of the duty they owe their neighbour, even their best friends and nearest relations, to dwell upon their minds, and have its work upon them; that they would be content to live, at least till they can die without doing wrong or mischief to other people. This is what the consideration of Ahithophel's end led me to say, in opposition to a practice that prevails too much among us, of people's destroying themselves, as he did. When the gaoler (who had received so strict a charge of securing Paul and Silas, and knew that he must answer body for body for his prisoners) found the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, if Paul had not cried out with a loud voice, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here, Acts xvi. 27. But this gaoler was a poor gentile, an ignorant and unlearned Roman, in all likelihood; and therefore it is no great wonder to see him forward to despatch himself in such a manner; who only had it in his mind to avoid, perhaps, a lingering and tormenting death, for letting his prisoners escape, by one more quick and easy, by his own hand; and knew, it may be, nothing of any other life than what he was leaving: by such people one can hardly expect the laws of nature, or the dictates of reason, or the opinions of wise writers, should be considered; they live by sense, and are governed by their passions. But better things might be expected of Ahithophel; a Jew, a man of better education, a man of birth, the king's counsellor, and accounted so wise, that whoever advised with Ahithophel, it was, in those days, as if he had inquired at the oracle of God; and therefore so much feared by David, when he heard he was with Absalom, that he prayed expressly to God, that he would defeat the counsel of Ahithophel, before he knew what it was; as knowing it would be shrewdly mischievous, if followed. That one thus qualified should dare to die in such a manner is still more strange and unaccountable; yet even Ahithophel's selfmurder was not near so wicked and audacious as such an attempt must needs be in an understanding educated Christian; to whom the will and commands of God are revealed with equal certainty, but with much greater (at the least much plainer) arguments and motives, both to deter from all offence and to encourage to obedience. A Christian, that believes in God, the immortality of the soul, and the life of the world to

come, so much, that he could not be a Christian without such belief; nor indeed a wise man in being a Christian; one that believes, that the wrath of God is now revealed against all unrighteousness; that without repentance no man's sins can be forgiven; that after death there is no repentance; but that as the tree falls so it will lie: that such a man as this, professing the faith of Christ crucified, and covenanting with God, in baptism, to take up the cross, and bear it, if need be, to death, should, in the impatience of his soul, and pressed by some calamity a little more than ordinary, deliberately choose to throw this burden off, by committing what he knows a sin, of which he knows he never can repent, and venture the most dreadful consequence of that to everlasting ages, is what nobody could ever reason themselves into the belief of, if the frequent practice of some most unhappy people did not convince us it might be done by letting us see it was: but it is, in truth, a great reproach to reason and Christ's religion, that so it is; and not a little dishonour is also cast upon our nation hereby, as furnishing more examples of this sort of violence than any other, though much larger: though that reproach may help a little to save the honour of religion, as casting this bad practice, somewhat, on our climate, diet, liberty, complexion, and way of living. But I would make no manner of excuse for it; it is a practice to be abhorred and condemned with all our zeal, to be pursued with all pity; and to be guarded against with all our care and prudence, all our reason and religion, our walking in the ways of God with all steadfastness, and pouring out our constant prayers for his preventing and assisting grace, that his fear may ever be before us, and that no temptations to such impiety may ever prevail upon us. Of the rest of the particulars contained in the text, in the manner already laid out, you will read in the discourses following.

THREE SERMONS ON SELF-MURDER.

SERMON II.

2 SAMUEL XVii. 23.

And when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled his ass, and arose, and gat him home to his house, to his city, and put his household in order, and hanged himself, and died, and was buried in the sepulchre of his father. HAVING already taken occasion from these words to consider the case of self-murder, and shown that Ahithophel had no right to dispose of his own life in the manner he did, nor any man else to offer violence to himself, but that all men were restrained from such attempts by the general law of God contained in the sixth commandment forbidding murder; which being grounded on the reason given by God, in Gen. ix. 6, that man was made in the image of God, did as certainly take in self-murder as the murder of any other man, every man being himself made in the image of God as much as his brother; and shown moreover, that the consequences of murder, adultery, theft, and false-witness, being as certainly forbidden by God as the prime acts themselves, it would unavoidably follow, that the consequences of self-murder were as certainly forbidden as the consequences of any other murder: and therefore that the sixth commandment, though especially relating to the duty we owe our neighbour, (i. e. to one another,) did as certainly prohibit self-murder by prohibiting its consequences, as any other command prohibited the prime act by prohibiting the mischievous effects that follow from it unavoidably; and answered, as the time would let me, the common objections that are raised in justification of these sorts of violence; I am now, without further repetition, to proceed to the second thing I was to speak to, namely, the

