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AIJ INQUIRY 
 
 « 
 
 INTO 
 
 THE ACCORDANCY OF WAR 
 
 WITH THE 
 
 PRINCIPLES OF CHRISTIANITY, 
 
 AND 
 
 iN EXAMINATION OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL REASONING BY WHICH 
 IT IS DEFENDED. 
 
 WITH 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON SOME OP THE CAUSES OF WAR AND ON 
 SOME OF ITS EFFECTS. 
 
 V 
 
 BY JONATHAN DYMOND 
 
 ('ontempt prior to examination, however comfortable to the mind which entertains it, 
 or however natural to great parts, is extremely dangerous; and more apt than almost 
 any other disposition, to produce erroneous judgments both of persons and opinions. 
 
 Paley. 
 
 PHILADELPHIA : 
 URIAH HUNT AND SON, 
 
 44 NORTH FOURTH STREET. 
 
 JOSEPH SNOWDON, 
 
 84 ARCH STREET. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Preface :»-----■ 5 
 
 L—CAUSES OF WAR. 
 
 Original causes — Present multiplicity - - - - 9 
 
 Want of inquiry — This want not manifested on parallel subjects - 10 
 National irritability - - - - - - -13 
 
 *^ Balance of p02ver^^ - - - - - - -15 
 
 Pecuniary interest — Employment for the higher ranks of society - 18 
 Jimbition — Private purposes of state policy - - - - 20 
 
 Military glory _-.-.--24 
 
 Foundation of military glory — Skill — Bravery — Patriotism — 
 Patriotism not a motive to the soldier. 
 Books — Historians — Poets __.--_ 3^? 
 
 Writers vi^ho promote war sometimes assert its unlawfulness. 
 
 II.— AN INQUIRY, &c. 
 
 Palpable ferocity of war - - - - - -40 
 
 Reasonableness of the inquiry - - - - - -41 
 
 Revealed will of God the sole standard of decision - - - 42 
 
 Declarations of great men that Christianity prohibits war - - 43 
 
 Christianity - .__--- 45 
 
 General character of Christianity - - - - - 47 
 
 Precepts and declarations of Jesus Christ - - - - 48 
 
 Arguments that the precepts are figurative only - - 51 
 
 Precepts and declarations of the apostles - - - - 57 
 
 Objections to the advocate of peace from passages of the Christian Scriptures 60 
 Prophecies of the Old Testament respecting an era of peace - - 67 
 
 Early Christians — Their belief— Their practice — Early Christian 
 
 writers --------69 
 
 Mosaic institutions -------77 
 
 Example of men of piety - - - - - -80 
 
 Objections to the advocate of peace from the distinction between the duties 
 
 of private and public life ------ 82 
 
 Mode of proving the rectitude of this distinction from the 
 
 absence of a common arbitrator amongst nations - - 83 
 
 Mode 0^ ^TOYing it on the principles of expedie77cy - - 84 
 
 Examination of the principles of expediency as applied to war 86 
 
 of the mode of its application - - --87 
 
 Univerf,ality of Christian obligation - - - - - 90 
 
 2 
 
Tago 
 Dr. Palei/s " Moral and Political P/«7o5o/?%"— Chapter " on War." 
 
 Mode of discussing the question of its lawfulness - - 91 '^' 
 
 This mode inconsistent with the professed principles of the 
 
 Moral Philosophy — with the usual practice of the author - 93 
 Inapplicability of the principles proposed by the Moral Phi- 
 losophy to the purposes of life - - - - 95 
 
 Dr, Paley'*s ^^ Evidences of Christianity'''' - - - - 96 
 
 Inconsistency of its statements with the principles of the 
 
 Moral Philosophy ------ 98 
 
 Argument in favour of war from the excess of male births - - 100 ^^ 
 
 from the lawfulness of coercion on the part of the civil magistrate 101 — 
 
 Right of self-defence — Mode of maintaining the right from the in- 
 stincts of nature - - - - - - -104 — 
 
 Attack of an assassin — Principles on which killing an assas- 
 sin is defended ..---- 106 - 
 
 Consequences of these principles - - - - 110 
 
 Unconditional reliance upon Providence on the subject of defence - 113 
 
 Safety of this reliance — Evidence by experience in private 
 
 life — by national experience - - - - 114 
 
 General observations - - - - - - -119 
 
 III.— EFFECTS OF WAR. 
 
 Social consequences - - - - - . -129 
 
 Political consequences - - - - - - -131 
 
 Opinions of Dr. Johnson - - - - . 132 
 
 Moral consequences - - - - - - -133 
 
 UPON THE MILITARY CHARACTER. 
 
 Familiarity with human destruction — with plunder - - 133 
 
 Incapacity for regular pursuits — " half-pay" - - - 135 
 Implicit submission to superiors. 
 
 Its effects on the independence of the mind - - 138 
 
 on the moral character - - - . 140 
 
 Resignation of moral agency - - - - 141 
 
 Military power despotic ----- 143 
 
 UPON THE COMMUNITY. 
 
 Peculiar contagiousness of military depravity - - 146 
 
 Animosity of party — Spirit of resentment - - . 149 
 
 Privateering — Its peculiar atrocity - - - - - 150 
 
 Mercenaries — Loan of armies ------ 152 
 
 Prayers for the success of war - - - - - - 153 
 
 The duty of a subject who believes that all war is incompatible with 
 
 Christianity - - - - . - -155 
 
 Conclusion - - - - . - - -157 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The object of the following pages is, to give a view of the 
 principal arguments which maintain the indefensibility and im 
 policy of war, and to examine the reasoning which is advanced 
 in its favour. 
 
 The author has not found, either in those works which treat 
 exclusively of war, or in those which refer to it as part of a 
 general system, any examination of the question that embraced 
 it in all its bearings. In these pages, therefore, he has attempted, 
 not only to inquire into its accordancy with Christian principles, 
 and to enforce the obligation of these principles, but to discuss 
 those objections to the advocate of peace which are advanced by 
 philosophy, and to examme into the authority of those which are 
 enforced by the power of habit, and by popular opinion. 
 
 Perhaps no other apology is necessary for the intrusion of this 
 essay upon the public, than that its subject is, in a very high 
 degree, important. Upon such a subject as the slaughter of 
 mankind, if there be a doubt, however indeterminate, whether 
 Christianity does not prohibit it — if there be a possibility, how- 
 ever remote, that the happiness and security of a nation can be 
 maintained without it, an examination of such possibility or 
 doubt, may reasonably obtain our attention. — The advocate of 
 peace is, however, not obliged to avail himself of such consider- 
 ations : at least, if the author had not believed that much more 
 than doubt and possibility can be advanced in support of his 
 opinions, this inquiry would not have been offered to the public. 
 
 He is far from amusing himself with the expectation of a 
 general assent to the truth of his conclusions. Some will pro- 
 
bably dispute the rectitude of the principles of decision, and some 
 will dissent from the legitimacy of their application. Never- 
 theless, he believes that the number of those whose opinions will 
 accord with his own is increasing, and will yet much more 
 increase ; and this belief is sufficiently confident to induce him 
 to publish an essay which will probably be the subject of con- 
 tempt to some men, and of ridicule to others. But ridicule and 
 contempt are not potent reasoners. 
 
 " Christianity can only operate as an alterative. By the mild 
 diffusion of its light and influence, the minds of men are insensi- 
 bly prepared to perceive and correct the enormities, which folly, 
 or wickedness, or accident have introduced into their public 
 establishments."* It is in the hope of contributing, in a degree 
 however unimportant or remote, to the diffusion of this light 
 and influence, that the following pages have been written. 
 
 For the principles of this little volume, or for its conclusions, 
 no one is responsible but the writer : they are unconnected with 
 any society, benevolent or religious. He has not written it for 
 a present occasion, or with any view to the present political 
 state of Europe. A question like this does not concern itself 
 with the quarrels of the day. 
 
 It will perhaps be thought by some readers, that there is con- 
 tained, in the following pages, greater severity of animadversion 
 than becomes an advocate of peace. But, " let it be remembered, 
 that to bestow good names on bad things, is to give them a pass- 
 port in the world under a delusive disguise."! The writer 
 believes that wars are often supported, because the system itself, 
 and the actions of its agents, are veiled in glittering fictions. He 
 has therefore attempted to exhibit the nature of these fictions 
 and of that which they conceal ; and to state, freely and honestly, 
 both what they are not, and what they are. In this attempt it 
 has been difficult — perhaps it has not been possible— to avoid 
 
 * Paley's Moral and Political Philosophy. f Knox's Essays, No. 34. 
 
G 
 
 some appearance of severity : but he would beg the reader always 
 to bear in his recollection^ that if he speaks with censure of any 
 class of men, he speaks of them only as a class. He is far from 
 giving to such censure an individual application : Such an appli- 
 cation would be an outrage of all candour and all justice. If 
 again he speaks of war as criminal, he does not attach guilt, 
 necessarily, to the profession of arms. He can suppose that 
 many who engage in the dreadful work of human destruction, 
 may do it without a consciousness of impropriety, or with a 
 belief of its virtue. But truth itself is unalterable : whatever be 
 our conduct, and whatever our opinions, and whether we per- 
 ceive its principles or not, those principles are immutable ; and 
 the illustration of truth, so far as he has the power of discovering 
 it, is the object of the Inquiry which he now offers to the public. 
 
I. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON THE CAUSES OF WAR. 
 
 Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. — Virg. 
 
 In the attempt to form an accurate estimate of the 
 moral character of human actions and opinions, it is 
 often of importance to inquire how they have been pro- 
 duced. There is always great reason to doubt the rec- 
 titude of that, of which the causes and motives are 
 impure ; and if, therefore, it should appear from the 
 observations which follow, that some of the motives to 
 war, and of its causes, are inconsistent with reason or 
 with virtue, I would invite the reader to pursue the 
 inquiry that succeeds them, with suspicion, at least, of 
 the rectitude of our ordinary opinions. 
 
 There are some customs wliich have obtained so 
 generally and so long, that what was originally an effect 
 becomes a cause, and what was a cause becomes an 
 effect, until, by the reciprocal influence of each, the 
 custom is continued by circumstances so multipbed and 
 involved, that it is difficult to detect them in all their 
 ramifications, or to determine those to which it is prin- 
 cipally to be referred. 
 
 What were once the occasions of wars may be easily 
 supposed. — Robbery, or the repulsion of robbers, was 
 probably the only motive to hostility, until robbery 
 
 B ^ 
 
10 
 
 became refined into ambition, and it was sufficient to 
 produce a war that a chief was not content with the ter- 
 ritory of his fathers. But by the gradually increasing 
 complication of society from age to age, and by the 
 multiplication of remote interests and obscure rights, 
 the motives to war have become so numerous and so 
 technical, that ordinary observation often fails to per- 
 ceive what they are. They are sometimes known only 
 to a cabinet, which is influenced in its decision by rea- 
 sonings of which a nation knows little, or by feelings 
 of which it knows nothing : so that of those who per- 
 sonally engage in hostilities, there is, perhaps, not 
 often one in ten who can distinctly tell why he is 
 fighting. 
 
 This refinement in the motives of war is no trifling 
 evidence that they are insufficient or bad. When it is 
 considered how tremendous a battle is, how many it 
 hurries in a moment from the world, how much wretch- 
 edness and how much guilt it produces, it would surely 
 appear that nothing but obvious necessity should induce 
 us to resort to it. But when, instead of a battle, we 
 have a war with many battles, and of course with mul- 
 tiplied suffering and accumulated guilt, the motives to 
 so dreadful a measure ought to be such as to force them- 
 selves upon involuntary observation, and to be written, 
 as it w^ere, in the skies. If, then, a large proportion of 
 a people are often without any distinct perception of 
 the reasons why they are slaughtering mankind, it 
 implies, I think, prima facie evidence against the ade- 
 quacy or the justice of the motives to slaughter. 
 
 It would not, perhaps, be affectation to say, that of 
 the reasons why we so readily engage in war, one of 
 the principal is, that we do not inquire into the subject. 
 We have been accustomed, from earliest life, to a 
 familiarity with all its '' pomp and circumstance ;" 
 
11 
 
 soldiers have passed us at every step, and battles- ^nd 
 victories have been the topic of every one around us. 
 War, therefore, becomes familiarized to all our thoughts, 
 and interwoven v^ith all our associations. We have 
 never inquired whether these things should be : the 
 question does not even suggest itself. We acquiesce 
 in it, as we acquiesce in the rising of the sun, without 
 any other idea than that it is a part of the ordinary 
 process of the world. And how are we to feel dis- 
 approbation of a system that we do not examine, and 
 of the nature of which we do not think? Want of 
 inquiry has been the means by which long continued 
 practices, whatever has been their enormity, have ob- 
 tained the general concurrence of the world, and by 
 which they have continued to pollute or degrade it, 
 long after the few who inquire into their nature have 
 discovered them to be bad. It was by these means 
 that the slave-trade was so long tolerated by this land 
 of humanity. Men did not think of its iniquity. We 
 were induced to think, and we soon abhorred and then 
 abolished it. In the present moral state of the world, 
 therefore, I believe it is the business of him who would 
 perceive pure morality, to question the purity of that 
 which now obtains. 
 
 '' The vices of another age," says Robertson, "asto- 
 nish and shock us ; the vices of our own become familiar, 
 and excite little horror." — " The influence of any na 
 tional custom, both on the understanding, on the heart, 
 and how far it may go towards perverting or extin- 
 guishing moral principles of the greatest importance, 
 is remarkable. They who [in 1566] had leisure to 
 reflect and to judge, appear to be no more shocked at 
 the crime of assassination, than the persons who com- 
 mitted it in the heat and impetuosity of passion."* 
 
 ♦ History of Scotland. 
 
12 
 
 Two hundred and fifty years have added something to 
 our morality. We have learnt, at least, to abhor assas- 
 sination ; and I am not afraid to hope that the time 
 will arrive when historians shall think of war what 
 Robertson thinks of murder, and shall endeavour, like 
 him, to account for the ferocity and moral blindness 
 of their forefathers. For I do not think the influence 
 of habit in the perversion or extinction of our moral 
 principles, is in any other thing so conspicuous or 
 deplorable, as in the subject before us. They who are 
 shocked at a single murder in the highway, hear with 
 indifference of the murder of a thousand on the field. 
 They whom the idea of a single corpse would thrill 
 with terror, contemplate that of heaps of human car- 
 casses, mangled by human hands, with frigid indiffer- 
 ence. If a murder is committed, the narrative is given 
 in the public newspaper, with many expressions of 
 commiseration, with many adjectives of horror, and 
 many hopes that the perpetrator will be detected. In 
 the next paragraph the editor, perhaps, tells us that he 
 has hurried a second edition to the press, in order that 
 he may be the first to glad the public with the intelli- 
 gence, that in an engagement which has just taken 
 place, eight liundred and fifty of the enemy were hilled. 
 By war, the natural impulses of the heart seem to be 
 suspended, as if a fiend of blood were privileged to 
 exercise a spell upon our sensibilities, whenever w^e 
 contemplated his ravages. Amongst all the shocking 
 and all the terrible scenes the world exhibits, the 
 slaughters of war stand pre-eminent ; yet these are the 
 scenes of which the compassionate and the ferocious, 
 the good and the bad, alike talk with complacency or 
 exultation. 
 
 England is a land of benevolence, and to human 
 misery she is, of all nations, the most prompt in the 
 
13 
 
 extension of relief. The immolations of the Hindoos 
 fill us with compassion or horror, and we are zealously 
 labouring to prevent them. The sacrifices of life by 
 our own criminal executions are the subject of our 
 anxious commiseration, and we are strenuously en- 
 deavouring to diminish their number. We feel that 
 the life of a Hindoo or a malefactor is a serious thinof, 
 and that nothing but imperious necessity should in- 
 duce us to destroy the one, or to permit the destruction 
 of the other. Yet what are these sacrifices of life in 
 comparison with the sacrifices of war? In the late 
 campaign in Russia, there fell, during one hundred and 
 seventy-three days in succession, an average of two 
 thousand nine hundred men per day. More than five 
 hundred thousand human beings in less than six 
 months ! And most of these victims expired with pe- 
 culiar intensity of suffering. "Thou that teachest 
 another, teachest thou not tiiyself ?" We are carrying 
 our benevolence to the Indies, but what becomes of 
 it in Russia or at Leipsic ? We are labouring to save 
 a few lives from the gallows, but where is our solici- 
 tude to save them on the field ? Life is life, where- 
 soever it be sacrificed, and has every where equal 
 claims to our regard. I am not now inquiring whether 
 war is right, but whether we do not regard its calami* 
 ties with an indifi'erence with which we reo^ard no 
 others, and whether that indifference does not make us 
 acquiesce in evils and in miseries which we should 
 otherwise prevent or condemn. 
 
 Amongst the immediate causes of the frequency of 
 war, there is one which is, indisputably, irreconcilable 
 in its nature with the principles of our religion. 1 
 speak of the critical sense of national pride, and conse- 
 quent aptitude of offence, and violence of resentment. 
 National irritability is at once a cause of war, and an 
 
14 
 
 efiect. It disposes us to resent injuries with bloodshed 
 and destruction ; and a war, when it is begun, inflames 
 and perpetuates the passions that produced it. Those 
 who wish a war, endeavour to rouse the spirit of a 
 people by stimulating their passions. They talk of the 
 insult, or the encroachments, or the contempts of the 
 destined enemy, with every artifice of aggravation ; 
 they tell us of foreigners who want to trample upon our 
 rights, of rivals who ridicule our power, of foes who will 
 crush, and of tyrants who will enslave us. These men 
 pursue their object, certainly, by efficacious means ; 
 they desire a war, and therefore irritate our passions, 
 knowing that when men are angry they are easily 
 persuaded to fight. 
 
 In this state of irritability, a nation is continually 
 alive to occasions of offence; and when we seek for 
 offences, we readily find them. A jealous sensibility 
 sees insults and injuries where sober eyes see nothing ; 
 and nations thus surround themselves with a sort of 
 artificial tentacula, which they throw wide in quest of 
 irritation, and by which they are stimulated to revenge, 
 by every touch of accident or inadvertency. 
 
 He that is easily offended will also easily offend. 
 The man who is always on the alert to discover tres 
 passes on his honour or his rights, never fails to quarrel 
 with his neighbours. Such a person may be dreaded 
 as a torpedo. We may fear, but we shall not love him ; 
 and fear, without love, easily lapses into enmity. There 
 are, therefore, many feuds and litigations in the life of 
 such a man, that would never have disturbed its quiet, 
 if he had not captiously snarled at the trespasses of 
 accident, and savagely retaliated insignificant injuries. 
 The viper that we chance to molest, we suffer to live 
 if he continue to be quiet ; but if he raise himself in 
 menaces of destruction, we knock him on the head. 
 
15 
 
 It is with nations as with men. If, on every offence 
 we fly to arms, and raise the cry of blood, we shall of 
 necessity provoke exasperation; and if we exasperate 
 a people as petulant and bloody as ourselves, we may 
 probably continue to butcher one another, until we 
 cease only from emptiness of exchequers, or weariness 
 of slaughter. To threaten war, is therefore oftea equi- 
 valent to beginning it. In the present state of men's 
 principles, it is not probable that one nation will observe 
 another levying men, and building ships, and founding 
 cannon, without providing men and ships and cannon 
 themselves ; and when both are thus threatening and 
 defying, what is the hope that there will not be a war ? 
 
 It will scarcely be disputed that we should not kill 
 
 one another unless we cannot help it. Since war is an 
 
 enormous evil, some sacrifices are expedient for the 
 
 sake of peace; and if we consulted our understandings 
 
 more and our passions less, we should soberly balance 
 
 the probabilities of mischief, and inquire whether it 
 
 be not better to endure some evils that we can estimate, 
 
 than to engage in a conflict of which we can neither 
 
 calculate the mischief, nor foresee the event ; which 
 
 may probably conduct us from slaughter to disgrace, 
 
 and which at last is determined, not by justice, but by 
 
 power. Pride may declaim against these sentiments ; 
 
 but my business is not ^iih. pride, but with reason; and 
 
 I think reason determines that it would be more wise, 
 
 and religion that it would be less wicked, to diminish 
 
 our punctiliousness and irritability. If nations fought 
 
 only when they could not be at peace, there would be 
 
 very little fighting in the world. The wars that are 
 
 waged for " insults to flags," and an endless train of 
 
 similar motives, are perhaps generally attributable to 
 
 the irritability of our pride. We are at no pains to 
 
 appear pacific towards the offender ; our remonstrance 
 B 
 
16 
 
 is a threat; and the nation, which would give satis- 
 faction to an inqidry, will give no other answer to 
 a menace than a menace in return. At length we 
 begin to fight, not because we are aggrieved, but be- 
 cause we are angry. 
 
 The object of the haughtiness and petulance which 
 one nation uses towards another, is of course to produce 
 some benefit; to awe into compliance with its demands, 
 or into forbearance from aggression. Nov/ it ought to 
 be distinctly shown, that petulance and haughtiness 
 are more efficacious than calmness and moderation ; 
 that an address to the passions of a probable enemy is 
 more likely to avert mischief from ourselves, than an 
 address to their reason and their virtue. Nations are 
 composed of men, and of men with human feelings. 
 Whether with individuals or with communities, *' a 
 soft answer turneth away wrath." There is, indeed, 
 something in the calmness of reason — in an endeavour 
 to convince rather than to intimidate — in an honest 
 solicitude for friendliness and peace, which obtains, 
 which commands, which extorts forbearance and es- 
 teem. This is the privilege of rectitude and truth. 
 It is an inherent quality of their nature ; an evidence 
 of their identity with perfect wisdom. I believe, there- 
 fore, that even as it concerns our interests^ moderation 
 and forbearance would be the most politic. And let 
 not our duties be forgotten ; for forbearance and mode- 
 ration are duties, absolutely and indispensably imposed 
 upon us by Jesus Christ. 
 
 The " balance of power" is a phrase with which we 
 are made sufficiently famiUar, as one of the great objects 
 of national policy, that must be attained, at whatever 
 cost of treasure or of blood. The support of this ba- 
 lance, therefore, is one of the great purposes of war, 
 and one of the great occasions of its frequency. 
 
17 
 
 It is, perhaps, not idle to remark, that a balance of 
 power amongst nations, is inherently subject to con- 
 tinual interruption. If all the countries of Europe 
 were placed on an equality to-day, they would of neces- 
 sity become unequal to-morrow. This is the inevitable 
 tendency of human affairs. Thousands of circum- 
 stances which sagacity cannot foresee, will continually 
 operate to destroy an equilibrium. Of men, who enter 
 the world with the same possessions and the same 
 prospects, one becomes rich and the other poor; one 
 harangues in the senate, and another labours in a 
 mine ; one sacrifices his life to intemperance, and 
 another starves in a garret. How accurately soever we 
 may adjust the strength and consequence of nations to 
 each other, the failure of one harvest, the ravages of 
 one tempest, the ambition of one man, may unequalize 
 them in a moment. It is, therefore, not a trifling 
 argument against this anxious endeavour to attain an 
 equipoise of power, to find that no equipoise can be 
 maintained. When negotiation has followed negotia- 
 tion, and treaty has been piled upon treaty, and war 
 has succeeded to war, the genius of a Napoleon, or the 
 fate of an armada, nullifies our labours without the pos- 
 sibility of prevention. I do not know how much 
 nations have gained by a balance of power, but it is 
 worth remembrance that some of those countries which 
 have been most solicitous to preserve it, have been most 
 frequently fighting with each other. How many wars 
 has a balance of power prevented, in comparison with 
 the number that have been waged to maintain it? 
 
 It is, indeed, deplorable enough that such a balance 
 is to be desired; and that the wickedness and violence 
 of mankind are so great, that nothing can prevent them 
 from destroying one another, but an equality of the 
 means of destruction. In such a state of malignity and 
 
 C 
 
1« 
 
 outrage, it need not be disputed, that, if it could be 
 maintained, an equality of strength is sufficiently desi- 
 rable ; as tigers may be restrained from tearing one 
 another by mutual fear, without any want of savage- 
 ness. It should be remembered, then, that whatever 
 can be said in favour of a balance of power, can be said 
 only because we are wicked ; that it derives all its value 
 from our crimes ; and that it is wanted only to restrain 
 the outrage of our violence, and to make us contented 
 to growl when we should otherwise fight. 
 
 Wars are often promoted from considerations of 
 interest, as well as from passion. The love of gain 
 adds its influence to our other motives to support them, 
 and without other motives, we know that this love is 
 sufficient to give great obliquity to the moral judgment, 
 and to tempt us to many crimes. During a war of ten 
 years, there will always be many whose income de- 
 pends on its continuance ; and a countless host of com- 
 missaries, and purveyors, and agents, and mechanics, 
 commend a war, because it fills their pockets. These 
 men have commonly but one question respecting a 
 war, and that is, — whether they get by it. This is the 
 standard of their decision, and this regulates the mea- 
 sure of their support. If money is in prospect, the 
 desolation of a kingdom is of little concern ; destruc- 
 tion and slaughter are not to be put in competition 
 with a hundred a year. In truth, it seems to be the 
 system of the conductors of a war, to give to the sources 
 of gain every possible ramification. The more there 
 are who profit by it, the more numerous will be its 
 supporters ; and thus the wishes of the cabinet become 
 united with the avarice of the people, and both are 
 gratified in slaughter and devastation. 
 
 A support more systematic and powerful is, however, 
 given to war, because it offers to the higher ranks of 
 
• 19 
 
 society, a profession which unites gentility with profit, 
 and which, without the vulgarity of trade, maintains or 
 enriches them. It is of Uttle consequence to inquire 
 whether the distinction of vulgarity between the toils 
 of war and the toils of commerce, be fictitious. In the 
 abstract, it is fictitious ; but of this species of reputa- 
 tion public opinion holds the arhitrium, etjus, et norma 
 — and public opinion is in favour of war. 
 
 The army and the navy therefore afford to the middle 
 and higher classes, a most acceptable profession. The 
 profession of arms is like the profession of law or 
 physic — a regular source of employment and profit. 
 Boys are educated for the army, as they are educated 
 for the bar; and parents appear to have no other idea 
 than that war is part of the business of the world. Of 
 ijounger sons, whose fathers do not choose to support 
 them at the expense of the heir, the army and the navy 
 are the common resource. They would not know 
 what to do without them. To many of these, the news 
 of a peace becomes a calamity : principle is not power- 
 ful enough to cope with interest: they prefer the 
 desolation of the world, to the loss of a colonelcy. It 
 is in this manner that much of the rank, the influence, 
 and the wealth of a country become interested in the 
 promotion of wars; and when a custom is promoted by 
 wealth, and influence, and rank, what is the wonder 
 that it should be continued ? 
 
