PREFACE TO "A DEFENCE AGAINST THE TEMPTATION TO SELF- MURDER." IT can be noimportance to the world to know the particular occasion of this composure. It is sufficient to say, that the rude draughts and sketches of it thrown into the form of a letter havebeen so far honoured by divinegrace, as to save asoul from perishing. The numerous self-murders which we read in our papers of weekly news, inform us that the tempter is not asleep. The last general bill ofmor- tality tells no of fifty-nine who are known to have destroyed themselves the year past ; besides seventy -four who were drowned, and forty-threewho were said to be found dead : Now among these hundred and seventeen, who can tell how many might be accessary also to their owndeath, though surviving relatives might conceal itfrom the notice of the public ? This very week I have read four more. Such numbers of these tragical events are a very un- happy, yet a sensible argument that Satan the crueladversary walks about through every street ofthis great city as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. It is the design of this little treatise to discover the infinite mischief of his temptations, and to teach mankindhow they may resist him, and de- feat his fatal purposes. I grant that the sceptical humour and growing atheism of the age, with the disbelief of a future state and of all the terrors of anotherworld, are the profane and deadly principles which influence some of these unnatural and murderous practices. But professed atheism and infidelity are not the only causes. Suicide is often owing to the shameful neglect of all religion even by those who pretend to believe it, and to their strange thoughtlessness of God and heaven and hell. The wild and ungoverned lusts and passions of mankind, their secret criminal practices and shameful iniquities that are afraid of the light, the fre- quent crosses and calamities of this life, their raging impatienceof mind tinder disappointments, with a certain horror of poverty and contempt and shame, hurry on foolish and guilty creatures to hide themselves in death and the grave. Besides all this, the dark and sullen complexion and the gloomy melancholy of some persons, their inward uneasiness, their jealousies, and fretful disposition, are such unhappy circumstances as a subtledevil improves fur his own pernicious designs. These are the fatal springs of such tragical events in our day: These are the dismal seeds of many a bloody harvest, which the great enemy of God and man reaps daily amongst us. May the blessed Spirit of God lift up a standard against the destroyer, and make these papers useful to support, defend and relieve those poor de- luded creatures, who are worried by his rage and ensnared by his devices! And in the day of the Lord, when every secret thing shall be revealed, may this discourse appear to have been a successful, though a humble instrument in the hand of the Spirit of God for thedeliveranceand salvation ofthose who have been tempted, and for the rescue of many a soul from present death and everlasting burnings. L13
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