sometime yet the corruption and practise thereof he loves and entertaines which is sweet in his mouth and which hee hides under his tongue as Zophar saies b Iob. 20.12 as upon persevering in well doing attends eternall life so unto them that are contentious and doe not obey the truth but obey and continue in unrighteousnesse indignation and wrath is their portion and tribulation and anguish shall be upon every soule of man that doth evill Rom. 2.6 7 8 9.10 §. 13. Of the causes of mens adventure upon sinfull courses Reasons of mens so living The reasons why men do so desperatly venture upon such deadly courses and continue in them to the destruction of their owne soules are specially two 1. Seeming good First because the same seemes good to them in regard of the blindenesse of their minds a 2 Pet. 1.9 that cannot truly discerne things that differ and in regard of their unregenerated affections which do sympathize and comply best with such courses and because they are self-deceived by a seeming goodnesse of profit or present pleasure in them which they preferre before true morall goodnesse and therewithall do rest and content themselves in the ignorance and want of better comforts but a wise man will beware of self-deceit by trusting to his owne opinion or sense considering that there is a way that seemeth right to a man but the end thereof are the waies of death Prov. 14.12 2. Want of faith The second cause of mans boldnesse in adventuring to run an unlawfull course with the perill of the damnation of his soule is want of true faith to beleeve the threatnings of God in his word against the same or at the least they suppose that the judgments will not be so bad and intolerable as is given out or they hope they shall escpe them or they comfort themselves with conceit of their fellowes company and doe imagine God to be all mercy and no justice the reason hereof is both their not discerning nor regarding of the spirituall judgments of God upon them which are the greatest and worst and such as they see not sensibly and also because sentence against an evill worke is not executed speedily therefore the heart of the sonnes of men is fully set in them to doe evill Eccles 8.11 the flourishing of men in their owne ill condition hardens them and staggers the godly b Psal 73.12 13. §. 14. Of spirituall self-murder by sinning against the Gospell The second kind of sinnes of commission are against the Gospell The second kind of soul-killing courses are sinnes committed against the Gospell which is the only remedy given for transgressors of the Law that when they are condemned for their disobedience to the Law they may be saved by their obedience to the Gospell without which they cannot but perish This Evangelicall obedience differs from legall obedience in foure points 1. Obedience of the Gospell differs from obedience of the Law Done by Christs power First whereas legall obedience is originally required to be done by a mans owne power and strength Evangelicall obedience is to be done by us through the power of Christ and his Spirit working in us and by us inabling us above the power of nature 2. Acceptable with infirmity Secondly no obedience of the Law is acceptable to God from those doing it as under the Law for justification by their workes except the doers thereof be pure from inherent corruption and doe their actions in their highest degree of morall perfection without any defect therein but for the obedience of the Gospell it is accepted by God from the hands of sinfull men as perfect if it be in truth and sincerity although accompanied with many involuntary defects in our beleeving and repenting 3. It includes legall obedience Thirdly perfect legall obedience yea any obedience of the Law as legall whose performance respects justification excludes Evangelicall obedience with which in that sense it cannot consist seeing justification both by workes and faith both by the Law and Gospell are incompatible as the Apostle proves Rom. 3.28 Gal. 2.16 But Evangelicall obedience includes legall obedience as inferiour and subordinate to it for there is an Evangelicall use of the Law under the Gospell both for preparation to the beleeving of it and also for sanctification of life ordered thereby by assistance of power from Christ for manifestation of the truth of Gods grace in us to the workes whereof although imperfect a reward is due 4. It respects salvation by another Fourthly the obedience of the Law by it selfe considered respects salvation by way of morall works in our selves but the Gospell respects the same by way of application of merit from another to witt from Iesus Christ the Law cannot cure nor excuse the transgressions committed against the Gospell but the Gospell can heale and deliver us from the sinnes and judgements of the Law whatsoever they have beene and therefore it is that the transgressors against the Gospell are in farre more danger of destruction therby than by their sins against the Law §. 15. Of Infidelity Sins against the Gospell Of these soul-killing transgressions against the Gospell there are foure branches 1. Infidelity First positive unbeliefe or infidelity when a man will not beeleve savingly in Christ to have him to bee both his Saviour and Lord neither beleeves truly the Gospell in its full latitude and contents although litterally hee knowes the same but holds and beleeves deceitfull errors defending the same and applauding himselfe therein and therefore seeing that now there is no salvation but by true faith in Christ those that will not so beleeve according to the Gospell must needs perish a Iob. 3.18 1. Causes of infidelity The chiefe causes of this infidelity are First an innated habit to beleeve error before the truth 2. Secondly our carnall reason deceitfull fancies and humane presumptions upon false principles overswaying our faith contrary to the word of God whereby men turne aside to their owne crooked wayes and perish as it were in the gainsaying of Corah b Psal 125.5 Cure For prevention of this infidelity I conclude with the Apostle take heed brethren lest there bee in any of you an evill heart of unbeliefe in departing from the living God c Heb. 3.12 §. 16. Of Impenitency 2. Impenitency The second kind of sinnes against the Gospell whereby men kill their owne soules is finall impenitency when they neither care nor indeavour to repent for their sins past nor to reforme their lives for time to come but goe on in their sinnes out of love or carelesnesse of them remorse for sinnes in respect of the punishment of them is not true repentance if it bee not specially for the offence of God by them and if a man bee sorrowfull for some grosse sinnes committed by him and doe restraine his practise therefrom it is not sound repentance
did kill themselves Of whom Eusebius makes mention in his history booke 8. cap. 12. and also Ambrose in his third booke of Virgins and Augustine in his first booke of the City of God Also Hierome writing to Gerontia makes mention of the wife of Hasdrubal who tooke her children in her hands and did throw her selfe headlong into the fire that she might not suffer ravishment a Hasdrubalis uxer apprehensis utrâque manu liberis insubvectiuÌ„ se praecipitavit incendium ne pudicitiae damna sentiret This motive is insufficient That this is a very insufficient motive for a man to kill himselfe Augustine makes manifest de Civit. lib. 1. c. 17. when he sayes aliena non sunt nostra peccata other mens sinnes are not ours Vertue and sinne is properly in the heart out of which they flow and are not in the body without the mindes consent where we are but the passive object and involuntary sufferers and therefore such sinne is not ours but the agents thereof except the sufferer doe yeeld consent to it Nisi quis consentiat noninquinatur corpus nisi de conscusu mentis Dict. Luciae If God that hates sinne much more than we can and can easily restraine or destroy sinners doth notwithstanding endure with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction b Rom 9.22 Non debet in se committere crimen maximum ut vitet minus crimen alienum Tho. 2.2 q. 64. art 5. Why should not we suffer what wee cannot amend leaving the same to God the righteous Iudge Wee must not labour to prevent another mans sin by doing a worse of our owne For so wee shall fall into that with destruction to our selves which we oppose in others Wee may comfortably beleeve that if wee doe what wee can to resist the yeelding to another mans sinne God will either keep us from consenting or will graciously pardon it After that by prayer advise resistance and flight we have done what we can that the same may not be committed 2. A mans owne sinnes The second sort of sins for prevention whereof some people would kill themselves are a mans owne sins that he is confident he shall doe to his owne great shame and hurt to Gods great dishonour and to the disgrace of his friends and cause if he doe live His grounds of feare that he shall doe them Which he conceives will unavoidably come to passe in regard of his extreame inward frailty or prevalent vicious inclination of his owne heart and of outward force of attempts and temptations wherewith he is perswaded he shall be powerfully assaulted beyond all ability that he hath to withstand the same and therefore to prevent such a fall he resolves to kill himselfe and so destroyes himselfe wilfully by a most certaine and damnable sinne to prevent an uncertaine and lesser sinne as it is written of Apolonia who did cast her selfe into the fire and so killed her selfe that she might not be forced to worship Idolls Chemnitius reports out of Lira that there were Hebrewes that did teach that it was not only lawfull but that it was also meritorious for a man to kill himselfe in two cases 1. No in contemptuÌ„ Dei vita ludiâ—â—io habeatur First that his life may not be a scorne to the contempt of God 2. Si timeas ne magnitudine tormentorum deficias Secondly if a man should be affraid lest he should fall away from the truth through the greatnesse of his torments To which S. Augustine writing against Gaudentius lib. 2. cap. 12. addes a third from the Donatists to wit feare of falling away in persecution because of the infirmity of the flesh Insufficiency of this motive Reasons The weaknesse and insufficiency of this motive for any body thereupon to kill themselves is apparent by five reasons 1. Future evill is but contingent First the motive is from uncertaine future things which as they are in Gods power to dispose as he lists so are we to leave them to him and not for preventing thereof to attempt any thing certainly evill without divine warrant whereby wee may hasten what we feare or something worse 2. Self-killing is no lawfull meanes but others to prevent sin Secondly God never appointed self-murder to be used for this or any other end but for remedy hath appointed us to walke unvariably and constantly in the way and course appointed by him and to rely upon his promises 1 Cor. 10.13 Who will not suffer us to be tempted above our power God shewes his power in our weaknesse 2 Cor. 1.2 9. 3. Self-murder is evill Thirdly we must not doe evill that good may come a Rom. 3.8 self-murder is evill and therefore for no good is to bee done If we would die to avoide sin why should we so hainously sin wherby we may die for ever with perpetuall ignominy b Ac si dicat jam nunc peccemus ne postea forte peccemus jam nunc perpetremus homicidium ne postea forte incidamus in Adulterium Nonne si tantum damnatur iniquitas ut in innocentia sed potius peccata eligantur satius est incertum profuturo adulterium quam certuÌ„ de praesenti homicidiuÌ„ nonne satius est flagitium committere quod poenitendo sanetur quaÌ„ tale facinus ubi locus salubris poenitentiae non relinquitur Aug. de Civ Dei lib. 1. cap. 25. 4. Fourthly if to prevent sinnes any man might lawfully kill himselfe then all men and women in the world might kill themselves because so long as wee live wee doe sinne and are lyable to grosse falls many times But if all might upon that reason kill themselves if their heart would serve them then all mankinde might presently be extinct and the Church of God on earth be abolished and so the continuance and number of the same should depend upon the will of men themselves rather than upon the will of God which were a thing most absurd and impious 5. Fifthly to prevent sin wee are commanded to feare God and to walke with him in all our wayes for no man falls into any grosse evill that observes that course seeing sinne is a transgression of the law and therefore by transgressing of the law cannot be avoided but is run into and increased Observe Evill is not to be done to accomplish goodnesse From hence we are to observe that no holy end or effect is to be accomplished by ill or unlawfull meanes For God that destinates the end is al-sufficient to give good meanes and to make them powerfull to performe what he would have to be done that wee need not goe to bee beholding to the devill for his help to doe Gods worke about which hee and his wicked meanes are never imployed but they spoile it And therefore as the worke we doe is good and as we would have good come of it we must be carefull to use
nature of self-murder Objections There remaines now certaine objections to be answered which may be made in favour of proper self-murderers for their salvation which are especially three The first of them may be pretended to be taken from the nature of self-murder alledging that the same is not so hainous a sinne but that the doers thereof may bee saved 1. From the nature of self-murder First because if we consider sinnes as they are committed against the Gospell onely the sinne against the holy Ghost is called a sinne unto death a 1 Joh. 5.16 which never shall be pardoned b Mat. 12.31 Self-murder is not that sinne and therefore may seeme to bee pardonable and the doers thereof saved 2. Againe if wee do consider the sinnes committed directly agaist the Law there is none of them desperately unpardonable because they all and every of them may upon repentance be cured by the Gospell which is of equall extent to the Law to be able to repleave and save all that the Law condemnes And of the sinnes committed against the Law some as spitefull blasphemy against the Majesty of God and the like may in the true nature of them seeme to be more hainous than self-murder both in regard of their more direct and malignant opposition against God and also for their greater distance in nature from pardon Answ 1. The sin against the holy Ghost To this objection that caries with it a countenance of probability I answer first touching the argument taken from the sin against the holy Ghost it is to be considered that that sin is unpardonable and they damned that do it onely in respect of that desperate opposition whereby the committers of it do spitefully oppose and reject Christ and his Gospell the very only meanes whereby they can be saved so that there remaines no further or other way or help for salvation and also because that sinne is ever infallibly accompanied with finall impenitency which alwaies makes a man uncapable of grace and salvation which none can have but true penitents How self-murder is equivalēt to the sinne against the holy Ghost Self-murder hath that in it which is in the sin against the holy Ghost in respect whereof it damnes and is unpardonable which is both finall impenitency in regard that a self-murderer by that sinne in the perfection of the anomie of it doth so indispose himselfe and shuts up and ends his life by and in such a horrible transgression that hee cannot possibly repent nor consequently bee saved And also equivalent and answerable to that spitefull rejection of Christ his grace and Gospell in the sin against the holy Ghost by the living there is in self-murder the cutting