 Yet it is a dreadful consideration that the destruc- 
 tion of our fellows should become a business by which 
 to live ; and that a man can find no other occupation 
 of gain, than that of butchering his neighbours. It is 
 said (if my memory serves me, by Sir Walter Raleigh), 
 " he that taketh up his rest to live by this profession 
 shall hardly be an honest man." — " Where there is no- 
 obligation to obey,'' says Lord Clarendon, ''it is a won- 
 
 B 2 
 
2a 
 
 derful, and an unnatural appetite, that disposes men to 
 be soldiers, that they may know how to live; and what 
 reputation soever it may have in poUtics, it can have 
 none in religion, to say, that the art and conduct of a 
 soldier is not infused by nature, but by study, experi- 
 ence, and observation ; and therefore that men are to 
 lear7i it: — when, in truth, this common argument is 
 made hij appetite to excuse, and not hy reason to support, 
 an ill custom."* People do not often become soldiers 
 in order to serve their country, but to serve themselves. 
 An income is commonly the motive to the great, and 
 idleness to the poor. To plead the love of our country 
 is therefore hypocrisy ; and let it be remembered that 
 h3^pocrisy is itself an evidence, and an acknowledg- 
 ment, that the motive which it would disguise is bad. 
 
 By depending upon war for a subsistence, a powerful 
 inducement is given to desire it; and I would submit 
 it to the conscientious part of the profession, that he 
 who desires a war for the sake of its profits has lost 
 something of his virtue : he has, at least, enlisted one 
 of the most influential of human propensities against it, 
 and when the prospect of gratification is before him — 
 when the question of war is to be decided — it is to be 
 feared that he will suffer the whispers of interest to 
 prevail, and that humanity, and religion, and his con- 
 science will be sacrificed to promote it. But whenever 
 we shall have learnt the nature of pure Christianity, and 
 have imbibed its dispositions, we shall not be willing to 
 avail ourselves of such a horrible source of profit ; nor 
 to contribute to the misery, and wickedness, and de- 
 struction of mankind, in order to avoid a false and 
 foolish shame. 
 
 It is frequently in the power of individual statesmen 
 to involve a people in a war. '^ Their restraints," says 
 
 * Lord Clarendon's Essays. 
 
21 
 
 Knox, " in the pursuit of political objects, are not those 
 of morality and religion, but solely reasons of state, and 
 political caution. Plausible words are used, but they 
 are used to hide the deformity of the real principles. 
 Wherever war is deemed desirable in an interested 
 view, a specious pretext never yet remained un- 
 found ;"* — and " when they have once said what they 
 think convenient, how untruly soever, they proceed to 
 do what they judge will be profitable, how unjustly 
 soever ; and this, men very absurdly and unreasonably 
 would have called reason of state ^ to the discredit of all 
 solid reason, and all rules of probity. "f Statesmen 
 have two standards of morality — a social and a political 
 standard. Political morality embraces all crimes; 
 except, indeed, that it has that technical virtue which 
 requires that he who may kill a hundred men with 
 bullets, should not kill one with arsenic. And from 
 this double system of morals it happens, that statesmen 
 who have no restraint to political enormities but politi- 
 cal expediency, are sufficiently amiable in private life 
 But " probity," says Bishop Watson, '' is an uniform 
 principle ; it cannot be put on in our private closet, 
 and put off in the council-chamber or the senate :" and 
 I fear that he who is wicked as a statesman, if he be 
 good as a man, has some other motive to goodness than 
 its love; that he is decent in private life, because it is 
 not expedient that he should be flagitious. It cannot 
 be hoped that he has much restraint from principle. I 
 believe, however, the time will come, when it will be 
 found that God has instituted but one standard of 
 morality, and that to that standard is required the 
 universal conformity, of nations, and of men. 
 
 Of the wars of statesmen's ambition, it is not necessary 
 
 * Knox's Essays. -j- Lord Clarendon's Essays. 
 
22 
 
 to speak, because no one to whom the world will listen, 
 is willing to defend them. 
 
 But statesmen have, besides ambition, many pur- 
 poses of nice policy which make wars convenient ; and 
 when they have such purposes, they are cool specu- 
 lators in blood. They who have many dependants 
 have much patronage, and they who have much pa- 
 tronage have much power. By a war, thousands be- 
 come dependent on a minister ; and if he be disposed, 
 he can often pursue schemes of guilt, and intrench 
 himself in unpunished wickedness, because the war 
 enables him to silence the clamour of opposition by an 
 office, and to secure the suffrages of venality by a bribe. 
 He has therefore many motives to w^ar, in ambition 
 that does not refer to conquest; or, in fear, that extends 
 only to his office or his pocket : and fear or ambition 
 are sometimes more interesting considerations than the 
 happiness and the lives of men. Or perhaps he wants 
 to immortalize his name by a splendid administration ; 
 and he thinks no splendour so great as that of conquest 
 and plunder. Cabinets have, in truth, many secret 
 motives of wars of which the people know little. They 
 talk in public of invasions of right, of breaches of 
 treaty, of the support of honour, of the necessity of 
 retaliation, when these motives have no influence on 
 their determination. Some untold purpose of expe- 
 diency, or the private quarrel of a prince, or the pique 
 or anger of a minister, are often the real motives to 
 a contest, whilst its promoters are loudly talking of the 
 honour or- the safety of the country. The motives to 
 war are indeed without end to their number, or their 
 iniquity, or their insignificance. What was the motive 
 of Xerxes in his invasion of Greece ? 
 
 It is to be feared that the world has sometimes seen 
 
23 
 
 the example of a war, begun and prosecuted for the 
 simple purpose of appeasing the clamours of a people 
 by diverting their attention : 
 
 " I well might lodge a fear 
 To be again displaced ; which, to avoid, 
 I cut them of!^ and had a purpose now 
 To lead out many to the Holy Land, 
 Lest rest and lying still might make them look 
 Too near into my state. Therefore, my Harry, 
 Be it thy course to busy giddy minds 
 With foreign quarrels ; that action hence borne out 
 May waste the memory of former days." 
 
 When the profligacy of a minister, or the unpopu 
 larity of his measures, has excited public discontent, he 
 can perhaps find no other way of escaping the resent 
 ment of the people, than by thus making them forget 
 it. He therefore discovers a pretext for denouncing 
 war on some convenient country, in order to divert the 
 indignation of the public from himself to their new 
 made enemies. Such wickedness has existed, and may 
 exist again. Surely it is nearly the climax of possible 
 iniquity. I know not whether the records of human 
 infamy present another crime of such enormous or such 
 abandoned wickedness. A monstrous profligacy or 
 ferocity that must be, which for the sole purpose ot 
 individual interest, enters its closet, and coolly fabri- 
 cates pretences for slaughter; that quietly contrives 
 the exasperation of the public hatred, and then flings 
 the lighted brands of war amongst the devoted and 
 startling people. 
 
 The public, therefore, whenever a war is designed, 
 should diligently inquire into the motives of engaging 
 in it. It should be an inquiry that will not be satisfied 
 with idle declamations on indeterminate dangers, and 
 that is not willing to take any thing upon trust. The 
 public should see the danger for themselves; and if 
 they do not see it, should refuse to be led, blindfold, to 
 
24 
 
 murder their neighbours. This, we think, is the pubhc 
 duty, as it is certainly the public interest. It implies 
 a forgetfulness of the ends and purposes of government, 
 and of the just degrees and limitations of obedience, to 
 be hurried into so dreadful a measure as a war, without 
 knowing the reason, or asking it. A people have the 
 power of prevention, and they ought to exercise it. 
 Let me not, however, be charged with recommending 
 violence or resistance. The power of preventing war 
 consists in the power of refusing to take part in it. 
 This is the mode of opposing political evil, which 
 Christianity permits, and, in truth, requires. And as 
 it is the most Christian method, so, as it respects war, 
 it were certainly the most efficacious ; for it is obvious 
 that war cannot be carried on without the co-operation 
 of the people. 
 
 But I believe the greatest cause of the popularity of 
 war, and of the facility with which we engage in it, 
 consists in this; that an idea of glory is attached to 
 military exploits, and of honour to the military pro- 
 fession. Something of elevation is supposed to belong 
 to the character of the soldier ; whether it be that we 
 involuntarily presume his personal courage ; or that he 
 who makes it his business to defend the rest of the 
 community, acquires the superiority of a protector; 
 or that the profession implies an exemption from the 
 laborious and the " meaner" occupations of life. There 
 is something in war, whether phantom or reality, which 
 glitters and allures ; and the allurement is powerful, 
 since we see that it induces us to endure hardships and 
 injuries, and expose life to a continual danger. Men 
 do not become soldiers because life is indifferent to 
 them, but because of some extrinsic circumstances 
 which attach to the profession ; and some of the most 
 jnfiuential of these circumstances are the fame, the 
 
25 
 
 spirit, the honour, the glory, which mankind agree to 
 belong to the warrior. The glories of battle, and of 
 those who perish in it, or who return in triumph to their 
 country, are favourite topics of declamation with the 
 historian, the biographer, and the poet. They have 
 told us a thousand times of dying heroes, who *' resign 
 their lives amidst the joys of conquest, and filled with 
 England's glory, smile in death;" and thus every 
 excitement that eloquence and genius can command 
 is employed to arouse that ambition of fame which can 
 be gratified only at the expense of blood. 
 
 There are many ways in which a soldier derives 
 pleasure from his profession. A military officer* when 
 he walks the street, is an object of notice; he is a man 
 of spirit, of honour, of gallantry ; wherever he be, he is 
 distinguished from ordinary men; he is an acknow- 
 ledged gentleman. If he engage in battle, he is brave, 
 and noble, and magnanimous : If he be killed, he has 
 died for his country ; he has closed his career rvith glory. 
 Now all this is agreeable to the mind ; it flatters some 
 of its strongest and most pervading passions ; and the 
 gratification which these passions derive from war, is 
 one of the great reasons why men so willingly engage 
 in it. 
 
 Now we ask the question of a man of reason, what 
 is the foundation of this fame and glory ? We profess 
 that, according to the best of our powers of discovery, 
 no solid foundation can be found. Upon the founda- 
 tion, whatever it be, an immense structure is however 
 raised — a structure so vast, so brilliant, so attractive, 
 that the greater portion of mankind are content to gaze 
 in admiration, without any inquiry into its basis, or 
 
 * These observations apply also to the naval profession ; but I have in 
 this passage, as in some other parts of the Essay, mentioned only soldiers, to 
 prevent circumlocution. 
 
 D 
 
26 
 
 any solicitude for its durability. — If, however, it should 
 be, that the gorgeous temple will be able to stand only 
 till Christian truth and light become predominant, it 
 surely will be wise of those who seek a niche in its 
 apartments as their paramount and final good, to pause 
 ere they proceed. If they desire a reputation that 
 shall outlive guilt and fiction, let them look to the basis 
 of military fame. If this fame should one day sink into 
 oblivion and contempt, it will not be the first instance 
 in which wide-spread glory has been found to be 
 a glittering bubble, that has burst, and been for- 
 gotten. Look at the days of chivalry. Of the ten 
 thousand Quixottes of the middle ages, where is now 
 the honour or the name ? Yet poets once sang their 
 praises, and the chronicler of their achievements be- 
 lieved he was recording an everlasting fame. Where 
 are now the glories of the tournament ? Glories 
 
 " Of which all Europe rung from side to side." 
 
 Where is the champion whom princes caressed, and 
 nobles envied ? Where are now the triumphs of Duns 
 Scotus, and where are the folios that perpetuated his 
 fame ? The glories of war have indeed outlived these. 
 Human passions are less mutable than human follies ; 
 but I am willing to avow my conviction that these 
 glories are alike destined to sink into forgetfulness ; 
 and that the time is approaching, when the applauses 
 of heroism, and the splendours of conquest, will be 
 remembered only as follies and iniquities that are past. 
 Let him who seeks for fame, other than that which an 
 era of Christian purity will allow, make haste; for 
 every hour that he delays its acquisition will shorten 
 its duration. This is certain, if there be certainty in 
 the promises of Heaven. 
 
 In inquiring into the foundation of military glory, 
 
27 
 
 it will be borne in mind, that it is acknowledged 1 > 
 our adversaries, that this glory is not recognised by 
 Christianitij . No part of the heroic character, says 
 one of the great advocates of war, is the subject of the 
 *' commendation, or precepts, or example" of Christ; 
 but the character and dispositions most opposite to the 
 heroic are the subject of them all.* This is a great 
 concession ; and it surely is the business of Christians, 
 who are sincere in their profession, to doubt the purity 
 of that '' glory" and the rectitude of that "heroic cha- 
 racter," which it is acknowledged that their Great 
 Instructer never in any shape countenanced, and often 
 obliquely condemned.! 
 
 If it be attempted to define why glory is allotted to 
 the soldier, we suppose that we shall be referred to his 
 skill, or his bravery, or his patriotism. 
 
 Of sMll it is not necessary to speak, since very few 
 have the opportunity of displaying it. The business 
 of the great majority is only obedience ; and obedience 
 of that sort which almost precludes the exercise of 
 talent. 
 
 The rational and immortal being, who raises the 
 edifice of his fame on simple hraverij, has chosen but 
 an unworthy and a frail foundation. Separate bravery 
 from motives and purposes, and what will remain but 
 that which is possessed by a mastiff or a game-cock ? 
 All just, all rational, and we will venture to affirm, all 
 permanent reputation, refers to the mind or to virtue ; 
 and what connexion has animal power or animal hardi- 
 hood with intellect or goodness 1 I do not decry cou- 
 rage. I know that He who was better acquainted than 
 we are with the nature and worth of human actions, 
 
 * Dr Paley. 
 
 f " Christianity quite annihilates the disposition for martial glory." — 
 Bishop Watson. 
 C 
 
28 
 
 attached much value to courage ; but he attached none 
 to bravery. Courage He recommended by his pre- 
 cepts, and enforced by his example : bravery He never 
 recommended at all. The w^isdom of this distinction, 
 and its accordancy vv'ith the principles of his religion, 
 are plain. Bravery requires the existence of many of 
 those dispositions which he disallowed. Animosity, 
 resentment, the desire of retaliation, the disposition to 
 injure and destroy, all this is necessary to bravery; 
 but all this is incompatible with Christianity. The 
 courage which Christianity requires is to bravery 
 what fortitude is to daring — an effort of the mind 
 rather than of the spirits. It is a calm, steady deter- 
 minateness of purpose, that will not be diverted by 
 solicitation, or aw^ed by fear. *' Behold, I go bound in 
 the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that 
 shall befal me there, save that the Holy Ghost witness- 
 eth in every city, saying, that bonds and afflictions 
 abide me. But none of these things move me; neither 
 count I my life dear unto my self ^^ What resemblance 
 has bravery to courage like this ? This courage is a 
 virtue, and a virtue which it is difficult to acquire or to 
 practise ; and we have, therefore, heedlessly or inge- 
 niously, transferred its praise to another quality, which 
 is inferior in its nature, and easier to acquire, in order 
 that we may obtain the reputation of virtue at a cheap 
 rate. That simple bravery implies mnch merit, it will 
 be difficult to show — at least, if it be meritorious, we 
 think it will not always be easy, in awarding the ho- 
 nours of a battle, to determine the preponderance of 
 virtue between the soldier and the horse which carries 
 him. 
 
 But patriotism is the great foundation of the soldier's 
 V»*ory. Patriotism is the universal theme. To ** fight 
 
 * Acts XX. 22. 
 
29 
 
 nobly for our country ," — to " fall, covered with glory, 
 in our country's cause ;" — to " sacrifice our lives for 
 the liberties, and laws, and religion of our country" — 
 are phrases in the mouth of every man. What do they 
 mean, and to whom do they apply ? 
 
 We contend that to saj^ generally of those w^ho pe- 
 rish in war, that ''they have died for their country," 
 is simply untrue; and for this simple reason, that they 
 did not fight for it. To impugn the notion of ages, 
 is perhaps a hardy task ; but we wish to employ, not 
 dogmatism, but argument : and we maintain that men 
 have commonly no such purity of motive, that they 
 have no such patriotism. What is the officer's motive 
 to entering the army ? We appeal to himself Is it 
 not that he may obtain an income ? And what is the 
 motive of the private ? Is it not that he prefers a life of 
 idleness to industry, or that he had no wish but the wish 
 for change ? Having entered the army, what, again, 
 is the soldier's motive to fight? Is it not that fighting 
 is a part of his business — that it is one of the conditions 
 of his servitude? We are not now saying that these 
 motives are bad, but we are saying that they are the 
 motives, — and that patriotism is not. Of those who fall 
 in battle, is there one in a hundred who even thinks of 
 his country's good ? He thinks, perhaps, of its glory, 
 and of the honour of his regiment, but for his country's 
 advantage or welfare, he has no care and no thought. 
 He fights, because fighting is a matter of course to a 
 soldier, or because his personal reputation is at stake, 
 or because he is compelled to fight, or because he 
 thinks nothing at all of the matter; but seldom, indeed, 
 because he wishes to benefit his country. He fights in 
 battle, as a horse draws in a carriage, because he is 
 compelled to do it, or because he has done it before ; 
 but he seldom thinks more of his country's good, than 
 
30 
 
 the same horse, if he were carrying corn to a granary- 
 would think he was providing for the comforts of his 
 master. 
 
 And, indeed, if the soldier speculated on his coun 
 try's good, he often cannot tell how it is affected by 
 the quarrel. Nor is it to be expected of him that he 
 should know this. When there is a rumour of a war, 
 there is an endless diversity of opinions as to its expe- 
 diency, and endless oppositions of conclusion, whether 
 it will tend more to the good of the country, to prose- 
 cute or avoid it. If senators and statesmen cannot 
 calculate the good or evil of a war, — if one promises 
 advantages and another predicts ruin, — how is the sol- 
 dier to decide ? And without deciding and promoting 
 the good, how is he to be patriotic ? Nor will much be 
 gained by saying, that questions of policy form no part 
 of his business, and that he has no other duty than 
 obedience ; since this is to reduce his agency to the 
 agency of a machine ; and moreover, by this rule, his 
 arms might be directed, indifferently, to the annoy 
 ance of another country, or to the oppression of his 
 own. The truth is, that we give to the soldier that 
 of which we are wont to be sufficiently sparing — a 
 gratuitous concession of merit. In ordinary life, an 
 individual maintains his individual opinions, and pur- 
 sues correspondent conduct, with the approbation of 
 one set of men, and the censures of another. One 
 party says, he is benefiting his country, and another 
 maintains that he is ruining it. But the soldier, for 
 whatever he fights, and whether really in promotion 
 of his country's good, or in opposition to it, is always 
 a patriot, and is always secure of his praise. If the 
 war is a national calamity, and was foreseen to be 
 such, still he fights for his country. If his judgment 
 has decided against the war, and against its justice or 
 
31 
 
 expediency, still he fights for his country. He is 
 always virtuous. If he but uses a bayonet, he is 
 always a patriot. 
 
 To sacrifice our lives for the liberties, and laws, and 
 religion of our native land, are undoubtedly high- 
 sounding words : — but who are they that will do it? 
 Who is it that will sacrifice his life for his country T 
 Will the senator who supports a war ? Will the writer 
 who declaims upon patriotism ? Will the minister 
 of religion who recommends the sacrifice ? Take 
 away glory — take away war, and there is not a man of 
 them who will do it. Will you sacrifice your life at 
 hjome ? If the loss of your life in London or at York, 
 would procure just so much benefit to your country, 
 as the loss of one soldier in the field, would you be 
 willing to lay your head upon the block? Are you 
 willing to die without notice and without remembrance ; 
 and for the sake of this little undiscoverable contribution 
 to your country's good. You would, perhaps, die to 
 save your country ; but this is not the question. A 
 soldier's death does not save his country. The ques- 
 tion is, whether, without any of the circumstances of 
 war, without any of its glory or its pomp, you are wil- 
 ling to resign yourself to the executioner. If you are 
 not, you are not willing to die for your country. And 
 there is not an individual amongst the thousands who 
 declaim upon patriotism, who is willing to do it. He 
 will lay down his life, indeed- — but it must be in war : 
 He is willing to die — but it is not for patriotism, but 
 for glory. 
 
 The argument we think is clear — that patriotism is 
 NOT the m(»tive; and that in no rational use of language 
 can it be said that the soldier '' dies for his country." 
 Men will not sacrifice their lives at all, unless it be in 
 
 C2 
 
32 
 
 war, and they do not sacrifice them in war from mo- 
 tives of patriotism.* 
 
 What then is the foundation of military fame ? Is it 
 bravery ? Bravery has Uttle connexion with reason, 
 and less with religion. Intellect may despise, and 
 Christianity condemns it. Is it patriotism ? Do we 
 refer to the soldier's motives and purposes ? If we do, 
 he is not necessarily, or often, a patriot. It was a 
 common expression amongst sailors, and, perhaps, may 
 be so still — '' I hate the French, because they are 
 slaves, and wear wooden shoes." This was the sum 
 of their reasonings and their patriotism ; and I do not 
 think the mass of those who fight on land, possess a 
 greater. 
 
 Crimes should be traced to their causes: and guilt 
 should be fixed upon those who occasion, although 
 they may not perpetrate them. And to whom are the 
 frequency and the crimes of war to be principally at- 
 tributed ? To the directors of public opinion, to the 
 
 * We know that there may be, and have been, cases in which the soldier 
 possesses purer motives. An invasion may rouse the national patriotism and 
 arm a people for the unmingled purpose of defending themselves. Here is 
 a definite purpose, a purpose which every individual understands and is 
 interested in : and if he die under such circumstances, we do not deny that 
 his motives are patriotic. The actions to which they prompt, are, however, 
 a separate consideration, and depend for their qualities on the rectitude of 
 war itself. Motives may be patriotic, when actions are bad. I might, 
 perhaps, benefit my country by blowing- up a fleet, of which the cargo would 
 injure our commerce. My motive may be patriotic, but my action is vicious. 
 
 It is not sufficiently borne in mind, that patriotism, even much purer than 
 this, is not necessarily a virtue. " Christianity," says Bishop Watson, 
 *' does not encourage particular patriotism, in opposition to general benig- 
 rtity." And the reason is easy of discovery. Christianity is designed to 
 benefit, not a community, but the world, if it unconditionally encouraged 
 particular patriotism, the duties of a subject of one state would often be in 
 opposition to those of a subject of another. Christianity, however, knows 
 no such inconsistencies ; and whatever patriotism, therefore, is opposed, in 
 its exercise, to the general welfare of mankind, is, in nc degree, a virtue. 
 
33 
 
 declaimers upon glory : — to men who sit quietly at 
 home in their studies and at their desks ; to the his- 
 torian, and the biographer, and the poet, and the moral 
 philosopher ; to the pamphleteer ; to the editor of the 
 newspaper ; to the teacher of religion. One example 
 of declamation from the pulpit I would oifer to the 
 reader : — " Go then, ye defenders of your country ; 
 advance, with alacrity, into the field, where God him- 
 self musters the hosts to war. Religion is too much 
 interested in your success, not to lend you her aid. 
 She will shed over this enterprise her selectest influence 
 I cannot but imagine, the virtuous heroes, legislators, 
 and patriots, of every age and country, are bending 
 from their elevated seats to witness this contest, as if 
 they were incapable, till it be brought to a favourable 
 issue, of enjoying their eternal repose. Enjoy that 
 repose, illustrious immortals ! Your mantle fell when 
 you ascended, and thousands, inflamed with spirit, and 
 impatient to tread in your steps, are ready to swear 
 by Him that sitteth upon the throne, and liveth for 
 ever and ever, they will protect freedom in her last 
 asylum, and never desert that cause which you sus- 
 tained by your labours, and cemented with your blood. 
 And thou, sole Ruler among the children of men, to 
 whom the shields of the earth belong, — Gird on thy 
 sword, thou most Mighty. Go forth with our hosts in 
 the day of battle ! Impart, in addition to their heredi- 
 tary valour, that confidence of success which springs 
 from thy presence ! Pour into their hearts the spirit 
 of departed heroes! Inspire them with thine own; 
 and while led by thine hand, and fighting under thy 
 banners, open thou their eyes to behold in every val- 
 ley, and in every plain, what the prophet beheld by 
 the same illumination — chariots of fire, and horses of 
 fire. Then shall the strong man be as tow, and the 
 
 E 
 
34 
 
 maker of it as a spark; and they shall both bum 
 together, and none shall quench them!"* Of such 
 irreverence of language, employed to convey such 
 violence of sentiment, the world, I hope, has had few- 
 examples. Oh ! how unlike another exhortation — 
 '' Put on mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meek- 
 ness, long-suffering, forbearing one another, and for- 
 giving one another, if any man have a quarrel against 
 
 any."t 
 
 '' As long as mankind," says Gibbon, " shall con- 
 tinue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroy- 
 ers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military 
 glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted charac- 
 ters."} *''Tis strange to imagine," says the Earl of 
 Shaftesbury, " that war, which of all things appears 
 the most savage, should be the passion of the most 
 heroic spirits." — But he gives us the reason. — '' By a 
 small misguidance of the affection, a lover of mankind 
 becomes a ravager ; a hero and deliverer becomes 
 
 * " The Sentiments proper to the Crisis."— A Sermon, preached October 
 19, 1803, by Robert Hall, A.M. 
 
 j- Nor is the preacher inconsistent with Apostles alone. He is also incon- 
 sistent with himself. In another discourse, delivered in the preceding yeai 
 he says : — " The safety of nations is not to be sought in arts or in arms. 
 War reverses^ with respect to its objects, all the rules of morality. It is 
 nothing less than a temporary repeal of all the principles of virtue. It is a 
 system, out of which almost all the virtues are excluded^ and in which nearly 
 all the vices are incorporated. In instructing us to consider a portion of our 
 fellow creatures as the proper objects of enmity, it removes, as far as they are 
 concerned, the basis of all society, of all civilization and virtue ,- for the basis 
 of these, is the good will due to every individual of the species.''^ — " Religion," 
 then, we are told, " sheds its selectest influence over that which repeals 
 all the principles of virtue" — over that " in which nearly all the vices are 
 incorporated !" What " religion" it is which does this, I do not know,— but 
 I know that it is not the religion of Christ. Truth never led into contradic- 
 tions like these. Well was it said that we cannot serve two masters. The 
 quotations which we have given, are evidence sufficient that he who holds 
 with the one neglects the other. 
 
 t Decline and Fall. 
 
35 
 
 an oppressor and destroyer."* This is the ''vice," 
 and this is the '' misguidance," which we say, that a 
 large proportion of the writers of every civilized coun- 
 try are continually occasioning and promoting ; and 
 thus, without, perhaps, any purpose of mischief, they 
 contribute more to the destruction of mankind than 
 rapine or ambition. A writer thinks, perhaps, that it 
 is not much harm to applaud bravery. The diver- 
 gency from virtae may, indeed, be small in its begin- 
 ning, but the effect of his applauses proceeds in the 
 line of obliquity, until it conducts, at last, to every 
 excess of outrage, to every variety of crime, to every 
 mode of human destruction. 
 
 There is one species of declamation on the glories of 
 those w4io die in battle, to which I would bes: the 
 notice of the reader. We are told that when the last 
 breath of exultation and defiance is departed, the in- 
 trepid spirit rises triur)iphantlij from the field of glory to 
 its kindred heavens. What the hero has been on earth, 
 it matters not: if he dies by a musket ball, he enters 
 heaven in his own right. All men like to suppose that 
 they shall attain felicity at last ; and to find that the}' 
 can attain it without goodness and in spite of vice, is 
 doubtless peculiarly solacing. The history of the 
 hero's achievements wants, indeed, a completeness 
 without it ; and this gratuitous transfer of his soul to 
 heaven, forms an agreeable conclusion to his story. 
 
