N02155:41
A call to the tempted. A sermon on the horrid crime of self-murder, preached…
A call to the tempted. A sermon on the horrid crime of self-murder, preached on a remarkable occasion, / by the memorable Dr. Increase Mather. ; And now published from his notes, for a charitable stop to suicides. ; [Five lines of quotation in Latin]
Boston: printed by B. Green, 1723
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
IN what we call, The Second Book of the Maccabees, we find celebrated an Action of one Rasis, for which the Jews cry him up as a Martyr; but Austin censures him for a Criminal Self-Murderer, with Reasons that cannot be answered.
IN what we call, The Second Book of the Maccabees, we find celebrated an Action of one Rasis, for which the Iews cry him up as a Martyr; but Austin censures him for a Criminal Self-Murderer, with Reasons that cannot be answered.
YEA, some Christians have cried up those, who to save their Chastity, and so themselves, from Disgrace, have destroyed their own Lives. And the crying up of such a Fact, has given occasion unto many others, to become guilty of that Horrible Thing: that Unnatural Sin. But, must Saul's Self-Murder be lawful too?
TO extol the Persons of Self-Murderers to Heaven, is an Evil and a Dangerous Practice. We should rather leave Secret Things unto GOD, and unto the Discoveries of the Great Day! Indeed, if a Mans Life and Conversation were as becomes the Gospel, we are not positively and absolutely ⟨p. 13⟩to say, That he is Damned, though he killed him self: Because we know not but that he might be at that Time under some Distraction: And it is not Impossible, but that GOD may suffer Satan to Possess, and Torment, and Kill the Bodies of some, whose Souls may yet be Saved in the Day of the Lord. Yet on the other hand; If there were no sign of Distraction, appearing before they went to Destroy themselves, nor any Evidence of Repentance after such attempts; we should not say, Such Persons are gone to Heaven: Lest by being Over-Charitable to the Dead, we become Cruel to the Living. The saying, Such Persons are Saved, may Occasion and Encourage others to do the like, and the Everlasting Destruction of Bodies and Souls follow upon it.