off of one selfe by his owne hands in this death from grace and salvation to be gotten only in and by life So that in these respects self-murder is as certainly damnable and the doers thereof reprobated as is the sin against the holy Ghost and the committers thereof For although of the sin against the holy Ghost it be precisely said that it shall never be forgiven and that the committers thereof are certainely damned yet it is neither said nor is true that none but sinners against the holy Ghost have their sinnes not forgiven to them and are damned seeing the contrary is abundantly certaine and the wicked quality and impenitent disposition of some persons so depraved and vitiated by their sins makes the same to be in them unpardonable which brings them to the same finall state with sinners against the holy Ghost it matters little for a mans comfort that is to be put to death whether he be hanged for felonie or for burglarie seeing for either of them his death is the same 2. Self-murder a transcendent great sin Secondly I answer touching the comparison made betweene self-murder and other sinnes committed against the Law that self-murder is a greater sin than any that can be directly and properly committed against and within any precept of the Law for which the committers of the same may have grounded hope of forgivenesse because self-murder is a transcendent sinne as hath beene shewed in the third reason transcedents are ever larger and greater than subordinates and it is a sinne condemnable by more and stronger reasons and arguments than any other sinne committed against and within the compasse of the Law as the same is more grievously injurious to more objects and transgresses more Lawes naturall divine and humane and therefore it must needs be the greater sinne Also the estimate of the greatnesse and unpardonablenesse of sinnes as they are in offenders is not wholly to be made by consideration of their abstract nature but specially the same is to bee made by the quality and disposition of the committers of them whose personall and actionall circumstances in doing of thē much aggravats or extenuats the same For pardon or not pardon of sins depends more upon the penitencie or impenitency of the offenders than upon the nature of their sins absolutly and abstractly considered the fact of self murder is such a sinne as no man penitently disposed can commit and it cuts him that doth it off finally from all repentance and consequently from salvation Self-murder most dangerous for a mans soule Of all sinnes against the Law self-murder is most dangerous and pernicious for a mans soule to bring it to damnation both because it excludes all care and meanes of a mans salvation which if a self-murderer did regard he would not venture in the last period of his life upon a course so contrary to it and also it puts the self-murderer into such an estate and disposition of sinfulnesse and aversenesse from God and his will in pursuing of his owne wicked lust that he is not nor can be capable of grace nor is in the way of salvation whereunto self-murder is most contrary by his last act of horrible sin in the closure of his life And therefore it is apparent that for any thing in this objection alledged there is nothing from the nature of the sin of self-murder properly so called that can give any comfort of salvation to self-murderers or can warrant us to hold probably and in the judgement of charity that they are not all generally considered utterly damned §. 10. Touching Examples of self-killers 2. Object Is from examples The second objection that may be made in favour of the salvation of self-murderers is taken from examples of Sampson Pelagia and many others that in the Primitive Church killed themselves and are acknowledged to be saved Therefore it may seeme probable that some self-murderers may be saved Answers 1. That Sampson is no self-murderer To this objection I answer first touching Sampson that he was no self-murderer directly nor in that point of so dying indirectly the reasons whereof are evident Reasons 1. First because his intention will and endeavours were not directly or primarily but only
after that wofull experience had given too great evidence of mens impudency in committing this inhumane and unnaturall sinne most severe lawes were made against the same In like case hath more woefull experience given more abundant evidence of the more then most in humane and unnaturall sinne of Self murder And I suppose that scarce an age since the beginning of the world hath afforded more examples of this desperate inhumanity than this our present age and that in all sorts of people Clergie Laity Learned unlearned Noble meane Rich poore Free bond Male Female young and old It is therefore high time that the danger of this desperate devilish and damnable practice be plainly and fully set out which to my best remembrance hath not before this beene performed by a full and just Treatise Chrysost Hom. 84. in Ioh. 19. Augustin epist 61. alisque in locis Hier. comment in Ion. cap. 1. Cic. de Fin. bon mal l. 5. Somn. Scipion. Proxima deinde tenent moesti loca qui sibi lethum Insontes peperere manu c. Virg. Aen. 6. It hath in sundry Sermons preached and published and in other printed Treatises beene spoken against and the hainousnesse and danger thereof somewhat to the quick yea and life too beene declared and that both by the Ancient Fathers and also by late Divines Yea Heathen men by the light of nature have damned it to the pit of bell where they have placed Self murderers making them againe and againe to wish themselves alive on earth though there poverty griefe shame and all other evills should befall them Surely most seasonably is this Treatise here published by an Author well fitted and enabled thereto For he is an expert Casuist by learning and experience so fully accomplished as he hath for many yeares beene accounted an Oracle where be lives and by all sorts resort is made to him to be resolved in intricate doubts In handling this Treatise like a skilfull Artist and wise builder Luke 6.48 be hath digged deep to lay his foundation sure he hath begun with life and artificially distinguished the severall sorts thereof and shewed the excellency of every sort that the hainousnesse of taking away so precious a thing might thereby be the more aggravated Many pertinent cases are here and there yea every where in this Treatise judiciously discussed and resolved So good is the wine here to be had Vino vendibili non opus est hederâ as there needs no bush to draw thee to it Let mee but perswade thee to taste it I shall need to set no greater commendation upon it I make no question but that wheresoever it findeth entertainment it will prove a most soveraigne preservative against this horrible temptation to Self-murder The Lord give such a blessing to it as it may be a meanes of keeping men from laying violent hands upon any especially upon themselves and of directing and inciting them so to preserve their temporall and spirituall life as they may bee reserved unto eternall life 18. Apr. 1637. VVILLIAM GOUGE IN DOCTISSIMVM ET ELABORATVM HVNC TRACTATVM Technas Diaboli homines ad horrendum scelus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 provocantis mirâ arte pietate denudantem MOrtalibus vitae semèl scintillulam Natura cunctis indidit Tuendam ab omnibus virili prosua ad Imaginem quae condita est DEI cruore et sacro CHRISTI parta huic Larvatus invidet Serpens Hanc suffocare cordis pendulus cujus Curae anxiae cor vellicant Contendit alter nescius probi qui se Nequitiâ totum faedat Illam aestimat parvi scelestâ dexterâ Extinguit illam tertius Sic à DEO creata vitae scintilla et CHRISTI redempta sanguine Quae charior lapillis est purior Morte interit repentinâ Quis non beatum praedicabit Symeum CHRISTI facit solertem quem Gregis tuendi cura quipandit viam Quâ possit haec scintillula Vitae foveri pendulum cordis cui Iter dolores obstruunt Vocis per anfractus doloris dirigit Ad sempiterna gaudia Acumine insigni qui pandit subdolas Technas diaboli quibus Vitae struit dolum qui cunctos instruit Vitam caducam degere Vt illius peracto cursugaudijs Vitae fruantur aeternae Gregem ô beatum qui Tuo doctissimo Labore ductus abstrusa Coelstium scitorum ediscit dogmata CHRISTUS diu Tesospitet Gregem ut Tibi commissum possis quod facis Fovere scriptis vitâ T.Y. Haec amoris ergò apposuit qui gravissimum hujus Tractatus Authorem verè suscipit sincerè colit A deare Friend to the Author FRom Albion whence now we all be one with healthfull salves thou doest assay to cure Self-murders griefe that many long agone doth kill and fill dark Hell with soules impure Which sage Hippocrates and Galen sure could not prevent nor heale with all their skill But thou by thy receipts that will indure most skilfully canst soundly cure this ill Goe to therefore deare Sym God give successe Like to thy skill thy will this to redresse S.H. A TABLE OF THE Chapters and severall Sections with their Contents CHAPTER 1. The generall description of Self-murder § 1. Concerning life and death that they are things of greatest importance Page 1. § 2. Self-murder described what it is and of the three parts of the description Page 2 § 3. How self-murder is knowne by life which it destroyes why evill ever cleaves to good and that all worldly things are subject to contrary passions Page 2 3. Chap. 2. Of the kindes of the life of man naturall and spirituall and what the care of men should be of both Page 4 Chap. 3. Of naturall life in generall § 1. Of diverse sorts of life of vegetation sense and reason Page 4 5 § 2. That man onely is subject to self-murder and of the greatnesse of that sin Page 6 § 3. How naturall life is knowne in and by the man in whom it is both by sense and understanding Page 6 § 4. Of the soules double act in man for his person and his workes Page 7 Chap. 4. Of mans naturall life more specially § 1. Wherein the naturall life of man consists which is fraile Page 8 § 2. Of the sweetnesse of naturall life Page 9 § 3. How the losse of naturall life is horrible and painfull and why Page 9 § 4. How life is deare and precious with three reasons thereof Page 10 § 5. Of naturall lifes preservation the meanes thereof and of cheerefulnesse Page 12 § 6. How to use Physick with foure cautions about the same Page 14 § 7. Of three deadly things to be resisted Page 16 § 8. How to spend our lives well with three motives so to do and how men mispend their lives foure wayes Page 18 Chap. 5. Of mans spirituall life § 1. What spirituall life is Page 21 § 2. Of the acts of spirituall life which are two Page 21 § 3. Of the
damned in hell can be for that sensible misery that they shall suffer both in respect of the differing degrees and also of the natures of the things but punishment of damage and privation of life and happinesse proceeds from want and omission of good whereof wee are to beware §. 10. Of indeavour after spirituall life and of the lets thereof 2. The second use is to stirre us up to indeavour after life spirituall both to get and keepe it by the conscionable use of the meanes thereof For as God gives not this life without our using of appointed meanes so these meanes are within the reach of our power and none do perish but such as are wanting to themselves therein For no man perishes or is saved by an absolute decree of God without respect to his owne courses in the accomplishment thereof as Act. 13.48 it is said that as many as were ordained to life beleeved By a mans constant carefulnesse in the use of the meanes and walking in the waies of salvation it is apparent that he is appointed to life as the Apostle tells us 1 Thes 1.4 Knowing your election for our Gospell came unto you in power c. this life is worth the labouring for if we doe our parts for a thing of that price we may have assurance and comfort of it against the servile feare of the contrary death Letts The lets and hinderances of this endeavour and the causes of this omission whereby men deprive themselves of this spirituall life are specially three 1. Perverted judgment First a perverted judgement and stupid understanding undervaluing the worth of that life as not so excellent and necessary as it is it being not subject to our present naturall senses nor regarded by the world 2. Mis-placed affections Secondly the preferment of the world in the profits and pleasures thereof before it in place or degree after which ungodly men doe more eagerly hunt and therein have more content because they have the same in present possession and it agrees best with their estate and disposition insomuch that it may be said of such men that it is better to be their bodies than their soules as the Emperour said of Herod Macrobius that it was better being his hog than his Son because he killed his Son but spared and fatted his hogs 3. Presumption Thirdly groundlesse presumption that either he hath that life already or that he hath time enough to get it long afterwards or that it may be easily had without meanes or at least without so much adoe makes a man to omit endeavouring after it in due time in use of the meanes and so he misses that life §. 11. Of spirituall self-murder by subjection to death through commission of evill The second degree of self-soul-murder The second degree of self-soul-murder is subjection to spirituall destruction in damnation and everlasting misery whereof man himselfe is the efficient meritorious cause by his owne activity in committing and wilfully doing those sinnes for which death and destruction is threatned a Ezek. 18.4 and is assuredly inflicted upon the impenitent perseverers therein For as by a mans omission of his duty he deprives himselfe of life so by his commission of sinnes hee subjects himselfe to the contrary death the former being as terminus à quo the terme from which men move the latter as terminus ad quem the terme to which they move both which are inseparably united in the same person in whom thereby this spirituall self-murder is consummate to the highest perfection or degree of it whereby it properly may be called self-soule-murder §. 12. Of the meanes of destruction by breaking the Law By sins of commission The deadly meanes whereby men kill their owne soules and subject the same to eternall positive destruction are the sins that they wilfully commit and continue in in such kinds and degrees and manner as cannot consist in them with grace and salvation and are of two sorts 1. Against the Law of negative commands First such as be against the prime law of Nature by transgressing the negative Commandements of God whereby the transgressours doe subject themselves to that punishment which is called poena sensus or punishment of smart or damnation in hell For by sinne entred death Rom 5.12 Rev. 21.8 Prov. 19 16. The properties of soul-murdring sinnes The properties of the course and sinnes of Commission whereby a man becomes guilty of self-murder of his soule are foure 1. They are grosse Although the nature of all sinnes be mortall deserves death and disposes a man for it yet those that be of the grossest kinds and in the highest degrees of exorbitancy such as Hosea speakes of cap. 4.2 are specially said to be mortall for their extreame contrariety that they have to God and his justice their inconsistency with grace and for their apting and disposing of those to destruction that live in them so that by committing such sinnes men doe cast their owne soules into the gulfe of perdition 2. Wilfull Secondly when they that commit those sinnes or any of them doe willingly doe the same and live in them against the light and checks of their owne consciences as our Saviour charges the Pharisees Iohn 9.41 then are they self-condemned and do wittingly destroy their owne soules without excuse of ignorance or of want of power to have avoyded the same seeing as there is in some naturall notions of the Law in the minde such as the Gentiles have Rom. 2.14 So likewise all men have some remainder of power to forbeare sinnes in their grossest kinds and degrees if they were not wanting to themselves and therefore as all men specially the wicked within the Church shall be judged by the Law so they shall have nothing to plead to excuse why they should not be damned for their grosse transgressing of it 3. Obstinate Thirdly when men commit those sinnes with eagernesse and delight from and upon advised judgment and wilfull resolution with contentment in the acting of them and defending or excusing them when they are done as did Saul 1 Sam. 13.12 and do fall to opposing censuring and condemning the contrary course of vertue and godlinesse in the persons that doe practise the same whom therefore they hate and persecute a 1 Thes 2.15 such persons are in a course of destroying their owne soules by setting themselves with a high hand against God provoking him to his face to fall upon them for revenge 4. Presevered in Fourthly by this course of sinning a man murders his own soule when he goeth on and incorrigibly perseveres therein passing from evill to worse hardning his owne heart against all reproofes and amendment storming against and abusing all the meanes of his recovery to his deeper plunging in wickednesse and destruction for although hee would willingly misse hell and bee rid of the guilt of his sinne that troubles his conscience
