550 THE UNLAWFULNESS OF SELF-MURDER. England before the burial service, self-murderers are ranked with excommunicated persons the church has no hope of them as true christians; and as the church denies them christian burial, so the civil government did heretofore appoint that they should be put into the earth with 'utmost contempt ; and this. was generallydone in some public cross-way; that'the shame and infamy might be made known to every passenger ; and that this infamy might be lasting, they were ordained to have a stake driven through their dead bodies, which was not to be removed. It is a pity this practice has been omitted of late years by the too favourable sentence of their neighbours on the jury, who gene. rally pronounce them distracted ; and thus they are excused from this public mark of abhorrence. Perhaps it were much better if this practice were revived again ; for since the"lawsof men can- not punish their persons, therefore their dead bodies should be exposed to just and deserved shame,' that so this injurymight be laid under all the odium that human power and lawcan cast upon it, to testify a just abhorrence of the fact, and to deter survivors from the like practice. IV. Can any man of a generous or kind disposition think of all the mischief done to his friends and kindred by the destruction of himself, and yet practise it ? Think of the public scandal and disgrace that it spreads over the whole family ; think of the .shame and inward anguish of spirit that it necessarily gives to surviving friends and relatives ; what sorrow of heart for the loss of a father, or mother, or brother, a sister, a daughter, or a son, in such a sudden, such a dreadful, and such a shameful manner of death What terrible perplexity of spirit, what inconsolable vexation of mind, what fears of eternal misery for the soul of the deceased ? This gives them a wound beyond what they are able to bear, and sometimes wears out their life in sorrow, and brings them down to the grave. One would think that the in- jury clone to friends and dear relations would be a sufficient bar against it, to souls who have any senseof justice, or any pretence to goodness and love. If it be so hard for you to bear a little poverty, shame, sorrow, reproach, &c. that you will die rather than bear it, why will you entail these on your kindred and on those who love you best ? Inorder to work upon persons that have any compassion .fir their surviving kindred, it is fit they should know also that the English law calls a self -murderer, Feb de se, or a felon to himself, and upon this accognt the estate and effects of the de- ceased are forfeited by law, and cannot descend to the relatives, unless it appear that the person who laid violent hands upon him- self was distracted. Now in this case Bishop Fleetwood finds fault severely with juries, who now. a-days bring in almost all self- murderers distracted, and he desires them to consider,
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=