 I would be far from "dealing damnation round the 
 land," and undoubtingly believe that of those who fall 
 in battle, many have found an everlasting resting-place. 
 But an indiscriminate consignment of the brave to 
 felicity, is certainly unwarranted ; and if wickedness 
 consists in the promotion of wickedness, it is wicked 
 too. 
 
 * Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour. 
 
36 
 
 If we say in positive and glowing language, of men 
 Indiscriminately, and therefore of the bad, that they 
 rise on the wings of ecstacy to heaven, we do all that 
 language can do in the encouragement of profligacy. 
 The terrors of religion may still be dreaded ; but we 
 have, at least to the utmost of our power, diminished 
 their influence. The mind willingly accepts the assu- 
 rance, or acquiesces in the falsehood which it wishes 
 to be true; and in spite of all their better knowledge, 
 it may be feared that some continue in profligacy, in 
 the doubting hope that what poets and historians tell 
 them may not be a fiction. 
 
 Perhaps the most operative encouragement which 
 these declamations give to the soldier's vices, is con- 
 tained in this circumstance — that they manifest that 
 public opinion does not hold them in abhorrence. 
 Public opinion is one of the most efficacious regulators 
 of the passions of mankind ; and upon the soldier this 
 rein is peculiarly influential. His profession and his 
 personal conduct derive almost all their value and 
 their reputation from the opinion of the world, and 
 from that alone. If, therefore, the public voice does 
 not censure his vices — if, in spite of his vices, it awards 
 him everlasting happiness, what restraint remains 
 upon his passions, or what is the wonder if they be not 
 restrained ? 
 
 The peculiar application of the subject to our pur- 
 pose is, however, that these and similar representa- 
 tions are motives to the profession of arms. The mili- 
 tary life is made a privileged profession, in which a 
 man may indulge vices with impunity. His occupa- 
 tion is an apology for his crimes, and shields them from 
 punishment And what greater motive to the military 
 life can be given ? Or what can be more atrocious 
 than the crime of those who give it? I know not, 
 
37 
 
 indeed, whether the guilt predominates, or the folly. 
 Pitiable imbecility surely it is, that can persuade itself 
 to sacrifice all the beauties of virtue, and all the reali 
 ties and terrors of religion, to the love of the flow- 
 ing imagery of spirits ascending to heaven. Whether 
 v^^riters shall do this, is a question, not of choice, but of 
 duty : if we would not be the abettors of crime, and the 
 sharers of its guilt, it is imperative that we refrain. 
 
 The reader will, perhaps, have observed that some 
 of those writers who are liberal contributors to the 
 military passion, occasionally, in moments when truth 
 and nature seem to have burst the influence of habit, 
 emphatically condemn the system which they have so 
 often contributed to support. There are not many 
 books of which the tendency is more warlike, or which 
 are more likely to stimulate the passion for martial 
 glory, than the Life of Nelson, by Southey ; a work, 
 in the composition of which, it probably never sug- 
 gested itself to the author to inquire whether he were 
 not contributing to the destruction of mankind. A 
 contributor, however, as he has been, w^e find in an- 
 other of his works, this extraordinary and memorable 
 passage : — ''There is but one community of Christians 
 in the world, and that unhappily, of all communities 
 one of the smallest, enlightened enough to understand 
 the prohibition of war by our Divine Master, in its 
 plain, literal, and undeniable sense ; and conscientious 
 enough to obey it, subduing the very instinct of nature 
 to obedience."* Of these voluntary or involuntary 
 testimonies of the mind against the principles which it 
 habitually possesses, and habitually inculcates, many 
 examples might be given ;t and they are valuable tes- 
 timonies, because they appear to be elicited by the in- 
 fluence of simple nature and unclouded truth. This, 
 
 ♦ History of Brazil. f See " the Inquiry," &c 
 
38 
 
 I think, is their obvious character. They will com 
 monly be found to have been v^ritten when the mind 
 has become sobered by reason, or tranquillized by reli- 
 gion; when the feelings are not excited by external 
 stimulants, and when conquest, and honour, and glory 
 are reduced to that station of importance to which truth 
 assigns them. 
 
 But whether such testimonies have much tendency 
 to give conviction to a reader, I know not. Sur- 
 rounded as they are with a general contrariety of sen- 
 timent, it is possible that those who read them may 
 pass them by as the speculations of impracticable 
 morality. I cannot, however, avoid recommending 
 the reader, whenever he meets with passages like 
 these, seriously to examine into their meaning and 
 their force : to inquire whether they be not accordant 
 with the purity of truth, and whether they do not 
 possess the greater authority, because they have forced 
 themselves from the mind when least likely to be 
 deceived, and in opposition to all its habits and all its 
 associations. 
 
 Such, then, are amongst the principal of the causes 
 of war. Some consist in want of thought, and some 
 in delusion; some are mercenary, and some simply 
 criminal. Whether any or all of them form a motive 
 to the desolation of empires and to human destruction, 
 such as a good or a reasoning man, who abstracts him- 
 self from habitual feelings, can contemplate with ap- 
 probation, is a question which every one should ask 
 and determine for himself. A conflict of nations is a 
 serious thing : no motive arising from our passions 
 should occasion it, or have any influence in occasioning 
 it : supposing the question of lawfulness to be super- 
 seded, war should be imposed only by stern, inevitable, 
 unyielding necessity. That such a necessity is con- 
 
39 
 
 tained in these motives, I think cannot be shown. We 
 may, therefore, reasonably question the defensibility 
 of the custom, which is continued by such causes, and 
 supported with such motives. If a tree is known by 
 its fruits, we may also judge the fruit by the tree : 
 '' Men do not gather grapes of thorns." If the motives 
 to war and its causes are impure, war itself cannot be 
 virtuous ; and I would, therefore, solemnly invite the 
 reader to give, to the succeeding Inquiry, his sober and 
 Christian attention. 
 
n. 
 
 AN INQUIRY, 
 
 When I endeavour to divest myself of the influence 
 of habit, and to contemplate a battle with those emo- 
 tions which it would excite in the mind of a being who 
 had never before heard of human slaughter, I find that 
 I am impressed only with horror and astonishment: 
 and perhaps, of the two emotions, astonishment is the 
 greater. 
 
 That several thousand persons should meet together, 
 and then deliberately begin to kill one another, appears 
 to the understanding a proceeding so preposterous, so 
 monstrous, that I think a being such as I have sup- 
 posed, would inevitably conclude that they were mad. 
 Nor, if it were attempted to explain to him some 
 motives to such conduct, do I believe that he would be 
 able to comprehend how any possible circumstances 
 could make it reasonable. The ferocity and prodi- 
 gious folly of the act would out-balance the weight of 
 every conceivable motive, and he would turn, unsatis- 
 fied, away, 
 
 " Astonished at the madness of mankind." 
 
 There is an advantage in making suppositions such 
 as these ; because, when the mind has been familiar- 
 
 40 
 
41 
 
 ized to a practice however monstrous or inlinman, it 
 loses some of its sagacity of moral perception — pro- 
 fligacy becomes honour, and inhumanity becomes 
 spirit. But if the subject is by some circumstance 
 presented to the mind unconnected with any of its 
 previous associations, we see it with a new judgment 
 and new feelings; and wonder, perhaps, that we have 
 not felt so or thought so before. And such occasions it 
 is the part of a wise man to seek ; since if they never 
 happen to us, it will often be difficult for us accurately 
 to estimate the qualities of human actions, or to deter- 
 mine whether we approve them from a decision of our 
 judgment, or whether we yield to them only the acqui- 
 escence of habit. 
 
 It is worthy at least of notice and remembrance, 
 that the only being in the creation of Providence 
 which enj^ao-es in the wholesale destruction of his own 
 species, is man ; that being who alone possesses reason 
 to direct his conduct, who alone is required to love his 
 fellows, and who alone hopes in futurity for repose 
 and peace. All this seems wonderful, and may reason- 
 ably humiliate us. The powers which elevate us 
 above the rest of the creation, we have employed in 
 attaining to pre-eminence of outrage and mahgnity. 
 
 It may properly be a subject of wonder, that the 
 arguments which are brought to justify a custom such 
 as war receive so little investigation. It must be a 
 studious ingenuity of mischief, which could devise a 
 practice more calamitous or horrible ? and yet it is a 
 practice of which it rarely occurs to us to inquire into 
 the necessity, or to ask whether it cannot be or ought 
 not to be avoided. In one truth, however, all w^ill ac- 
 quiesce, — that the arguments in favour of such a prac- 
 tice should be unanswerably strong. 
 
 Let it not be said that the experience and the prac- 
 
 F 
 
42 
 
 tice of other ages have superseded the necessity of 
 inquiry in our own ; that there can be no reason to 
 question the lawfulness of that which has been sanc- 
 tioned by forty centuries ; or that he who presumes to 
 question it is amusing himself with schemes of vision- 
 ary philanthropy. *' There is not, it may be," says 
 Lord Clarendon, " a greater obstruction to the investi- 
 gation of truth, or the improvernent of knowledge, than 
 the too frequent appeal, and the too supine resignation 
 of our understanding to antiquity."* Whosoever pro- 
 poses an alteration of existing institutions will meet, 
 from some men, with a sort of instinctive opposition, 
 which appears to be influenced by no process of rea- 
 soning, by no considerations of propriety or principles 
 of rectitude, which defends the existing system because 
 it exists, and which would have equally defended its 
 opposite if that had been the oldest. " Nor is it out 
 of modesty that we have this resignation, or that we 
 do, in truth, think those who have gone before us to 
 be wiser than ourselves ; we are as proud and as peev- 
 ish as any of our progenitors ; but it is out of laziness ; 
 we will rather take their words than take the pains 
 to examine the reason they governed themselves by."t 
 To those who urge objections from the authority of 
 ages, it is, indeed, a sufficient answer to say that they 
 apply to every long continued custom. Slave-dealers 
 urged them against the friends of the abolition; Papists 
 urged them against Wicklifle and Luther ; and the 
 Athenians probably thought it a good objection to an 
 apostle, that " he seemed to be a setter forth of strange 
 gods." 
 
 It is agreed by all sober moralists, that the founda- 
 tion of our duty is the will of God, and that his will is 
 to be ascertained by the Revelation which he has made. 
 
 * Lord Clarendon's Essays. t Ibid. 
 
43 
 
 To Christianity, therefore, we refer in determination 
 of this great question : we admit no other test of truth : 
 and with him who thinks that the decisions of Chris- 
 tianity may be superseded by other considerations, we 
 have no concern ; we address not our argument to him, 
 but lea.ve him to find some other and better standard, 
 by which to adjust his principles and regulate his con- 
 duct. These observations apply to those objectors 
 who loosely say that '* wars are necessary ;" for sup- 
 posing the Christian religion to prohibit war, it is pre- 
 posterous, and irreverent also, to justify ourselves in 
 supporting it, because '' it is necessary " To talk of a 
 divine law which must he disoheijed^ implies, indeed, 
 such a confusion of moral principles as well as laxity 
 of them, that neither the philosopher nor the Christian 
 are required to notice it. But, perhaps, some of those 
 who say that wars are necessary, do not very accu- 
 rately inquire what they mean. There are two sorts 
 of necessity — moral and physical ; and these, it is pro- 
 bable, some men are accustomed to confound. That 
 there is any physical necessity for war — that people 
 cannot, if they choose, refuse to engage in it, no one 
 will maintain. And a moral necessity to perform an 
 action, consists only in the prospect of a certain degret 
 of evil by refraining from it. If, then, those who say 
 that " wars are necessary," mean that they are physi- 
 cally necessary, we deny it. If they mean that wars 
 avert greater evils than they occasion, we ask for proot. 
 Proof has never yet been given : and even if we 
 thought that we possessed such proof, we should still 
 be referred to the primary question— " What is the will 
 of God?" 
 
 It is some satisfaction to be able to give, on a ques- 
 tion of this nature, the testimony of some great minds 
 against the lawfulness of war, opposed as those testi- 
 
 D2 
 
44 
 
 monies are to the general prejudice and the general 
 practice of the world. It has been observed by Bec- 
 caria, that " it is the fate of great truths, to glow only 
 like a flash of lightning amidst the dark clouds in which 
 error has enveloped the universe ; and if our testimo- 
 nies are few or transient, it matters not, so that their 
 light be the light of truth." There are, indeed, many, 
 who in describing tiie horrible particulars of a siege or 
 a battle, indulge in some declamiations on the horrors of 
 war, such as has been often repeated and often ap- 
 plauded, and as often forgotten. But such declama- 
 tions are of little value and of little effect : he who reads 
 the next paragraph finds, probably, that he is invited to 
 follow the path to glory and to victory — to share the 
 herd's danger and partalce the hero's praise ; and he 
 soon discovers that the moralizing parts of his author 
 are the impulse of feelings rather than of principles, 
 and thinks that though it may be very well to write, 
 yet it is better to forget them. 
 
 There are, however, testimonies, delivered in the 
 calm of reflection, by acute and enlightened men, 
 which may reasonably be allowed at least so much 
 weight as to free the present inquiry from the charge 
 of being wild or visionary. Christianity indeed needs 
 no such auxiliaries; but if they induce an examination 
 of her duties, a wise man will not wish them to be dis- 
 regarded. 
 
 '' They who defend war," says Erasmus, *' must 
 defend the dispositions which lead to war ; and these 
 dispositions are absolutely forbidden by the gospel — 
 Since the time that Jesus Christ said, put up thy sword 
 into its scabbard, Christians ought not to go to rvar. 
 — Christ sufl'ered Peter to fall into an error in this 
 matter, on purpose that, when he had put up Peter's 
 sword, it might remain no longer a doubt that war rvas 
 
45 
 
 prohibited, which, before that order, had been consi- 
 dered as allowable." — "I am persuaded," says the 
 Bishop of Llandaff, " that when the spirit of Christi 
 a?iitt/ shall exert its proper influence over the minds ot 
 individuals, and especially over the minds of public 
 men in their public capacities, over the minds of men 
 constituting the councils of princes, from whence are 
 the issues of peace and war — when this happy period 
 shall arrive, 7var will cease throughout the whole Chris- 
 tian world''^- *' War," says the same acute prelate, 
 " has practices and principles peculiar to itself, 7vhich 
 hut ill quadrate with the ride of moral rectitude, and ore 
 quite abhorrent from the benignity of Christianitij P \ 
 The emphatical declaration which I have already 
 quoted for another purpose, is yet more distinct. The 
 prohibition of war by our Divifie Master, is plain, literal, 
 and undeniable.X Dr- Vicesimus Knox speaks in lan- 
 guage equally specific : — " Morality and religion forbid 
 war in its motives, conduct, and consequences T^ 
 
 In an inquiry into the decisions of Christianity upon 
 the question of war, we have to refer — to the general 
 tendency of the revelation ; to the individual declara- 
 tions of Jesus Christ ; to his practice ; to the senti- 
 ments and practices of his commissioned followers ; to 
 the opinions respecting its lawfulness which w^ere held 
 by their immediate converts ; and to some other spe- 
 cies of Christian evidence. 
 
 It is, perhaps, the capital error of those who have 
 attempted to instruct others in the duties of morality, 
 that they have not been willing to enforce the rules of 
 the Christian Scriptures in their full extent. Almost 
 every moralist pauses somewhere short of the point 
 which they prescribe ; and this pause is made at a 
 greater or less distance from the Christian standard, in 
 
 * Life of Bp. Watson, j Ibid. :j: Southey's Hist of Brazil. § Essays. 
 
46 
 
 proportion to the admission, in a greater or less degree, 
 of principles which they have superadded to the prin- 
 ciples of the gospel. Few, however, supersede the 
 laws of Christianity, without proposing some principle 
 of ''expediency," some doctrine of "natural law," 
 some theory of *' intrinsic decency and turpitude," 
 which they lay down as the true standard of moral 
 judgment. — They who reject truth are not likely to 
 escape error. Having mingled with Christianity prin- 
 ciples which it never taught, we are not likely to be 
 consistent with truth, or with ourselves ; and accord- 
 ingly, he who seeks for direction from the professed 
 teachers of morality finds his mind bewildered in con- 
 flicting theories, and his judgment embarrassed by con- 
 tradictory instructions. But " wisdom is justified by 
 all her children ;" and she is justified, perhaps, by no- 
 thing more evidently than by the laws which she has 
 imposed ; for all who have proposed any standard of 
 rectitude, other than that which Christianity has laid 
 down, or who have admixed any foreign principles 
 with the principles which she teaches, have hitherto 
 proved that they have only been '' sporting themselves 
 with their own deceivings."* 
 
 It is a remarkable fact that the laws of the Mosaic 
 dispensation, which confessedly w^as an imperfect 
 system, are laid down clearly and specifically in the 
 form of an express code; whilst those of that purer 
 reliction which Jesus Christ introduced into the world, 
 are onl}^ to be found, casually and incidentally scat- 
 tered, as it w^ere, through a volume — intermixed with 
 
 * " Even thinking men, bewildered by the various and contradictory- 
 systems of moral judgment adopted by different ages and nations, have 
 doubted the existence of any real and permanent standard, and have consi • 
 dered it as the mere creature of habit and education."! — How has the decla- 
 ration been verified — " I will destroy the wisdom of the wise !" 
 t Murray's Inquiries respecting the Progress of Society. 
 
47 
 
 other subjects — elicited by unconnected events — de- 
 livered at distant periods, and for distant purposes, in 
 narratives, in discourses, in conversations, in letters. 
 Into the final purpose of such an ordination (for an 
 ordination it must be supposed to be), it is not our 
 present business to inquire. One important truth, 
 however, results from the fact as it exists : — that those 
 who would form a general estimate of the moral obli- 
 gations of Christianity, must derive it, not from codes, 
 but imva principles ; not from a multiplicity of directions 
 in w^hat manner we are to act, but from instructions 
 respecting the motives and dispositions by which all 
 actions are to be regulated.^ 
 
 It appears, therefore, to follow, that in the inquiry 
 whether w^ar is sanctioned by Christianity, a specific 
 declaration of its decision is not likely to be found. If, 
 then, we be asked for a prohibition of war by Jesus 
 Christ, in the express terms of a command, in the man- 
 ner in which Thou shalt not Jcill is directed to murder, 
 we willingly answer that no such prohibition exists : — 
 and it is not necessary to the argument. Even those 
 who would require such a prohibition, are themselves 
 satisfied respecting the obligation of many negative 
 duties, on which there has been no specific decision in 
 the New Testament. They beheve that suicide is not 
 law^ful. Yet Christianity never forbade it. It can be 
 shown, indeed, by implication and inference, that sui- 
 cide could not have been allowed, and with this they 
 are satisfied. Yet there is, probably, in the Christian 
 Scriptures not a twentieth part of as much indirect 
 evidence agrainst the lawfulness of suicide, as there is 
 against the lawfulness of war. To those who require 
 such a command as Thou shalt not engage in war, it is 
 
 * I refer, of course, to those questions of morality which are not specifi- 
 cally decided. 
 
48 
 
 therefore, sufficient to reply, that they require that 
 which, upon this and upon many other subjects, Chris- 
 tianity has not chosen to give. 
 
 We refer then, first, to the general nature of Chris- 
 tianity, because we think that, if there were no other 
 evidence against the lawfulness of war, we should pos- 
 sess, in that general nature, sufficient proof that it is 
 virtually forbidden. 
 
 That the whole character and spirit of our religion 
 are eminently and peculiarly peaceful, and that it is 
 opposed, in all its principles, to carnage and devasta- 
 tion, cannot be disputed. 
 
 Have peace one with another. By this shall all men 
 hnow that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to an- 
 other. 
 
 Walk rvith all hjdiness and meekness, rvith long-suf- 
 fering, forbearing one another in love. 
 
 Be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of an- 
 other ; love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous, not ren- 
 dering evil for evil, or railing for railing. 
 
 Be at peace among yourselves. See that none render 
 evil for evil to any man. — God hath culLd us to peace. 
 
 Follow after love, patience, meekness. — Be gentle, 
 showing all meekness unto all men. — Live in peace. 
 
 Lay aside all malice. — Put off anger, wrath, malice. — 
 Let all bitteryiess, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, 
 and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. 
 
 Avenge not yourselves. — If thine enemy hunger, feed 
 him ; if he thirst, give him drink. — Recompense to no 
 man evil for evil. — Overcome evil with good. 
 
 Now we ask of any man who looks over these pas- 
 sages, what evidence do they convey respecting the 
 lawfulness of war ? Could any approval or allowance 
 of it have been subjoined to these instructions, without 
 obvious and most gross inconsistency ? But if war is 
 
49 
 
 obviously and most grossly inconsistent with the gene- 
 ral character of Christianity — if war could not have been 
 permitted by its teachers, without any egregious viola- 
 tion of their own precepts, we think that the evidence 
 of its unlawfulness, arising from this general character 
 ahne, is as clear, as absolute, and as exclusive as 
 could have been contained in any form of prohibition 
 whatever. 
 
 To those solemn, discriminative, and public declara- 
 tions of Jesus Christ, which are contained in the " ser- 
 mon on the mount," a reference will necessarily be 
 made upon this great question ; and, perhaps, more is 
 to be learnt from these declarations, of the moral duties 
 of his religion, than from any other part of his commu- 
 nications to the world. It should be remarked, in rela- 
 tion to the injunctions which follow, that he repeatedly 
 refers to that less pure and less peaceable system of 
 morality which the law of Moses had inculcated, and 
 contradistinguishes it from his own. 
 
 *' Ye have heard that it hath been said. An eye for 
 an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, but I say unto you that 
 ye resist not evil ; but whosoever shall smite thee on 
 thy right cheek, turn to him the other also." — "Ye 
 have heard that it hath been said. Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbour, and hate thine enemy; but I say unto you. 
 Love your enemies ; bless them that curse you ; do 
 good to them that hate you ; and pray for them which 
 despitefully use you and persecute you : for if ye love 
 them only which love you, what reward have ye?"* 
 
 There is an extraordinary emphasis in the form of 
 these prohibitions and injunctions. They are not 
 given in an insulated manner. They inculcate the 
 obligations of Christianity as peculiar to itself. The 
 
 * Matt, v., &c. 
 G 
 
50 
 
 previous system of retaliation is introduced for the 
 purpose of prohibiting it, and of distinguishing more 
 clearly and forcibly the pacific nature of the new 
 dispensation. 
 
 Of the precepts from the mount the most obvious 
 characteristic is greater moral excellence and superior 
 purity. They are directed, not so immediately to the 
 external regulation of the conduct, as to the restraint 
 and purification of the affections. In another precepts- 
 it is not enough that an unlawful passion be just so far 
 restrained as to produce no open immorality — the 
 passion itself is forbidden. The tendency of the dis- 
 course is to attach guilt, not to action only, but also to 
 thought. "It has been said, Thou shalt not kill, and 
 whosoever shall kill, shall be in danger of the judgment; 
 but I say, that whosoever is angry with his brother 
 without a cause, shall be in danger of the judgment."! 
 Our lawgiver attaches guilt to some of the violent 
 feelings, such as resentment, hatred, revenge ; and by 
 doing this, we contend that he attaches guilt to war. 
 War cannot be carried on without these passions which 
 he prohibits. Our argument, therefore, is syllogistical. 
 War cannot be allowed, if that which is necessary to 
 war is prohibited. 
 
 It was sufficient for the law of Moses, that men main- 
 tained love towards their neighbours ; towards an 
 enemy they were at liberty to indulge rancour and re- 
 sentment. But Christianity says, " If ye love them 
 only which love you, what reward have ye ? — Love 
 yoar enemies." Now what sort of love does that man 
 bear towards his enemy, who runs him through with a 
 bayonet? We contend that the distinguishing duties 
 of Christianity must be sacrificed when war is carried 
 
 * Matt. V. 28. t Matt. v. 22. 
 
51 
 
 on. The question is between the abandonment of these 
 duties and the abandonment of war, for both cannot be 
 retained.* 
 
 It is, however, objected that the prohibitions, " Resist 
 not evil," &c., are figurative ; and that they do not 
 mean that no injury is to be punished, and no outrage 
 to be repelled. It has been asked, v^ith complacent 
 exultation, what would these advocates of peace say to 
 him who struck them on the right cheek? Would they 
 turn to him the other ? What would these patient 
 moralists say to him who robbed them of a coat? 
 Would they give him a cloak also? What would these 
 philanthropists say to him who asked them to lend a 
 hundred pounds? Would they not turn away ? This 
 is argumentum ad liominem; one example amongst 
 the many, of that lowest and most dishonest of all modes 
 of intellectual warfare, which consists in exciting the 
 feelinors instead of convincinof the understandinof. It 
 is, however, some satisfaction, that the motive to the 
 adoption of this mode of warfare is itself an evidence 
 of a bad cause, for what honest reasoner would produce 
 only a laugh, if he were able to produce conviction? 
 But I must ask, in my turn, what do these objectors 
 say is the meaning of the precepts ? What is the 
 meaning of " resist not evil?" Does it mean to allow 
 bombardment, devastation, murder? If it does not 
 mean to allow all this, it does not mean to allow war. 
 What again do the objectors say is the meaning of 
 " love your enemies," or of "• do good to them that hate 
 you?" Does it mean "ruin their commerce" — "sink 
 
 * Yet the retention of both has been, unhappily enough, attempted. In a 
 late publication, of which part is devoted to the defence of war, the author 
 gravely recommends soldiers, whilst shooting and stabbing their enemies, to 
 maintain towards them a feeling of " good will." — Tracts and Essays, by the 
 late William Hey, Esq., F.R.S. 
 E 
 
52 
 
 their fleets" — "plunder their cities" — "shoot through 
 their hearts ?" If the precept does not mean all this, it 
 does not mean war. We are, then, not required to 
 define what exceptions Christianity may admit to the 
 application of some of the precepts from the mount ; 
 since, whatever exceptions she may allow, it is mani- 
 fest what she does not allow : for if we give to our ob- 
 jectors whatever license of interpretation they may 
 desire, they cannot, either by honesty or dishonesty, 
 so interpret the precepts as to make them allow ivar. 
 I would, however, be far from insinuating that we are 
 left without any means of determining the degree and 
 kind of resistance, which, in some cases, is lawful; 
 although I believe no specification of it can be previ- 
 ously laid down: for if the precepts of Christianity had 
 been multiplied a thousand-fold, there would still have 
 arisen many cases of daily occurrence, to which none 
 of them would precisely have applied. Our business, 
 then, so far as rvritten rules are concerned, is in all 
 cases to which these rules do not apply, to regulate 
 our conduct by those general principles and disposi- 
 tions which our religion enjoins. I say, so far as 
 rvritten rules are concerned; for "if any man lack wis- 
 dom," and these rules do not impart it, " let him ask 
 of God."* 
 
 Of the injunctions that are contrasted with "eye for 
 eye, and tooth for tooth," the entire scope and purpose 
 is the suppression of the violent passions, and the in- 
 culcation of forbearance, and forgiveness, and benevo- 
 
 * It is manifest, from the New Testament, that we are not required to 
 give " a cloak," in every case, to him who robs us of " a coat ;" but I 
 think it is equally manifest that we are required to give it not the less be- 
 cause he has robbed us. The circumstance of his having robbed us does 
 not entail an obligation to give ; but it also does not impart a permission to 
 withhold. If the necessities of the plunderer require relief, it is the business 
 of the plundered to relieve them. 
 