so long as hee is not grieved for his sinnes of omission nor makes conscience to doe his duty in keeping the affirmative Commandements of God Of the danger of this course of impenitency the Apostle Paul gives his censure in these words But after thy hardnesse and impenitent heart thou treasurest up unto thy selfe wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgements of God Rom. 2.5 Cure To prevent this impenitency we must beware of custome in sinne and of slighting our spirituall estates §. 17. Of the sinne against the Holy Ghost 3. The sinne against the Holy Ghost The third branch of the sinnes against the Gospell whereby a man kills his owne soule is the sinne against the Holy Ghost which consists in hating and opposing the knowne saving truth of the Gospell a Mat. 12.31 and is called a sinne unto death 1 Ioh. 5.16 from which there is no recovery not onely because it is ever accompanied with finall impenitency but specially for that the nature of that sinne is so directly against the meanes of salvation that thereby a man cuts himselfe utterly off from it and deprives himselfe of the suffrages and prayers of the Church b 1 Ioh. 5.16 every sinne disposes a man lesse or more to this sinne which is the transcendency of all sinnes and therefore that all men may feare and not presume upon any sinfull course God hath set bounds to his mercy how farre in what cases and to whom he will shew the same and in what cases and to whom not It behooves all men as they would escape damnation to beware of this sinne which at last often causes men to lay violent hands upon themselves and to end their lives in desperation The sinnes neere approaching to it are those that men doe wilfully with a high hand commit and stand in with hatred and persecuting of the contrary vertuous courses in others Cure To avoid this sinne against the Holy Ghost wee must be carefull that wee sinne not presumptuously nor hate goodnesse and good people Things observable in it It is by way of enlargement further to be observed that this sinne against the Holy Ghost is both incident onely to persons inlightned with certaine knowledge of Christ and the Gospell a Heb. 6.4 by the Spirits illumination and are indowed with some competent measure of Evangelicall graces by the power and worke of the Holy Ghost and also that the nature of it consists in an obstinate malicious opposition of Iesus Christ and his merits and of the Gospell and of Evangelicall grace and goodnesse against divine light and convincing illumination of the Holy Ghost in those that doe it who in their very act of their opposition of Evangelicall truth and the professors and obeyers thereof doe the same with malicious refisting the very motion working and perswasion of the Spirit within them to the contrary at that very instant Observ Many more doe now in the time of the Gospell commit this sinne against the Holy Ghost How many now do commit it than could doe it in the time of the Law and many now doe come so neere unto it that they fall into the desperate estate of impenitencie and of a reprobate sense in regard of the clearenesse and abundance of the light of the Gospell contrary to which and to their owne conscience they runne with greedinesse to all excesse of wickednesse and prophanenesse with hatred and opposition of goodnesse and of the power of the Gospell and of those in that respect that are godly Note None that are affraid they have committed the sinne against the Holy Ghost or are troubled about it or grieved for it can in that case commit it neither have committed it because this sinne is done with the whole consent of will and sway of affections in a totall Apostacy with impenitency and unreconcileable hatred and persecution of the truth of the Gospell and of the professors thereof §. 18. Of Apostacy Finall Apostacy Fourthly the soule murdering sinnes committed against the Gospell are apostacy from the profession or power of it occasioned by an evill heart of unbeliefe by the profits honors pleasures or examples and temptations of the world in those that are hypocrites and unsound as were Demas a 2 Tim. 4 10. and Simon Magus b Act. 8.21 and by renouncing of God and the Gospell by compact explicit or implicit with Satan as Witches and Magitians doe resigning their soules to him and to eternall destruction Where it is to be observed that Apostates in Gods just judgement not onely runne into all excesse of impiety and prophanenesse but doe also become most bitter haters and persecuters of the profession and professors which formerly they seemed to embrace being not content to perish themselves but also are grieved that any should bee saved and stand fast in the truth Apostates are hardly ever recovered and their damnation is greater because they fall from a higher pitch than other men and against more meanes of knowledge and reluctancy whereby they are self-condemned and often at last end their dayes in despaire graduall apostacy or relecting in the power and wayes of godlinesse is incident to the godly and recoverable as wee see Revel 2.5 and therefore is not comprenended in this ranck of soul-killing-apostacy which is not fallen into at once but by degrees To persevere in the truth we must labour to be sound in the faith and to love and delight in the truth above all things The difference of sinnes Although it is certaine that all sinnes are damnable for nature in regard of their contrariety to God and his Law and are also of a condemning property in respect of their merit of due punishment of damnation For the soule that sins shall dye Ezek. 18.4 yet all sinnes are not alike as the Stoicks affirme but some are more mischievous and more repugnant than others to God himselfe and to our salvation and to the good of others and are more incompatible with justice and charity than others are as Idolatry perjury c. §. 19. Of the malignity of the sinnes against the Gospell above those committed against the Law Sinues against the Gospell worse than against the Law The sinnes that are done immediately against the Gospell are more dangerous and worse than those that are committed immediatly against the Law whereof I will give three reasons Reasons 1. First for their nature they are of a higher straine than the sinnes of the Law as the Gospell is more eminent than the Law which is intimated Heb. 10.28 29. 2. Secondly these sinnes against the Gospell are done with more opposition against more abundant meanes and grace by those that now live in the Church than the sins of the Law as Paul manifests to us 2 Cor. 3.8 3. Thirdly the sinnes against the Gospell are committed with farre more inevitable destruction than the sinnes against the
Of indirect self-murder by doing of capitall crimes against humane Lawes and authority 8. Branch Capital crimes Eightly men doe commit indirect self-murder by their breaking out into capitall courses and crimes in transgressing and violating capitall good humane Lawes the penalty whereof is death whereby they bring themselves under the sword of Iustice thereby to lose their lives as do Traitors and rebellious persons against the King State or Kingdome spoylers of other mens lives or goods as murderers Pirates Robbers and the like which is a thing both just and expedient in reason that for preserving upholding of the whole body publick or the more noble parts thereof inferiour and rotten members should suffer amputation who by their owne vile practises have subjected themselves to the penall censure of death by their misdeserving courses being indirectly self-murderers their blood being upon themselves and not upon the Magistrate by whose hands they justly fall as is apparent Levit. 20.9 where the blood of him that was put to death for cursing his Father is said to be upon himselfe and 2 Sam. 1.16 touching him that David killed for saying that hee had slaine Saul he said that his blood was upon his head as also 1 King 2.32 37. touching Ioab for his murder and Sbimei for his railing it is said that their blood was upon their owne heads for that they were the wilfull meritorious cause although not the immediate instruments of their owne deaths And so thus all men that die by the merits of their owne actions morally or civilly considered are murderers of their owne naturall lives and bodies as man may truly be said to be the overthrower of the salvation of his owne soule by the merits of his owne sins §. 14. Of indirect self-murder by wilfull transgression of Gods Lawes 9. Branch Transgression against Gods Law Ninthly men indirectly murder their owne bodies by wilfully and impenitently walking in a course of transgression of Gods Law in such kinds and degrees as are accompanied with fearefull threatnings of death and destruction to bee inflicted not onely upon the soules but also upon the bodies of such transgressours by fearefull judgments even in this life as we see it was done to Pharaoh which is performed two waies 1. Kills after a naturall manner First in a physicall or naturall manner by the very nature and act of some sinnes themselves immediatly wasting filling the body with diseases and at last killing it as by drunkennesse and gluttony distempring and surfeiting the body according as Solomon saies that to those that tarrie long at the Wine and that do goe to seeke mixt Wine is woe sorrow contentious babling wounds without cause and rednesse of the eyes Prov. 23.29.30 Also by whoredome and bodily uncleannesse the strength is wasted as the Apostle shewes how such doe sin against their owne bodies 1 Cor. 6.18 and Solomon tells us that the house of a strange woman inclines to death Prov. 2.18 and by her a mans flesh and body is consumed Prov. 5.11 and the adultresse hunteth after the pretious life Of Passions And also by the immoderatenesse of the passions of the minde in giving way and liberty to them to break out and have dominion over us wherby the vitall spirits are suffocated or wasted as by excesse of choler fretfulnes or griefe or the like extinguishing the life of man as a fire is put out by oppressing it with water or by wastefully burning up suddenly the fewell of the maintenance of it therefore it is needfull that we suffer no commotion to be raised in our passions and affections but upon just cause and ground and that then therein we do keepe due moderation by the command of reason Note and by the possessing and taking of them up with divine and heavenly objects and imployment about things concerning a better life it is a very dangerous and costly contentment that a man hath by giving immoderate scope to his unruly affections and passions with the consumption of his owne life thereby in this course of indirect self-murder 2. A morall meritorious manner of self-killing Secondly men by their self-willed sinfull courses are indirect self-murderers of their bodies efficiently in a moral manner and by way of merit according to the justice of God threatning and punishing disobedient prophanenesse and wickednesse from heaven not onely inwrapping transgressors into publick generall judgements with others but also by inflicting particular personall destruction upon them as God did upon Corah Dathan and Abiram a Numb 16.38 and upon some for their unworthy and prophane receiving of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper did die b 1 Cor. 11.30 by their owne meritorious procurement and wee are taught in the Proverbs c Prov. 1.8 31 32. that sinners do lay waite for their owne blood and eate the fruit of their owne way and that the turning away of the simple shall slay him In the Prophet Ezekiel Robbers adulterers and usurers d Ezek. 18.13 are threatned with death and there it is said that their blood shall be upon their owne heads which intimates that they are guilty of their own deaths And againe secure persons not repenting after admonition are threatned with death and that their blood shall be upon their owne heads e Ezek. 33.4 5. Yea all the damned in hell whose bodies with their soules shall be subject to the second death by meanes of their owne sins are and shall be guilty of their own deaths both of soule and body and so are self-murderers also of their bodies at least indirectly In Adam and by his first sin all men naturally are self-murderers Moreover Adam and all mankinde in him lapsed are indirectly self-murderers by merit of that first transgression for and through which death entred into the world according to the testimony of the Apostle who saith that by one man sin entred into the world and death by sin so death passed upon all men for that all have sinned Rom. 5.12 So that no man can blame any for his death in regard of originall merit and desert but himselfe Now that this death of our selves may not be imputed to our selves that we should stand guilty before God of this indirect self-murder we must labour to get our pardon from God in Christ for the comfort of our consciences and for our security from the avenger of blood upon our reconciliation with our God and bee carefull that we live not wilfully and impenitently in any knowne sinne without which care all stand guilty before God of this sinne of self-murder and shall suffer for it Observe The world is full of self-murderers From hence we may observe that there are many more self-murderers than the world takes notice of or that do thinke themselves to be such yea the world is full of them whose sinnes are more haynous than they conceive and specially against themselves most pernicious and therefore it is no
