against the lawfulness of suicide; and combined together (as in every probable question the arguments on each side ought to be), amount to such a presumption of God Almighty's will, as should stagger the most determined purpose of destruction.

We next inquire, what may be added to this presumption from the light of revelation.

And here I meet an objection which asks why, if suicide be indeed unlawful, we do not find it more expressly forbidden in the Christian Scriptures?

In the first place, our Saviour's own precepts, if we except that set discourse, which is chiefly taken up in rectifying the perversions, and improving the purity of the Jewish law, are, for the most part, occasional, arising out of some present occurrence, or alluding to some special instance-a method of instruction, for conciseness, perspicuity, and impression, of all others perhaps the most convenient. As no example, therefore, of self-murder is recorded to have fallen within his notice, we are not to wonder that he has left us no observation upon the guilt of it. The morality of the Apostolic writings is contained either in summary catalogues of virtues and vices under their most general denominations, or in certain series of brief independent maxims, pointed, perhaps, sometimes at the particular exigencies or corruption of those to whom they were addressed. Amongst these, it is no more extraordinary that a particular species of murder should be omitted, than that the duties of friendship, the rights of selfdefence, the extent of gratitude, the limits of civil or parental authority, are nowhere ascertained. A systematic detail of morality, pursued through all the subdivisions of our duty, is not given. The most beautiful and perfect general rul laid down, and

men are left for the application of them to the de ductions of reason, and the dictates of humanity. What goes a great way towards accounting for the silence of Scripture upon this crime, is, that it does not appear to have prevailed in any great degree amongst those with whom the Scriptures had to do. But four instances are recorded in the Old, and one in the New Testament, of any thing like self-murder; and these, surely, of a kind which can do no credit to the cause— of a rejected favourite, a fallen tyrant, and a perfidious traitor. The Jews are known to have held this vice in the utmost abhorrence, and to have prosecuted the remains of a self-murderer with all the indignities which their law assigned to the worst of malefactors-a circumstance sufficient to show, that the public opinion in this instance was right, and therefore needed no new lesson from the Christian teacher. therefore, that the Scriptures had not condemned this crime in so many terms, let us see what can be gathered from them concerning it, by fair implication and construction.

Admitting,

First, then, occurs to our observation the commandment itself, "Thou shalt do no murder." Who shall say, what the Scriptures have not said, that a prohibition, delivered in terms so absolute and comprehensive, is not meant to include the murder of ourselves; especially, when reasons of public utility, the best interpreter of moral precepts, require that it should? All other exceptions to this rule, the rights, namely, of the magistrate and the soldier, are expressly recognized or clearly allowed; whereas we are repeatedly com manded to abstain from the life of man, without one saving clause in favour of this assumed dominion over r own. When God commits to mankind a right

over the lives of brutes, he expressly reserves out of the grant any authority over the life of man-"For in the image of God," says the Almighty, "made he man :" an expression which, whatever it imports, stamps a superior dignity and estimation on the human species, and contains a reason for the prohibition, which, whatever it be, prevails alike against the killing of ourselves and others.

Secondly; human life, throughout the Scriptures, is every where spoken of as a stated period,-as a race that is set before us,-as a course to be finished, as a fight that must be fought-descriptions, which could hardly have dropped from the pen of those who considered life, and the duration of it, as in our power, and at our disposal. It is absurd to command us to persevere unto the end," if the end be determinable by our own choice,-to bid us "not be weary of well doing," if we may cease from it at pleasure.

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Thirdly; the passions, temper, and motives, which give birth to suicide, contradict the spirit and principles of our religion. Affliction and calamity, considered in the view under which Christianity exhibits them, are either subservient to the exercise and improvement of our virtue, or swallowed up in the expectation of immortality and heaven. Complain to the disciple of Jesus of the sufferings of life, he tells us, that they are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed. Are we overwhelmed with tribulation and distress, he teacheth us that tribulation worketh patience, and patience virtue; that the severities of Providence are the corrections of a parent,-pledges of his care, and tokens of his love. Now it seems impossible, that a mind possessed in any sort of this persuasion should so far sink under, or repine at the

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misery of its condition, as to be driven to this last act of discontentment and distrust. If suicide be lawful, what is the exceeding great use or excellence of patience, that it should obtain a place amongst the foremost duties of the Christian profession? In vain are we exhorted to take up the example and the cross of Christ,—to look forward unto Jesus, the finisher of our faith,-to rejoice, inasmuch as we are made partakers of his sufferings, to endure the chastisement of the Lord, and not to faint, when we are rebuked of him,-to struggle, in a word, through all the dangers and difficulties of life, if we may take refuge at once in a voluntary death. The accidental temper in which a man dies does not determine his fate, any further than as it is the effect or indication of more established principles. But that death can never be safe which proceeds from a total want or decay of those principles, which it was the first care of Christianity to inculcate.

Fourthly; it does not appear that any of the first disciples of Christ did, in fact, ever admit this crime amongst them, though provoked to it by the most extreme and intolerable sufferings. As far as relates to this life, they were, both by their history and confession, of all men the most miserable. If they had conceived themselves at liberty to choose under these circumstances, it is extraordinary that they should all have preferred life, when they universally professed and believed that to be with Christ was life, and to die was gain. I rest it here.

One argument, however, which rises from our reasoning against suicide, deserves an answer.

As a man cannot give what he has not,-if he has no right over his own life, how can he transfer that right to another? and how, then, can any state derive, from

any implied and social compact with its citizens, that right which it claims and exercises of punishing by death? I answer, that the state derives this right, not from any secret or supposed consent of the subject, but immediately from God. I mean, from that presumption upon God Almighty's concurrence with every necessary means of upholding society; upon which presumption, the whole right and obligation of civil authority relies. This power in private hands, and in the hands of the magistrate, has very opposite effects upon the general welfare. For the same reasons, therefore, of public utility, God has delegated it to the one, and denied it to the other.

These reasons may be sufficient to evince the unlawfulness of suicide, considered in a general sense, when it is wanton and unprovoked,-when it is called in to put a period to a life made miserable by our crimes.

But is there no exception or excuse for those who flee for refuge to the grave from the injuries of fortune, or the never-ceasing anguish of a wounded mind? If selfmurder be unlawful, these reasons afford only the same excuse for it, that any violent temptation does for the sin it prompts us to commit,-that want does for theft, thirst for drunkenness, or revenge for murder. We know that the sufferings of life may be aggravated beyond the ordinary patience of human nature; we know, too, that there is born with some men, and generated in others, a certain horror and dejection of spirits, which spreads a dismal shade over the fairest scenes, and fills our evil days with sorrow and disconsolation. But we will not allow that this is either insupportable or incurable. We mistake the remedy: let them cease to expect it from riot and excess, which serve only to stupify the feelings, while they exasperate the malady.