6a 
 
 ience, and love. They forbid, not specifically the act, 
 but the spirit of war ; and this method of prohibition 
 Christ ordinarily employed. He did not often condemn 
 the individual doctrines or customs of the age, how- 
 ever false or however vicious ; but he condemned the 
 passions by which only vice could exist, and inculcated 
 the truth which dismissed every error. And this 
 method was undoubtedly wise. In the gradual altera- 
 tions of human wickedness, many new species of pro- 
 fligacy might arise which the world had not yet prac- 
 tised. In the gradual vicissitudes of human error, 
 many new fallacies might obtain which the world hath 
 not yet held ; and how were these errors and these 
 crimes to be opposed, but by the inculcation of princi- 
 ples that were applicable to every crime and to every 
 error? — principles which tell us not always what is 
 wrong, but which tell us what always is right. 
 
 There are two modes of censure or condemnation ; 
 the one is to reprobate evil, and the other to enforce 
 the opposite good ; and both these modes were adopted 
 by Christ in relation to war. He not only censured 
 the passions that are necessary to war, but inculcated 
 the affections which are most opposed to them. The 
 conduct and dispositions upon which he pronounced 
 his solemn benediction, are exceedingly remarkable. 
 They are these, and in this order : poverty of spirit — 
 mourning — meekness — desire of righteousness — mercy 
 — purity of heart — peace-making — sufferance of per- 
 secution. Now let the reader try whether he can pro- 
 pose eight other qualities, to be retained as the general 
 habit of the mind, which shall be more incongruous 
 with war. 
 
 Of these benedictions I think the most emphatical is 
 that pronounced upon the peace-7nakers : " Blessed are 
 the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children 
 
54 
 
 of God."^ Higher praise or a higher title, no man can 
 receive. Now I do not say that these benedictions 
 contain an absolute proof that Christ prohibited war, 
 but I say they make it clear that he did not approve it. 
 He selected a number of subjects for his solemn appro- 
 bation ; and not one of them possesses any congruity 
 with war, and some of them cannot possibly exist in 
 conjunction with it. Can any one believe that he w^io 
 made this selection, and who distinguished the peace- 
 makers with peculiar approbation, could have sanc- 
 tioned his followers in murdering one another ? Or 
 does any one believe that those who were mourners, 
 and meek, and merciful, and peace-making, could at 
 the same time perpetrate such murder? If I be told 
 that a temporary suspension of Christian dispositions, 
 although necessary to the prosecution of war, does not 
 imply the extinction of Christian principles, or that 
 these dispositions may be the general habit of the mind, 
 and may both precede and follow the acts of war ; I 
 answer that this is to grant all that I require, since it 
 grants that when we engage in war, we abandon 
 Christianity. 
 
 When the betrayers and murderers of Jesus Christ 
 approached him, his followers asked, '' Shall we smite 
 with the sword?" And without waiting for an answer, 
 one of them drew " his sword, and smote the servant 
 of the high-priest, and cut off his right ear." — '' Put 
 up thy sword again into its place," said his Divine 
 Master, '' for all they that take the sword shall perish 
 with the sword. "t There is the greater importance 
 in the circumstances of this command, because it pro- 
 hibited the destruction of human life in a cause in 
 which there were the best of possible reasons for de- 
 stroying it. The question, '' shall we smite with the 
 
 * Matt. V. 9 I Matt. xxvi. 51, 52 
 
55 
 
 sword," obviously refers to the defence of the Re- 
 deemer from his assailants by force of arms. His fol- 
 lowers were ready to fight for him ; and if any reason 
 for fighting could be a good one, they certainly had it. 
 But if, in defence of himself from the hands of bloody 
 ruffians, his religion did not allow the sword to be 
 drawn, for what reason can it be lawful to draw it? 
 The advocates of war are at least bound to show a bet- 
 ter reason for destroying mankind, than is contained in 
 this instance in which it was forbidden. 
 
 It will, perhaps, be said, that the reason why Christ 
 did not suffer himself to be defended by arms was, that 
 such a defence would have defeated the purpose for 
 which he came into the world, namely, to offer up his 
 life ; and that he himself assigns this reason in the con- 
 text. He does indeed assign it ; but the primary rea- 
 son, the immediate context, is — '' for all they that take 
 the sword shall perish with the sword." The re- 
 ference to the destined sacrifice of his life is an after- 
 reference. This destined sacrifice might, perhaps, 
 have formed a reason why his followers should not 
 fight then^ but the first, the principal reason which he 
 assigned, was a reason why they should not fight at all. 
 Nor is it necessary to define the precise import of the 
 words " for all they that take the sword shall perish 
 with the sword :" since it is sufficient for us all, that 
 they imply reprobation. 
 
 To the declaration which was made by Jesus Christ, 
 in the conversation that took place between himself 
 and Pilate, after he had been seized by the Jews, I 
 would peculiarly invite the attention of the reader. 
 The declaration refers specifically to an armed con- 
 flict, and to a conflict between numbers. In allusion 
 to the capability of his followers to have defended his 
 person, he says, '' My kingdom is not of this world ; 
 
 £2 
 
56 
 
 if my kingdom were of this world, then would my ser 
 vants fight ; that I should not he delivered to the Jews: 
 but now is my kingdom not from hence. "^ He had 
 before forbidden his ^^ servants'^ to fight in his defence, 
 and now, before Pilate, he assigns the reason for it: 
 " my kingdom is not of this world." This is the very 
 reason which we are urging against war. We say that 
 it is incompatible with his kingdom — with the state 
 which he came into the world to introduce. The incom- 
 patibility of war with Christianity is yet more forcibly 
 evinced by the contrast which Christ makes between 
 Ms kingdom and others. It is the ordinary practice in 
 the world for subjects to " fight," and his subjects 
 would have fought if his kingdom had been of this 
 world ; but since it was not of this world, — since its 
 nature was purer and its obligations more pacific, — 
 therefore they might not fight. 
 
 His declaration referred, not to the act of a single 
 individual who might draw his sword in individual 
 passion, but to an armed engagement between hostile 
 parties; to a conflict for an important object, which 
 one party had previously resolved on attaining, and 
 which the other were ready to have prevented them 
 from attaining, with the sword. It refers, therefore, 
 strictly to a conflict between armed numbers ; and to 
 a conflict which, it should be remembered, was in a 
 much better cause than any to which we can now pre- 
 tend, f 
 
 It is with the apostles as with Christ himself The 
 
 * John xviii. 36. 
 
 -j- In the publication to which the note, page 45, refers, the author informs 
 us that the reason why Christ forbade his followers to fight in his defence, 
 was, that it would have been to oppose the government of the country. I 
 am glad no better evasion can be found ; and this would not have been found, 
 if the author had consulted the reason assigned by the Prohibitor, before h© 
 promul^ted his own. 
 
57 
 
 incessant object of their discourses and writings is the 
 inculcation of peace, of mildness, of placability. It 
 might be supposed that they continually retained in 
 prospect the reward which would attach to " peace- 
 makers." We ask the advocate of war, whether he 
 discovers in the writings of the apostles, or of the 
 evangelists, any thing that indicates they approved of 
 war. Do the tenor and spirit of their writings bear 
 any congruity with it? Are not their spirit and tenor 
 entirely discordant with it ? We are entitled to renew 
 the observation, that the pacific nature of the apostolic 
 writings proves presumptively that the writers disal- 
 lowed war. That could not be allowed by them, as 
 sanctioned by Christianity, which outraged all the 
 principles that they inculcated. 
 
 "Whence come wars and fightings amongst you?" 
 is the interrogation of one of the apostles, to some 
 w^hom he was reproving for their unchristian conduct. 
 And he answers himself by asking them, '' come they 
 not hence, even of your lusts that war in your mem- 
 bers ?"* This accords precisely with the argument 
 that we urge. Christ forbade the passions which lead 
 to war ; and now, when these passions had broken out 
 into actual fighting, his apostle, in condemning war, 
 refers it back to their passions. We have been saying 
 that the passiojis are condemned^ and, therefore, war ; 
 and now, again, the apostle James thinks, like his 
 Master, that the most effectual way of eradicating war 
 is to eradicate the passions which produce it. 
 
 In the following quotation we are told, not only what 
 the arms of the apostles were not, but what they were. 
 " The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but 
 mighty, through God, to the pulling down of strong 
 holds, and bringing into captivity every thought to the 
 
 * James iv. 1. 
 II 
 
58 
 
 obedience of Christ. ^^^ I quote this, not only because it 
 assures us that the apostles had nothing to do with mili- 
 tar}^ weapons, but because it tells us the object of their 
 warfare — the bringing every thought to the obedience 
 of Christ : and this object I would beg the reader to 
 notice, because it accords with the object of Christ 
 himself in his precepts from the mount — the reduction 
 of the thoughts to obedience. The apostle doubtless 
 knew that, if he could effect this, there was little rea- 
 son to fear that his converts would slaughter one an- 
 other. He followed the example of his Master. He 
 attacked wickedness in its root ; and inculcated 
 those general principles of purity arid forbearance, 
 which, in their prevalence, w^ould abolish war, as they 
 would abolish all other crimes. The teachers of 
 Christianity addressed themselves, not to communities, 
 but men. They enforced the regulation of the passions 
 and the rectification of the heart ; and it was probably 
 clear to the perceptions of apostles, although it is not 
 clear to some species of philosophy, that whatever du- 
 ties were binding upon one man, were binding upon 
 ten, upon a hundred, and upon the state. 
 
 War is not often directly noticed in the writings of 
 the apostles. When it is noticed, it is condemned 
 just in that way in which we should suppose any thing 
 would be condemned, that was notorioushj opposed to 
 the whole system — just as murder is condemned at the 
 present day. Who can find, in modern books, that 
 murder is formally censured ? We may find censures 
 of its motives, of its circumstances, of its degrees of 
 atrocity ; but the act itself no one thinks of censuring, 
 because every one hnorvs that it is wicked. Setting 
 statutes aside, I doubt whether, if an Otaheitan should 
 choose to argue that Christians allow murder because 
 
 * 2 Cot. v. 4. 
 
59 
 
 he cannot find it formally prohibited in their writings, 
 we should not be at a loss to find direct evidence against 
 him. And it arises, perhaps, from the same causes, 
 that a formal prohibition of war is not to be found in 
 the writings of the apostles. I do not believe they 
 imagined that Christianity would ever be charged with 
 allowing it. They write as if the idea of such a charge 
 never occurred to them. They did, nevertheless, vir- 
 tually forbid it; unless any one shall say that they dis- 
 allowed the passions which occasion war, but did not 
 disallow war itself; that Christianity prohibits the cause, 
 but permits the effect ; which is much the same as to 
 say that a law which forbade the administering of ar- 
 senic, did not forbid poisoning. — And this sort of reason- 
 ing, strange and illogical as it is, we shall by and by 
 find has been gravely adopted against us. 
 
 But although the general tenor of Christianity, and 
 many of its direct precepts, appear to me to condemn 
 and disallow war, it is certain that different conclusions 
 have been formed; and many, who are undoubtedly 
 desirous of performing the duties of Christianity, have 
 failed to perceive that war is unlawful to them. 
 
 In examining the arguments by which war is de- 
 fended, two important considerations should be borne 
 in mind — first, that those who urge them, are not sim- 
 ply defending war, they are also defending themselves. 
 If war be wrong, their conduct is wrong; and the de 
 sire of self justification prompts them to give import- 
 ance to whatever arguments they can advance in its 
 favour. Their decisions may therefore, with reason, be 
 regarded as in some degree the decisions of a party in 
 the cause. The other consideration is, that the defend 
 ers of war come to the discussion prepossessed m its 
 favour. They are attached to it by their earliest habits. 
 They do not examine the question as a philosopher 
 
60 
 
 would examine it, to whom the subject was new. Their 
 opinions had been already formed. They are discuss- 
 ing a question which they had already determined. 
 And every man, who is acquainted with the eifects of 
 evidence on the mind, knows that under these circum- 
 stances, a very slender argument in favour of the previ- 
 ous opinions possesses more influence than many great 
 ones against it. Now all this cannot be predicated of 
 the advocates of peace; they are opposing the influence 
 of habit — they are contending against the general pre- 
 judice — they are, perhaps, dismissing their own previ- 
 ous opinions. And I would submit it to the candour of 
 the reader, that these circumstances ought to attach in 
 his mind, suspicion to the validity of the arguments 
 against us. 
 
 The narrative of the centurion who came to Jesus 
 at Capernaum, to solicit him to heal his servant, fur- 
 nishes one of these arguments. It is said that Christ 
 found no fault with the centurion's profession; that if 
 he had disallowed the military character, he would have 
 taken this opportunity of censuring it; and that, in- 
 stead of such censure, he highly commended the officer, 
 and said of him, *'I have not found so great faith, no, 
 not in Israel."* 
 
 An obvious weakness in this argument is this ; that 
 it is founded, not upon approval, but upon silence. Ap- 
 probation is indeed expressed, but it is directed, not to 
 his arms, but to his faith; and those who will read the 
 narrative will find that no occasion was given for notic- 
 ing his profession. He came to Christ, not as a military 
 officer, but simply as a deserving man. A censure of 
 his profession might, undoubtedly, have been pronounc- 
 ed, but it would have been a gratuitous censure, a cen- 
 sure that did not naturally arise out of the case. The 
 
 Matt. viii. 10. 
 
61 
 
 objection is in its greatest weight presumptive only, for 
 none can be supposed to countenance every thing that 
 he does not condemn. To observe silence^ in such 
 cases was, indeed, the ordinary practice of Christ. He 
 very seldom interfered with the civil and political insti- 
 tutions of the world. In these institutions there was 
 sufficient wickedness around him, but some of them, 
 flagitious as they were, he never, on any occasion, even 
 noticed. His mode of condemning and extirpating po- 
 litical vices was by the inculcation of general rules of 
 purity, which, in their eventual and universal applica- 
 tion, would reform them all. 
 
 But how happens it that Christ did not notice the 
 centurion's religion? He surely was an idolater. And 
 is there not as good reason for maintaining that Christ 
 approved idolatry, because he did not condemn it, as 
 that he approved war because he did not condemn it? 
 Reasoninor from analoo^v, we should conclude that idol- 
 atry w^as likely to have been noticed rather than war; 
 and it is therefore peculiarly and singularly unapt to 
 bring forward the silence respecting war as an evi- 
 dence of its lawfulness. 
 
 A similar argument is advanced from the case of 
 Cornelius, to whom Peter was sent from Joppa; of 
 which it is said, that although the gospel was imparted 
 to Cornelius by the especial direction of Heaven, yet 
 we do not find that he therefore quitted his profession, 
 or that it was considered inconsistent with his new 
 character. The objection applies to this argument as 
 to the last, that it is built upon silence, that it is sim- 
 ply negative. We do not find that he quitted the 
 service : — I might answer. Neither do we find that he 
 continued in it. We only know nothing of the matter : 
 and the evidence is therefore so much less than proof, 
 
 * See a future quotation from the " Moral and Political Philosophy. '* 
 
62 
 
 as silence is less than approbation. Yet, that the 
 account is silent respecting any disapprobation of war, 
 might have been a reasonable ground of argument 
 under different circumstances. It might have been a 
 reasonable ground of argument, if the primary object 
 of Christianity had been the reformation of political 
 institutions, or, perhaps, even if her primary object 
 had been the regulation of the external conduct; but 
 her primary object was neither of these. She directed 
 herself to the reformation of the heart, knowing that 
 all other reformation would follow. She embraced 
 indeed both morality and policy, and has reformed or 
 will reform both — not so much immediately as conse- 
 quently ; not so much by filtering the current, as by 
 purifying the spring. The silence of Peter, therefore, 
 in the case of Cornelias, will serve the cause of war 
 but little ; that little is diminished when urged against 
 the positive evidence of commands and prohibitions, 
 and it is reduced to nothingness, when it is opposed to 
 the universal tendency and object of the revelation. 
 
 It has sometimes been urged that Christ paid taxes 
 to the Roman government at a time when it was en- 
 gaged in war, and when, therefore, the money that he 
 paid would be employed in its prosecution. This we 
 shall readily grant ; but it appears to be forgotten by 
 our opponents that, if this proves war to be lawful, 
 they are proving too much. These taxes were thrown 
 into the exchequer of the state, and a part of the 
 money was applied to purposes of a most iniquitous and 
 shocking nature ; sometimes probably to the gratifica- 
 tion of the emperor's personal vices and to his gla- 
 diatorial exhibitions, &c., and certainly to the support 
 of a miserable idolatry. If, therefore, the payment of 
 taxes to such a government proves an approbation of 
 war, it proves an approbation of many other enormi- 
 
63 
 
 ties. Moreover, the argument goes too far in relation 
 even to war; for it mnst necessarily make Christ 
 approve of all the Roman wars, without distinction of 
 their justice or injustice — of the most ambitious, the 
 most atrocious, and the most aggressive; and these 
 even our objectors will not defend. The payment of 
 tribute by our Lord was accordant with his usual sys- 
 tem of avoiding to interfere in the civil or political 
 institutions of the world. 
 
 " Let him that has no sword sell his garment, and 
 buy one."* This is another passage that is brought 
 against us. "For what purpose," it is asked, "were 
 they to buy swords, if swords might not be used ?" I 
 doubt whether with some of those who advanced this 
 objection, it is not an objection of words rather than of 
 opinion. I doubt whether they themselves think there 
 is any weight in it. To those, however, who may 
 be influenced by it, I would observe, that, as it appears 
 to me, a sufficient answer to the objection may be 
 found in the immediate context : — " Lord, behold here 
 are two swords," said they ; and he immediately 
 answered, " It is enough." How could two be enough 
 when eleven were to be supplied with them ? That 
 swords, in the sense and for the purpose of military 
 weapons, were even intended in this passage, there 
 appears much reason for doubting. This reason will 
 be discovered by examining and connecting such 
 expressions as these : " The Son of man is not come 
 to destroy men's lives, but to save them," said our 
 Lord. Yet, on another occasion, he says, " I came 
 not to send peace on earth, but a sword.'' How are 
 we to explain the meaning of the latter declaration ? 
 Obviously by understanding "sword" to mean some- 
 thing far other than steel. For myself, I see little 
 
 F 
 
 * Luke xxii. 36. 
 
64 
 
 reason for supposing that physical weapons were in- 
 tended in the instruction of Christ. . I beheve they 
 were not intended, partly because no one can imagine 
 his apostles were in the habit of using such arms, 
 partly because they declared that the weapons of their 
 warfare were not carnal, and partly because the word 
 ^^ sword'^ is often used to imply ''dissension," or the 
 rehgious warfare of the Christian. Such a use of 
 language is found in the last quotation ; and it is found 
 also in such expressions as these : ''shield of faith" — 
 ''helmet of salvation" — "sword of the Spirit" — *'I 
 have fought the good Jight of faith." 
 
 But it will be said that the apostles did provide 
 themselves with swords, for that on the same evening 
 they asked, " shall we smite with the sword ?" This 
 IS true, and I think it may probably be true also, that 
 some of them provided themselves with swords in con- 
 sequence of the injunction of their Master. But what 
 then ? The reader of the New Testament will find 
 that hitherto the destined teachers of Christianity were 
 very imperfectly acquainted with the nature of their 
 Master's religion — their conceptions of it were yet gross 
 and Jewish. The very question that is brought 
 against us, and the succeeding conduct of Peter, evince 
 how little they yet knew that His kingdom was not of 
 this world, and that his servants might not fight. Even 
 after the resurrection, they seemed to be still expect- 
 ing that his purpose was to establish a temporal 
 government, by the inquiry — " Lord, wilt thou at this 
 time restore again the kingdom unto Israel ?"* Why 
 do we avail ourselves of the conduct of the apostles, 
 before they themselves knew the duties of Christianity t 
 Why, if this example of Peter be authority to us, do we 
 
 * Acts i. 6. 
 
65 
 
 not approve the subsequent example of this same apos* 
 tie, in denying his Master? 
 
 Why, indeed, do we urge the conduct of Peter at 
 all, when that conduct was immediately condemned by 
 Christ? And, had it not been condemned, how hap- 
 pens it, that if he allowed his followers the use of arms, 
 he healed the only wound which we find they ever 
 inflicted with them ? 
 
 It appears to me, that the apostles acted on this occa- 
 sion upon the principles on which they had wished to 
 act on another, when they asked, "• Shall we command 
 fire to come down from heaven to consume them ?" 
 And that their Master's principles of action were also 
 the same in both — "■ Ye know not what manner of 
 spirit ye are of; for the Son of man is not come to 
 destroy men's lives, but to save them." This is the 
 language of Christianity ; and I would seriously invite 
 him who now justifies ''destroying men's lives," to 
 consider what manner of spirit he is of. 
 
 I think, then, that no argument arising from the 
 instruction to buy swords can be maintained. This, at 
 least, we know, that when the apostles were completely 
 commissioned, they neither used nor possessed them. 
 An extraordinary imagination he must have, who con- 
 ceives of an apostle, preaching peace and reconcilia- 
 tion, crying '' forgive injuries" — " love your enemies" 
 — ''render not evil for evil;" and at the conclusion 
 of the discourse, if he chanced to meet with violence or 
 insult, promptly drawing his sword, and maiming or 
 murdering the offender. We insist upon this consider 
 ation. If swords were to be worn, swords were to 
 be used; and there is no rational wa}^ in which they 
 could have been used, but some such as that which we 
 have been supposing. If, therefore, the words, "Let 
 him that has no sword sell his garment, and buy one," 
 
66 
 
 do not mean to authorize such a use of the sword, they 
 do not mean to authorize its use at all : And those who 
 adduce the passage must allow its appUcation in such 
 a sense, or they must exclude it from any application 
 to their purpose. 
 
 It has been said, again, that when soldiers came to 
 John the Baptist to inquire of him what they should 
 do, he did not direct them to leave the service, but to 
 be content with their wages. This, also, is at best but 
 a negative evidence. It does not prove that the mili- 
 tary profession was wrong, and it certainly does not 
 prove that it was right. But in truth, if it asserted the 
 latter, Christians have, as I conceive, nothing to do 
 with it; for I think that w^e need not inquire what 
 John allowed, or what he forbade. He, confessedly, 
 belonged to that system which required "an eye for an 
 eye, and a tooth for a tooth;" and the observations 
 which we shall by-and-by make on the authority of the 
 law of Moses, apply, therefore, to that of John the Bap- 
 tist. Although it could be proved (which it cannot 
 be) that he allowed wars, he acted not inconsistently 
 with his own dispensation ; and with that dispensation 
 we have no business. Yet, if any one still insists upon 
 the authority of John, I would refer him for an answer 
 to Jesus Christ himself What authority He attached 
 to John on questions relating to his own dispensation, 
 may be learned from this — " The least in the kingdom 
 of heaven is greater than he. " 
 
 Such are the arguments which are adduced from the 
 Christian Scriptures, by the advocates of war. Of 
 these arguments, those derived fron the cases of the 
 centurion and of Cornelius, are simply negative. It is 
 not pretended that they possess ^roo/1 Their strength 
 consists in silence, and of this silence there appears to 
 be sufficient explanation. Of the objection arising 
 
67 
 
 from the payment of tribute, I know not who will avail 
 himself It is nullified by itself A nearly similar 
 observation applies to the instruction to buy sivords; 
 and with the case of John the Baptist I do not conceive 
 that we have any concern. In these five passages, the 
 sum of the New Testament evidences in favour of war 
 unquestionably consists : they are the passages which 
 men of acute minds, studiously seeking for evidence, 
 have selected. And what are they ? There is not one 
 of them, except the payment of tribute and the instruc- 
 tion to buy swords, of which it is even said by our 
 opponents that it proves any thing in favour of war. 
 A '* not" always intervenes — the centurion was not 
 found fault with : Cornelius was not told to leave the 
 profession : John did not tell the soldiers to abandon 
 the army. I cannot forbear to solicit the reader to 
 compare these objections with the pacific evidence ot 
 the gospel which has been laid before him ; I would 
 rather say to compare it with the gospel itself; for the 
 sum, the tendency of the whole revelation is in our 
 favour. 
 
 In an inquiry whether Christianity allows of war, 
 there is a subject that always appears to me to be of 
 peculiar importance — the prophecies of the Old Testa- 
 ment respecting the arrival of a period of universal 
 peace. The belief is perhaps general among Chris- 
 tians, that a time will come when vice shall be eradi- 
 cated from the world, when the violent passions of 
 mankind shall be repressed, and when the pure benig- 
 nity of Christianity shall be universally diffused. That 
 such a period will come we indeed know assuredly, for 
 God has promised it. 
 
 Of the many prophecies of the Old Testament 
 respecting it, I will refer only to a few from the writ 
 ings of Isaiah. In his predictions respecting the "last 
 
 F2 
 
68 
 
 times," by which it is not disputed that he referred to 
 the prevalence of the Christian religion, the prophet 
 says, — '' They shall beat their swords into plough- 
 shares, and their spears into pruning-hooks ; nation 
 shall not lift the sword against nation, neither shall 
 they learn war any more."* Again, referring to the 
 same period, he says, — '' They shall not hurt nor destroy 
 in all my holy mountain, for the knowledge of the 
 Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the 
 sea."t And again, respecting the same era, — '' Violence 
 shall be no more heard in thy land, wasting nor 
 destruction within thy borders. "J 
 
 Two things are to be observed in relation to these 
 prophecies : first, that it is the will of G od that war 
 should eventually be abolished. This consideration is 
 of importance, for if war be not accordant with His 
 will, war cannot be accordant wdth Christianity, which 
 is the revelation of His will. My business, however, 
 is principally with the second consideration — that 
 Christianity will he the means of introducing this period 
 of peace. From those who say that our religion sanc- 
 tions war, an answer must be expected to questions 
 such as these : — ^y what instrumentality and by the 
 diffusion of what principles, will the prophecies of 
 Isaiah be fulfilled ? Are we to expect some new sys- 
 tem of religion, by which the imperfections of Chris- 
 tianity shall be removed, and its deficiencies supplied ? 
 Are we to believe that God sent his only Son into the 
 world to institute a relio^ion such as this — a relio^ion, 
 that in a few centuries, would require to be altered and 
 amended? If Christianity allows of war, they must 
 tell us what it is that is to extirpate war. If she allows 
 " violence, and wasting, and destruction," they must 
 tell us what are the principles that are to produce 
 
 * Isaiah ii. 4. f Ibid. xi. 9. % Ibid Ix. 18. 
 