the truth and Church is bound to doe the duties of his calling notwithstanding any such former restraint or danger of disobedience to it because the power of the Church is but ministeriall under and according to God rather declarative than Soveraigne therefore what she doth tyes not men here on earth to obey it to the destruction but to the edification of the Church or at least to prevent a greater mischiefe And also because the true Church may doe no such acts of deprivation or suspension whereby to intend or effect the destruction of the Church and therefore in that case transgressing of such restraints is no disobedience to the Church but rather an obeying the intent of the same as in times of persecution we have plentifull examples specially of the Church of the Iewes against the Christians A Caveat Yet herein is to be observed that such performance of duties in that case after restraint bee done in mecke patient manner without tumults or forcible opposition of authority submitting with passive obedience where they cannot lawfully performe active This extends not to warrant any schisme or heresie that esteem themselves only to be the true Church as did the Donatists and others to oppose out of feare of their owne ruine the proceedings and restraints of the more Orthodoxe and generall body of a sound Church whose authority doth preponderate and oversway her apostating members so long as by the doctrine publikely taught in her men may be saved and built up §. 30. Against commission of evill upon any humane command or threats Fourth member about commission of evill upon humane command The fourth member of the case wherein a man ought to expose his life to death in causes concerning religion is when a man is desired commanded or threatned to doe any sinne forbidden by Gods word that then hee doe it not although he therefore doe die as Iosephs practise manifests in resisting his whorish mistris a Gen. 39.12 and the three children that would not upon the Kings command worship the golden Image to save their lives Daniel 3.18 Because it is better for us to die than deliberately and wilfully to sinne against God as the woman with her seaven sonnes did choose 2 Mach. 7. according to S. Augustines judgement who sayes that if it be propounded to a man Vt aut mali aliquid faciat aut mali aliquid patiatur eligat non facere mala quam non pati mala b Epist 204. that either he should doe some evill or suffer some calamity then let him choose rather not to doe evill than not to suffer evill Observe How we are to abhorre sin For we are ever to doe that which may most neerely unite us to God our chiefe good and to shunne what may divide us from him which nothing can doe but our sinnes specially those that consist in the transgression of the negative Commandements and are most opposite to God and incompatible with him and therefore those lawes doe binde ad semper to the alwayes observing of them and cannot be dispensed withall seeing God is unchangeable The evill of sinne should be more terrible to us than death it selfe not onely for that it is the cause of death and imbitters it but also because it deprives us of a greater good of our spirituall life that farre exceeds the naturall The beatificall object that sinne deprives us of is the infinite blessed God from whom to be separated is worse than death it self and in that respect rather than we should sinne we should choose to suffer death which is a glorious kinde of Martyrdome and a meanes of advancement to happinesse for the power and practise of the truth laying downe our lives which is a more undoubted signe of grace and salvation than is the suffering of many for holding the truth in opinion and profession Wee should choose rather not to bee than not to bee happy for the originall and end of our being is better than our being it selfe in regard that our happinesse is not of and in our selves but in and from another who is both our beginning and end §. 31. Of the kindes of sinnes of commission to be avoyded Evils of sin to be avoided These sinfull evills that wee ought thus carefully to avoid and forbeare to death are of two sorts 1. Against the law of nature First those that be directly and absolutely forbidden by the Law of nature as fundamentally unlawfull at all times and in all cases for the contrariety that they have against the nature of God and against the inbred principles of reason and conscience of which no question can be made but that wee are alwaies utterly to shun them notwithstanding any humane command or inforcement that may be to the contrary because no human power can dissolve the obligation of those ingrafted Commandements of God and nature Innata Lex Rom. 2.15 that we may be discharged in conscience from keeping of them which would overthrow both divinity and humanity neither can any free us from the punishment of the transgression of them both because equity and Law requires that the soule that sins shall die and also for that there is no power matchable with Gods and natures to protect or free us by force from their vengeance 2. Against the positive Law of God Secondly the sins that wee are to shun and not wittingly and willingly to do upon any threats or worldly danger or for any profit are those that are forbidden by the positive Law and revealed will of God the violating whereof doth wrong the soveraignty and honor of God who is the absolute and onely independant King of all the world and his will the supreame unerring rule of our obedience throughout our lives our transgression whereof is a breach of that loyalty and due subjection which wee owe to that our highest Lord. To whese positive Law conformity is more properly obedience to God than conformity to the Law of nature is by it selfe considered Because the ground of our conformity to the Law of nature is naturall inclination and Reason equally binding Heathens aswell as Christians But the ground of our conformity to the positive Law of God is principally the soveraigne Authority and Will of God himselfe which kinde of obedience is that which is properly of the Church and her members to God and proceeds from faith love feare c. Evangelicall or Thelogicall graces From which obedience to God no wight can absolve or excuse us that we may lawfully and safely subject our selves to feare to please or to obey any other in opposition or contraty to him and his will Reasons 1. Because there is none above God whose will may be preferred or equalled to his to whom all is subordinate in nature state and imployment 2. Neither is any man Lord over the Conscience either to bind or discharge it contrary to the Law or will of God that we
principally for their unbeliefe as our Saviour Christ saith He that beleeveth not is condemned already a Ioh. 3.18 §. 4. Of the examples of self-murderers in Scripture 2. Reason Proving that all self-murderers are damned The second argument proving that all proper self-murderers are damned is the examples of those recorded in the Scriptures who did murder thēselves as Saul Ahitophel Zimri Iudas c. that were all reprobates and damned persons Examples For the Scripture speakes not onely of their fact of self-murder with condemning and detesting of the same but also it so describes the persons themselves that do it that it makes it apparent that they are damned and gives instance in none other that did it but reprobately damned wretches So that by induction of particular self-murderers in Scripture who were all reprobates and damned we may safely conclude that no self-murderer is or can be saved seeing there can no Authentick instance be given of any such that ever was saved And therefore we should not be conformable to those in their damnable practise with whom wee would not communicate in their last and finall estate of everlasting damnation but of this see more cap. 15. § 23. cap. 17. § 7. argument 17. §. 5. Self-murder is a sin transcendent beyond Law and mercy 3. Reason Proving that all self-murderers are damned The third reason and ground whereupon it is evident that no self-murderer can be saved but are all damned is the very nature of this horrible sinne of self-murder it selfe taken in the full latitude thereof in manner and forme of the greatest anomie and enormity of it The excessive hainousnesse of that sinne which neither can here consist with true grace in those that so perpetrate it nor will permit any that so do it to enter into Heaven in regard of the hainousnesse of it whereby it is without the pale and verge of mercy to be shewed to any that commit it Reason The reason whereof is this by the Gospell God offers mercy upon repentance to those onely that transgresse against the Law of naturall reason and of the positive Commandements of God in those kindes and degrees of sinnes the highest and most grievous whereof exceeds not nor transcends the utmost limits and bounds of that which humane reason properly and Gods Law expresly forbids and condemnes and whereof instances may be given that some in that estate or in one parallel to it have repented and beene saved The Lawes given to man have bounds Because to restraine mans presumption in evill mercy is intended and offered to penitent men for sinnes contained within certaine bounds and limits and not extended to insinitnesse of excesse or malignity with overthrow either of the universall Law of nature or of the Law whereby God is subsists and acts his works which would import that there must be neither God nor Creature These limits of mans pardonable sins are those lawes of reason or of Divine imposition which are proportionable and reciprocally proper for men binding them onely to keepe them as every kinde of creatures are bound by their owne proper lawes and the universe by the lawes that binds the whole and all its parts beyond or above the height of enormitie forbidden directly by them for men to transgresse they wrong and overthrow what they can the very being and happinesse both of the Creature and Creator in which excesse of iniquity beyond the highest kinds and degrees directly forbidden in the Law there is no salvation to be had because in that case men are without and beyond the highest expresse extent of the lawes proper to men for breaches whereof mercy may be had by the Gospell For sinnes beyond the Law no mercy For the Gospell and Law have respect thus farre one to another for their bounds and extent that the vertue and benefit of the Gospell extends onely to save those penitents that are in danger to perish by sinnes directly under and within the compasse of the law proper to man but if man do sin transcendently-presumptiously and properly against more universall or higher Lawes that concernes the being of God or of the whole frame of the creation the violating whereof naturall instinct and divine horror may make us abominate there is no comfort of the Gospell nor salvation to such as is apparent in the devils into whose qualities and order such men do degenerate by their transcendent sinnes beyond the list of those for which mercy may be had by the Gospell which respects pardon of sinnes limited only within compasse of that Law which is properly given to man and requires a modified justice sutable to the power man had at first to performe dutie Self-murder is a transcendent sinne beyond Law Now self-murder properly so called is such an extracategorian and transcendent sinne beyond or above the law of reason or of divine imposition proper to man that it violates the frame of the Creation and the Majesty of God himselfe as well as his Law in endeavouring the destruction of both from which horrible fact both naturall instinct and divine horror might restraine a man if he had not put off humanity The sinne of self-murder is forbidden by Gods Law Thou shalt do us murder Whereunto it belongs only by reduction and Analogie or proportion that it hath to murder and not properly but is a namelesse sinne properly belonging to a more universall and higher Law that concernes God himselfe and the frame of the Creation the transcendency of which sin puts the doers thereof without the pale of mercy §. 6. Self-murderers want true repentance 4. Reason Proving that all proper self-murderers are damned The fourth reason and argument whereupon it is evident that all proper self-murderers in that transcendent extent and forme spoken of before cannot be saved but are all damned is their want of true repentance for their sinnes without which there can be no salvation They want true repentance That they want true repentance and all other subsequent saving graces neither in that estate can have the same is thus apparent if they have repentance it must be either habituall and implicite in their disposition or actuall and explicite in expressions and deeds or in both But if it be neither way in them then it cannot be in them at all but it is neither way in them ergo 1. Habituall repentance First habituall repentance they cannot have because it is a penitent disposition that must be either infused by the holy Spirit or acquired and purchased by frequent acts and practise of repentance but neither doth the holy Ghost indow such with the habituall disposition of true repentante because it is an Evangelicall grace whereof sinners of that transcendencie beyond the Law are not capable and where it is it is accompanied with the body of other saving graces which all such persons do want nor yet have they got habituall repentance by their long and
meanes and instruments of their spirituall life than to the meanes of their naturall for naturall life without spirituall makes a man but subject to misery whereas the spirituall life upon the naturall makes a man everlastingly happy which should quicken in us a desire and endeavour to be borne againe according to our Saviours speech Ioh. 3.3 2 For continuance Secondly the spirituall life farre transcends the naturall in respect of its continuance the naturall life depending upon mutable and mortall ties and bonds and subject to many externall harmfull accidents is fraile and at last is swallowed up of mortality it being appointed for all men once to die Heb. 9.27 and few and evill are our dayes in this world wherein wee have no abiding city the spirituall life is eternall without subjection to death because it is in it selfe supernaturall and advanced above the reach and power of all things that can destroy life and is preserved and upheld by such a fountaine of indeficient and omnipotent life and undecaying lively vigour and meanes of divine living that never suffers the man that hath and keeps communion with the same to be subject to death but makes him passe from death to life Iohn 5.24 the faith whereof doth free a man from the feare of losing that happy estate while he continues to love it whereas others in a loseable and mutable estate of life are by feare of being deprived thereof and being without hope of a better hindered in injoying the full comfort of the present good that here is afforded 3. For effects Thirdly spirituall life surpasses the naturall in its effects the naturall life enables a man to the doing onely of naturall actions specially concerning mans naturall good agreeable unto and flowing from naturall principles in man being in the meane time dead to any divine or supernaturall good neither actively doing that of goodnesse which is truely morall or divine nor passively receiving and enjoying that thereof which is beatificall or which makes man blessed and so he may for all that life the powers and actions thereof be miserable and perish for flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdome of God 1 Cor. 15.50 The spirituall life by so neere conjunction of a man with the fountaine of life Essentiall the well-spring of infinite goodnesse not onely by that touch and union doth it make him so live but also it causeth him to be most happy both by making him able Actively to live the life of God a Gal. 2.19 and to live to the will of God 1 Pet. 4.2 and also by endowing him with passive capacity and with reall possession of all such beatificall perfections as are necessary for his advancement to and in a glorious estate farre above all other earthly creatures in this world and in the world to come whereby he becomes so happy that nothing can make him miserable but even in tribulation he hath cause of rejoycing Rom. 5.3 and when he dyes yet still he lives in more excellent manner as Paul said touching his afflictions as dying and behold we live 2 Cor. 6.9 In regard of the aforesaid excellency of this spirituall life above the naturall it was that our Saviour did command his Disciples not to feare them that kill the body but are not able to kill the soule but rather to feare him which is able to destroy both soule and body in hell Mat. 10.28 §. 