If we judge only from reason, it seems that we have no right over a life which we receive not from ourselves, or from our parents, but from the immediate gift of Him who is the Lord thereof, and the Fountain of Being.

To take away our own life, then, is contradicting as far as we are able the Laws of Providence, and that disposition which His wisdom has been pleased to direct.  It is as though we pretended to have more knowledge or more power than he; and as to that pretence which is usually made use of, that Life is meant as a blessing, and that therefore when it becomes an evil, we may if we think fit resign it, it is indeed but a mere sophistry.  We acknowledge God to be infinite in all perfections, and consequently in wisdom and power; from the latter we receive our existence in this Life, and as to the measure it depends wholly on the former; so that if we from the shallow dictates of our reason contemptuously shorten that term which is appointed us by the Almighty, we thereby contradict all His laws, throw up all right to His promises, and by the very last act we are capable of, put ourselves out of His protection.

This I say is the prospect of the fruits of suicide, looked on with the eye only of natural religion; and the opinion of Christians is unanimous in this respect, that persons who wilfully deprive themselves of life here, involve themselves also in death everlasting.  As to your particular case, in which you say ’tis only making choice of one death rather than another, there are also the strongest reasons against it, The Law intends your death, not only for the punishment of your crimes, but as an example to deter others.  The Law of God which hath commanded that the magistrates should not bear the sword in vain, hath given power to denounce this sentence against you; but that authority which you would assume, defeats both the law of the land in its intention, and is opposite also unto the Law of God.  Add unto all this, the example of our blessed Saviour, who submitted to be hung upon a tree, tho’ He had only need of praying to His Father to have sent Him thousands of Angels; yet chose He the death of a thief, that the Will of God, and the sentence even of an unrighteous judge might be satisfied.

Let, then, the testimony of your own reason, your reverence towards God, and the hopes which you ought to have in Jesus Christ, determine you to await with patience the hour of your dissolution, dispose you to fill up the short interval which yet remains with sincere repentance, and enable you to support your sufferings with such a Christian spirit of resignation, as may purchase for you an eternal weight of glory.  In the which you shall always be assisted with my Prayers to God.

    Who am, etc.