[2778] “Jamque vale Soli cum diceret Ambrociotes,
          In Stygios fertur desiluisse lacus,
        Morte nihil dignum passus:  sed forte Platonis
          Divini eximum de nece legit opus.”

[2779]Calenus and his Indians hated of old to die a natural death:  the Circumcellians and Donatists, loathing life, compelled others to make them away, with many such:  [2780]but these are false and pagan positions, profane stoical paradoxes, wicked examples, it boots not what heathen philosophers determine in this kind, they are impious, abominable, and upon a wrong ground.  “No evil is to be done that good may come of it;” reclamat Christus, reclamat Scriptura, God, and all good men are [2781]against it:  He that stabs another, can kill his body; but he that stabs himself, kills his own soul. [2782]_Male meretur, qui dat mendico, quod edat_; nam et illud quod dat, perit; et illi producit vitam ad miseriam:  he that gives a beggar an alms (as that comical poet said) doth ill, because he doth but prolong his miseries.  But Lactantius l. 6. c. 7. de vero cultu, calls it a detestable opinion, and fully confutes it, lib. 3. de sap. cap. 18. and S. Austin, epist. 52. ad Macedonium, cap. 61. ad Dulcitium Tribunum:  so doth Hierom to Marcella of Blesilla’s death, Non recipio tales animas, &c., he calls such men martyres stultae Philosophiae:  so doth Cyprian de duplici martyrio; Si qui sic moriantur, aut infirmitas, aut ambitio, aut dementia cogit eos; ’tis mere madness so to do, [2783]_furore est ne moriare mori_.  To this effect writes Arist. 3.  Ethic. Lipsius Manuduc. ad Stoicam Philosophiaem lib. 3. dissertat. 23. but it needs no confutation.  This only let me add, that in some cases, those [2784]hard censures of such as offer violence to their own persons, or in some desperate fit to others, which sometimes they do, by stabbing, slashing, &c. are to be mitigated, as in such as are mad, beside themselves for the time, or found to have been long melancholy, and that in extremity, they know not what they do, deprived of reason, judgment, all, [2785]as a ship that is void of a pilot, must needs impinge upon the next rock or sands, and suffer shipwreck. [2786]P.  Forestus hath a story of two melancholy brethren, that made away themselves, and for so foul a fact, were accordingly censured to be infamously buried, as in such cases they use:  to terrify others, as it did the Milesian virgins of old; but upon farther examination of their misery and madness, the censure was [2787]revoked, and they were solemnly interred, as Saul was by David, 2 Sam. ii. 4. and Seneca well adviseth, Irascere interfectori, sed miserere interfecti; be justly offended with him as he was a murderer, but pity him now as a dead man.  Thus of their goods and bodies we can dispose; but what shall become of their souls, God alone can tell; his mercy may come inter pontem et fontem, inter gladium et jugulum, betwixt the bridge and the brook, the knife and the throat. Quod cuiquam contigit, quivis potest:  Who knows how he may be tempted?  It is his case, it may be thine:  [2788]_Quae sua sors hodie est, eras fore vestra potest._ We ought not to be so rash and rigorous in our censures, as some are; charity will judge and hope the best:  God be merciful unto us all.