4. And the want of charity, or loving our neighbour as ourselves, doth bring men near to the execution, and leaveth little inward restraint.
By all this you may see how this sin must be prevented. (And let not any man think it a needless work. Thousands have been guilty of murder that once thought themselves as far from it as you.) 1. The soul must be possessed with the knowledge of God, and the true belief of his word and judgment. 2. Hereby it must be possessed of the fear of God, and subjection to him. 3. And the love of God must mortify the power of selfishness. 4. And also must possess us with a true love to our neighbours, yea, and enemies for his sake. 5. And the twelve forementioned causes of murder will be thus destroyed at the root.
II. And some further help it will be to understand the greatness of this sin. Consider therefore, 1. It is an unlawful destroying, not only a creature of God, but one of his noblest creatures upon earth! even one that beareth (at least, the natural) image of God. Gen. ix. 5, 6, "And surely, your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it; and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother will I require the life of man. Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed; for in the image of God made he man." Yea, God will not only have the beast slain that killeth a man, but also forbiddeth there the eating of blood, verse 4, that man might not be accustomed to cruelty.
2. It is the opening a door to confusion, and all calamity in the world; for if one man may kill another without the sentence of the magistrate, another may kill him; and the world will be like mastiffs or mad dogs, turned all loose on one another, kill that kill can.
3. If it be a wicked man that is killed, it is the sending of a soul to hell, and cutting off his time of repentance, and his hopes. If it be a godly man, it is a depriving of the world of the blessing of a profitable member, and all that are about him of the benefits of his goodness, and God of the service, which he was here to have performed. These are enough to infer the dreadful consequents to the murderer, which are such as these.
III. 1. It is a sin which bringeth so great a guilt, that if it be repented of, and pardoned, yet conscience very hardly doth ever attain to peace and quietness in this world; and if it be unpardoned, it is enough to make a man his own executioner and tormentor.
2. It is a sin that seldom escapeth vengeance in this life: if the law of the land take not away their lives, as God appointeth, Gen. ix. 6, God useth to follow them with his extraordinary plagues, and causeth their sin to find them out; so that the bloodthirsty man doth seldom live out half his days. The treatises purposely written on this subject, and the experience of all ages, do give us very wonderful narratives of God's judgments, in the detecting of murderers and bringing them to punishment. They go about awhile like Cain, with a terrified conscience, afraid of every one they see, till seasonable vengeance give them their reward, or rather send them to the place where they must receive it.
3. For it is eternal torment, under the wrath of God, which is the final punishment which they must expect (if very great repentance, and the blood of Christ, do not prevent it). There are few I think that by shame and terror of conscience, are not brought to such a repentance for it, as Cain and Judas had, or as a man that hath brought calamity on himself; and therefore wish they had never done it, because of their own unhappiness thereby (except those persecutors or murderers that are hardened by error, pride, or power); but this will not prevent the vengeance of God in their damnation: it must be a deep repentance proceeding from the love of God and man, and the hatred of sin, and sense of God's displeasure for it, which is only found in sanctified souls! And alas, how few murderers ever have the grace to manifest any such renovation and repentance!
Tit. 2. Advice against Self-murder.
Though self-murder be a sin which nature hath as strongly inclined man against, as any sin in the world that I remember, and therefore I shall say but little of it; yet experience telleth us, that it is a sin that some persons are in danger of, and therefore I shall not pass it by.