because they are common (for that rather affords a prefumption in their favour), but because I do not perceive in them much argument to which an answer may not eafily be given.

Hitherto we have pursued upon the fubject the light of nature alone; taking however into the account, the expectation of a future exiftence, without which our reasoning upon this, as indeed all reafoning upon moral questions, is vain. We proceed to enquire, whether any thing is to be met with in Scripture, which may add to the probability of the conclusions we have been endeavouring to fupport. And here I acknowledge that there is to be found neither any express determination of the question, nor fufficient evidence to prove that the case of suicide was in the contemplation of the law which prohibited murder. Any inference, therefore, which we deduce from Scripture, can be fuftained only by conftruction and implication; that is to fay, although they, who were authorized to inftru&t mankind, have not decided a queftion, which never, so far as appears to us, came before them; yet, I think, they have left enough to conftitute a prefumption how they would have decided it, had it been propofed or thought of

What

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What occurs to this purpose is contained in the following obfervations:

1. Human life is fpoken of as a term affigned or prescribed to us. "Let us run with patience "the race that is fet before us."-" I have "finished my courfe."-"That I may finish my "courfe with joy."-" You have need of pa“tience, that, after ye have done the will of "God, ye might receive the promise."-Thefe expreffions appear to me inconfiftent with the opinion, that we are at liberty to determine the duration of our lives for ourselves. If this were the cafe, with what propriety could life be called a race that is fet before us; or, which is the fame thing, our course;" that is, the courfe fet out or appointed to us? The remaining quotation is equally ftrong-"That, after ye have done the "will of God, ye might receive the promises." The moft natural meaning that can be given to the words, after ye have done the will of "God," is, after ye have difcharged the duties of life fo long as God is pleased to continue you in it. According to which interpretation, the text militates frongly against fuicide; and they who reject this paraphrafe, will please to propose a better.

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2. There is not one quality which Chrift and his Apostles inculcate upon their followers fo often, or fo earnestly, as that of patience under affliction. Now this virtue would have been in a great measure fuperfeded, and the exhortations to it might have been fpared, if the disciples of his religion had been at liberty to quit the world, as foon as they grew weary of the ill ufage which they received in it. When the evils of life preffed fore, they were to look forward to a "far more exceeding and eternal "weight of glory;" they were to receive them

as the chaftening of the Lord,” as intimations of his care and love: by these and the like reflections they were to fupport and improve themselves under their fufferings; but not a hint has any where efcaped of feeking relief in a voluntary death. The following text in particular ftrongly combats all impatience of diftrefs, of which the greateft is that which prompts to acts of fuicide-" Confider him that endured fuch "contradiction of finners against himself, left

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ye be wearied and faint in your minds." I would offer my comment upon this passage in thefe two queries; firft, Whether a Chriftian convert, who had been impelled by the continuance

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and urgency of his fufferings to deftroy his own life, would not have been thought by the author of this text "to have been weary," to have "fainted in his mind," to have fallen off from that example which is here proposed to the meditation of Chriftians in diftrefs? And yet, fecondly, Whether fuch an act would not have been attended with all the circumftances of mitigation, which can excufe or extenuate fuicide at this day?

3. The conduct of the Apostles, and of the Christians of the apoftolic age, affords no obfcure indication of their fentiments upon this point. They lived, we are fure, in a confirmed perfuafion of the existence, as well as of the happiness, of a future state. They experienced in this world every extremity of external injury and diftrefs. To die was gain. The change which death brought with it was, in their expectation, infinitely beneficial. Yet it never, that we can find, entered into the intention of one of them to haften this change by an act of fuicide; from which it is difficult to fay what motive could have fo univerfally withheld them, except an apprehenfion of fome unlawfulness in the expedient,

Having ftated what we have been able to collect in oppofition to the lawfulness of suicide, by way of direct proof, it feems unnecessary to open a separate controverfy with all the arguments which are made ufe of to defend it; which would only lead us into a repetition of what has been offered already. The following argument, however, being fomewhat more artificial and impofing than the reft, as well as diftinct from the general confideration of the subject, cannot fo properly be paffed over. If we deny to the individual a right over his own life, it feems impoffible, it is faid, to reconcile with the law of nature that right which the flate claims and exercifes over the lives of its fubjects, when it ordains or inflicts capital punishments. For this right, like all other juft authority in the ftate, can only be derived from the compact and virtual confent of the citizens which compofe the ftate; and it feems felf-evident, if any principle in morality be fo, that no one, by his confent, can transfer to another a right which he does not poffefs himself. It will be equally difficult to account for the power of the ftate to commit its fubjects to the dangers of war, and to expofe their lives without fcruple in the field of battle; efpecially in offenfive hoftilities, in