Sermon
Exodus 20:12. You shall not kill.
(3.) We must not injure another's soul. This is the greatest murder of all, because there is more of God's image in the soul than in the body. The soul, though it cannot be annihilated, is said to be murdered, because it misses happiness, and is forever in torment. Now how many are soul-murderers?
1. Such as corrupt others by bad example. Vivitur Exemplis — The world is led by example; especially the examples of great ones are very pernicious. Magnates, Magnetes — We are apt to do as we see others before us, especially above us. Such as are placed in high power are like the pillar of cloud, when that went Israel went. When great ones move in their sphere, others will follow them, though it be to hell. Evil magistrates, like the tail of the dragon, draw the third part of the stars after them.
2. Such as entice others to sin. The harlot by curling her hair, rolling her eyes, laying open her breasts, does what in her lies, to be both a tempter and a murderer. Such a one was Messalina, wife to Claudius the Emperor. (Proverbs 7:7, 10) I discerned a young man, and there met him a woman with the attire of a harlot, so she caught him and kissed him. Better are the reproofs of a friend, than the kisses of a harlot.
3. Ministers are murderers, who either starve, or poison, or infect souls.
(1.) That starve souls. (1 Peter 5:2) Feed the flock of God which is among you. These feed themselves, and starve the flock: either through non-residing they do not preach, or through insufficiency they cannot. There are many in the ministry (a shame to speak it) so ignorant, that they had need to be taught the first principles of the Oracles of God (Hebrews 5:12). Was not he fit to be a preacher in Israel, (think you) who being asked something concerning the Decalogue, answered, he never saw any such book?
(2.) That poison souls. Such are heterodox ministers, who poison people with error. The basilisk poisons herbs and flowers by breathing on them. The breath of heretical ministers, like the basilisk's breath, poisons souls. The Socinian, that would rob Christ of his Godhead; the Arminian, that by advancing the power of the will, would take off the crown from the head of free grace; the Antinomian, who denies the use of the Moral Law to a believer, as if it were antiquated and out of date — these poison men's souls. Error is as damnable as vice. (1 Peter 2:1) There shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, denying the Lord, that bought them.
(3.) That infect souls, namely by their scandalous lives. (Exodus 19:22) Let the priests which come near to the Lord sanctify themselves. Ministers who by their places are nearer to God, should be holier than others. The elements, the higher they are, the purer. The air is purer than the water; the fire is purer than the air. The higher men are by office, the holier they should be. John the Baptist was a shining lamp. But there are many who infect their people with their bad life: they preach one thing, and live another. Qui curios simulant & Bacchanalia vivunt. They, like Eli's sons, are in white linen, but they have scarlet sins. Some say that Prester John, the lord of Africa, causes to be carried before him a golden cup full of dirt: a fit emblem of such ministers as have a golden office, but are dirty and polluted in their lives. They are murderers, and the blood of souls will cry against them at the last day.
4. Such as destroy others by getting them into bad company, and so making them proselytes to the devil. Vitia in proximum quemque transiliunt. Sen. A man cannot live in the Ethiopian climate, but he will be discolored with the sun; nor can he be in bad company, but he will partake of their evil. One drunkard makes another; as the prophet speaks in another sense (Jeremiah 35:5), I set before them pots full of wine and cups, and said to them, drink wine. So the wicked set pots of wine before others, and make them drink till reason be stupefied, and lust inflamed. These are guilty of the breach of this commandment, they are murderers of souls. How sad will it be with these, who have not only their own sins, but the blood of others to answer for. So much for the first thing forbidden in the commandment, the injuring of others.
2. The second thing forbidden in it is, the injuring of oneself. You shall not kill: you shall do no hurt to yourself.
(1.) You shall not hurt your own body. One may be guilty of self-murder, either 1. indirectly and occasionally. 2. directly and absolutely.
1. Indirectly and occasionally. As,
First, when a man thrusts himself into danger which he might prevent. As if a company of archers were shooting, and one should go and stand in the place where the arrows fly, if the arrow did kill him, he is accessory to his own death. In the Law God would have the leper shut up to keep others from being infected (Leviticus 13:4). Now if any would be so presumptuous as to go in to the leper and get the plague of leprosy, he might thank himself, he occasioned his own death.
Secondly, a person may be in some sense guilty of his own death, by neglecting the use of means: if sick, and using no medicine. If he has received a wound, and will not apply balsam, he hastens his own death. God appointed Hezekiah to lay a lump of figs to the boil (Isaiah 38:21). If he had not used the lump of figs, he had been the cause of his own death.
Thirdly, by immoderate grief (2 Corinthians 7:10), the sorrow of the world works death. When God takes away a dear relation, and one is swallowed up with sorrow. How many weep themselves into their graves! Queen Mary grieved so excessively for the loss of Calais, that it broke her heart.
Fourthly, by intemperance, excess in diet. Surfeiting shortens life. Plures periere crapula quam gladio: many dig their grave with their teeth. Too much oil chokes the lamp: the cup kills more than the cannon. Excessive drinking causes untimely death.
2. One may be guilty of self-murder directly and absolutely.
(1.) By envy. Envy is Tristitia de bonis alienis, a secret repining at the welfare of another. Invidus alterius rebus macrescit opimis. An envious man is more sorry at another's prosperity, than at his own adversity. He never laughs but when another weeps. Envy is a self-murder, a fretting canker. Cyprian calls it Vulnus occultum, a secret wound; it hurts a man's self most — envy corrodes the heart, dries up the blood, rots the bones. (Proverbs 14:30) Envy is the rottenness of the bones. It is to the body as the moth to the cloth, it eats it, and makes its beauty consume. Envy drinks its own venom. The viper which leaped on Paul's hand, thought to have hurt Paul, but fell herself into the fire (Acts 28:3). So while the envious man thinks to hurt another, he destroys himself.