69 
 
 gentleness, and benevolence, and forbearance. — 1 know 
 not what answer such inquiries will receive from the 
 advocate of war, but I know that Isaiah says the 
 change will be effected by Christianity : And if any 
 one still chooses to expect another and a purer system, 
 an apostle may perhaps repress his hopes : — " If we, 
 or an angel from heaven," says Paul, "preach any 
 other gospel than that which we have preached unto 
 you, let him be accursed."* 
 
 Whatever the principles of Christianity will require 
 hereafter, they require now. Christianity, with its 
 'present principles and ohligations^ is to produce univer- 
 sal peace. It becomes, therefore, an absurdity, a sim- 
 ple contradiction, to maintain that the principles of 
 Christianity allow of war, when they, and they only, 
 are to eradicate it. If we have no other guarantee of 
 peace than the existence of our religion, and no other 
 hope of peace than in its diffusion, how can that reli- 
 gion sanction war ? The conclusion that it does not 
 sanction it appears strictly logical : I do not perceive 
 that a demonstration from Euclid can be clearer ; and 
 I think that if we possessed no other evidence of the 
 unlawfulness of war, there is contained in this a proof 
 which prejudice cannot deny, and which sophistry 
 cannot evade. 
 
 The case is clear. A more perfect obedience to that 
 same gospel, which we are told sanctions slaughter, 
 will be the means, and the only means, of exterminat- 
 ing slaughter from the world. It is not from an alter- 
 ation of Christianity, but from an assimilation of 
 Christians to its nature, that we are to hope. It is be- 
 cause we violate the principles of our religion, because 
 
 * Gal. i. 8. 
 
70 
 
 we are not what they require us to be, that wars are 
 continued. If we will not be peaceable, let us then, at 
 least, be honest, and acknowledge that we continue to 
 slaughter one another, not because Christianity permits 
 it, but because we reject her laws. 
 
 The Christian ought to be satisfied, on questions con- 
 nected with his duties, by the simple rules of his reli- 
 gion. If those rules disallow war, he should inquire 
 no farther ; but since I am willing to give conviction 
 to the reader by whatever means, and since truth car- 
 ries its evidence with greater force from accumulated 
 testimony, I would refer to two or three other subjects 
 in illustration of our principles, or in confirmation of 
 their truth. 
 
 The opinions of the earliest professors of Christianity 
 upon the lawfulness of war are of importance; because 
 they who lived nearest to the time of its Founder 
 were the most likely to be informed of his intentions 
 and his will, and to practise them without those adul- 
 terations which we know have been introduced by the 
 lapse of ages. 
 
 During a considerable period after the death of 
 Christ, it is certain, then, that his followers believed he 
 had forbidden war, and that, in consequence of this 
 belief, many of them refused to engage in it, whatever 
 were the consequences, whether reproach, or imprison- 
 ment, or death. These facts are indisputable: ''It is 
 as easy," says a learned writer of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, '' to obscure the sun at mid-day, as to deny that 
 the primitive Christians renounced all revenge and 
 war." Of all the Christian writers of the second cen- 
 tury, there is not one who notices the subject, who does 
 not hold it to be unlawful for a Christian to bear arms ; 
 
V 
 
 71 
 
 "and," says Clarkson, "it was not till Christianity be- 
 came corrupted that Christians became soldiers."* 
 
 Our Saviour inculcated mildness and peaceableness ; 
 we have seen that the apostles imbibed his spirit, and 
 followed his example; and the early Christians pursued 
 the example and imbibed the spirit of both. " This 
 sacred principle, this earnest recommendation of for- 
 bearance, lenity, and forgiveness, mixes with all the 
 writings of that age. There are more quotations in the 
 apostolical fathers, of texts which relate to these points 
 than of any other. Christ's sayings had struck them. 
 Not rendering, says Polycarp the disciple of John, 
 evil for evil, or railing for railing, or striking for 
 striking, or cursing for cursing ''^ Christ and his 
 apostles delivered general precepts for the regulation 
 of our conduct. It was necessary for their successors 
 to apply them to their practice in life. And to what 
 did they apply the pacific precepts which had been 
 delivered ? They applied them to war : they were 
 assured that the precepts absolutely forbade it. This 
 belief they derived from those very precepts on which 
 we have insisted : They referred, expressly, to the 
 same passages in the New Testament, and from the 
 authority and obligation of those passages, they refused 
 to bear arms. A few examples from their history will 
 show with what undoubting confidence they believed 
 in the unlawfulness of war, and how much they were 
 willing to suffer in the cause of peace. 
 
 Maximilian, as it is related in the Acts of Ruinart, 
 was brought before the tribunal to be enrolled as a 
 soldier. On the proconsul's asking his name, Maximi- 
 
 * " Essays on the Doctrines and Practice of the Early Christians as they 
 relate to Wa'r." To this Essay I am indebted for much information on the 
 present part of our subject. 
 
 f Pol. Ep. and Phil. C. 2.— Evidences of Christianity. 
 
72 
 
 lian replied, *'I am a Christian, and cannot fight." It 
 was, however, ordered that he should be enrolled, but 
 he refused to serve, still alleging that he was a Chris- 
 tian. He was immediately told that there was no 
 alternative between bearing arms and being put to 
 death. But his fidelity was not to be shaken, — "1 
 cannot fight," said he, "if I die." The proconsul asked 
 who had persuaded him to this conduct; ''My own 
 mind," said the Christian, "and He who has called 
 me." It was once m^ore attempted to shake his resolu- 
 tion by appealing to his youth and to the glory of the 
 profession, but in vain ; — " I cannot fight," said he, 
 "for any earthly consideration." He continued stead- 
 fast to his principles, sentence was pronounced upon 
 him, and he was led to execution. 
 
 The primitive Christians not only refused to be 
 enlisted in the army, but when they embraced Christi- 
 anity whilst already enlisted, they abandoned the pro- 
 fession at whatever cost. Marcellus was a centurion 
 in the legion called Trajana. Whilst holding this 
 commission he became a Christian, and believing, in 
 common with his fellow Christians, that war was no 
 longer permitted to him, he threw down his belt at the 
 head of the legion, declaring that he had become a 
 Christian, and that he would serve no longer. He was 
 committed to prison ; but he was still faithful to Chris- 
 tianity. " It is not lawful," said he, "for a Christian 
 to bear arms for any earthly consideration;" and he 
 was in consequence put to death. Almost immediately 
 afterwards, Cassian, who was notary to the same 
 legion, gave up his oflace. He steadfastly maintained 
 the sentiments of Marcellus, and like him was consign- 
 ed to the executioner. Martin, of whom so much is 
 said by Sulpicius Severus, was bred to the profession 
 of arms, which, or his acceptance of Christianity, he 
 
73 
 
 abandoned. To Julian the apostate, the only reason 
 that we find he gave for his conduct was this, — '' I am 
 a Christian, and therefore I cannot fight." The an- 
 swer of Tarachus to Numerianus Maximus is in 
 words nearly similar: — '-I have led a military life, 
 and am a Roman; and because I am a Christian I 
 have abandoned m}^ profession of a soldier." 
 
 These were not the sentiments, and this was not the 
 conduct, of the insulated individuals who might be 
 actuated by individual opinions, or by their private 
 interpretations of the duties of Christianity. Their 
 principles were the principles of the body. They 
 were recognised and defended by the Christian writers 
 their contemporaries. Justin Martyr and Tatian talk 
 of soldiers and Christians as distinct characters; and 
 Tatian says that the Christians declined even military 
 commands. Clemens of Alexandria calls his Christian 
 contemporaries the "Followers of Peace," and expressly 
 tells us that " the followers of peace used none of the 
 implements of war." Lactantius, another early Chris- 
 tian, says expressly, "It can never be lawful for a 
 righteous man to go to war." About the end of the 
 second century, Celsus, one of the opponents of Chris- 
 tianity, charged the Christians with 7xf using to hear 
 arms even in case of necessity. Origen, the defender of 
 the Christians, does not think of denying the fact ; he 
 admits the refusal, and justifies it, because war ivas 
 unlawful. "S^^qvl after Christianity had spread over 
 almost the whole of the known world, Tertullian, in 
 speaking of a part of the Roman armies, including 
 more than one third of the standing legions of Rome, 
 distinctly informs us that " not a Christian could be 
 found amono^st them." 
 
 All this is explicit. The evidence of the following 
 facts is, however, yet more determinate and satisfactory. 
 
74 
 
 Some of the arguments which, at the present day, are 
 brought against the advocates of peace, were then 
 urged against these early Christians; and these argu- 
 ments they examined and lepeUed. This indicates in- 
 vestigation and inquiry, and manifests that their belief 
 of the unlawfulness of war was not a vague opinion, 
 hastily admitted, and loosely floating amongst them ; 
 but that it was the result of deliberate examination, and 
 a consequent firm conviction that Christ had forbidden 
 it. TertuUian says, '' Though the soldiers came to 
 John and received a certain form to be observed, yet 
 Jesus Christ, by disarming Peter, disarmed every 
 soldier afterwards; for custom never sanctions any 
 unlawful act." ''Can a soldier's life be lawful," says 
 he, in another work, "when Christ has pronounced 
 that he who lives by the sword shall perish by the 
 sword? Can any one, who possesses the peaceable 
 doctrine of the gospel, be a soldier, when it is his duty 
 not so much as to go to law? And shall he, who is 
 not to revenge his own wrongs, be instrumental in 
 bringing others into chains, imprisonment, torture, 
 death?"— So that the very same arguments which are 
 brought in defence of war at the present day, were 
 brought against the Christians sixteen hundred years 
 ago; and, sixteen hundred years ago, they were repel- 
 led by these faithful contenders for the purity of our 
 religion. It is remarkable, too, that TertuUian appeals 
 to the precepts from the mount, in proof of those princi- 
 ples on which this Essay has been insisting -.—that the 
 dispositions which the precepts inculcate are not compati- 
 ble with war, and that war, therefore, is irreconcileaUe 
 with Christianity. 
 
 If it be possible, a still stronger evidence of the pri- 
 mitive belief is contained in the circumstance, that 
 some of the Christian authors declared that the refusal 
 
75 
 
 of the Christian to hear arms, was a fulfilment ot 
 ancient prophecy. The peculiar strength of this evi- 
 dence consists in this — that the fact of a refusal to bear 
 arms is assumed as notorious and unquestioned. Ire- 
 nseus, who lived about anno ISO, affirms that the pro- 
 phecy of Isaiah, which declared that men should turn 
 their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into 
 pruning-hooks, had been fulfilled in his time; "for the 
 Christians," says he, " have changed their swords and 
 their lances into instruments of peace, and the^j hiorv 
 noinowhow to fight ^'' Justin Martyr, his contemporary, 
 writes, — " That the prophecy is fulfilled, you have 
 good reason to believe, for we, who in times past killed 
 one another, do not norv fight 7vith our enemies'' Ter- 
 tuUian, who lived later, says, " You must confess that 
 the prophecy has been accomplished, as far as the prac- 
 tice of every iiidividual is concerned, to whom it is ap- 
 plicable."^ 
 
 It has been sometimes said, that the motive which 
 influenced the early Christians to refuse to engage in 
 war, consisted in the idolatry which was connected 
 with the Roman armies. One motive this idolatry un- 
 questionably afforded ; but it is obvious, from the quo- 
 tations which we have given, that their belief of the 
 
 * These examples might be multiplied. Enough, however, have been 
 given to establish our position ; and the reader who desires further or more 
 immediate information, is referred to Justin Mart, in Dialog, cum Tryph. 
 ejusdemque Apolog. 2. — ad Zenam : Tertull. de corona militis. — Apolog. 
 cap. 21 and 37. — lib. de Idolol. c. 17, 18, 19.— ad Scapulam cap. 1. — 
 adversus Jud. cap. 7 and 9. — adv. Gnost. 13. — adv. Marc. c. 4. — lib. de 
 patient, c. 6. 10 : Orig. cont. Celsum lib. 3, 5, 8. — In Josuara, hom. 12. cap. 
 9. — in Mat. cap. 26. Tract. 36 : Cypr. Epist. 56 — ad Cornel. Lactan. de 
 just. lib. 5. c. 18. lib. 6. c. 20: ^mhr. in Luc. 22. Chrysost. in Matth. 5. 
 hom. 18.— in Matth. 26. hom. 85. — ^lib. 2 de Sacerdotio. — 1 Cor. 13 : Cromat. 
 in Matth. 5. Hieron, ad Ocean. — lib. Epist. p. 3. torn. 1. Ep. 2 : Athan. de 
 Inc. Verb. Dei: Cyrill. Mex. lib. 11. in Johan. cap. 25, 26. See also 
 Erasmus. Luc. cap. 3, and 22. Ludov. Vives in Introd. ad Sap : / Ferus 
 -il 4 Comment in Matth. 7 and Luc. 22. 
 G 
 
76 
 
 unlawfulness oi fighting, independent of any question 
 of idolatry, was an insviperable objection to engaging in 
 war. Their words are explicit : " I cannot fight if I 
 die." — '' I am a Christian, and, therefore, I cannot 
 fight'' — "Christ," says TertuUian, ''hy disarming 
 Peter, disarmed every soldier ;" and Peter was not 
 about to fight in the armies of idolatry. So entire was 
 their conviction of the incompatibility of war with our 
 religion, that they would not even he present at the 
 gladiatorial fights, " lest," says Theophilus, "■ we should 
 become partakers of the murders committed there." 
 Can any one believe that they who would not even 
 witness a battle between tw^o men, w^ould themselves 
 fight in a battle between armies ? And the destruction 
 of a gladiator, it should be remembered, was author- 
 ized by the state as much as the destruction of enemies 
 in war. 
 
 It is, therefore, indisputable, that the Christians who 
 lived nearest to the time of our Saviour, believed, with 
 undoubting confidence, that he had unequivocally for- 
 bidden war — that they openly avowed this belief, and 
 that, in support of it, they were willing to sacrifice, and 
 did sacrifice, their fortunes and their lives. 
 
 Christians, however, afterwards became soldiers. 
 And when? — When their general fidelity to Chris- 
 tianity became relaxed ; — when, ^V^ other respects, they 
 violated its principles ; — when they had begun " to 
 dissemble," and ''to falsify their word," and "to cheat;" 
 — when " Christian casuists" had persuaded them that 
 they might '' sit at meat in theidoTs temple T — when 
 Christians accepted even the priesthoods of idolatry. In 
 a word, they became soldiers, w^hen they had ceased to 
 be Christians. 
 
 The departure from the original faithfulness was, 
 however, not suddenly general. Like every other cor- 
 
77 
 
 ruption, war obtained by degrees. During the first two 
 hundred years, not a Christian soldier is upon record. 
 In the third century, when Christianity became par- 
 tially corrupted. Christian soldiers were common. The 
 number increased with the increase of the general pro- 
 fligacy ; until at last, in the fourth century, Christians 
 became soldiers without hesitation, and, perhaps, with- 
 out remorse. Here and there, however, an ancient 
 father still lifted up his voice for peace ; but these, one 
 after another, dropping from the world, the tenet that 
 war is unlawful, ceased at length to be a tenet of the 
 church. 
 
 Such was the origin of the present belief in the 
 lawfulness of war. It began in unfaithfulness, was 
 nurtured by profligacy, and was confirmed by general 
 corruption. We seriously, then, and solemnly invite 
 the conscientious Christian of the present day, to con- 
 sider these things. Had the professors of Christianity 
 continued in the purity and faithfulness of their fore- 
 fathers, we should now have believed that war was for- 
 bidden ; and Europe, many long centuries ago, would 
 have reposed in peace. 
 
 Let it always be borne in mind by those who are 
 advocating war, that they are contending for a corrup- 
 tion w^hich their forefathers abhorred ; and that they 
 are making Jesus Christ the sanctioner of crimes, 
 which his purest followers offered up their lives because 
 they would not commit. 
 
 An argument has sometimes been advanced in favour 
 of war from the Divine communications to the Jews 
 under the administration of Moses. It has been said 
 that as wars were allowed and enjoined to that people, 
 they cannot be inconsistent with the will of God. 
 
 We have no intention to dispute, that, under the 
 Mosaic dispensation, some wars were allowed, or that 
 
78 
 
 tliey were enjoined upon the Jews as an imperative 
 duty. But those who refer, in justification of our pre- 
 sent practice, to the authority by which the Jews pro- 
 secuted their wars, must be expected to produce the 
 same authority for our own. Wars were commandea 
 to tiie Jews, but are they commanded to us ? War, in 
 the abstract, was never commanded. And, surely, 
 those specific wars which were enjoined upon the Jews 
 for an express purpose, are neither authority nor exam- 
 ple for us, who have received no such injunction, and 
 can plead no such purpose. 
 
 It will, perhaps, be said that the commands to prose- 
 cute wars, even to extermination, are so positive and so 
 often repeated, that it is not probable, if they were 
 inconsistent with the will of Heaven, they would 
 have been thus peremptorily enjoined. We answer, 
 that they were not inconsistent with the will of Hea- 
 ven then. But even then, the prophets foresaw that 
 they were not accordant with the universal will of God, 
 since they predicted that when that will should be ful- 
 filled, war should be eradicated from the world. And 
 by what dispensation was this wiJl to be fulfilled ? By 
 that of the ''Rod out of the stem of Jesse." 
 
 But what do those who refer to the dispensation of 
 Moses maintain? Do they say that the injunctions to 
 the Jews are binding upon them ? If they say this, 
 we have at least reason to ask them for greater consist- 
 ency of obedience. That these injunctions, in point 
 of fact, do not bind them, they give sufficient proof, by 
 the neglect of the greater portion of them, enforced as 
 those injunctions were, by the same authority as that 
 which commanded war. They have, therefore, so far 
 as their argument is concerned, annulled the injunctions 
 by their own rejection of them. And out of ten pre^ 
 
79 
 
 oepts to reject nine and retain one, is a gratuitous and 
 idle mode of argument. 
 
 If I be told that we still acknowledge the obliga- 
 tion of many of these precepts, I answer that we 
 acknowledge the duties which they enjoin, but not 
 because of the authority which enjoined them. We 
 obey the injunctions, not because they were delivered 
 under the law, but because they are enforced by Chris- 
 tianity. The command, '' Thoa shalt not kill," has 
 never been abolished; but Christians do not prohibit 
 murder because it was denounced in the decalogue, 
 they would have prohibited it if the decalogue had 
 never existed. 
 
 But farther : Some of the commands under the law, 
 Christianity 7xquires us to disobey. '^If d man have a 
 stuhhorn and rebellious son, which will not obey the 
 voice of his father, &c. all the men of the city shall 
 stone him with stones that he die.^ If thy brother, the 
 son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the 
 wife of thy bosom, entice thee secretly, saying, ' Let us 
 go and serve other gods^ thou shalt not pity him or 
 conceal him, but thou shalt surely kill him ; thine hand 
 shall be first upon him to put him to deathJ'^ Now we 
 know that Christianity will not sanction an obedience 
 of these commands; and if we did obey them, our 
 own laws would treat us as murderers. If the precepts 
 under the dispensation of Moses are binding because 
 they were promulgated by Heaven, they are binding 
 in all their commands and all their prohibitions. But 
 some of these precepts we habitually disregard, and 
 some it were criminal to obey ; and with what reason 
 then do we refer to them in our defence 1 
 
 And why was the law superseded? Because it 
 "made nothing perfect." — ^'The law was given by 
 
 * Deut. xxi. 18, 21. f Deut. xiii. 9. 
 
80 
 
 Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.' 
 The manner in which the author of "truth" prefaced 
 some of his most important precepts, is much to our 
 present purpose. "■ It hath been said by them of old 
 time, an eye for an eye," &c. He then introduces his 
 own precept with the contradistinguishing preface — 
 "But / say unto you." This, therefore, appears to be 
 a specific abrogation of the authority of the legal 
 injunctions, and an introduction of another system; 
 and this is all that our present purpose requires. The 
 truth is, that the law was abolished because of its im- 
 perfections ; yet we take hold of one of these imperfec- 
 tions in justification of our present practice. Is it 
 because we feel that we cannot defend it by our own 
 religion ? 
 
 We therefore dismiss the dispensation of Moses 
 from any participation in the argument. Whatever it 
 allowed, or whatever it prohibited in relation to war, 
 we do not inquire. We ask only what Christianity 
 allows and prohibits, and by this we determine the 
 question. — It is the more necessary to point out the inap- 
 plicability of these arguments from the Old Testament, 
 because there are some persons of desultory modes of 
 thinking, who find that war is allowed in " the Bible," 
 and who forget to inquire into the present authority of 
 the permission. 
 
 There are some persons who suppose themselves 
 sufiiciently justified in their approbation of war, by the 
 example of men of piety of our own times. The 
 argument, as an argument, is of little concern ; but 
 every thing is important that makes us acquiescent in 
 war. Here are men, say they, roho make the knowledge 
 of their duties the great object of their study, and yet 
 these men engage in war without any douht of its lawful- 
 ness. All this is true ; and it is true also, that some 
 
81 
 
 good men have expressly inculcated the lawfulness of 
 war ; and it is true also, that the articles of the Church 
 of England specifically assert it. But what, if it 
 should have come to pass, that " blindness in part» 
 hath happened unto Israel !" 
 
 What is the argument? That good men have en 
 gaged in war, and therefore that Christiamty allows it. 
 They who satisfy themselves with such reasoning, 
 should bear in mind that he who voluntarily passes 
 over the practice of the first two centuries of Christi- 
 anity, and attempts to defend himself by the practice of 
 after and darker ages, has obviously no other motive 
 than that he finds his religion, when vitiated and cor- 
 rupt, more suitable to his purpose than it was in the 
 days of its purity. This state of imperfection and 
 impurity has diflTused an influence upon the good, as 
 upon the bad. I question not that some Christians of 
 the present day who defend war, believe they act in 
 accordance with their religion ; just as I question not 
 that many, who zealously bore fagots to the stake of 
 the Christian martyrs, believed so too. The time has 
 been, when those who killed good men thought " they 
 did God service." But let the succeeding declaration 
 be applied by our present objectors,^ — " These things 
 will they do unto you, because theij have not known the 
 Father nor Me^^ Here, then, appears to be our error- — 
 that we do not estimate the conduct of men by the 
 standard of the gospel, but that we reduce the stand- 
 ard of the gospel to the conduct of men. That good 
 men should fail to conform to the perfect purity of 
 Christianity, or to perceive it, need not be wondered, 
 for we have sufficient examples of it. Good men in 
 past ages allowed many things as permitted by Chris- 
 tianity, which we condemn, and shall for ever condemn 
 
 * John xvi. 3. 
 
82 
 
 In the present day there are many questions of duty 
 on which men of piety disagree. If their authority 
 b3 rejected by us on other points of practice, why is it 
 to determine the question of war? Especially why do 
 we insist on their decisions, when they differ in their 
 decisions themselves ? If good men have allowed the 
 lawfulness of war, good men have also denied it. We 
 are therefore again referred to the simple evidence of 
 religion ; an evidence which it will always be found 
 wise to admit, and dangerous to question. 
 
 There is, however, one argument brought against 
 us, which if it be just, precludes at once all question 
 upon the subject : — That a distinction is to he made 
 between rules which apply to us as individuals, and rules 
 which apply to us as subjects of the state ; and that the 
 pacific injunctions of Christ from the mount, and all the 
 otlier kindred commands and prohibitions of the Christ- 
 ian Scriptures, have no reference to our conduct as mem- 
 bers of the political body. This is the argument to 
 which the greatest importance is attached by the 
 advocates of war, and by w^hich thinking men are 
 chiefly induced to acquiesce in its lawfulness. In 
 reality, some of those who think most acutely upon 
 the subject, acknowledge that the peaceable, forbear- 
 ing, forgiving dispositions of Christianity, are abso- 
 lutely obligatory upon individuals in their full extent : 
 and this acknowledgment I would entreat the reader to 
 bear in his recollection. 
 
 Now it is obvious that the proof of the rectitude of 
 this distinction, must be expected of those who make 
 it. General rules are laid down by Christianity, of 
 w^hich, in some cases, the advocate of war denies the 
 applicability. He, therefore, is to produce the reason 
 and the authority for exception. Now we would re- 
 mind him that general rules are binding, unless their 
 
sa 
 
 inapplicability can be clearly shown. We would 
 remind him that the general rules in question, are laid 
 down by the commissioned ministers of Jesus Christ, 
 and by Jesus Christ himself; and we would recommend 
 him, therefore, to hesitate before he institutes excep- 
 tions to those rules, upon any authority inferior to the 
 authority which made them. 
 
 The foundation for the distinction between the duties 
 of Individuals and those of Communities, must, we 
 suppose, be sought in one of these two positions : 
 
 1. That as no law exists, of general authority 
 amongst nations, by which one state is protected from 
 the violence of another, it is necessary that each inde- 
 pendent community should protect itself; and that the 
 security of a nation cannot sometimes be maintained 
 otherwise than by war. 
 
 2. That as the general utility and expediency of 
 actions is the foundation of their moral qualities, and 
 as it is sometimes most conducive to general utility 
 and expediency that there should be a war, war is, 
 therefore, sometimes lawful. 
 
 The first of these positions will probably be thus 
 enforced. If an individual suffers aororression, there is 
 a Power to which he can apply that is above himself 
 and above the aggressor; a power by which the bad 
 passions of those around him are restrained, or by 
 w^hich their aggressions are punished. But amongst 
 nations there is no acknowledged superior or common 
 arbitrator. — Even if there were, there is no way in 
 which its decisions could be enforced, but by the 
 sword. War, therefore, is the only means which one 
 nation possesses of protecting itself from the aggres- 
 sion of another. 
 
 This, certainly, is plausible reasoning ; but it hap- 
 pens to this argument as to many others, that it 
 
84 
 
 assumes that as established, which has not been proved, 
 and upon the proof of which the truth of the whole ar- 
 gument depends. It assumes, That the reason why an 
 individual is not permitted to use violence, is, that the 
 laws wiU not use it for him. And in this the fallacy of the 
 position consists ; for the foundation of the duty of for- 
 bearance in private life, is not that the laws will punish 
 aggression, but that Christianity requires forbear ayice. 
 Undoubtedly, if the existence of a common arbitrator 
 were the foundation of the duty, the duty would not 
 be binding upon nations. But that which we require 
 to be proved is this — that Christianity exonerates 
 nations from those duties which she has imposed upon 
 individuals. This, the present argument does not 
 prove ; and, in truth, with a singular unhappiness in 
 its application, it assumes, in effect, that she has im- 
 posed these duties upon neither the one nor the other. 
 
 If it be said that Christianity allows to individuals 
 some degree and kind of resistance, and that some 
 resistance is therefore lawful to states, we do not deny it. 
 But if it be said that the degree of lawful resistance 
 extends to the slaughter of our fellow Christians — that 
 it extends to war — we do deny it : We say that the 
 rules of Christianity cannot, by any possible latitude of 
 interpretation, be made to extend to it. The duty of 
 forbearance then, is antecedent to all considerations 
 respecting the condition of man ; and whether he be 
 under the protection of laws or not, the duty of forbear- 
 ance is imposed. 
 