6. How to obtaine spirituall life Vse 1. To get spirituall life From the former doctrine touching the excellency of this spirituall life of man diverse very necessary uses are observable First it may provoke and stirre us up to get this life above all things in this world whereof we are borne destitute yea dead in sin to which life by our manifold actuall transgressions wee doe indispose and unfit our selves but yet the Lord of his mercy hath appointed us a way whereby we may get this spirituall life so that by our conscionable use of the meanes appointed by God By meanes wee may attaine thereunto in regard of his promise and faithfulnesse that those that seeke shall finde Amos 5.6 And why to be used These meanes are wee to use in regard both of Gods commandement who thereby tries our obedience and faith and also in respect of the dispensation of God who gives his graces onely by and in his owne way which otherwise cannot be had Also the worth and necessity of this spirituall life is such as deserves our best endeavours to get it our esteeme whereof is seene by our labours for it in Gods appointed way without which God will not give it because hee will have us active about our owne salvation that the same may cost us the price of our labours to come by it that thereby we may the more comfortably know that we have it when we know how we came by it that wee may be the more carefull to keepe what wee have so laboriously purchased and may assuredly looke for the reward of our labours which God that cannot lie hath promised to those that seeke life by his appointed meanes To use no meanes to get this spirituall life is to contemne both it and God and to indeavour to get it by using other meanes than God hath appointed for that end is to tempt God or to prescribe him his waies of dispensing his grace and to preferre our owne wits and wills above Gods whereby such men lose both their labour and expectation Which they be 1. The word of God The meanes in particular to get this spirituall life are First the word of God specially the Gospell which is as the materiall and seminall cause of it 1 Pet. 1.23 2. Application Secondly the meanes vegetating and applying the Gospell to quicken us which is fourefold 1. By the ministry First the ministrie of the word by reading and preaching of it to the enlightning of the understanding and to the moving of the affections and hearts of the hearers to embrace it for Faith comes by hearing Rom 10.17 2. Christian conference Secondly the Company and conferences of those Christians that in this kind of life are by their motion and example lively and vigorous able by their warmth and livelinesse to heat and quicken those whom they touch as Elisha by his application of himselfe to the dead child made it warme and alive 2 King 4.34 and as leaven leavens the lump and every thing affects to procreate its like 3. Prayer The third meanes of the Gospells application to quicken us is servent and effectuall prayer to God from whom is all the vertue and efficacy of it that he would make it effectuall to us for although Paul do plant and Apollo water it is God that gives the increase 1 Cor. 3.6 4. Sacraments the spirits operation in them Fourthly the Sacraments and in them the powerfull operation of the spirit of Christ is that which quickens us when
wee are cast into the frame and mould of the Gospell untill Christ be formed in us a Gal. 4.19 so that in this worke the spirit is the principall efficient cause as our Saviour tells us Iohn 6.63 it is the spirit that quickneth §. 7. How the Gospell workes life 1. Hovv the Gospell workes not So then the Gospell works not this life in us in a Physicall or naturall manner as having vertue naturally inherent in the words to produce such an effect in those that heare it 1. Not physically For then men should be converted and regenerated in a naturall and not in a divine manner and also then the Gospell would worke alike upon all men that heare it that were alike disposed and did not ponere obicem or lay a barre of their owne to hinder it except God should restraine the naturall power of it in working but so the conversion of man must be within the power of his owne act and God could not be justified in his withholding grace The word is a supernturall instrument of salvation But the conversion of a sinner is wrought by a greater vertue than can naturally and subjectively be in the words and sentences of the Gospell for the word of God is not instrumentum physicum a naturall instrument but a morall or rather metaphysicall instrument of effecting such a supernaturall worke according to the will of the first agent 2. Not Ethically Neither in an Ethicall manner doth the Gospell worke this spirituall life in us onely by morall perswasion as morall Philosophers and Rhetoricians doe affect and draw their hearers by reasons and exhortations stirring up a latent power inherent in us and inclining our wills by rationall motives and objects to be made alive then must it depend upon us that wee are saved and be from a power of our owne exuscitated by the word 2. How God works by the Gospell according to his own will But God works by his word as a more puissant and independent agent that inintends and remits his power in working according to his owne will by the meanes and uses meanes not as necessary for him but that he can doe as much without them in regard that the effect is his owne and man the passive subject of it Mans will is the subject of conversion It is the will of a naturall man that is most dead to God-ward and most averse from him and therefore it is the will that is chiefly to be wrought upon and made alive in conversion whereupon all depends but wee know that nothing can make it selfe alive when it is dead but he that is the fountaine of life the Son of God Rom 1.4 Note Of the heart The illumination of the understanding which is common to the wicked and the godly is presupposed as requisite to fit a man for conversion and therefore in the worke of regeneration the scripture takes notice specially of the heart insomuch that the old Testament uses no other word to expresse the understanding because in Divinity no knowledge without intertainement in the heart and without conformity of the will and practise to the truth is saving action being the end of Theological knowledge in this life words of knowledge in Scripture commonly comprehend affections in them §. 8. Why God uses meanes Although that God could if he pleased convey grace into a sinfull man by immediate influxe or inspiration from which wee cannot utterly exclude all seeing the worke of grace depends absolutely neither upon the nature of the meanes nor upon the abilities and will of the converted and elected whereof many are not by that method of meanes capable but upon God who workes according to the good pleasure of his will yet he uses meanes not to help himselfe as if otherwise he could not doe the worke but in respect of us that are naturall men indowed with senses as well as reason hee appoints meanes Reasons of using of means 1. that by our using thereof we may be active about the worke of our owne salvation and may attaine the same by a way and course within the compasse of our owne power and indeavours as the reward and blessing of God upon our labours to our commendation before God and men 2. Againe meanes are appointed by God for our obtaining of salvation that by using of them our saith in Gods promises and power may be tried in expecting thereby so glorious effects farre above their nature and also our obedience may be proved by doing what God commands us to doe within the reach of our power to get life albeit it doe transcend reason how by this way it can be had as appeares by Naaman the Syrian 2 King 5.13 14. 3. And finally God appoints the use of meanes for our comfort that by our constant conscionable using of the same we may be assured of grace and life as certainly as we are of the use of the meanes appointed to get and by which God hath promised to give it by the working of his holy Spirit §. 9. How the Spirits power is manifested and seene Vse To finde the Spirits power by the meanes in us Now further from the consideration of the excellency of this spirituall life to be wrought in us by meanes our use should be to end eavour to find and feele both the Spirits quickning vertue of regeneration by the meanes powerfully working upon and in us and also to discerne this spirituall life to be in our selves seeing our comfort lyes herein and that the one can never bee without the other Manifest in 4. degrees of operation The vertue of the Spirit in us by the meanes manifests it selfe in foure degrees of operation not to speake of illumination First both in making us see and feele with griefe of heart our owne wretchednesse and sinfull deadnesse 1. Against sinne and also by turning us from our sins and ungodly courses with detestation of them and with resolution and constant indeavours against them it being the worke of the spirit to lust against the slesh because they are contrary the one to the other a Gal 5.17 c. both in nature and effects In which respect the Prophet Hosea tells us that if we will live we must turne Hosea 6.1 for our sinfull courses are the waies of death therefore we should labour to be and find our selves mortified to sinne with some kinde not onely of voluntary indisposition but also of strong antipathie and detestation of committing the same as formerly wee were prone and affected with delight to doe and that at the presence of sinne in its habit or act we may with indignation be displeased and sad having no joy nor contentment in that condition For the motions of sin entertained do worke in our members to bring forth fruit unto death b Rom. 7.5 Which by a contrary life of grace are mortified and subdued but I confesse that
Law for if a man doe sinne against the Law he hath the Gospell as a City of refuge to flee to to save him from the killing and damnation of the Law but if a man doe sinne as aforesaid against the Gospell there remaines no further meanes or hope of safety but a fearefull expectation of eternall destruction by his own wilfull procurement murdering his owne soule Observe From the consideration of the aforesaid sins of Commission against the Law and the Gospell with their deadly effects we may observe 1. Sin costs deare First that there is nothing that costs so deare as sin it selfe is a thing of nought but wonderfully deare to buy and possesse and therefore before we meddle with it we should consider the price of it whether we be willing to die eternally for it otherwise abstaine from it 2. To have our wills brings destruction Secondly we may see that we cannot have our own wills in sinfull courses but with the destruction of our soules our folly is seene in undoing our selves by our owne workes and wayes so that a mans course of sinning and following of his lusts is indeed but a course of Gods heavy spirituall judgements upon him wherein he is rather to be pittied as miserable than to be envyed as formidable God will have his will in mans destruction when man will not let God have his will in his Commandements §. 20. The improvement of the knowledge of spirituall self-murder Vses The Vses of the knowledge of the aforesaid spirituall self-murder are specially Foure 1. Sin is a course of self-murder First It serves to informe our judgement what to think and esteeme of the sinfull and carelesse courses of many that live wilfully and impenitently transgressing both Law and Gospell namely that the same is a vile course of self-murder of their own soules for by those courses onely men doe perish and in those courses none escape destruction as one sayes Picol Vitium est non ens recessus ab ente vivus interitus ipsius esse virtus est vita ipsius esse Vice is a non-ens and a departure from entity and a living destruction of beeing it selfe whereas vertue is the life of being For although such men intend not directly to destroy their owne soules but to indulgere genio and live in self-content and pleasure yet the courses that they directly intend prosecute being such as of themselves destroy the soule which thing they know and are warned of they are no lesse self-murderers of their soules than they that intending to prevent or ease themselves of some present evill doe cut their own throats by a lesser evill as they thinke preventing a greater and therefore such are infamous self-murderers and cannot at the day of judgement be excused therefrom by charging the blame of their destruction upon any others And Numb 13.36 especially such persons as live under the light and profession of the Gospell in such sinfull courses and transgressions are most guilty and shall be most deepely damned in hell having least to plead in excuse for themselves and therefore our Saviour sayes that it shall be easier at the day of judgement for Tyre and Sidon than for such Mat. 11.22 Vse 2. Spirituall self-murder is most hainous and damnable The soule killed The second use of the point is to shew us that this spirituall self-murder is farre greater and worser than men ordinarily thinke it to be which is apparent in three respects First In regard of the thing killed which in spirituall self-murder is the soule of man that is much more excellent than the body both for the nature of it that cannot be valued with earthly things and also for the use thereof rationall and spirituall whereby man excells all other earthly creatures and by the murdering thereof he dejects himselfe in state beneath them all in misery and contemptiblenesse 2. The body with the soul killed Secondly for that they that kill their owne soules doe consequently thereby also kill their owne bodies because the body partakes in estate with the soule a Rev. 20.15 and so are both cast into hell Mat. 10.28 the nobler part drawes the other into identity of condition 3. The quality of this kinde of self-murder Thirdly it is the worst of murders in regard of the quality of the death it selfe this murder of the soule is spirituall and eternall not onely depriving a mans self of spirituall good but also subjecting him to all misery of sense and smart that the idevill himself the capitall enemy of mankinde cannot doe nor desire worse to man than in this case he doth to himself Murder of the body although it be vile and odious yet of it self it is but a privation from temporary good leaving the body without sense or feeling of evill and at the last day the body shall be raised againe to life in the union of it with its owne soule and therefore of all self-murderers the self-soul-murderer should be most miserable Vs 3. Endeavour to be saved and preserved from soul-destruction The third use is that as all men by naturall instinct do desire to be saved and to escape hell and damnation we should be carefull to use the meanes and to walke in the way whereby wee may attaine to life and avoide destruction for both are diversly entailed unto and depend upon severall contrary courses and appertaine to men of contrary lives and qualifications without the which they cannot have the same Although that many men doe divide the end from the meanes supposing that notwithstanding their unregenerate estate and wicked lives they shall escape destruction and that although they neither love nor practise goodnesse they shall bee saved and doe well enough and so flattering and self-beguiling themselves in their owne courses they run securely and precipitate themselves into perdition and therefore I conclude with Solomon Let thine eyes looke right on and let thine eye lids looke straight before thee ponder the path of thy feete and let all thy wayes be established turne not to the right hand nor to the lest remove thy foote from evill b Prov. 4.25 Vse 4. Our courses in this life foreshew our estates what they shall be in the world to come The fourth use is to direct us how we may rightly judge of our selves and of our spirituall estates and future ends by the courses that we take If the same bee deadly wayes of sin that we doe embrace and persist in then must we die and as those courses are of our owne voluntary choise so cannot we blame any but cry out of our selves and our owne wayes as did the Prophet Woe unto us that we have sinned Lament 5.16 that so in time we may labour to prevent our destruction by speedy repentance Againe if our wayes and state be good and such as life is promised unto wee may have assurance and