(2.) By laying violent hands upon himself, and thus he is Felo de se; as Saul fell upon his own sword and killed himself. Because I see so many in the bills of mortality who make away themselves, let me a little expatiate. It is the most unnatural and barbarous kind of murder for a man to butcher himself, and imbrue his hands in his own blood. A man's self is most near to him, therefore this sin of self-murder breaks both the law of God and the bonds of nature. The Lord has placed the soul in the body as in a prison; now it is a great sin to break prison, till God by death open the door. Self-murderers are worse than the brute creatures, they will tear and gore one another, but no beast will go to destroy itself. Self-murder is occasioned usually from discontent. Discontent is joined with a sullen melancholy. The bird that beats herself in the cage, and is ready to kill herself, is the true emblem of a discontented spirit. And this discontent arises,
1. From pride. A man that is swelled with a high opinion of himself, thinks he deserves better than others; and if any cross befall him, he is discontented, and now in a sudden passion will make away himself. Achitophel had high thoughts of himself, his words were esteemed oracles; and to have his wise counsel rejected, he was not able to bear it. (2 Samuel 17:23) He put his house in order, and hanged himself.
2. Discontent is occasioned from poverty. Poverty is a sore temptation: [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], Menand. (Proverbs 30:29) Give me not poverty. Many by their sin have brought themselves to poverty; and when a great estate is boiled away to nothing, then they are discontented, and think better to die quickly, than languish in misery. Hereupon the Devil helps them to dispatch themselves.
3. Discontent is occasioned from covetousness. Avarice is a dry drunkenness, a horseleech that is never satisfied. The covetous man is like Behemoth (Job 40:23): Behold he drinks up a river, and yet his thirst is not allayed. The covetous miser hoards up corn; and if he hears the price of corn begins to fall, then he is troubled, and there is no cure for his discontent but a halter.
4. From horror of mind. A man has sinned a great sin, he has swallowed down some pills of temptation the Devil has given him; and these pills begin to work in his conscience, and the horror is so great, that he chooses strangling. Judas having betrayed innocent blood, he was in that agony, that he hanged himself to quiet his conscience. As if one should, to avoid the stinging of a gnat, endure the biting of a serpent. This self-murder, [〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉], is a high breach of this commandment, it is an execrable sin. I can see no ground of hope for such as make away themselves; for they die in the very act of sin, and cannot have time to repent.
(2.) Here is forbidden hurting one's own soul. You shall not kill. Many who are free from other murder, yet are guilty here; they go about to murder their own souls; they are wilfully set to damn themselves, and throw themselves into Hell.
Quest. Who are they that go about desperately to murder their own souls?
Resp. 1. Such wilfully go about to murder their souls, who have no sense of God, or the other world. They are past feeling (Ephesians 4:19). Tell them of God's holiness and justice, they are not at all affected. (Zechariah 7:12) They made their hearts like an adamant. The adamant, says Pliny, is insuperable, the hammer cannot conquer it: sinners have adamantine hearts. The altar of stone, when the prophet spoke to it, rent asunder (1 Kings 13:2). But sinners' hearts are so hardened in sin, that nothing will work upon them, neither ordinances nor judgments; they do not believe a deity, they laugh at Hell: these go about to murder their souls, they are throwing themselves as fast as they can into Hell.
2. Such as are set wilfully to murder their souls, are they who are resolved upon their lusts, let what will come of it; the soul may cry out, I am killing, I am murdering. (Ephesians 4:19) They have given themselves over to work all uncleanness with greediness. Let ministers speak to them about their sins, let conscience speak, let affliction speak, yet they will have their lusts, though they go to Hell for them. Are not these resolved to murder their souls? As Agrippina, mother to Nero, said, Occidat modo imperet, Let my son kill me, so he may reign. So many say in their hearts, Let our sins damn us, so they may but please us. Herod will have his incestuous lust, though it cost him his soul. Men will for a drop of pleasure drink a sea of wrath. Are not these about to massacre and damn their own souls?
3. They murder their souls, who avoid all means of saving their souls. They will go to plays, to drunken meetings, but will not set their foot within God's house, or come near the sound of the gospel trumpet. As if one that is diseased should shun the bath, for fear of being healed. These do wilfully damn their souls, and are as great murderers of themselves, as he, who having means of cure offered him, chooses death rather than physic.
4. They do voluntarily murder their souls, who suck in false prejudices against religion; as if religion were too strict and severe; they that espouse holiness must live a melancholy life, like hermits and anchorites, and drown all their joy in tears. This is a slander which the Devil has cast upon religion: For there's no true joy but in believing (Romans 15:13). No honey so sweet as that which drops from a promise. Some men have foolishly taken up a prejudice against religion; they are resolved rather never to go to Heaven, than go there through the strait gate. I may say of prejudice as Paul to Elimas (Acts 13:10): O prejudice, you child of the Devil, you enemy of all righteousness, how many souls have you damned!
5. They are wilfully set to murder their own souls, who will neither be good to themselves, nor suffer others to be so. Matthew 23:13: You neither go into the Kingdom of Heaven yourselves, neither allow them that are entering, to go in. Such are those that persecute others for their religion. Drunken meetings shall escape punishment: But if men meet to serve God, then let all severity be used. These are resolved to shipwreck others, though they themselves are cast away in the storm. Oh! Take heed of this, of murdering your own souls: No creature but man does willingly kill itself. So I have done with the first, the sin forbidden in this commandment, You shall not kill.