 The only truth which appears to be eUcited by the 
 present argument, is, that the difficulty of obeying the 
 forbearing rules of Christianity, is greater in the case 
 of nations than in the case of individuals : The ohliga- 
 tion to obey them is the same in both. Nor let any 
 one urge the difficulty of obedience in opposition to 
 
85 
 
 the duty ; for he who does this, has yet to learn one of 
 the most awful rules of his religion — a rule that was 
 enforced by the precepts, and more especially by the 
 final example, of Christ, of apostles, and of martyrs, 
 the rule which requires that we should be " obedient 
 even unto death." 
 
 Let it not, however, be supposed that we believe the 
 difficulty of forbearance would be as great in practice 
 as it is great in theory. We hope hereafter to show 
 that it promotes our interests as certainly as it fulfils 
 our duties. 
 
 The rectitude of the distinction between rules which 
 apply to individuals and rules which apply to states, 
 is thus maintained by Dr. Paley on the principle of 
 
 EXPEDIENCY. 
 
 '' The on/y distinction," says he, " that exists between 
 the case of independent states and independent indivi- 
 duals, is founded in this circumstance; that the particu- 
 lar consequence sometimes appears to exceed the value 
 of the general rule;" or, in less technical words, that a 
 greater disadvantage may arise from obeying the com- 
 mands of Christianity, than from transgressing them. 
 Expediency, it is said, is the test of moral rectitude, and 
 the standard of our duty. If we believe that it will be 
 most expedient to disregard the general obligations of 
 Christianity, that belief is the justifying motive of dis- 
 regarding them. Dr. Paley proceeds to say, " In the 
 transactions of private persons, no advantage that 
 results from the breach of a general law of justice, can 
 compensate to the public for the violation of the law ; 
 in the concerns of empire this may sometimes he doiibtedy 
 He says there may be cases in which "the magnitude 
 of the particular evil induces us to call in question the 
 obligation of the general rule." " Situations may he 
 feigned^ and consequently may possihly arise, in which 
 
86 
 
 the general tendency is outweighed by the enormity 
 of the particular mischief." Of the doubts which 
 must arise as to the occasions when the " obligation" 
 of Christian laws ceases, he however says that " moral 
 philosophy furnishes no precise solution;" and he can- 
 didly acknowledges " the danger of leaving it to the 
 sufferer to decide upon the comparison of particular 
 and general consequences, and the still greater danger 
 of such decisions being drawn into future precedents. 
 If treaties, for instance, be no longer binding than 
 while they are convenient, or until the inconveniency 
 ascend to a certain point (which point must be fixed 
 by the judgment, or rather by the feelings of the com- 
 plaining party), — one, and almost the only method of 
 averting or closing the calamities of war, of preventing 
 or putting a stop to the destrMction of mankind, is lost 
 to the world for ever." And in retrospect of the inde- 
 terminateness of these rules of conduct, he says finally, 
 "these, however, are the principles upon which the 
 calculation is to be formed. "*^ 
 
 It is obvious that this reasoning proceeds upon the 
 principle that it is lawful to do evil that good may come. 
 If good will come by violating a treaty, we may violate 
 it.f If good will come by slaughtering other men, we 
 may slaughter them. I know that the advocate of ex- 
 pediency will tell us that that is not evil of which good, 
 in the aggregate, comes ; and that the good or evil of 
 actions consists in the good or evil of their general con- 
 sequences. — I appeal to the understanding and the 
 conscience of the reader — Is this distinction honest to 
 the meaning of the apostle ? Did he intend to tell his 
 readers that they might violate their solemn promises, 
 that they might destroy their fellow Christians, in 
 
 * Moral and Political Philosophy, Chap. " Of War and Military Es- 
 tablishments." f Ibid. 
 
87 
 
 order that good might cornel If he did mean this, 
 surely there was little truth in the declaration of the 
 same apostle, that he used great plainness of speech. 
 
 We are told that " whatever is expedient is right." 
 We shall not quarrel with the dogma, but how is ex- 
 pediency to be determined ? By the calculations and 
 guessings of men, or by the knowledge and foresight 
 of God ? Expediency may be the test of our duties, 
 but what is the test of expediency ? — Obviously, I 
 think, it is this ; the decisions rvhich God has made 
 knorvn respecting rvhat is best for man. Calculations of 
 expediency, of '' particular and general consequences," 
 are not intrusted to us, for this most satisfactory 
 reason — that we cannot make them. The calculation, 
 to be any thing better than vague guessing, requires 
 prescience, and where is prescience to be sought ? Now 
 it is conceded by our opponents, that the only posses- 
 sor of prescience has declared that the forbearing, non- 
 resisting character is best for man. Yet we are told, 
 that sometimes it is not best, that sometimes it is 
 "inexpedient." How do we discover this ? The pro- 
 mulgator of the law has never intimated it. Whence, 
 then, do we derive the right of substituting our compu- 
 tations for His prescience ? Or, having obtained it, 
 what is the limit to its exercise? If, because we 
 calculate that obedience will not be beneficial, we may 
 dispense with his laws in one instance, why may we 
 not dispense with them in ten ? Why may we not 
 abrogate them altogether ? 
 
 The right is however claimed ; and how is it to be 
 exercised ? We are told that the duty of obedience 
 *'may sometimes be doubted'' — that in some cases, we 
 are induced to ''call in question'' the obligation of the 
 Christian rule — that ''^\i\xd.{io\i^ may be feigned'' — that 
 circumstances ''may possibly arise,'' in which we 
 
88 
 
 are at liberty to dispense with it — that still it is dan- 
 gerous to leave "it to the sufferer to decide" when the 
 obligation of the rule ceases ; and that of all these 
 doubts " philosophy furnishes no precise solution !" — 
 I know not how to contend against such principles as 
 these. An argument might be repelled ; the assertion 
 of a fact might be disproved ; but what answer 
 can be made to " possibilities" and " doubts ?" They 
 who are at liberty to guess that Christian laws may 
 sometimes be suspended, are at liberty to guess that 
 Jupiter is a fixed star, or that the existence of Ame- 
 rica is a fiction. What answer the man of science 
 would make to such suppositions I do not know, and I 
 do not know what answer to make to ours. Amongst 
 a community which had to decide on the " particular 
 and general consequences" of some political measure, 
 which involved the sacrifice of the principles of Chris- 
 tianity, there would of necessity be an endless variety 
 of opinions. Some would think it expedient to super- 
 sede the law of Christianity, and some would think the 
 evil of obeying the law less than the evil of transgress- 
 ing it. Some would think that the "particular mis- 
 chief" outweighed the "general rule," and some that 
 the "general rule" outweighed the "particular mis- 
 chief." And in this chaos of opinion, what is the line 
 of rectitude, or how is it to be discovered ? Or, is that 
 rectitude, which appears to each separate individual to 
 be right ? And are there as many species of truth as 
 there are discordancies of opinion? — Is this the sim- 
 plicity of the gospel? Is this the path in which a 
 wayfaring man, though a fool, shall not err? 
 
 These are the principles of expediency on which it 
 is argued that the duties which attach to private life do 
 not attach to citizens. — I think it will be obvious to 
 the eye of candour, that they are exceedingly indeter- 
 
89 
 
 minate and vague. Little more appears to be done by 
 Dr. Paley than to exhibit their doubtfulness. In truth, 
 I do not know whether he has argued better in favour 
 of his position, or against it. To me it appears that he 
 has evinced it to be fallacious ; for I do not think that 
 any thing can be Christian truth, of which the truth 
 cannot be more evidently proved. But whatever may 
 be thought of the conclusion, the reader will certainly 
 perceive that the whole question is involved in extreme 
 vagueness and indecision: an indecision and vagueness, 
 which it is difficult to conceive that Christianity ever 
 intended should be hung over the very greatest question 
 of practical morality that man has to determine ; over 
 the question that asks whether the followers of Christ 
 are at liberty to destroy one another. That such a 
 procedure as a war is, under any circumstances, sanc- 
 tioned by Christianity, from whose principles it is 
 acknowledged to be "abhorrent," ought to be clearly 
 made out. It ought to be obvious to loose examination. 
 It ought not to be necessary to ascertaining it, that a 
 critical investigation should be made, of questions 
 which ordinary men cannot comprehend, and which, 
 if they comprehended them, they could not determine ; 
 and above all, that investigation ought not to end, as 
 we have seen it does end, in vague indecision — in 
 ''doubts" of which even ''Philosophy furnishes no 
 precise solution." But when this indecision and 
 vagueness are brought to oppose the Christian evidence 
 for peace; when it is contended, not only that it mili- 
 tates against that evidence, but that it outbalances and 
 supersedes it — we would say of such an argument, 
 that it is not only weak, but idle; of such a conclusion, 
 that it is not only unsound, but preposterous. 
 
 Christian obligation is a much more simple thing 
 than speculative philosophy would make it appear ; 
 and to all those who suppose that our relations as sub- 
 
 M 
 
90 
 
 iects dismiss the obligation of Christian laws, we would 
 offer the consideration, that neither the Founder of 
 Christianity nor his apostles ever made the distinc- 
 tion. Of questions of "particular and general conse- 
 quences," of ''general advantages and particular mis- 
 chiefs," no traces are to be found in their words or 
 writings. The morality of Christianity is a simple 
 system, adapted to the comprehensions of ordinary 
 men. Were it otherwise, what would be its useful- 
 ness? If philosophers only could examine our duties, 
 and if their examinations ended in doubts without solu- 
 tion, how would men, without learning and without 
 leisure, regulate their conduct ? I think, indeed, that 
 it is a sufficient objection to all such theories as the 
 present, that they are not adapted to the wayfaring 
 man. If the present theory be admitted, one of these 
 two effects will be the consequence : the greater part 
 of the community must trust for the discovery of their 
 duties to the sagacity of others, or they must act with- 
 out any knowledge of their duties at all. 
 
 But, that the pacific injunctions of the Christian 
 Scriptures do apply to as, under every circumstance 
 of life, whether private or public, appears to be made 
 necessary by the universality of Christian obligation. 
 The language of Christianity upon the obligation of 
 her moral laws, is essentially this,— ''What I say unto 
 you, I say unto all." The pacific laws of our religion, 
 then, are binding upon all men ; upon the king and 
 upon every individual who advises him, upon every 
 member of a legislature, upon every officer and agent, 
 and upon every private citizen. How then can that 
 be lawful for a body of men which is unlawful for each 
 individual? How if one be disobedient, can his 
 offence make disobedience lawful to all ? We maintain 
 yet more, and say, that to dismiss Christian benevo- 
 lence as subjects, and to retain it as individuals, is 
 
91 
 
 simply impossible. He who possesses that subjugation 
 of the affections and that universality of benevolence, 
 by v^^hich he is influenced to do good to those w^ho hate 
 him, and to love his enemies in private life, cannot, 
 without abandoning those dispositions, butcher other 
 men because they are called pubhc enemies. 
 
 The w^hole position, therefore, that the pacific com- 
 mands and prohibitions of the Christian Scriptures do 
 not apply to our conduct as subjects of a state, appears 
 to me to be a fallacy. Some of the arguments which 
 are brought to support it, so flippantly dispense with 
 the principles of Christian obligation, so gratuitously 
 assume, that because obedience may be difficult, obe- 
 dience is not required, that they are rather an excuse 
 for the distinction than a justification of it — and some 
 are so lamentably vague and indeterminate, the prin- 
 ciples which are proposed are so technical, so inappli- 
 cable to the circumstance of society, and in truth, so 
 incapable of being practically applied, that it is not 
 credible that they were designed to suspend the obli- 
 gation of rules which were imposed by a revelation 
 from Heaven. 
 
 The reputation of Dr. Paley is so great, that, as he 
 has devoted a chapter of the Moral Philosophy to 
 " War and Military Establishments," it will perhaps be 
 expected, in an inquiry like the present, that some 
 specific reference should be made to his opinions ; and 
 I make this reference willingly. 
 
 The chapter "on War" begins thus: — "Because 
 the Christian Scriptures describe wars, as what they 
 are, as crimes or judgments, some men have been led 
 to believe that it is unlawful for a Christian to bear 
 arms. But it should be remembered, that it may be 
 necessary for individuals to unite their force, and for 
 this end to resign themselves to a common will; and 
 yet it may be true that that will is often actuated by 
 
 H2 
 
92 
 
 criminal motives, and often determined to destructive 
 purposes." This is a most remarkable paragraph : It 
 assumes, at once, the whole subject of inquiry, and is 
 an assumption couched in extraordinary laxity of lan- 
 guage. — " It may be necessary for individuals to unite 
 their force." The tea-table and the drawing-room 
 have often told us this ; but philosophj should tell us 
 how the necessity is proved. Nor is the morality of 
 the paragraph more rigid than the philosophy, — "Wars 
 are crimes," and are often undertaken from '' criminal 
 motives, and determined to destructive purposes;" yet 
 of these purposes, and motives, and crimes, " it may be 
 necessary" for Christians to become the abettors and 
 accomplices ! 
 
 Paley proceeds to say, that in the New Testament 
 the profession of a soldier^ is nowhere forbidden or 
 condemned; and he refers to the case of John the Bap- 
 tist, of the Roman centurion, and of Cornehus; and 
 with this he finishes all inquiry into the Christian evi- 
 dence upon the subject, after having expended upon it 
 less than a page of the edition before me. 
 
 These arguments are all derived from the silence of 
 the New Testament, and to all reasoning founded upon 
 this silence, no one can give a better answer than him- 
 self In replying to the defences by which the advo- 
 cates of slavery attempt to justify it, he notices that 
 which they advance from the silence of the New 
 Testament respecting it. He says — It is urged that 
 " Slavery was a part of the civil constitution of most 
 countries when Christianity appeared; yet that no 
 
 * I do not know why " the profession of a soldier" is substituted for the 
 simple term, war. Dr. P. does not say that war is nowhere forbidden or 
 condemned, which censure or prohibition it is obviously easy to have pro- 
 nounced without even noticing " the profession of a soldier." I do not say 
 that this language implies a want of ingenuousness, but it certainly was more 
 easy to prove that the profession of a soldier is nov/here condemned, than 
 ;hat war is nowhere condemned. 
 
93 
 
 passage is to be found in the Christian Scriptures, by 
 which it is condemned or prohibited." ''This," he 
 rejoins, " is true ; for Christianity, soliciting admission 
 into all nations of the world, abstained, as behooved it, 
 from intermeddling with the civil institutions of any. 
 But does it follow, from the silence of Scripture con- 
 cerning them, that all the civil institutions vv^hich then 
 prevailed were right, or that the bad should not be 
 exchanged for better?" I beg the reader to apply this 
 reasoning to Paley's own arguments in favour of war 
 from the silence of the Scriptures. How happens it 
 that he did not remember it himself? 
 
 Now I am compelled to observe, that in the discus- 
 sion of the lawfulness of war. Dr. Paley has neglected 
 his professed principles of decision and his ordinary 
 practice. His professed principles are these; that 
 the discovery of the "will of God, which is the whole 
 business of morality," is to be attained by referring, 
 primarily, to '' his express declarations when they are to 
 be had, and which must be sought for in Scripture." — 
 Has he sought for these declarations ? Has he sought 
 for " Resist not evil," or for ''Love your enemies/' or 
 for " Put up thy sword," or for " The weapons of our 
 warfare are not carnal," or for " My kingdom is not of 
 this world ?" He has sought for none of these ; he has 
 examined none of them. He has noticed none of them. 
 His professed principles are, again, that 7vhen our 
 instructions are dubious, rve should endeavour to explain 
 them by what we can collect of our Master's general incli- 
 nation or intentio?i.^ Has he conformed to his own 
 rule ? Has he endeavoured to collect this general 
 inclination, and to examine this general tendency? He 
 has taken no notice of it whatever. This neglect, we 
 say, is contrary to his ordinary practice. Upon other 
 subjects, he has assiduously applied to the Christian 
 
 * Moral and Political Philosophy, Book ii. Chap. 4. 
 
94^ 
 
 Scriptures in determination of truth. He has examined 
 not only their direct evidence, but the evidence v^hich 
 they aiford by induction and impKcation, — the evidence 
 arising from their general tendency. Suicide is no- 
 where condemned in the New Testament; yet Paley 
 condemns it, and how? He examines the sacred 
 volume, and finds that by implication and inference, 
 it may be collected that suicide is not permitted by 
 Christianity. He says that patience under suffering is 
 inculcated as an important duty ; and that the recom- 
 mendation of patience, implies the unlawfulness of 
 suicide to get out of suffering. This is sound reasoning ; 
 but he does not adopt it in the examination of war. 
 Could he not have found that the inculcation of peace- 
 ableness forms as good an argument against the law- 
 fulness of war, as the inculcation of patience forms 
 against the lawfulness of suicide ? He certainly could 
 have done this, and why has he not done it ? Why 
 has he passed it over in silence? 
 
 I must confess my belief, that he was unwilling to 
 discuss the subject upon Christian principles ; that he 
 had resolved to make war consistent with Christianity ; 
 and that, foreseeing her " express declarations" and 
 '' general intentions" militated against it, he avoided 
 noticing them at all. Thus much at least is certain, 
 that in discussing the lawfulness of war, he has aban- 
 doned both his avowed principles and his correspond- 
 ent practice. There is, to me at least, in the chapter 
 " On War," an appearance of great indecision of mind, 
 arising from the conflict between Christian truth and 
 the power of habit, — between the consciousness that 
 war is " abhorrent" to our religion, and the desire to 
 defend it on the principle of expediency. The whole 
 chapter is characterized by a very extraordinary laxity 
 both of arguments and principles. 
 
 After the defensibility of war has been proved, or 
 
95 
 
 assumed, in the manner which we have exhibited, Dr. 
 Paley states the occasions upon which he determines 
 that wars become justifiable. " The objects of just 
 wars," says he, "are precaution, defence, or repara- 
 tion." — '' Every just war supposes an injury perpe- 
 trated, attempted, or feared." 
 
 I shall acknowledge, that if these be justifying 
 motives to war, I see very little purpose in talking of 
 morality upon the subject. It w^as wise to leave the 
 principles of Christianity out of the question, and to 
 pass them by unnoticed, if they were to be succeeded 
 by principles like these. It is in vain to expatiate on 
 moral obligations, if we are at liberty to declare war 
 whenever an " injury is feared." An injury, without 
 limit to its insignificance ! A fear, without stipulation 
 for its reasonableness ! The judges, also, of the rea- 
 sonableness of fear, are to be they who are under its 
 influence ; and who so likely to judge amiss as those 
 who are afraid? Sounder philosophy than this has 
 told us, that " he who has to reason upon his duty 
 when the temptation to transgress it is before him, is 
 almost sure to reason himself into an error." The 
 necessity for this ill-timed reasoning, and the allowance 
 of it, is amongst the capital objections to the philoso- 
 phy of Paley. It tells us that a people may suspend 
 the laws of God when they think it is "expedient;" 
 and they are to judge of this expediency when the 
 temptation to transgression is before them ! — Has 
 Christianity left the lawfulness of human destruction 
 to be determined on such principles as these ? 
 
 Violence, rapine, and ambition, are not to be 
 restrained by morality like this. It may serve for the 
 speculation of a study; but we will venture to affirm 
 that mankind will never be controlled by it. Moral 
 rules are useless, if, from their own nature, they can- 
 not be, or will not be applied. Who believes that if 
 
96 
 
 kings and conquerors may fight when they have fears, 
 they will not fight when they have them not ? The 
 morality allows too much latitude to the passions, to 
 retain any practical restraint upon them. And a mo- 
 rality that will not be practised, I had almost said, that 
 cannot be practised, is an useless morality. It is a 
 theory of morals. We want clearer and more exclu- 
 sive rules; we want more obvious and immediate sanc- 
 tions. It were in vain for a philosopher to say to a 
 general who was burning for glory, " You are at liberty 
 to engage in the war provided you have suffered, or 
 fear you will suffer an injury ; otherwise Christianity 
 prohibits it." He wdll tell him of twenty injuries that 
 have been suffered, of a hundred that have been 
 attempted, and of ten thousand that he fears. And 
 what answer can the philosopher make to him ? 
 
 I think that Dr. Paley has, in another and a later 
 work, given us stronger arguments in favour of peace 
 than the Moral Philosophy gives in favour of war. In 
 the " Evidences of Christianity" we find these state- 
 ments : — " The tw^o following positions appear to me 
 to be satisfactorily made out : first, That the gospel 
 omits some qualities, which have usually engaged the 
 praises and admiration of mankind, but which, in 
 reality, and in their general effects, have been preju- 
 dicial to human happiness; secondly, that the gospel has 
 brought forrvard some virtues, which possess the highest 
 intrinsic value, but which have commonly been over- 
 looked and condemned. — The second of these pro- 
 positions is exemplified in the instances of passive 
 courage or endurance of suffering, patience under 
 affronts and injuries, humility, irresistence, placability. 
 — The truth is, there are two opposite descriptions of 
 character under which mankind may be generally 
 classed. The one possesses vigour, firmness, resolu- 
 tion, is daring and active, quick in its sensibilities, 
 
97 
 
 jealous in its fame, eager in its attachments, inflexible 
 in its purpose, violent in its resentments. The other 
 meek, yielding, complying, forgiving, not prompt to 
 act, but willing to suffer, silent and gentle under rude- 
 ness and insult, suing for reconciliation where others 
 would demand satisfaction, giving way to the pushes 
 of impudence, conceding and indulgent to the preju- 
 dices, the wrong-headed ness, the intractability of those 
 with whom it has to deal. — The former of these cha- 
 racters is, and ever hath been, the favourite of the 
 w^orld. — Yet so it hath happened, that with the Founder 
 of Christianity, this laMer is the subject of his commen- 
 dation, his jweceptSj his example ; and that the former is 
 so, in no part of its composition. This morality shows, 
 at least, that no two things can he more different than 
 the heroic and the Christian characters. Now it is 
 proved, in contradiction to first impressions, to popular 
 opinion, to the encomiums of orators and poets, and 
 even to the suffrages of historians and moralists, that 
 the latter character possesses most of true worth, both as 
 being most difficult either to be acquired or sustained, 
 and as contributing most to the hapjoiness and tranquillitij 
 of social life. — If this disposition were universal, the 
 case is clear ; the world would be a society of friends : 
 whereas, if the other disposition were universal, it 
 would produce a scene of universal contention. The 
 world would not be able to hold a generation of such 
 men. If, what is the fact, the disposition be partial; if 
 a few be actuated by it amongst a multitude who are 
 not, in whatever degree it does prevail, it prevents^ 
 allays, and terminates quarrels, the great disturbers of 
 human happiness, and the great sources of human misery, 
 so far as man's happiness and misery depend upon 
 man. The preference of the patient to the heroic cha- 
 racter, which we have here noticed, is a peculiarity in 
 
 N 
 
98 
 
 the Christian institution, which I propose as a7i argu- 
 ment of wisdom'''^ 
 
 These are the sentiments of Dr. Paley upon this 
 great characteristic of the Christian morality. I think 
 that in their plain, literal, and unsophisticated meaning, 
 they exclude the possibility of the lawfulness of war. 
 The simple conclusion from them is, that violence, and 
 devastation, and human destruction cannot exist in 
 conjunction with the character of a Christian. This 
 would be the conclusion of the inhabitant of some far and 
 peaceful island, where war and Christianity were alike 
 unknown. If he read these definitions of the Chris- 
 tian duties, and were afterwards told that we thought 
 ourselves allowed to plunder and to murder one 
 another, he would start in amazement at the monstrous 
 inconsistency. Casuistry may make her " distinc- 
 tions," and philosophy may talk of her "expediencies," 
 but the monstrous inconsistency remains. What is 
 the fact? Mahometans and Pagans do not believe 
 that our religion allows of war. They reproach us 
 with the inconsistency. Our wars are, with them, a 
 scandal and a taunt. " You preach to us," say they, 
 *' of Christianity, and would convert us to your creed ; 
 — first convert yourselves; show us that yourselves 
 believe in it." Nay, the Jews at our own doors tell us, 
 
 * I must be just. After these declarations, the author says, that when 
 the laws which inculcate the Christian character, are applied to what is 
 necessary to be done for the sake of the public, they are applied to a case to 
 which they do not belong; and he adds, " This distinction is plain," but in 
 what its plainness consists, or how it is discovered at all, he does not inform 
 us. The reader will probably wonder, as I do, that whilst Paley says no 
 two things can be more opposite than the Christian and the heroic charac- 
 ters, he nevertheless thinks it " is plain" that Christianity sanctions the 
 latter. 
 
 I would take the opportunity afforded me by this note, to entreat the 
 reader to look over the whole of Chap. 2, Part II. in the Evidences of 
 Christianity. He will find many observations on the placability of the 
 gospel, which will repay the time of reading them. 
 
99 
 
 that our wars are an evidence that the Prince of 
 Peace is not come. They bring the violence of Chris- 
 tians to prove that Christ w^s a deceiver. Thus do 
 we cause the way of truth to be evil spoken of Thus, 
 are we, who should be the helpers of the world, its 
 stumbling-blocks and its shame. We, who should be 
 lights to them that sit in darkness, cause them to love 
 that darkness still. Well may the Christian be 
 ashamed for these things : Well may he be ashamed 
 for the reputation of his religion : And he may be 
 ashamed too, for the honoured defender of the Christian 
 faith who stands up, the advocate of blood ; who 
 subtilizes the sophisms of the schools, and roves over 
 the fields of speculation to find an argument to con- 
 vince us that we may murder one another ! This is 
 the '' wisdom of the world ;" that wisdom which is, 
 emphatically, " foolishness." 
 
 We have seen that the principle on which Dr. 
 Paley's Moral Philosophy decides that war is lawful, is, 
 that it is expedient. I know not how this argument 
 accords with some of the statements of the Evidences 
 of Christianity. We are there told that the non-resist- 
 ing character possesses ^' the highest intrinsic value," 
 and the '' most of true worth ;" that it "prevents the 
 great disturbances of human happiness," and destroys 
 " the great sources of human misery," and that it *• con- 
 tributes most to the happiness and tranquillity of social 
 life." And in what then does expediency consist, if 
 the non-resisting character be not expedient? Dr. Paley 
 says, again, in relation to the immense mischief 
 and bloodshed arising from the violation of Christian 
 duty — ''We do not say that no evil can exceed this, nor 
 any possible advantage compensate it, but we say that 
 a loss which affects all, will scarcely he made up to the 
 common stock of human happiness^ hy any henefit that 
 can he procured to a single nation'' And is not there- 
 
100 
 
 fore the violation of the duty inexjyedient as well as 
 criminal? He says again that the warlike character 
 *' isy in its general effects, prejudicial to human happiness,'' 
 — and therefore, surely, it is inexpedient. 
 
