. When people are going to Harm themselves, we call upon them,
like those to the Jailor, in _Acts 16.28._ _Do thy self no harm!_ And we
have this Argument for it, _It is the Devil that is dragging of you to
this mischief; but will you believe, will you obey such an one as the
Devil is?_ What was it that made _Judas_ to strangle himself? We read it
was when the _Devil was in him_. I suppose there are few
_self-murderers_, but what are first very strangely fallen into the
Devils hands; and possibly, 'tis by some Extraordinary _Discontent_,
against God, or _back-sliding_ from him, that the Devil first entred
into those disturbed Souls. Indeed, some very great Saints of God, have
sometimes had hideous Royls raised by the Devil in their minds; untill
they have e'en cry'd out with _Job_, _I choose strangling rather than
Life;_ and sometimes the ill Humours or Vapours in the Bodies of such
Good Men, do so harbour the Devil that they have this woful motion every
day thence made unto them; _You must Kill your self! you must! you
must!_ But it is rarely any other than a _Saul_, an _Abimelek_, an
_Achitophel_, or a _Judas_; rarely any other, than a very Reprobate,
whom the Devil can drive, while the man is _Compos Mentis_, to
Consummate such a Villany. Yea, no Child of God, in his Right Senses
can go so far in this impiety, as to be left without all Time and Room
for true _Repentance_ of the Crime; 'tis _thus_ done, by none but those
that go to the Devil. A _self-murder_, acted by one that is upon other
accounts a Reasonable man, is but such an attempt of Revenge upon the
God that made him, as none but one full of the Devil can be guilty of.
If any of you are Dragoon'd by the Devil, unto the murdering of your
selves, my Advice to you is, _Disclose it_, _Reveal it_, _make it known
immediately_. One that Cut his own Throat among us, Expired crying out,
_O that I had told! O that I had told._ You may spoil the Devil, if
you'l _Tell_ what he is a doing of.

VI. Presumptuous and Unwarrantable _Trials_ of the Blessed God, are some
of those things whereinto the Devil would fain hook us with his
_Temptations_. This was that which the Devil would have brought our Lord
unto, even, _A tempting of the Lord our God_. It is the charge of our
God upon us, in _Deut. 6.16._ _Thou shalt not Tempt the Lord thy God._
But that which the Devil _Tries_, is, to put us upon _Trying_ in a
sinful way, whether God be such a God as indeed he is. 'Tis true as t