their owne accord leape into the fire with divine and unutterable cheerefulnesse and Ambrose Ambros lib. 3. de virginibus and others doe note divers professors to have done the like as Pelagia Apollonia and many others Observe Which shewes to us that as all mankinde are sprung from the same roote and are infected with the same disease so are we all lyable to commit the same sins if the Lord doe not renew and keepe us All are sick of the same disease So that wee need not so much to think it strange a member of the visible Church kills himselfe as to admire the gratious goodnesse of God in keeping of us that very many doe not the same in regard both of our owne wicked naturall disposition and outward temptations whereby what betydes men may betyde all men in the same case Observe To depend upon God Here we are to observe that those examples of self-murder recorded within the Church are not registred for imitation but for caution that all Christians may be stirred up the more carefully to cleave to God and thank him for their preservation even from this horrible act of self-murder whereinto many professing Christianity have fallen §. 4. Self-murderers knowne by experience The third way of discovery of self-murderers Experience Thirdly that many do murder themselves it is cleare by wofull experience in all places and ages notwithstanding that they may be terrified frō the same both by the fearefull examples of manifold wreckes of that kinde and also by the doctrine of the truth condemning that vile practise besides manifold other restraints and ignominious censures of that odious course against all which such breakings out doe shew the continued rage and power of Satan against Mankinde and manifest mans madnesse and perversenesse still in all places furiously running upon this most horrible and dismall sinne Hurt of self-murder Whereby men doe most ignominiously shut up the period of their lives with the losse of their good names and with the destruction of their soules for ever depriving their posterity of their estates and uncomfortably overshadowing them with the shamefull disgrace and ill example of their execrable fact of self-murder Vses The uses of this point are specially two 1. To be observant of occurrences First it serves to teach us to be observant of the daily occurrences that fall out from time to time that thereby wee may grow by sense in experimentall knowledge both of facts done and also of the nature and causes of the same whereby we may be wise not only for to direct our owne course aright but also may be able prudently to advise others and to give a right estimate of things that fall out and make a holy use of them So that the longer we live and the world stands we should bee the wiser and better in regard of the helps that we have to know Gods will both by his Word and workes that we may not be carelesly secure of the most haynous crimes Note but without grace and Gods protection neither doctrine nor example is sufficient to withstand mens impetuous wilfull running upon destruction The lamentable spectacles of manifold executions for murders and robberies we may thinke might affright all men from committing the like crimes which we see it doth not Comparison So as the multitude of Shipwracks terrifies not men from going to Sea neither doe examples of frequent miscariages by self-murder prevaile with gracelesse men to hinder them from the like facts Self-murderers not deterred from the fact who doe thereby rather harden themselves to attempt and perpetrate the same Vse 2. Beware of self-muder The second use of this point is to admonish us to abhorre and beware of this odious sin of self-murder which runnes through all times and sorts of people although we may seeme to be out of danger of it in regard of the present distance and opposition betweene us and it yet are we not to be over-secure For the sins which at first we seeme to loath afterwards by degrees through negligence or venturing upon the causes and occasions thereof men doe embrace and commit as we see by the example of Hazael 2 Kings 8.13 Motions of self-murder most hardly shaken off And of all sinnes even the motions and setled purposes of self-murder are most hardly shaken off because all unnaturall and hideous sins breaking impetuously through the strongest hedges and pales of opposition and outragiously overflowing the bankes of all resistance both of nature and grace have nothing left of sufficient force to withstand them but that they rage in that high and transcendent degree without shame or restraint as they list Note the most grosse and unnaturall sinnes are ever done by desperately wicked men with the least remorse of conscience and with the greatest shamelessenesse and obstinacy of will and indivertiblenesse of indeavours The use of examples Touching the use of the examples of self-murderers Augustine sayes well Non quaerimus utrum factum sed utrum faciendum Sana ratio exemplis anteponenda est We enquire not whether self-murder hath beene done but whether it ought to have been done Sound reason is to be preferred before examples CHAP. 14. Of the usuall means and furtherances of self-murdering §. 1. Of the meanes of self-murdering 1. Meanes ABout the fact of Self-murder we are to consider the meanes thereunto used and the application and method thereof by self-murderers None lawfull for that use Meanes there are none proper of lawfull ordination for to doe evill because that the same ought not at all to be done but man either abuses good or devises ill meanes of his owne invention to doe naughtinesse and mischiefe withall Meanes abused The meanes abused by self-murderers to kill themselves are of two sorts 1. Good First such as be destinated and appropriated by God for the good and preservation of mans life as water fire swords are and the like which a self-murderer perverts to drowne burne stab himselfe to death c. 2. Evill The second kinde of meanes of self-murder be those that be evill and sinfull in themselves fitter to destroy than to save such as eating and drinking of poyson throwing ones selfe over rocks as did the Circumcellians or out of windowes or from off high places and turrets with intent to kill themselves as the devill would have had our Saviour Christ to have done a Mat. 4.6 going unwarrantably into the mouth of destruction with purpose to be slaine commanding others to doe it as Abimelech did Iudg. 9.54 hanging ones selfe as Iudas and Ahitophel did fretting or starving ones selfe purposely to death as Pomponius Atticus did or in mortall sicknesse or wounds rejecting the helps of cure by Physick or other meanes and disordering ones selfe purposely that they may thereby die and the like so that for this vile act men are inabled by all the
self-murderers successe and atchievement herein is quick and great beyond expectation except the Lord be minded here to punish such an one with paine as well as in the life to come 3. Obstinacy Thirdly a self-murderer is constant or rather obstinate in his resolution and indeavours to kill himselfe contrary to all good counsell let ts and impediments objected to hinder him from the same in so much that if such self-murderers at any time be crossed of their opportunities and disappointed in their attempts of killing themselves or that they be hindered or do but hurt and not forthwith kill themselves they are sorry for their disappointment and do continue more desperately their resolutions and indeavours untill it be done by them the medicine doth here irritate the disease which is a deplored and desperate case so that they must perish if the Lord God do not mercifully step in to pull them by repentance out of that fire of destruction or by some other over-ruling meanes prevent it that by living they may be saved Observe It is dangerous to give way to Satan in this point wherein he is hardly resisted Here wee may learne how dangerous and pernicious a thing it is to give way to Satan or to our owne exorbitant thoughts in this or in any such ill or unnaturall motions to sinne For by entertainment thereof we are taught from hell to be pregnant ingenious industrious diligent and obstinately desperate to commit the same in the meane time being restlesse untill it be done the execution or performance whereof is most hardly prevented where the doing of it is peremptorily resolved and all our indeavours set to accomplish it the reasons hereof are two Reason 1. Against knowledge and resistance First in regard that it is concluded and resolved upon and attempted with the overthrow or contempt of so great knowledge and resistance naturall and divine against which when such purposes prevaile there is nothing left to withstand the performing of the same but that such outragious corruption having broken over the banks that impaled it may rage and range without resistance as it list Reason 2. The danger of self-murder not knowne by experience Secondly the performance of self-murder resolved upon is hardly prevented because the true danger and evill thereof in the full extent and latitude thereof is not knowne by experience to the living for of those that die so by their owne hands none doe returne to tell tales how it fares with them afterwards except we credit the report of Virgill who affirmes from Aeneas his observation in his fained descent into hell who there did see self-murderers in a very low region and miserable estate that would now full gladly indure poverty and all hard travell and miseries in this world so as they might be in it againe out of their present miseries Virgil. Quà m vellent aethere in alto Nunc pauperiem duros perferre labores Self-murder is such an act as a man can doe but once in all because it concludes and finishes his life so as hee can have no more time either to get experimentall knowledge of it what it is or yet to be able by repentance to reforme it seeing it is not in mans power to quicken and give himselfe life againe that hee may use it better than he hath done And therefore in this respect self-murder is the most dangerous and worst sinne that a man can commit for after other sinnes how hainous soever a man may have time and meanes of repentance and salvation but after this he can have none CHAP. 15. The self-murderers motives to kill themselues §. 1. Men by abused reason sin worst The noblest creatures faile most ALthough that the crime of self-murder be naturally most horrible yet men only of all creatures do venture upon it and doe it the noblest creatures are subject to commit the foulest errors as men and Angels and of men the inlightned only can sinne that mortall sin against the holy Ghost for they that are able to doe most good by perverting of their abilities are able to doe most mischiefe David in that respect was more affraid of Ahitophel a 2 Sam. 15.31 than of all the rest that were against him Reason abused But that man may doe this horrible fact of self murder more boldly and securely without being over-ruled by the check of his conscience he abuses his reason to encourage him to doe that the uglinesse and unnaturalnesse whereof might otherwise deterre and astonish him from it For all such grosse facts condemned by the light of nature and apparent reason man doth vaile and maske under specious pretexts before hee dares venture to enterprise the doing of them in cold blood and likewise he obscures the contrary vertuous courses by aspersions of titles and names of disgrace labouring if it were possible to make vertue vice and vice vertue condemning the generation of the righteous and justifying the wicked turning hell into heaven and heaven into hell because the majesty and glory of the truth is such that none dares to looke it on the open face and revile and smite it but as they first attire and maske it under the habit and name of vice as the wicked Iewes did first blind-fold our blessed Saviour and then stroke him on the face a Luke 22.64 So farre doth man abuse his reason whereby hee excells beasts that thereby he doth make himselfe worse than the worst of beasts of whom none will kill themselves in any case No reason for self-murder For a man to murder himselfe there is no reason indeed for although he doth it not but as hee thinkes upon good reason yet this reason of his is neither from the nature of that action as if it were in it selfe a lawfull duty to be done nor yet is it reason elicite or drawn out from inbred principles and motives in nature or from other light acquire by the truth of God because there can be no good reason against the Word and Law of God who is the Lord of nature For reason is never repugnant or contradictory to it selfe neither is any thing opposite to reason in any thing but in unreasonablenesse as nothing is opposite to truth but error And for nature in man it cannot naturally yeeld any reason from it selfe why it should destroy it selfe because it is monstrous that one should be two and that division should be in unity and that instead of good it should attract to it selfe evill But all the pretense of reason that a self-murderer can have to kill himselfe is onely from externall motives which are without a mans selfe whereupon and from whence self-murderers doe impertinently conclude and endeavour to kill themselves No true cause of evill But there is no true cause or reason why any man should doe evill no not for the greatest good should we doe the least sinne because there is no evill
