rs, it runs thus:

A letter from the Reverend Dr. ---- to Mr. Wild in Newgate.

I am very sorry that after a life so spent as yours is notoriously
known to have been, you should yet, instead of repenting of your
former offences, continue to swell their number even with greater. I
pray God that it be not the greatest of all sins, affecting doubts
as to a future state, and whether you shall ever be brought to
answer for your actions in this life, before a tribunal in that
which is to come.

The heathens, it must be owned, could have no certainty as to the
immortality of the soul, because they had no immediate revelation;
for though the reasons which incline us to the belief of those two
points of future existence and future tribulation be as strong as
any of the motives are to other points in natural religion, yet as
none return from that land of darkness, or escape from the shadow of
death to bring news of what passeth in those regions whither all men
go, so without a direct revelation from the Almighty no positive
knowledge could be had of life in the world to come, which is
therefore properly said to be derived to us through Christ Jesus,
who in plain terms, and with that authority which confounded his
enemies, the Scribes and Pharisees, taught the doctrine of a final
judgment, and by affording us the means of grace, raised in us at
the same time the hopes of glory.

The arguments, therefore, which might appear sufficient unto the
heathens, to justify killing themselves to avoid what they thought
greater evils, if they had any force then must have totally lost it
now. Indeed, the far greater number of instances which history has
transmitted us, show that self-murder, even then, proceeded from the
same causes as at present, viz., rage, despair, and disappointment.
Wise men in all ages despised it as a mean and despicable flight
from evils the soul wanted courage and strength to bear. This has
not only been said by philosophers, but even by poets, too; which
shows that it appeared a notion, not only rational, but heroic.
There are none so timorous, says Martial, but extremity of want may
force upon a voluntary death; those few alone are to be accounted
brave who can support a life of evil and the pressing load of
misery, without having recount to a dagger.

But if there