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occasion of Ahithophel's self-murder; which was, that he saw that his counsel was not followed. The history of that matter is, in short, this: Absalom, by his popular demeanour and artful management, had estranged the hearts of the Jews from the love and obedience they owed to David his father; and there was so great a defection, that it is really unaccountable from what appears in the history: in this Ahithophel was deeply concerned, and was accounted the very life and strength of the conspiracy: and being called to give his advice what Absalom had to do, he took care, in the first place, to make the breach irreconcilable betwixt the father and the son. In this thing Absalom followed his directions closely, as you may see in 2 Sam. xvi. 20. But advising further, chap. xvii, to pursue David closely, with a body of men that might certainly surprise him, he was in this point opposed by Hushai the Archite, another very able counsellor, and sent by David, on purpose, to go over to Absalom's party, to defeat the counsel of Ahithophel; and he did it effectually for his counsel was the more plausible, (though not so good for the young prince,) and was accordingly followed, both Absalom and all the men of Israel saying, The counsel of Hushai the Archite is better than the counsel of Ahithophel. I leave you to read yourselves the different counsels of these two statesmen; it is only to my purpose to observe, that the distaste Ahithophel took at his advice being rejected was the occasion of his ruin; When he saw his counsel was not followed, he arose, and went home to his house, set his household in order, and hanged himself, and died. There were two things especially that gave him this discontent: the first, to see his counsel not followed, but that of another man preferred before his; a disgrace that a great statesman knows not how to bear, or put up: his counsel was (you will find in his history) had in so great account, that to advise with Ahithophel was in those days as if one had inquired at the oracles of God: and this esteem makes a disgrace sit so much heavier on the mind. But, secondly, he saw the consequences of his counsel being rejected; he saw his new choice, and the party he had turned to, would be ruined by the advice of Hushai the Archite: he knew that Absalom would not be able to hold it long against his father; he had lost his opportunity, and given to David

time and breath, which was the only thing he wanted; and leisure to the people of Israel to consider their revolt, and to repent, and timely to make their peace with their old king, by returning to their duty and obedience: this was the fatal miscarriage of Absalom's affairs, that Ahithophel saw clearly, and saw it was not to be retrieved, and saw, perhaps, the treachery of Hushai, and his design in giving such advice. And he knew very well where David's wrath would light, with all his vengeance, when he should be resettled on his throne again, namely, upon the evil counsellors, of which he was himself the chief. He saw, the heart of a good old indulgent father would (if he escaped with life in fight) quickly pass by and spare the rashness of a young and giddy prince, his beloved son, and discharge his fury on the wicked instruments that had seduced him to rebellion: and you may see, by the tenderness and care that David took of Absalom, in his charge to Joab, before the battle, and the grief he felt upon his loss; you may see by this, how rightly and truly Ahithophel judged of matters, and how well he knew where the storm at last would fall, even chiefly on himself, who had given such mischievous counsel, that had it been pursued David had certainly been lost. For this, he knew, he must pay down his life when David should return from victory; there was no pardon for one so able, and deep engaged in the conspiracy as he and therefore he resolves to prevent the stroke of David by one of his own. So that here is the sense of a disgrace past, in having his counsel rejected, and the fear of further shame and pain to come, (the consequence, he saw, of his counsel's not being followed,) that occasioned him to fall into this desperate resolution of laying violent hands upon himself.

When men engage in any wicked practice, as Ahithophel here did, and find themselves disappointed, and their great purposes defeated, and they are brought to shame or into danger, their minds are not equal to their burden; their stomach is so high, their pride so great, that they know not what to do with that single imagination, of what the world will think or say of them. All men, they fancy, are observers of their actions, and have their eyes upon them; and when they have miscarried, all men censure and reproach them and condemn them. So that though they can bear the guilt them