 The advocate of war, in the abundance of his topics 
 of defence (or in the penury of them) has had recourse 
 to this: — That as a greater number of male children are 
 brought into the rvorld than of female, wars are the 
 ordination oj Providence to rectify the inequality ; and 
 one or two moralists have proceeded a step farther, and 
 have told us, not that war is designed to carry off the 
 excess, but that an excess is horn in order to supply its 
 slaughters. Dreadful ! Are we to be told that God 
 sends too many of his rational creatures into the world, 
 and therefore that he stands in need of wars to destroy 
 them ? Has he no other means of adjusting the pro- 
 portions of the species, than by a system which violates 
 the revelation that he has made, and the duties that he 
 has imposed? Or, yet more dreadful — are we to be 
 told that He creates an excess of one of the sexes, on 
 purpose that their destruction of each other may be 
 with impunity to the species ? This reasoning surely 
 is sufficiently confident : — I fear it is more than 
 sufficiently profane. But alas for the argument ! It 
 happens most unfortunately for it, that although more 
 males are born than females, yet from the greater mor- 
 tality of the former, it is found that long before the race 
 arrives at maturity, the number of females predomi- 
 nates. What a pity — that just as the young men had 
 grown old enough to kill one another, it should be 
 discovered that there are not too many to remain 
 peaceably alive ! Let then, the principle be retained 
 and acted upon ; and since we have now an excess of 
 females, let us send forth an armament of ladies that 
 their redundance may be lopped by the appointed 
 means. — But reallj^ it is time for the defender of war 
 
101 
 
 to abandon reasoning like this. It argues little m 
 favour of any cause, that its advocates have recourse to 
 such deplorable subterfuges. 
 
 The magistrate " beareth not the sword in vain ; 
 for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute 
 wrath upon him that doeth evil." From this acknow- 
 ledgment of the lawfulness of coercion on the part of 
 the civil magistrate, an argument has been advanced 
 in favour of war. It is said, that by parity of reason- 
 ing, coercion is also lawful in the suppression of the 
 violence which one nation uses towards another. 
 
 Some men talk as if the principles which we main- 
 tain were subversive of all order and government. 
 They ask us — Is the civil magistrate to stand still and 
 see lawless violence ravaging the land ? Is the whole 
 fabric of human society to be dissolved ? We answer, 
 No; and that whencesoever these men may have 
 derived their terrors, they are not chargeable upon us 
 or upon our principles. To deduce even a plausible 
 argument in favour of war from the permission "to 
 execute wrath upon him that doeth evil," it is 
 obviously necessary to show that we are permitted to 
 take his life. And the right to put an offender to death, 
 must be proved, if it can be proved at all, either from 
 an express permission of the Christian Scriptures, or, 
 supposing Christianity to have given no decisions, 
 either directly or indirectly, from a necessity which 
 hiows no alternative. Now every one knows that this 
 express permission to inflict death is not to be found; 
 and, upon the question of its necessity, we ask for that 
 evidence which alone can determine it — the evidence 
 of experience : and this evidence, the advocate of war 
 has never brought, and cannot bring. And we shall 
 probably not be contradicted when we say, that that 
 degree of evidence which experience has afforded, is an 
 evidence in our favour rather than agfainst us. 
 
102 
 
 But some persons entertain an opinion, that in the 
 case of murder, at least, there is a sort of immutable 
 necessity tor taking the offender's life. " Whoso shed- 
 deth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." 
 If any one urges this rule against us, we reply, that it 
 IS not a rule of Christianity ; and if the necessity of 
 demanding blood for blood is an everlasting principle 
 of retributive justice, how happens it that, in the first 
 case in which murder was committed, the murderer 
 was not put to death 1 
 
 The philosopher however would prove what the 
 Christian cannot ; and Mably accordingly says, " In 
 the state of nature, I have a right to take the life of 
 him who lifts his arm against mine. This right, upon 
 entering into society, I surrender to the magistrate.^' If 
 we conceded the truth of the first position, (which we 
 do not,) the conclusion from it is a sophism too idle for 
 notice. Having, however, been thus told that the state 
 has a right to kill, we are next informed, by Filangieri, 
 that the criminal has no right to live. He says, " If I 
 have a right to kill another man, he has lost his right to 
 life.''^ Rousseau goes a little farther. He tells us, 
 that in consequence of the "social contract" which we 
 make with the sovereign on entering into society, 
 " Life is a conditional grant of the state :"t so that we 
 hold our lives, it seems, only as " tenants at will," and 
 must give them up whenever their owner, the state, 
 requires them. The reader has probably hitherto 
 thought that he retained his head by some other 
 tenure. 
 
 The right of taking an offender's life being thus 
 proved, Mably shows us how its exercise becomes 
 expedient. " A murderer," says he, " in taking away 
 his enemy's life, believes he does him the greatest possible 
 evil Death, then, in the murderer's estimation, is the 
 
 ♦ Montagu on Punishment of Death. t Contr. Soc. ii. 5. Montagu. 
 
103 
 
 greatest of evils. B^ the fear of death, therefore, +he 
 excesses of hatred and revenge must be restrained." If 
 language wilder than this can be held, Rousseau, I think, 
 holds it. He says, " The preservation of both sides (the 
 criminal and the state) is incompatible ; one of the two 
 must perish." How it happens that a nation "must 
 perish," if a convict is not hanged, the reader, I suppose, 
 will not know. 
 
 I have referred to these speculations for the purpose 
 of showing, that the right of putting offenders to death is 
 not easily made out. Philosophers would scarcely have 
 had recourse to these metaphysical abstractions if they 
 knew an easier method of establishing the right. Even 
 philosophy, however, concedes us much: — ''Absolute 
 necessity, alone,'^ says Pastoret, ''can justify the punish- 
 ment of death ;" and Rousseau himself acknowledges, 
 that, " we have no right to put to death, even for the sahe 
 of example, any but those who cannot be permitted to 
 live without danger." Beccaria limits the right to two 
 specific cases; in which, "if an individual, though depriv- 
 ed of his liberty, has still such credit and connexions as 
 may endanger the security of the nation, or, by his ex- 
 istence, is likely to produce a dangerous revolution in the 
 established form of government — he must undoubtedly 
 die."* It is not, perhaps, necessary for us to point out 
 why, in these suppositious cases, a prisoner may not be 
 put to death ; since I believe that philosophy will find it 
 difficult, on some of her own principles, to justify his 
 destruction : For Dr. Paley decides, that whenever a 
 man thinks there are great grievances in the existing 
 government, and that, by heading a revolt, he can redress 
 them, without occasioning greater evil by the rebellion 
 than benefit by its success — it is his duty to reheL\ 
 The prisoner whom Beccaria supposes, may be pre- 
 
 12 
 
 * Del Delitti e delia Penes, xvi. Montagu, 
 t Moral and Political Philosophy. 
 
104 
 
 sumed to have thought this ; and with reason too, for the 
 extent of his credit, his connexions, and his success, is the 
 plea for putting him to death ; and we must therefore 
 leave it to those who indulge in such speculations, to 
 consider, how it can be right for one man to take the lead 
 in a revolution, whilst it is right for another to hang him 
 for taking it. 
 
 What then does the lawfulness of coercion on the part 
 of the magistrate prove upon the question of the lawful- 
 ness of war ? If capital punishments had never been i?i- 
 Jlicted, what would it have proved ? Obviously nothing. 
 If capital punishments cannot he shown to he defensible, 
 what does it prove ? Obviously nothing : for an unautho- 
 rized destruction of human life on the gallows, cannot 
 justify another unauthorized destruction of it on the 
 field. 
 
 Perhaps some of those who may have been hitherto 
 willing to give me a patient attention, will be disposed to 
 withdraw it, when they hear the unlawfulness of defen- 
 sive war unequivocally maintained. But it matters not. 
 My business is w^ith what appears to me to be truth : if 
 truth surprises us, I cannot help it — still it is truth. 
 
 Upon the question of defensive war, I would beg the 
 reader to bear in his recollection, that every feeling of 
 his nature is enlisted against us; and I would beg him, 
 knowing this, to attain as complete an abstraction from 
 the influence of those feelings as shall be in his power. 
 This he will do, if he is honest in the inquiry for truth. 
 It is not necessary to conceal that the principles w^hich 
 we maintain may sometimes demand the sacrifice of our 
 apparent interests. Such sacrifices Christianity has 
 been wont to require : they are the tests of our fidelity ; 
 and of those whom I address, I believe there are some, 
 who, if they can be assured that we speak the language 
 of Christianity, will require no other inducements to 
 obedience. 
 
105 
 
 The lawfulness of defensive war is commonly sim- 
 plified to The Right of Self-defence. This is one of 
 the strongholds of the defender of war, the almost final 
 fastness to which he retires. The instinct of self preser- 
 vation, it is said, is an instinct of nature ; and since this 
 instinct is implanted hy God, whatever is necessary to self- 
 preservation is accordant with his will. This is specious, 
 but like many other specious arguments, it is sound in 
 its premises, but, as I think, fallacious in its conclusions. 
 That the instinct of self-preservation is an instinct of 
 nature, is clear — that, because it is an instinct of nature, 
 we have a right to kill other men, is not clear. 
 
 The fallacy of the whole argument appears to consist 
 in this, — that it assumes that an instinct of nature is a 
 law of paramount authority. God has implanted in the 
 human system various propensities or instincts, of which 
 the purposes are wise. These propensities tend in their 
 own nature to abuse; and when gratified or followed to 
 excess, they become subversive of the purposes of the 
 wisdom which implanted them, and destructive of the 
 welfare of mankind. He has therefore instituted a 
 superior law, sanctioned by his immediate authority : by 
 this law, w^e are required to regulate these propensities. 
 The question therefore is, not whether the instinct of 
 self-preservation is implanted by nature, but whether 
 Christianity has restricted its operation. By this, and 
 by this only, the question is to be determined. Now he 
 who will be at the trouble of making the inquiry, will 
 find that a regulation of the instincts of nature, and a 
 restriction of their exercise, is a prominent object of the 
 Christian morality; and I think it is plain that this 
 regulation and restriction apply to the instinct before 
 us. That some of these propensities are to be restrain- 
 ed is certain. One of the most powerful instincts of 
 oar nature, is an affection to which the regulating pre- 
 cepts of Christianity are peculiarly directed. I do not 
 
106 
 
 maintain that any natural instinct is to be eradicated, but 
 that all of them are to be regulated and restrained ; and 
 I maintain this of the instinct of self-preservation. 
 
 The establishment of this position is, indeed, the 
 great object of the present inquiry. What are the 
 dispositions and actions to which the instinct of self- 
 preservation prompts, but actions and dispositions which 
 Christianity forbids? They are non-forbearance, resist- 
 ance, retaliation of injuries. The truth is, that it is to 
 defence that the peaceable precepts of Christianity are 
 directed. Offence appears not to have even suggested 
 itself It is " Resist not evil j' it is " Overcome evil with 
 good;" it is "Do good to them that hate you;" it is 
 " Love your enemies f' it is " Render not evil for evilf 
 it is "Whoso S7niteth thee on one cheek''' All this sup- 
 poses previous offence, or injury, or violence; and it 
 is then that forbearance is enjoined. 
 
 "The chief aim," says a judicious author, "of those 
 who argue in behalf of defensive war, is directed at the 
 passions f'* and accordingly, the case of an assassin will 
 doubtless be broug^ht aorainst me. I shall be asked — 
 Suppose a ruffian breaks into your house, and rushes 
 into your room with his arm lifted to murder you, do 
 you not believe that Christianity allows you to kill him? 
 This is the last refuge of the cause: my answer to it is 
 explicit — I do not believe it. 
 
 I have referred to this utmost possible extremity, be- 
 cause I am willing to meet objections of whatever nature, 
 and because, by stating this, which is enforced by all our 
 prejudices and all our instincts, I shall at least show 
 that I give to those who differ from me, a fair, an open, 
 and a candid recognition of all the consequences of my 
 principles. I would, however, beg the same candour 
 of the reader, and remind him, that were they unable to 
 
 * "Tlie Lawfulness of Defensive War impartially considered, by a Mem 
 ber of the Church of England." 
 
107 
 
 abide this test, the case of the ruffian has little practical 
 reference to war. I remind him of this, not because I 
 doubt whether our principles can be supported, but 
 because, if he should think that in this case I do not 
 support them, he will yet recollect that very few wars 
 are proved to be lawful. — Of the wars which are prose- 
 cuted, some are simply wars of aggression ; some are for 
 the maintenance of a balance of power ; some are in 
 assertion of technical rights, and some, undoubtedly, to 
 repel invasion. The last are perhaps the fewest; and 
 of these only it can be said that they bear any analogy 
 whatever to the case which is supposed; and even in 
 these, the analogy is seldom complete. It has rarely 
 indeed happened that wars have been undertaken sim- 
 ply for the preservation of life, and that no other alterna- 
 tive has remained to a people, than to kill or to be killed. 
 And let it be remembered, that imless this alternative 
 only remains, the case of the ruffian is irrelevant; it ap- 
 plies not, practically, to the subject. 
 
 I do not know what those persons mean, who say, 
 that we are authorized to kill an assassin by the law of 
 nature. Principles like this, heedlessly assumed, as of 
 self-evident truth, are, I believe, often the starting-post 
 of our errors, the point of divergency from rectitude, 
 from which our after obliquities proceed. Some men 
 seem to talk of the laws of nature, as if nature were a 
 leo^islatress who had sat and framed laws for the o^overn 
 ment of mankind. Nature makes no laws. A law 
 implies a legislator; and there is no legislator upon 
 the principles of human duty, but God. If, by the "law 
 of nature," is meant any thing of which the sanctions 
 or obligations are different from those of revelation, it 
 is obvious that we have set up a moral system of our 
 own, and in opposition to that which has been established 
 by Heaven. If we mean by the "law of nature," 
 nothing but that which is accordant with revelation, 
 
108 
 
 to what purpose do we refer to it at all 1 I do not sup 
 pose that any sober moralist will statedly advance the 
 law^s of nature in opposition to the laws of God ; but I 
 think that to advance them at all — that to refer to a7i7j 
 principle or law, in determination of our duty, irre- 
 spectively of the simple will of God, is always dan- 
 gerous: for there will be many, w^ho, when they are 
 referred for direction to such law or principle, will 
 regard it, in their practice, as a fi?ial standard of truth 
 I believe that a reference to the laws of nature has 
 seldom illustrated our duties, and never induced us to 
 perform them; and that it has hitherto answered little 
 other purpose than that of amusing the lovers of philo- 
 sophical morality. 
 
 The mode of proving, or of stating, the right to kill 
 an assassin, is this: — "There is one case in which all 
 extremities are justifiable; namely, when our life is as- 
 saulted, and it becomes necessary for our preservation to 
 kill the assailant. This is evident in a state of nature ; 
 unless it can be shown that we are bound to prefer the 
 aggressor's life to our own; that is to say, to love our 
 enemy better than ourselves, which can never be a debt 
 of justice, nor any where appears to be a duty of cha- 
 rity."* If I were disposed to hold argumentation like 
 this, I would say, that although we may not be required 
 to love our enemies better than ourselves, we are requir- 
 ed to love them as ourselves ; and that in the supposed 
 case, it still would be a question equally balanced, 
 w^hich life ought to be sacrificed ; for it is quite clear, that 
 if we kill the assailant, we love him less than ourselves, 
 which may, perhaps, militate a little against "a duty 
 of charity." But the truth is, that the question is not 
 whether w^e should love our enemy better than our- 
 selves, but w^h ether we should sacrifice the laws of 
 Christianity in order to preserve our lives — whether we 
 
 * Moral and Political Philosophy. 
 
109 
 
 should prefer the interests of religion to our own — • 
 whether we should be willing to "lose our life, for 
 Christ's sake and the gospel's." 
 
 This system of counter-crime is of very loose tendency. 
 The assailant violates his duties by attempting to kill 
 me, and I, therefore, am to violate mine by actually kill- 
 ing him. Is his meditated crime, then, a justification 
 of my perpetrated crime? In the case of a condemned 
 Christian martyr who was about to be led to the stake, 
 it is supposable, that by having contrived a mine, he 
 may preserve his life by suddenly firing it and blowing 
 his persecutors into the air. Would Christianity justify 
 the act? Or what should we say of him if he commit- 
 ted it? We should say that whatever hi^ faith might be, 
 his practice w^as very unsound; that he might believe 
 the gospel, but that he certainly did not fulfil its duties. 
 Now I contend that for all the purposes of the argu- 
 ment, the cases of the martyr and the assaulted person 
 are precisely similar. He who was about to be led to 
 the stake, and he who was about to lose his life by the 
 assassin, are both required to regulate their conduct by 
 the same laws, and are both to be prepared to offer up 
 their lives in testimony of their allegiance to Christian- 
 ity : the one in allegiance to her, in opposition to the 
 violation of her moral principles and her moral spirit; 
 and the other, in opposition to errors in belief or to 
 ecclesiastical corruptions. It is therefore in vain to tell 
 me that the victim of persecution would have suffered 
 for religion's sake, for so also would the victim of the 
 ruffian. There is nothing, in the sanctions of Christian- 
 ity which implies that obedience to her moral law is 
 of less consequence than an adherence to her faith ; nor, 
 as it respects the welfare of the world, does the conse- 
 quence appear to be less; for he who, by his fidelity to 
 Christianity, promotes the diffusion of Christian dis- 
 positions and of peace, contributes, perhaps^ as much 
 
110 
 
 to the happiness of mankind, as he who by the same 
 fidelity recommends the acceptance of an accurate creed. 
 
 A orreat deal hangs upon this question, and it is there- 
 fore necessary to pursue it farther. We say, then, first 
 — that Christianity has not declared that we are e\er at 
 liberty to kill other men: secondly — that she virtually 
 prohibits it, because her principles and the practice of 
 our Saviour are not compatible with it : and, thirdly — 
 that if Christianity allowed it, she would in effect and 
 in practice allow war, without restriction to defence of 
 life. 
 
 The first of these positions will probably not be dis- 
 puted ; and upon the second, that Christianity virtually 
 prohibits the destruction of human life, it has been the 
 principal object of this essay to insist. I would, there- 
 fore, only observe, that the conduct of the Founder 
 of Christianity, when his enemies approached him ''wiih 
 swords and staves^ appears to apply strictly to self- 
 defence. These armed men came with the final purpose 
 of murdering him ; but although he knew this purpose, 
 he would not suffer the assailants to be killed or even 
 to be wounded. Christ, therefore, would not preserve 
 his own life by sacrificing another's. 
 
 But we say, thirdly, that if Christianity allows us to 
 kill one another in self-defence, she allows war, without 
 restriction to self-defence. Let us try what would have 
 been the res^ult if the Christian Scriptures had thus 
 placed human life at our disposal : suppose they had said 
 — You may Mil a ruffian inyour own defence, hut you may 
 not enter into a defensive war. The prohibition would 
 admit, not of some exceptions to its application — the 
 exceptions would be so many, that no prohibition would 
 be left ; because there is no practical limit to the right 
 of self-defence, until we arrive at defensive war. If 
 one man may kill one, two may kill two, and ten may 
 kill ten, and an army may kill an army : — and this is 
 
Ill 
 
 defensive war. Supposing, again, the Christian Scrip 
 tares had said, an army may figlit in its own defence^ hut 
 not for any other purpose. We do not say that the ex- 
 ceptions to this rule would be so many as wholly to nul- 
 lify the rule itself; but we say that whoever will attempt 
 to apply it in practice, will find that he has a very wide 
 range of justi*fiable warfare; a range that will embrace 
 many more wars than moralists, laxer than we shall 
 suppose him to be, are willing to defend. If an army 
 may fight in defence of their own lives, they may and 
 they must fight in defence of the lives of others : if 
 they may fight in defence of the lives of others, they 
 will fight in defence of their property: if in defence 
 of property, they will fight in defence of political 
 rights: if in defence of rights, they will fight in pro- 
 motion of interests : if in promotion of interests, they 
 will fight in promotion of their glory and their crimes. 
 Now let any man of honesty look over the gradations 
 by which we arrive at this climax, and I believe he will 
 find that, in practice^ no curb can be placed upon the 
 conduct of an army until they reach it. There is, 
 indeed, a wide distance betw^een fighting in defence 
 of life and fio^htinor in furtherance of our crimes; but 
 the steps which lead from one to the other will follow 
 in inevitable succession. I know that the letter of our 
 rule excludes it, bat I know the rule will be a letter 
 only. It is very easy for us to sit in our studies, and to 
 point the commas, and semicolons, and periods of the 
 soldier's career; it is very easy for us to say he shall 
 stop at defence of life, or at protection of property, 
 or at the support of rights ; but armies will never listen 
 to us — we shall be only the Xerxes of morality throw- 
 ing our idle chains into the tempestuous ocean of 
 slaughter . 
 
 What is the testimony of experience ? When nations 
 
 are mutually exasperated, and armies are levied, and 
 K 
 
112 
 
 battles are fought, does not every one know that with 
 whatever motives of defence one party may have begun 
 the contest, both, in turn, become aggressors? In the 
 fury of slaughter, soldiers do not attend, they cannot 
 attend, to questions of aggression. Their business is 
 destruction, and their business they will perform. If 
 the army of defence obtains success, it soon becomes an 
 army of aggression. Having repelled the invader, it 
 begins to punish him. If a war is once begun, it is vain 
 to think of distinctions of aggression and defence. Mo- 
 ralists may talk of distinctions, but soldiers will make 
 none; and none can be made ; it is without the limits of 
 possibility. 
 
 But, indeed, what is defensive war? A celebrated 
 moralist defines it to be, war undertaken in conse- 
 quence of ''an injury perpetrated, attempted, or feared ;" 
 which shows with sufficient clearness how little the 
 assassin concerns the question, for fear respecting life 
 does not enter into the calculation of "injuries." So, 
 then, if we fear some injury to our purses, or to our 
 ''honour," we are allowed to send an army to the coun- 
 try that gives us fear, and to slaughter its inhabitants ; 
 and this, we are told, is defensive war. By this system 
 of reasoning, which has been happily called "martial 
 logic," there will be little difficulty in proving any war 
 to be defensive. Now we say that if Christianity 
 allows defensive war, she allows all war — except indeed 
 that of simple aggression ; and by the rules of this 
 morality, the aggressor is difficult of discovery ; for he 
 whom we choose to "fear" may say that he had 
 previous "fear" of us, and that his "fear" prompted the 
 hostile symptoms which made us "fear" again. The 
 truth is, that to attempt to make any distinctions upon 
 the subject is vain. War must be wholly forbidden, or 
 allowed without restriction to defence; for no definitions 
 of lawful or unlawful war will be, or can be, attended 
 
113 
 
 to. If the principles of Christianity, in any case, or 
 for any purpose, allow armies to meet and to slaughter 
 one another, her principles will never conduct us to the 
 period which prophecy has assured us they shall 
 produce. There is no hope of an eradication of war 
 but by an absolute and total abandonment of it.* 
 
 What then is the principle for which we contend? 
 An unreasoniiig reliance upon Providence for defence, in 
 all those cases in rvhich we should violate his laws hy 
 defending ourselves. The principle can claim a species 
 of merit, which must at least be denied to some systems 
 of morality- — that of simplicity, of easiness of appre- 
 hension, of adaptation to every understanding, of appli- 
 cability to every circumstance of life. 
 
 If a wisdom which we acknowledge to be unerring, 
 has determined and declared that any given conduct 
 is right, and that it is good for man, it appears prepos- 
 terous and irreverent to argue that another can be 
 better. The Almighty certainly knows our interests, 
 and if he has not directed us in the path which pro- 
 motes them, the conclusion is inevitable, that he has 
 voluntarily directed us amiss. — Will the advocate of 
 war abide this conclusion? And if he will not, how 
 will he avoid the opposite conclusion, that the path 
 of forbearance is the path of expediency ? 
 
 It would seem to be a position of very simple truth, 
 that it becomes an erring being to regulate his actions 
 by an acquiescent reference to an unerring will. That 
 it is necessary for one of these erring beings, formally 
 
 * It forms no part of a Christian's business to inquire why his religion for- 
 bids any given actions, although I know not that the inquiry is reprehensible. 
 In the case of personal attack, possibly Christianity may decide, that if one 
 of two men must be hurried from the world, of whom the first is so profligate 
 as to assault the life of his fellow, and the other is so virtuous as to prefer the 
 loss of life to the abandonment of Christian principles — it is more consistent 
 with her will that the good should be transferred to his hoped felicity, than 
 that the bad should be consigned to punishment. 
 
 O i p 
 
114 
 
 to insist upon this truth, and systematically to prove 
 It to his fellows, may reasonably be a subject of grief 
 and of shame. But the hardihood of guilt denies the 
 truth, and the speculativeness of philosophy practically 
 supersedes it ; — and the necessity therefore remains. 
 
 We have seen that the duties of the reliction which 
 God has imparted to mankind require irresistance; and 
 surely it is reasonable to believe, even without a re- 
 ference to experience, that he will make our irre- 
 sistance subservient to our interests — that if, for the 
 purpose of conforming to his will, w^e subject ourselves 
 to difficulty or danger, he w^ill protect us in our obe- 
 dience, and direct it to our benefit — that if he requires 
 us not to be concerned in war, he will preserve us in 
 peace — that he will not desert those w^ho have no other 
 protection, and who have abandoned all other protec- 
 tion because they confide in his alone. 
 
 And if w^e refer to experience, we shall find that the 
 reasonableness of this confidence is confirmed. There 
 have been thousands who have confided in Heaven in 
 opposition to all their apparent interests, but of these 
 thousands has one eventually said that he repented 
 his confidence, or that he reposed in vain? — ''He that 
 will lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same 
 shall find it." If it be said that we take futurity 
 into the calculation, in our estimate of interest, I 
 answer — So we ought. Who is the man that w^ould 
 exclude futurity ; or what are his principles ? I do not 
 comprehend the foundation of those objections to a 
 reference to futurity which are thus flippantly made. 
 Are we not immortal beings ? Have w^e not interests 
 beyond the present life? It is a deplorable tempei 
 of mind, which would diminish the frequency, or the 
 influence, of our references to futurity. The prospects 
 of the future ought to predominate over the sensation 
 of the present. And if the attainment of this preda 
 
115 
 
 minance be difficult, let us at least, not voluntarily, 
 argumentatively, persuade ourselves to forego the pros- 
 pect, or to diminish its influence. 
 
 Yet, even in reference only to the present state of 
 existence, I believe we shall find that the testimony 
 of experience is, that forbearance is most conducive to 
 our interests. 
 
 Integer vitae scelerisque purus 
 Non eget Mauri jaculis neque arcu, 
 Nee venenatis gravida sagittis, 
 
 Fusee, pharetra. 
 
 Horace. 
 
 And the same truth is delivered by much higher au- 
 thority than that of Horace, and iu much stronger 
 language: — ''If a man's ways please the Lord, he 
 maketh even his enemies to he at peace rvith him'' 
 
 The reader of American history will recollect that 
 in the beginning of the last century, a desultory and 
 most dreadful warfare was carried on by the natives 
 against the European settlers ; a warfare that was pro- 
 voked, as such warfare has almost always originally 
 been, by the injuries and violence of the Christians. 
 The mode of destruction was secret and sudden. The 
 barbarians sometimes lay in wait for those who might 
 come within their reach on the highway or in the 
 fields, and shot them without warning ; and sometimes 
 they attacked the Europeans in their houses, "scalping 
 some, and knocking out the brains of others." From 
 this horrible warfare, the inhabitants sought safety 
 by abandoning their homes, and retiring to fortified 
 places, or to the neighbourhood of garrisons; and those 
 whom necessity still compelled to pass beyond the 
 limits of such protection, provided themselves with 
 arms for their defence. But amidst this dreadful deso- 
 xation and universal terror, the Society of Frie?ids, who 
 
 were a considerable proportion of the whole population, 
 K2 
 
116 
 
 were steadfast to their principles. They would neither 
 retire to garrisons, nor provide themselves with arms. 
 They remained openly in the country, whilst the rest 
 were flying to the forts. They still pursued their occu- 
 pations in the fields or at their homes, without a weapon 
 either for annoyance or defence. And what was their 
 fate? They lived in security and quiet. The habitation, 
 which, to his armed neighbour, was the scene of 
 murder and of the scalping knife, was to the unarmed 
 Quaker a place of safety and of peace. 
 