comes by that fact and also ignorance of the illnesse of that action Apprehension of the presence of God and of absence of evill perswades the minde of the lawfulnesse of the thing and makes the conscience bold to undertake the performance of it Good conceived Cap. 12 §. 2. Of the goodnesse that a self-murderer conceives to be in killing of himselfe I have spoken already in the explication of the definition of self-murder How apparent good affects the understanding Touching which I will onely now observe how bonum or good that properly is the object of the will or of the soule in its elections and actions can affect the understanding when it is but apparent good and contrary to truth 1. By the wills working upon it from the senses To cleare this it is to be marked first that the will receiving impressions from the senses doth often by ascending worke upon the understanding and drawes it as formerly we have heard 2. Goodnesse and truth are equally the object of the understanding Secondly whereas bonum and verum good and truth in a metaphy sicall notion are the same and convertible confineable to no one Category as neither are any of the properties or attributes of the Godbead they are likewise equally the object of the understanding as of the will which in the soule doe not differ essentially but are only the divers powers offices and workes of the same soule about its-severall objects which doe give the occasion of the distinction of those things which in themselves are one and so where ever bonum good is presented to the minde there also it offers it selfe to the same as verum true Whereby the understanding is deceived when the object thereof is not that which it is supposed by it to be which makes a man no lesse bold to doe it than if it were indeed true Of self-murder the illnesse unknowne incourages a man to commit it The ignorance of the illnesse of this sinne of self-murder incourages men to commit it when they doe not judge of it by the morall rules whereby it is forbidden and censured The thing that hides the vilenesse of sin from sinners is even the sin it selfe As the Apostle Peter speakes of such That they are blinde and cannot see afarre off a 2 Pet. 1.9 What blindes men 1. Sinne. Men are first blinded that they may the more boldly sin as Samson was that he might be led about to grinde 2. Consequent of sinne There is a subsequent blindnesse that followes upon sinning whereby the oftner that sin is committed the lesse evill it seemes to be to the doers thereof in respect both of the sinfulnesse and punishment thereof in which regard the Prophet sayes that Ephraim was like a silly dove Hosea 7.11 And Augustine affirmes that darknesse followes those that transgresse the Law a Obumbratio sequitar cos qui legem transgrediuntur The former ignorance proceeds from love and affection to sinne the latter from the habit and custome of sinning The ignorance of the illnesse of the sinne of self-murder proceeds from it selfe which in the motions and resolutions of it blindes the understanding two wayes Self-murder blindes the minde 1. Privatively First privatively by drawing away of the minde from advised and serious consideration of the truth about that sin whereby the vilenesse of it might be seene and by declining the thoughts from all arguments reasons and censures whereby a man may be kept from doing of it So that when he comes to the act he sees nothing or but little to hinder him from doing of it 2. Positively Secondly this sinne blindes the understanding positively both by setting the minde aworke as it presents it selfe to it to wrest the Scripture and to finde out reasons that may make the fact eligible as Eve did about eating of the forbidden fruit Gen. 3.6 And also it makes the will by the command that it hath got over it to labour upon the understanding to coyne arguments to justifie the evill fact of self murder against future reproach and punishment which vile and odious crime it is now in consultation to doe Thus doth it labour upon the understanding as Balak did upon Balaam that by change of his stations he might finde a place to curse Gods people b Numb 23. Observ It is the property of the greatest and most wilfull sinners to labour to seeme to be least guilty and pretend the most excuses to justifie themselves as did Saul c 1 Sam 15.20 21. Simeon and Levi d Gen 34 31. and the harlot in the Proverbs e Prov. 30 20. If hypocrite-like they cannot hide their sinnes then they labour to defend them making if it were possible vice to be vertue and vertue to be vice Note Men self blinded Thus doe men blinde themselves by wilfulnesse in ill courses and also God in just judgement doth the same by giving those over that will not entertaine the truth with the love of it to be deluded with error and folly and to beleeve it as the Apostle shewes 2 Thess 2.11 and as God commanded the Prophet to preach to the people that they should heare but not understand a Esay 6.9 Whereupon such men are wise in their owne eyes and doe thinke their owne wayes best If the judgement be subdued to the sinne then men doe runne unresistably to the fact But all such reasons are nothing but error that are used to prove an error which at last upon these delusions the minde conceits to bee a truth Note the truth is in some sort hidden to those that perish Observe Wee are here to observe two things for our instruction in this point 1. Ignorance makes way for destruction First that ignorance and error opens the way to destruction when men are loth to know the true nature of their sinnes the judgements due to them and to take notice of the meanes whereby they both may be prevented 2. Our care to obey the truth Secondly our care should be to know and obey the truth by the help of the Word and directions of approved teachers that we may not be self-deceived through the neglect of meanes of knowledge which makes our sins the greater Not to be self-conceited And therefore we are to observe that we be not self-conceited of our owne wit and opinions that we should trust to the same specially in our passions And wee are also to be carefull that we affect not odde straines nor adventure to do great things upon new and weakly grounded opinions which is as if a man at Sea upon life and death should dare to ride out a storme by a weak halsser or small roape the which if it breake will lay him dead on shore Comparison Therefore in matters of such importance upon life and death men should open themselves to and advise with those
and he needs be the more carefull that hee may not hurt or blemish himselfe by his manner of dying otherwise than becomes a good Christian although hee bee innocent in that speciall thing for which he is adjudged to die What men are to consider in suffering innocently yet he is to consider that hee may bee guilty of some other particulars justly deserving death and in that respect is patiently to acknowledge and submit to the stroke of divine Iustice finding out and punishing his sins or else that God wisely so orders things that hee shall so die only for triall of his passive obedience and for the glorifying of God both in the cause and manner of his death which he is to suffer well and for well doing How a condemned person is to submit to die Yet notwithstanding a person condemned to die and in the hands of the executioners is not to strive oppose or withstand them in doing execution upon him but he may and ought upon their command so to dispose and order himselfe as he may be fit and way by him may be made for them to doe their office in executing of him as for him quietly to submit to be led to the place of execution and there to be ordered by them as they please for him patiently to receive his death by their hands to open his mouth to receive poyson of their giving to him as our Saviour did the vinegar that was given him upon the Crosse Iohn 19.29 30. to lay bare his neck to the blow submit his neck to the haltar to embrace the fire entertaine applied combustible matter for dispatch of himselfe provided alwaies that the same be not first kindled or applied mortally by his own meanes the truth thereof is apparent by that which our blessed Saviour fortold Peter that hee should stretch forth his hands and another should gird him signifying by what death he should glorifie God a Ioh. 21.18 19. Reasons 1. The reason hereof is evident because a person condemned to death is no more his owne but the sonne of death in the hand of authority to be disposed of as the same pleases 2. with safety of divine right and the minister of Iustice that gives the last and fatall blow is he that properly kills the man and not the man himselfe by his active and passive submission to receive the same 3. that he may obediently in charity and peace leave this world and patiently resigne his soule to God in hope of entring upon a more happy life in exchange for this §. 2. How self-murder is against God himselfe 2. Self-murder it is against God himselfe The second particular whereby it is apparent that by religion a man may not kill himselfe is because it is a most hainous crime against God himselfe immediatly in foure severall respects In what respects 1. It defaces Gods Image First self-murder destroyes and defaces the Image of God a Gen 9.6 in the most expresse forme thereof that is in any humane creature and in the neerest proximity and possession thereof in him that kills himselfe It is treason indignly to abuse or demolish the Kings Image much more is it treason against the King of heaven and earth to deface or unworthily to intreat his sacred Image specially for them to do it to whom the entertainment preservation and honourable usage of the same is committed 2. It wrongs Gods soveraigne authority Secondly self-murder is peccant and injurious against Gods soveraigne authority who is absolute Lord of our persons and of our lives and therefore wee have no power but from him and according to his Word to dispose of ourselves seeing that wee are not our owne Superiours supreme nor subordinate which is impossible for then one must be two or else one must bee both superiour and inferiour to it selfe at the same instant and in the same case and respect than which what is more absurd to think and impossible to be Comparison If a private man should violently take a malefactor that is worthy of death from the Kings barre of Judgment and upon his owne will and authority put him to death it would justly be deemed an audacious unlawfull act and worthy of exemplary punishment both for usurping the authority that belongs not to him by thrusting of the King out of his place and jurisdiction and also for depriving of the King of opportunity of shewing mercy or executing justice according to his regall power So likewise may wee judge of a self-murderer that takes himselfe from the barre of God to dispose of himselfe as he list to the wrong of Gods soveraigne authority 3. Self-murder wrongs Gods goodnesse Thirdly self-murder or wilfull self-killing which are both one is against Gods goodnesse whereby he gives us our lives with meanes of their preservation which is a most excellent blessing in it selfe and for the good that thereby we may doe and therefore one sayes well that Life is a certaine gift Vita est quoddā donū divinitus homini attributum ejus potestati subjectum qui oc cidit vivere sacit given to man from above and is subject to his power who kills and makes alive who is only God as the Scripture tells us a Deut. 32.39 1 Sam. 2.6 and therefore for a man prodigally to waste or destroy this life of his he not only doth an unlawfull act but also slights and contemnes Gods speciall goodnesse to him The most grievous sins are committed against Gods goodnesse which is more damnable than to sin against his other properties because in this consists all our happinesse and thereby God gaines most glory and for despising whereof the Apostle gives a most bitter reproofe Despisest thou the riches of his goodnesse c. Rom. 2.4 4. Self-murder wrongs Gods providence Fourthly self-murder is a course against the providence and established government of God in the world about mankind which it doth disturbe by determining the time how long and the manner after what fashion we should die or live according to our owne wills without any dependence upon or respect to the will of God A self-murderer is an Atherst which necessarily imports that a self-murderer is either an Atheist holding that there is no God at all or that God takes no care of the world nor of men to order them or dispose of them but keepes himselfe onely within the circuite of the Heavens than which what can be more contrary to the reason of a good man Or rebell against God Or else by his practise he proclaimes himselfe a rebell against God to whom he will not be subject nor bee disposed according to his Word but like a devill sets himselfe in opposition against God to his owne everlasting destruction §. 3. How self-murder is against nature 3. Self-murder is against nature The third particular that makes it apparent that self-murder is
heaven and that they who wrought their owne death goe into dark hell and that God punisheth this their offence upon all their posterity Hence it is that God is displeased therewith and it is forbidden by our most wise Law giver For if any amongst us kill themselves it is decreed that till the Sunne goe downe they shall be unburyed yet we hold it lawfull to bury our enemies Other nations cause their right hands to be cut off who have killed themselves Iudging that as the soule thereby was made a stranger to the body even so by that fact was the hand made a stranger unto it Thus farre Iosephus §. 8. Of certaine uses The uses or observations from all these arguments proving the unlawfulnesse of self-murder are three First hereby we may see the bainousnesse and damnablenesse of self-murder For the more lawes that any sin transgresses the greater it is and the more directly and in the higher degrees it violates those lawes and the more and eminenter the persons bee that it wronges and the more and greater the reasons be that are against it the more grievous it is Self-murder transgresses the lawes of God of nature and of men it is against them in their most prime and literall sense so smiting justice spightfully on the face of it it is against God and against men it is against all publicke bodyes of society and against every private person it is against heaven and against earth it empties these to fill hell in so much that well it may be a question or rather a certaine conclusion that not any who hath true grace can in its full formality commit this sinne neither any that doth so perpetrate this sinne can be saved 2. Self-murderers doe sinne most grievously Secondly from the consideration of that which is said against self-murder it is to be observed that they that kill themselves wittingly and willingly doe sinne thereby against a great light and strength of arguments to the contrary whereby they are self-convinced in their consciences that it is a grievous sinne and are self-condemned upon their resolution to doe it and therefore they must have a great and horrible conflict within themselves before they doe it that they may first overcome and remove the many and strong obstacles that stand in their way to hinder them that they may blind-fold themselves from sight of the truth and may subdue their wills and faculties against all reason to bee obedient to doe it Whereby a self-murderer is guilty and damnable not onely for his horrible fact of self-murder simply considered but also for his holding of the truth in unrighteousnesse a Rom. 1.18 opposing checking and withstanding the graces and worke of God in him and by others which tend to and labour for his preservation and for his abusing and perverting of Gods ordinances and blessings to his owne destruction so that in spight of heaven and earth hee will not be saved but in a high and uncontrouleable manner will domineere to over-rule all things according to his owne peevish self-will to his owne wicked ends and ruine that safety may not save him having heaven and earth God and Angells men and himselfe against himselfe 3. To take heed of self-murder Thirdly we are here to observe how much it concerns all men to take beed and be ware of self-murder For we being reasonable creatures and Christians it concernes us that we doe nothing contrary to reason and religion but that we doe advise with and frame all our courses according to the same that being in qualification men and in profession Christians we may not in degenerate manner bee in our practice worse than brute beasts or incarnate devils who will not be divided against themselves or destroy themselves a Math. 12.26 Now we see that there is no one point that hath more reason religion against it than self-murder hath therefore one might think that there is no feare that any Christian creature should bee in danger of it but alas the devill labours to make men break their necks over the highest rocks that so they may be unrecoverable when they shal have climbed past over so many obstacles lets of arguments over the top of them all have cast themselves headlong into the gulph of self-murder And man that is a rationall creature having transgressed and rejected the direction and command of reason and religion is subject to breake out into the most damnable exorbitances and unbounded excesses having nothing left to stay him from comming into most horrible extremities and therefore to be preserved from self-murder it is requisite to keep our selves and our courses within the compasse of sound reason and true religion Note For such sinnes as are done against the greatest reason and power of resistance and upon the least temptation and those that are more from self-will than from frailtie and want of power are neerest to the sinne of the devill and makes men likest to him in quality state and damnation CHAP. 18. Whether all self-murderers bee damned everlastingly with the Devill in hell §. 1. Of the extent of self-murder to the soules hurt Circumspection in determining INdetermining of this question about the finall estate of salvation or damnation of self-murderers wee must deale warily that wee may neither dash our selves against the rocke of extreamity rigorous uncharitablonesse in adjudging all to damnation whereof wee may finde some at the last day to be inheritours of heaven and contrariwise that we may not by an excesse of charity extenuate that horrible sinne or excuse the doers thereof whereby wee may adjudge those to heaven which are fire-brands of hell and may encourage others to doe the like fact or at least to make men lesse to regard or to abhorre and beware of it Self-murder doth prejudice the soule most I will begin and shew that the execrable fact of detestable self-murder concernes not onely the body the life and substance whereof it destroyes but also it specially in a higher nature touches the soule both in polluting of it with a most shamefull and odious sinne and also by thrusting of it out off its bodily habitation and condition wherein it was placed and injoyed peaceable possession by God himselfe and where it might doe good and get grace and salvation most wretchedly and desperately expelling it to its unavoydable place of the darkest hell and everlasting destruction It respects not onely this life present whereof and of all blessings and comforts in this world it utterly deprives the man that commits it but also it farre more neerely concernes a mans future and eternall estate in the world to come wherein a self-murderer debarres himselfe from all beatificall happinesse subjects himself to everlasting misery by that woefull exchange Observe Whereof men should be most carefull And therefore are all men that have any care of the good and comfort of their soules or of
