within the towne as Vestals and Emperors 1 Of the laws of particular Nations 2 Of our law of Felo de se. Br act f. 150. a 〈…〉 b â—…lowd Com. Hales his case 3. That this is murder in our law And the reasons which entitle the King 4 Our naturall desire to such dying probably induced this law c Bodin Rep. l. 1. c. 2. l. 6. c. 1. 5 As in States abounding with slaves the Law-makers quenched this desire d l. 33. c. 10. e Scbast Med. de Venat Pisca et aucup q. 41. f Aug. de Civi Dei l. 4. c. 27. 6 Least it should draw too fast as Hunting and Vsury are and as wine by Mahom. g Pruckinan de Venat Pisc. Aucup c. 4. h Pompon de Incantat c. 10. 7 And as severe lawes against stealing i B. Dorotheus doct 11. k Binnius to 3. par 2. f. 1476. An. 1237. 8 When a man is bound to steale l 14. Dist. 15. q. 3. 9 Scotus opinion of day theeves m Exod. 22. 3. n Tholosa Syn. l. 36. c. 22. nu 13. ex Buteler in summa rurall 10 Of such a law in Flaunders 1 Severe lawes are arguments of the peoples inclination not of the hainousnesse of the fault a Epist. ad Philip. 2 Sunday fast extremly condemned thereupon 3 So Duells in France 4 So Bull-baitings in Spain Navar. Manu li. 15. nu 18. 5 Gentle laws diminish not the nature of rape nor witchcraft b Cap. 67. c Hâ—…de his qui not infam l. 2. §. 1. 〈◊〉 2. 6 Publique benefit is the rule of extending or restraining all lawes by Bartel 7 If other Nations concur in like lawes it shews their inclination to be generall 1 The custom of the Iewes and the law of the Athenians evict nothing a De bello Jud. l. 3. c. 13. b Buxdor Syn. Iudais c. 34. a Pliny li. 36. cap. 13. 1 The reason drawne from remedies against it proves no more b A. Gellius li. 15. c. 10. 1. Of reasons used by particular men being Divines a 23. q. 5. Duplicet 1. Of S. Augustine and his Argument 2. Of St. Aug. comparatively with other Fathers 3. Comparison of Navar and Sotus 4 Jesuists often beholden to Calvin for expositions 5. In this place we differ not from St. Aug. b 22. q. 5. Sâ—… non 6. Nor in the second 7. That then may be Causa puniendi sinc culpâ—… c Reg. sur 6. 8. As Valens missed Theodosius So did Augustine pretermit the right cause 9 Of Cordubensis rule how we must do in perplexities d Aâ—…t Cordub de simonia q. 27. Editione Hispani 10 How temporall reward may be taken for spirituall office Hesychius vitae philosophorum 11. Of Pindarus death praying for he knew not what f Vbâ—… supra 2 In our place we depart from St. Aug. upon the same reason as the Jesuit Thyraeus doth g Thyrae Jesui de Daemoniacis c. 31. 〈◊〉 428. a 23. q. 5. Non est 1 The place out of S. Hiâ—…rome cited by Gratian. b Gloss. in locum supra c Idiotae Contemplatio de morte 1. Lavater confesses Aug. Hieâ—… Cryâ—… and Lactanâ—… to be of this opinion a Lavater in 1 Sam. Caâ—…lti 1 Of P. Mar. reason Mors malum a Stromat l. 4. 2 Clement hath long since destroyed that opinion 3 Of Malum 〈◊〉 b Aqui. 1. q. 48. ar 6. Câ—…n c Jo. 9. 3. 4 Possessed men are not alwaies so afflicted for sin d Thyraeus de Daemon c. 31. e Aqui. 1. q. 48. ar 6. Con. 5 Damnation hath not so much rationem mali as the least sin 6 If death were of the sorts of evill yet there may be good use of it f