bent to do afterward notwithstanding that he knowes the same to be directly contrary to Gods will and to his own salvation Neither can any mans precedent prayer be effectuall with God for to obtaine pardon of a vile enormious sin that he desperatly and unresistably intends to perpetrate against the will of God which I will manifest by three strong reasons Reasons 1. Such prayer condemnes the self-murderer First Repentance and Prayer to God for pardon of the vile sin of self-murder that a man purposes to do doth manifest it is in him not a sinne of infirmity but a most presumptuous sin which he doth so advisedly deliberatly wittingly and willingly go about and therefore in that case is farre from true repentance and hath no ground for him to dare to come before God to pray for such a thing neither can he hope to be heard in such a prayer which helps onely to condemne him if he do the sinne because thereby he witnesses and testifies against himself that such an act of self-murder is wicked and sinfull and that he doth advisedly and presumptuously intend and do it and therefore for his doing of it may most justly and certainely looke to be damned And againe by such an antecedent prayer repentance and pretended reconciliation to God such a self-murderer doth but beg of God leave that he may securely sinne in that horrible manner and fact without feare or check of conscience or touch of punishment which is to desire that God would be unjust by shewing mercy contrary to his nature and truth to presumptuous sinners in their act of so sinning and so by that kinde of humiliation and prayer to God for favour in their purpose and act of self-murder they make God a partie accessary to their sinne and to be sinfull by his assistance of them in their vile practise Such persons abhorre not the sinne but the punishment and would have heaven by their owne way contrary to Gods which cannot be 2. Such prayer is not of faith The second reason proving the unlawfulnesse and uneffectualnesse of the antecedent repentance and prayer of self-murderers for pardon for the sin that they purpose to commit is because such a prayer cannot be of faith whereby they sue to God for a pardon ante factum before the deed be done which is nothing else but the grant of a dispensation for them to sin in most vile manner which is most unlawfull to be desired for which there is no warrant and it is most impossible for God to grant because thereby hee must not onely dispense with the punishment of the fact contrary to his justice but also he must approve of the deed to be done as lawfull contrary to his nature and will For both the allowance of the fact and also exemption from punishment are comprehended in a dispensation But God can neither lye by shewing mercy contrary to his truth nor yet can approve any sin so as it should be no sin in the doer and act of it which is a contradiction True repentance lyes specially in abhorring forsaking and reforming of sin both for the habit and for the act of it which in this case a self-murderer doth not and therefore doth not repent neither of his other former sins nor of this for the same reason of repenting for the one is for the other 3. It is unwarrantable The third reason of the vainesse of such repentance and prayer made by self-murderers is because the same wants all warrant For repentance can be onely of sins committed and past or present and not of sins to come whereof a man in that respect cannot be guilty because a thing to come is yet a non ens or nothing it is not certaine it shall be and all sins for time to come should be utterly resolved against and withstood with prayer to God for grace that wee may never bee able to doe them Pardon of sins is craved by prayer and granted by God onely for sinnes commited and not before they be done for pardon followes upon repentance which is properly of sins done and not of sinnes purposed to be done True repentance changes both a mans ill purposes and practise contrary to the course and disposition of such a self-murderer whose repentance and prayer tends to incourage him more boldly to sinne by a most vile fact of self-murder he cleaves to the sinne and practises it the punishment whereof he would avoid which are individuall companions It is a strange madnesse for a self-murderer to conceit or presume that God upon his prayer proceeding out of a wicked minde and from an ill intent will grant him his request and will for the salvation of his soule when as he will not yeild to the will of God who forbids the horrible sin of self-murder Note Touching such self-murderers beleeving hoping and casting themselves upon Christ for salvation I grant they may have desires of salvation but it is onely to be had in Gods way and therefore they cannot have it in their own True faith and hope they cannot have because the same cannot consist with such raigning and advised presumptuous sins neither have they any ground to beleeve or hope that any in that case can be saved To cast themselves upon Christ for salvation I deny not as the foolish Virgins that knocked to be let in but Christ will be Saviour to none that will not submit to him for to be their King to be ordered by him in all things Although multitudes come and cast themselves upon Christ for salvation by him yet hee receives and saves none but such as come first to him in all humilitie and obedience to be cured of their sinnes and to be ruled by his Lawes Presumption The hope and expectation of the salvation of such self-murdering persons when they die is but groundlesse presumption in regard that their abuse of religious practises of prayer and the like and wretched dallying with God in so wicked a minde and to so vile an end doth aggravate their sin and makes them much more culpable and subject to eternall damnation than if they had forborne the same the expectation and desire of the wicked and hope of the hypocrites shall perish a Prov. 10.28 Job 8.13 Psal 112.10 They that do to themselves an act of the greatest hatred and hostility in the world in murdering themselves cannot properly be in charity with others God or men And to die in peace and in a good minde they cannot whose mindes at their last gaspe are perturbed troubled and set upon a most horrible vile act of self-murder attended upon with all horror from Heaven and hell to their everlasting confusion So then it is apparent for ought that can be said in favour or hope of the salvation of any proper self-murderer that there is no probability of the salvation of any of them but that they are all damned according to the former conclusion And
Page 311 Prevention of sinne occasioning self-murder Page 237 Prevention of error Page 199 Pride cause of self-murder Page 215. 226 Prodigality cause of self-murder Page 111 Professors How in professors gross sins are most offensive Page 178 Promises Gods promises cherish spirituall life Page 41 Properties of self-murdring sins Page 68 Prosperity of the wicked ground of self-deceit Page 156 Proud ambitious persons in danger of self-murder Page 255 Providence Gods providence how wronged by self-murder Page 268 Punishment of damage is worse than of smart Page 65 Purchase Of desperate purchase Page 112 Pusillanimity the cause of self murder in affliction Page 227 Q Questions Sixe questions resolved Page 133 135 136 137 138. R Reason Man by meanes of his reason suffers 164. Man wanting the use of reason no self-murderer Page 172 Reason abused to self-murder Page 189 Reason condemnes self-murder Page 273 Regardlesness Of regardlesness Page 260 Regenerated The regenerated preserved from self-murder Page 291 Religion For religion to adventure life 143. The defence of religion 144 Self-murder is contrary to religion 262. Religion requires the observation of the Law of nature Page 269 Repent To repent Page 157 Repentance True repentance self-murderers have not 296. 306. The use of it against self-murder Page 312 Reskue Of desperate reskue Page 112 Restraint Of forcible restraint of self-murderers Page 325 Resolution a help to obedience Page 128 What resolution is hardly altered Page 188 Resolutions of self-killing injected by Satan Page 246 Revealing Of revealing a mans own capitall faults Page 137 Revenge good and bad Page 232 Rules for understanding the Scripture Page 199 S Salvation In state of salvation none can be properly a self-murderer Page 292 Sampson proved no self-murderer Page 303 Sanctification How sanctification is wrought in us by the holy Spirit 32. 35. the degrees of it ibid. Satan To give any way to Satan is dangerous 188. Of his powerfull motions in the mind Page 247 Saved No man is saved for fulfilling the will of Gods decree Page 205 Saving For saving of soules to adventure life Page 141 Scripture mis-understood perverts judgement 195. the causes of mis-understanding of it Page 196. Abused Scripture harmefull Page 198 How rightly to understand it Page 199 It is apparent by the Scripture that men murder themselves Page 176 Sea-fight Of a sea-fight Page 138 Secrecie The reason of affectation of secrecy about self-murder Page 211 Secret When a man is to reveale his secret capitall crimes to the Magistrate Page 137 Seeming-good is cause of disobedience Page 70 Selfe Mans selfe is subject to self-murder 159. How self should behave himselfe to self Page 171 Self-blinded How man is self-blinded Page 155 Self-conceit a ground of self-deceit Page 156 Not to be self-conceited Page 210 Self-content in indirect self-murder Page 155 Self-deceived and causes of self-deceit Page 156 Self-deniall is cure of pride Page 227 Self-killing To self-killing who are most subject Page 236 Self-killing is no lawfull meanes to prevent sin Page 240 Self-killers What self-killers be not self-murderers Page 172. 290 Self-murder described what it is 2 How known by life 2. it is horrible comprehends in it murder 47. the degrees of it why slighted Page 83 Of bodily self-murder the kinds 84 defined and differenced Page 85 How self-murder is horrible and great 162. It falls our in the Church and is most blameable in Christians Page 176. 180. The meanes and way of self-murder 183. Motives of it 189 how it is heresie 233. it is proved unlawfull Page 262 How self-murder extends to the soule to hurt it 288. it is a transcendent sin and how 295. 302. It is equivalent to the sin against the holy Ghost Page 301 Self-murders antidotes 311. and how best prevented Page 323 Self-murderers many 124 how known by Scripture history and experience 178. 181. their follie 186. their secrecy 187. they are deceived 229 their goods confiscate 278. how they sin most grievously 286. they are Atheists 278. they regard not their soules 288. they are all damned 291. they want faith and true repentance 296. they are debarred from Christian buriall and why 287. their antecedent prayer and repentance is vaine and they cannot be at peace with God Page 306 Service Our service must be done before we receive our reward Page 245 Shame Of shame causing self-murder the kinds of shame Page 221 Shortnesse of life a motive to spend it well Page 19 Similies By similies self-murder condemned Page 279 Sins of commission against negative coÌ„mandements subjects to death 67 Of sins against the Gospell 70. 77. sin costs deare 77. men sin against themselves 158. how to prevent sin men murder themselves 237. sinne blinds 208. men sinning think they sin not 203. the worst sins are committed against Gods goodnesse 268 Some sins beyond Law and mercy Page 294 Sinning is a course of self-murder Page 77 Sinking or burning a ship in fight Page 138 Society with persons destinate to destruction Page 118 Solitarinesse of self-murderers Page 259 Soule The soules double act in man 7 its works in the body Page 81 The soules relation to its owne body Page 270 Soule-murder how it is self-murder 57 the degrees of it Page 58 Soule-murdering sins Page 68 Souldiers About souldiers Page 112. 127 Speeches Manner of speeches of self-murderers Page 260 Spend How to spend our lives well Page 18 Spirit Of the Spirits operation quickning us 29. how it manifests its power in the meanes 32. the evidences of its work 34. the degrees of its working 35. its worke in us about obedience 36. how it is a meanes in us to know the Scripture Page 200 Spirituall life what it is 21. the acts of it ibid. degrees of it 22. who may have it and how it is lost 24 the nature and excellency of it 26. the continuance and effects of it ibid. how to obtain it 8. 66. the signes of it 37 how preserved 39. and to be preferred 39. ibid. how it is destroyed Page 45 Spirituall-self-murder defined and differenced 58. how done by omission 59. by commission â—7 by sinning against the Gospell 70. by sinning against the Law 68. spirituall self-murder most damnable Page 78 Strictness in religious observances Page 234 Superiours For â—uperiors men should choose to die 29 Of their displeasure to be appeased and how Page 133 T Teachers False Teachers cause of mis-understanding the Scriptures Page 196 Temper of people Satan observes to tempt them Page 248 Our own tempers we should know Page 255 Temptations People under spirituall temptations are in danger of self-murder Page 254 Temptations of self-murder to be withstood Page 313 Thoughts Mans thoughts heavenly a signe of spirituall life Page 38 Our thoughts to bee rightly ordered Page 315 Torments inflicted occasion of self-murder Page 212 Transgression How transgression of Gods Law kills Page 122 Trouble of conscience and grounds thereof Page 218 Truth to be confessed 145. it is blamelesse 177. we should know and obey it