 Three of the Society were however killed. And 
 who were they? They were three who abandoned 
 their principles. Two of these victims were men, who, 
 in the simple language of the narrator, " used to go 
 to their labour without any weapons, and trusted to the 
 Almighty, and depended on his providence to protect 
 them (it being their principle not to use weapons of 
 war to offend others or to defend themselves): but a 
 spirit of distrust taking place in their minds, they took 
 weapons of war to defend themselves, and the Indians, 
 who had seen them several times without them and let 
 them alone, saying they were peaceable men and hurt 
 nobody, therefore they would not hurt them, — now 
 seeing them have guns, and supposing they designed to 
 kill the Indians, they therefore shot the men dead." 
 The third whose life was sacrificed was a woman, who 
 *' had remained in her habitation," not thinking her- 
 self warranted in going '' to a fortified place for pre- 
 servation, neither she, her son, nor daughter, nor to take 
 thither the little ones; but the poor woman after some 
 time began to let in a slavish fear, and advised her 
 children to go with her to a fort not far from their 
 dwelling." She went; — and shortly afterwards *'the 
 bloody, cruel Indians lay by the way, and killed her."* 
 
 * See " Select Anecdotes, &c., by John Barclay," pp. 71—79. In this little 
 volume I have found some illustrations of the policy of the principle which 
 
117 
 
 The fate of the Quakers during the rebelKoa in 
 Ireland was nearly similar. It is well known that the 
 rebellion was a time not only of open war but of cold- 
 blooded murder ; of the utmost fury of bigotry, and the 
 utmost exasperation of revenge. Yet the Quakers 
 were preserved even to a proverb; and when strangers 
 passed through streets of ruin, and observed a house 
 standing uninjured and alone, they would sometimes 
 point, and say — ''That, doubtless, was the house of a 
 Quaker." 
 
 It were to no purpose to say, in opposition to the 
 evidence of these facts, that they form an exception to 
 a general rule. The exception to the rule consists in 
 the trial of the experiment of non-resistance, not in its 
 success. Neither were it to any purpose to say, that 
 the savages of America or the desperadoes of Ireland 
 spared the Quakers because they were previouslij 
 known to be an unoffending people, or because the 
 Quakers had previously gained the love of these by for- 
 bearance or good offices : — we concede all this : it is the 
 very argument which we maintain. We say that a 
 uniform, undemating regard to the peaceable obligations 
 of Christianity, hecomes the safeguard of those who 
 practise it. We venture to maintain that no reason 
 whatever can be assigned why the fate of the Quakers 
 would not be the fate of all vfho should adopt their 
 conduct. No reason can be assigned why, if their 
 number had been multiplied ten-fold or a hundred-fold, 
 
 we maintain in the case of a personal attack. Barclay, the celebrated Apo- 
 logist, was attacked by a highwayman. He made no other resistance than a 
 calm expostulation. The felon dropped his presented pistol, and offered no 
 farther violence. A Leonard Fell was assaulted by a highway robber, who 
 plundered him of his money and his horse, and afterwards threatened to blow 
 out his brains. Fell solemnly spoke to the robber on the wickedness of his 
 life. The man was astonished: — he declared he would take neither his 
 money nor his horse, and returned them both. — " If thine enemy bungler. fee4 
 him, — for in so doingthou shall heap coals of fire upon his head." 
 
118 
 
 they would not have been preserved. If there be such 
 a reason, let us hear it. The American and Irish 
 Quakers were, to the rest of the community, what one 
 nation is to a continent. And we must require the 
 advocate of war to produce (that which has never yet 
 been produced) a reason for believing that, although 
 individuals exposed to destruction were preserved, a 
 nation exposed to destruction would be destroyed. We 
 do not, however, say, that if a people, in the customary 
 state of men's passions, should be assailed by an in- 
 vader, and should, on a sudden, choose to declare that 
 they would try whether Providence would protect them 
 — of such a people, w^e do not say that they would 
 experience protection, and that none of them would be 
 killed. But we say that the evidence of experience is, 
 that a people who habitually regard the obligations of 
 Christianity in their conduct towards other men, and 
 who steadfastly refuse, through whatever consequences, 
 to engage in acts of hostility, will experience protection 
 in their peacefulness : and it matters nothing to the argu- 
 ment, whether we refer that protection to the immediate 
 agency of Providence, or to the influence of such con- 
 duct upon the minds of men. 
 
 Such has been the experience of the unoffending and 
 unresisting, in individual life. A national example of 
 a refusal to bear arms has only once been exhibited 
 to the world : but that one example has proved, so far as 
 its political circumstances enabled it to prove, all that 
 humanity could desire, and all that skepticism could 
 demand, in favour of our ars^ument. 
 
 It has been the ordinary practice of those who have 
 colonized distant countries, to force a footing, or to 
 maintain it, with the sword. One of the first objects 
 has been to build a fort and to provide a military. The 
 adventurers became soldiers, and the colony was a gar- 
 rison. Pennsylvania was, however, colonized by men 
 
119 
 
 who believed that war was absolutely incompatible 
 with Christianity, and who therefore resolved not to 
 practise it. Having determined not to fight, they 
 maintained no soldiers and possessed no arms. They 
 planted themselves in a country that was surrounded 
 by savages, and by savages who knew they were un- 
 armed. If easiness of conquest, or incapability of 
 defence, could subject them to outrage, the Pennsylva- 
 nians might have been the very sport of violence. 
 Plunderers might have robbed them without retaliation, 
 and armies might have slaughtered them without 
 resistance. If they did not give a temptation to out- 
 rage, no temptation could be given. But these were the 
 people who possessed their country in security, whilst 
 those around them were trembling for their existence. 
 This was a land of peace, whilst every other was a 
 land of war. The conclusion is inevitable, although it 
 is extraordinary — they were in no need of arms because 
 they 7vould not use them. 
 
 These Indians were sufficiently ready to commit out- 
 rages upon other states, and often visited them with 
 desolation and slaughter; with that sort of desolation, 
 and that sort of slaughter, which might be expected 
 from men whom civilization had not reclaimed from 
 cruelty, and whom religion had not awed into for- 
 bearance. "But whatever the quarrels of the Penn- 
 sylvanian Indians were with others, they uniformly 
 respected, and held as it were sacred, the territories 
 of William Penn."* " The Pennsylvanians never lost 
 man, woman, or child by them, which neither the 
 colony of Maryland, nor that of Virginia could say, no 
 more than the great colony of New England."! 
 
 The security and quiet of Pennsylvania was not a 
 transient freedom from war, such as might accidentally 
 happen to any nation. She continued to enjoy it " for 
 
 * Clarkson. f Oldmixon, A nno 1708. 
 
120 
 
 more than seventy years,"* and subsisted in the midst 
 of six Indian nations, "without so much as a mihtia for 
 her defence."t "The Pennsylvanians became armed, 
 though without arms; they became strong, though 
 without strength ; they became safe, without the ordi- 
 nary means of safety. The constable's staff was the 
 only instrument of authority amongst them for the 
 greater part of a century, and never, during the ad- 
 ministration of Penn or that of his proper successors, 
 was there a quarrel or a war."J 
 
 I cannot wonder that these people were not molested 
 — extraordinary and unexampled as their security was. 
 There is something so noble in this perfect confidence 
 in the Supreme Protector, in this utter exclusion of 
 ** slavish fear," in this voluntary relinquishment of the 
 means of injury or of defence, that I do not wonder 
 that even ferocity could be disarmed by such virtue 
 A people, generously living without arms, amidst na- 
 tions of warriors ! Who would attack a people such 
 as this ? There are few men so abandoned as not to 
 respect such confidence. It were a peculiar and an 
 unusual intensity of wickedness that would not even 
 revere it. 
 
 And when was the security of Pennsylvania molested, 
 and its peace destroyed? — When the men who had 
 directed its counsels and who would not engage in war, 
 were outvoted in its legislature: — when they who supposed 
 that there was greater security in the sword than in Chris- 
 tianity, became the predominating body. From that 
 hour, the Pennsylvanians transferred their confidence 
 in Christian principles to a confidence in their arms; 
 and from that hour to the present they have been subject 
 to war. 
 
 Such is the evidence derived from a national examp. 
 of the consequences of a pursuit of the Christian policj 
 
 * Proud. f Oldmixon. + Clarkson, Life of Penn. 
 
121 
 
 in relation to war. Here are a people who absolutely 
 refused to fight, and who incapacitated themselves for 
 resistance by refusing to possess arms, and this was the 
 people whose land, amidst surrounding broils and 
 slaughter, was selected as a land of security and peace. 
 The only national opportunity which the virtue of the 
 Christian world has afforded us of ascertaining the 
 safety of relying upon God for defence, has determined 
 that it is safe. 
 
 If the evidence which we possess do not satisfy us 
 of the expediency of confiding in God, what evidence 
 do we ask, or what can we receive? We have his 
 promise that he will protect those who abandon their 
 seeming interests in the performance of his will, and 
 we have the testimony of those who have confided in 
 him, that he has protected them. Can the advocate 
 of war produce one single instance in the history of 
 man, of a person who had given an unconditional obe- 
 dience to the will of heaven, and who did not find that 
 his conduct was wise as well as virtuous, that it accord- 
 ed with his interests as well as with his duty ? We ask 
 the same question in relation to the peculiar obligations 
 to irresistance. Where is the man who regrets, that iu 
 observance of the forbearing duties of Christianity, he 
 consigned his preservation to the superintendence of 
 God ?— And the solitary national example that is before 
 us confirms the testimony of private life; for there is 
 suflicient reason for believing that no nation, in modern 
 ages, has possessed so large a portion of virtue or of 
 happiness as Pennsylvania before it had seen human 
 blood. I would therefore repeat the question — What 
 evidence do we ask, or can we receive? 
 
 This is the point from which we wander — we do not 
 
 BELIEVE IN THE PROVIDENCE OF GoD. When this 
 
 statement is formally made to us, we think, perhaps, 
 that it is not true; but our practice is an evidence of its 
 
122 
 
 truth — for if we did believe, we should also confide in it, 
 and should be willing to stake upon it the consequences 
 of our obedience.* We can talk with sufficient fluency 
 of "trusting in Providence," but in the application 
 of it to our conduct in life, we know wonderfully 
 little. Who is it that confides in Providence, and for 
 what does he trust him? Does his confidence induce 
 him to set aside his own views of interest and safety, 
 and simply to obey precepts which appear inexpedient 
 and unsafe ? This is the confidence that is of value, 
 and of w^hich we know so little. There are many who 
 believe that war is disallowed by Christianity, and who 
 would rejoice that it were for ever abolished ; but there 
 are few who are willing to maintain an undaunted and 
 unyielding stand against it. They can talk of the 
 loveliness of peace, ay, and argue against the lawful- 
 ness of war ; but when difficulty or suffering would be 
 the consequence, they will not refuse to do what they 
 know to be unlawful, they will not practise the peaceful- 
 ness which they say they admire. Those who are ready 
 to sustain the consequences of undeviating obedience are 
 the supporters of whom Christianity stands in need. She 
 wants men who are willing to suffei* for her principles. 
 It is necessary for us to know by what principles we 
 are governed. Are we regulated by the injunctions of 
 God, or are we not? If there be any lesson of morality 
 which it is of importance to mankind to learn, and if 
 there be any which they have not yet learnt, it is the 
 necessity of simply performing the duties of Christian- 
 ity without reference to consequences. If we could 
 persuade ourselves to do this, we should certainly pass 
 life with greater consistency of conduct, and as I firmlj 
 
 * "The dread of being- destroyed by our enemies if we do not go to war with 
 them, is a plain and unequivocal proof of our disbelief in the superintendence 
 of Divine Providence." — The Lawfulness of defensive War impartially con- 
 sidered; by a Member of the Church of England. 
 
123 
 
 believe in greater enjoyment and greater peace. The 
 world has had many examples of such fidelity and con- 
 fidence. Who have been the Christian martyrs of all 
 ages, but men who maintained their fidelity to Christian- 
 ity through whatever consequences? They were faith- 
 ful to the Christian creed ; we ought to be faithful to the 
 Christian morality; without morality the profession of a 
 creed is vain. Nay, we have seen that there have been 
 martyrs to the duties of morality, and to these very 
 d uties of peacefulness. The duties remain the same, 
 but where is our obedience-? 
 
 I hope, for the sake of his understanding and his 
 heart, that the reader will not say I reason on the sup- 
 position that the world was what it is not; and that 
 although these duties may be binding upon us when 
 the world shall become purer, yet that we must now 
 accommodate ourselves to the state of things as they 
 are. This is to say that in a land of assassins, assassi- 
 nation would be right. If no one begins to reform his 
 practice, until others have begun before him, reforma- 
 tion will never be begun. If apostles, or martyrs, or 
 reformers had '' accommodated themselves to the exist- 
 ing state of things," where had now been Christianity? 
 The business of reformation belongs to him who sees 
 that reformation is required. The world has no other 
 human means of amendment. If you believe that war 
 is not allowed by Christianity, it is your business to 
 oppose it ; and if fear or distrust should raise questions 
 on the consequences, apply the Vv^ords of our Saviour 
 —"What is that to thee?— Follow thou me." 
 
 Our great misfortune in the examination of the duties 
 of Christianity, is, that we do not contemplate them 
 with s-ufficient simplicity. We do not estimate them 
 without some addition or abatement of our own ; there 
 is almost always some iritervening medium. A sort of 
 half transparent glass is liuxig before each individual, 
 
124 
 
 which possesses endless shades of colour and degrees 
 of opacity, and which presents objects with endless 
 varieties of distortion. This glass is coloured by our 
 education and our passions. The business of inoral 
 culture is to render it transparent. The perfection of 
 the perceptive part of moral culture is to remove it 
 from before us. — Simple obedience ovitliout reference to 
 consequences, is our great duty. I know that philo- 
 sophers have told us otherwise : I know that we have 
 been referred, for the determination of our duties, 
 to calculations of expediency and of the future conse- 
 quences of our actions : — but I believe that in whatever 
 degree this philosophy directs us to forbear an uncon- 
 ditional obedience to the rules of our religion, it will be 
 found, that when Christianity shall advance in her 
 purity and her power, she will sweep it from the earth 
 with the besom of destruction. 
 
 The positions, then, which we have endeavoured 
 to establish, are these : — 
 I. That the general character of Christianity is 
 wholly incongruous with war, and that its general 
 duties are incompatible with it. 
 II. That some of the express precepts and declara- 
 tions of Jesus Christ virtually forbid it. 
 
 III. That his practice is not reconcileable with the 
 supposition of its lawfulness. 
 
 IV. That the precepts and practice of the apostles 
 correspond with those of our Lord. 
 
 V. That the primitive Christians believed that Christ 
 had forbidden war; and that some of them suffered 
 death in affirmance of this belief. 
 
 VI. That God has declared in prophecy, that it is his 
 will that war should eventually be eradicated from 
 the earth; and this eradication will be effected by 
 Christianity, by the influence of its present prin 
 ciples. 
 
 
125 
 
 VII. That those who have refused to engage in war, in 
 consequence of their belief of its inconsistency 
 with Christianity, have found that Providence has 
 protected them. 
 Now we think that the establishment of any con- 
 siderable number of these positions is sufficient for our 
 argument. The establishment of the whole forms a 
 body of evidence, to which I am not able to believe 
 that an inquirer, to whom the subject was new, would 
 be able to withhold his assent. But since such an 
 inquirer cannot be found, I would invite the reader 
 to lay prepossession aside, to suppose himself to have 
 now first heard of battles and slaughter, and dispassion- 
 ately to examine whether the evidence in favour of 
 peace be not very great, and whether the objections to 
 it bear any proportion to the evidence itself But what- 
 ever may be the determination upon this question, 
 surely it is reasonable to try the experiment whether 
 security cannot be maintained without slaughter. 
 Whatever be the reasons for war, it is certain that it 
 produces enormous mischief Even waiving the obli- 
 gations of Christianity, we have to choose between evils 
 that are certain and evils that are doubtful ; between 
 the actual endurance of a great calamity, and the pos- 
 sibility of a less. It certainly cannot be proved that 
 peace would not be the best policy; and sin-ce we know 
 that the present system is bad, it were reasonable and 
 wise to try whether the other is not better. In reality, 
 I can scarcely conceive the possibility of greater evil 
 than that which mankind now endure ; an evil, moral 
 and physical, of far wider extent, and far greater inten- 
 sity, than our familiarity with it allows us to suppose. 
 If a system of peace be not productive of less evil than 
 the system of war, its consequences must indeed be 
 enormously bad ; and that it would produce such conse- 
 quences, we have no warrant for believing either from 
 
126 
 
 reason or from practice — either from the principles of 
 the moral government of God, or from the experience 
 of mankind. Whenever a people shall pursue, steadily 
 and uniformly, the pacific morality of the gospel, and 
 shall do this from the pure motive of obedience, there is 
 no reason to fear for the consequences : there is no reason 
 to fear that they would experience any evils such as we 
 now endure, or that they would not find that Christian- 
 ity understands their interests better than themselves; 
 and that the surest and the only rule of wisdom, 
 of safety, and of expediency, is to maintain her spirit in 
 every circumstance of life. 
 
 "There is reason to expect," says Dr. Johnson, "that 
 as the world is more enlightened, policy and morality 
 will at last be reconciled."*' When this enlightened 
 period shall arrive, we shall be approaching, and we 
 shall not till then approach, that era of purity and of 
 peace, when "violence shall be no more heard in our 
 land, wasting nor destruction within our borders" — that 
 era in which God has promised that "they shall not 
 hurt nor destroy in all his holy mountain." That a 
 period like this will come, I am not able to doubt : I 
 believe it because it is not credible that he will always 
 endure the butchery of man by man; because he has 
 declared that he will not endure it; and because I think 
 there is a perceptible approach of that period in which 
 he will say — " It is enough."! In this belief I rejoice: 
 I rejoice that the number is increasing of those who are 
 asking, — "Shall the sword devour forever?" and of 
 those who, whatever be the opinions or the practice of 
 others, are openly saying, "I am for peace. "f 
 
 Whether I have succeeded in establishing the posi- 
 tion THAT WAR, OF EVERY KIND, IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH 
 
 Christianity, it is not my business to determine ; but 
 of this, at least, I can assure the reader, that I would not 
 
 ^* Falkland's Islands ] 2 Sam. xxiv. IG. + Psalm cxx. 7. 
 
127 
 
 have intruded this inquiry upon the public, if 1 had not 
 believed, with undoubting confidence, that the position 
 is accordant with everlasting truth;-— with that truth 
 which should regulate our conduct here, and which 
 will not be superseded in the world that is to come 
 
 LZ 
 
in. 
 
 OBSERVATIONS ON THE EFFECTS OF WAR. 
 
 War'*s least horror is ih^ ensanguined field. — Barbauld. 
 
 There are few maxims of more unfailing truth than 
 hat "A tree is known by its fruits ;" and I will acknow- 
 ledge that if the lawfulness of war were to be deter min 
 ed by a reference to its consequences, I should willingly 
 consign it to this test, in the belief that, if popular 
 impressions w^ere suspended, a good, or a benevolent, or 
 a reasoning man would find little cause to decide in 
 its favour. 
 
 In attempting to illustrate some of the effects of 
 war, it is my purpose to inquire not so much into its 
 civil or political, as into its moral consequences; and 
 of the latter, to notice those, chiefly, which commonly 
 obtain little of our inquiry or attention. To speak 
 strictly indeed, civil and political considerations are 
 necessarily involved in the moral tendency : for the 
 nappiness of society is always diminished by the dimi- 
 nution of morality; and enlightened policy knows that 
 the greatest support of a state is the virtue of the people. 
 
 The reader needs not be reminded of — what nothing 
 but the frequency of the calamity can make him forget 
 — the intense sufferings and irreparable deprivations 
 which a battle inevitably entails upon private life. 
 
 128 
 
129 
 
 These are calamities of which the world thinks little, 
 and which, if it thought of them, it could not remove. 
 A father or a husband can seldom be replaced : a void is 
 created in the domestic felicity, which there is little 
 hope that the future will fill. By the slaughter of a 
 war, there are thousands who weep in unpitied and 
 unnoticed secrecy, whom the world does not see ; 
 and thousands who retire, in silence, to hopeless pover- 
 ty, for wdiom it does not care. To these, the conquest 
 of a kingdom is of little importance. The loss of a 
 protector or a friend is ill repaid by empty glory. An 
 addition of territory may add titles to a king, but the 
 brilliancy of a crown throws little light upon domestic 
 gloom. It is not my intention to insist upon these 
 calamities, intense, and irreparable, and unnumbered as 
 they are ; but those who begin a war without taking 
 them into their estimates of its consequences, must 
 be regarded as, at most, half-seeing politicians. The 
 legitimate object of political measures is the good of the 
 j)eople — and a great sum ot good a war must produce^ 
 if it outbalances even this portion of its mischiefs. 
 
 In the more obvious effects of war, there is, however, 
 a sufficient sum of evil and wretchedness. The most 
 dreadful of these is the destruction of human life. 
 The frequency with which this destruction is represented 
 to our minds has almost extinguished our perception of 
 its awfulness and horror. In the interval between 
 anno 1141 and 1815, our country has been at war with 
 France alone, tivo hundred and sixty-six years. If to 
 this we add our wars with other countries, probably we 
 shall find that one half of the last six or seven centuries 
 has been spent by this country in war ! A dreadful 
 picture of human violence ! There is no means of 
 knowing how^ many victims have been sacrificed during 
 this lapse of ag ^s. Those who have fallen in battle, 
 
 R 
 
130 
 
 and those who have perished "in tents and ships, 
 amidst damps and putrefaction," probably amount to a 
 number greater than the number of men now existing 
 in France and England together. And where is our 
 equivalent good? — "The wars of Europe, for these two 
 hundred years last past, by the confession of all parties, 
 have really ended in the advantage of none, but to the 
 manifest detriment of all." This is the testimony of 
 the celebrated Dr. Josiah Tucker, Dean of Gloucester : 
 and Erasmus has said, "I know not whether any war 
 ever succeeded so fortunately in all its events, but that 
 the conqueror, if he had a heart to feel or an under- 
 standing to judge as he ought to do, repented that 
 he had ever eng^aged in it at all." 
 
 Since the last war, we have heard much of the dis- 
 tresses of the country ; and whatever be the opinion 
 whether they have been brought upon us by the peace, 
 none will question whether they have been brought 
 upon us by war. The peace may be the occasion of 
 them, but war has been the cause. I have no wish to 
 declaim upon the amount of our national debt — that it 
 is a great evil, and that it has been brought upon us 
 by successive contests, no one disputes. Such consi- 
 derations ought, undoubtedly, to influence the conduct 
 of public men in their disagreements with other states, 
 even if his/her considerations do not influence it. 
 They ought to form part of the calculations of the evil 
 of hostility. I believe that a greater mass of human 
 suffering and loss of human enjoyment are occasioned 
 by the pecuniary distresses of a war, than any ordinary 
 advantages of a war compensate. But this consi- 
 deration seems too remote to obtain our notice. Anger 
 at offence, or hope of triumph, overpowers the sober 
 calculations of reason, and outbalances the weight of 
 after and long continued calamities. If the happiness 
 
131 
 
 of the people wore, what it ought to be, the primary 
 and the ultimate object of national measures, 1 think 
 that the policy which pursued this object would often 
 find that even the pecuniary distresses resulting from 
 a war make a greater deduction from the quantum of 
 felicity, than those evils which the war may have been 
 designed to avoid. At least the distress is certain ; the 
 advantage doubtful. It is known that during the past 
 eight years of the present peace, a considerable portion 
 of the community have been in suffering in conse- 
 quence of w^ar. Eight years of suffering to a million of 
 human creatures, is a serious thing ! •' It is no answer to 
 say, that this universal suffering, and even the deso- 
 lation that attends it, are the inevitable consequences 
 and events of war, how warrantably soever entered 
 into, but rather an argument that no war can be war- 
 rantably entered into, that may produce such intolerable 
 mischiefs."* 
 
 There is much of truth, as there is of eloquence, 
 in these observations of one of the most acute intellects 
 that our country has produced : — ''It is wonderful with 
 what coolness and indifference the greater part of man- 
 kind see war commenced. Those that hear of it at a 
 distance, or read of it in books, but have never presented 
 its evils to their minds, consider it as little more than a 
 splendid game, a proclamation, an army, a battle, and a 
 triumph. Some, indeed, must perish in the most suc- 
 cessful field ; but they die upon the bed of honour, resign 
 their lives amidst the joys of conquest, and filled with 
 England's glory, smile in death. The life of a modern 
 soldier is ill represented by heroic fiction. War has 
 
 * Lord Clareiidon — who, however, excepts those wars which are likely 
 " to introduce as much benefit to the world, as damage and inc&nvenience to 
 a part of it." The morality of this celebrated man, also, seems thus to have 
 been wrecked upon the rock of expediency 
 
132 
 
 means of destruction more formidable than the cannon 
 and the sword. Of the thousands and ten thousands 
 that perished in our late contests with France and 
 Spain, a very small part ever felt the stroke of an enemy ' 
 The rest languished in tents and ships, amidst damps 
 and putrefaction, gasping and groaning, unpitied 
 amongst men made obdurate by long continuance of 
 hopeless misery ; and were at last whelmed in pits, or 
 heaved into the ocean, without notice, and without 
 remembrance. By incommodious encampments and 
 unwholesome stations, where courage is useless and 
 enterprise impracticable, fleets are silently dispeopled, 
 and armies sluggishly melted away. 
 
 ''Thus is a people gradually exhausted for the most 
 part with little effect. The wars of civilized nations 
 make very slow changes in the system of empire. The 
 public perceives scarcely any alteration but an increase 
 of debt; and the few individuals who are benefited, are 
 not supposed to have the clearest right to their advan- 
 tages. If he that shared the danger enjoyed the profit, 
 and after bleeding in the battle, grew rich by the victo- 
 ry, he might show his gains without enyy. But at the 
 conclusion of a ten years' war, how are we recom- 
 pensed for the death of multitudes, and the expense of 
 millions, but by contemplating the sudden glories of 
 paymasters and agents, and contractors and commissa- 
 ries, whose equipages shine like meteors, and whose 
 palaces rise like exhalations ? 
 
 *' These are the men, who without virtue, labour, or 
 hazard, are growing rich as their country is impo- 
 verished ; they rejoice when obstinacy or ambition adds 
 another year to slaughter and devastation, and laugh 
 from their desks at bravery and science, while they 
 are adding figure to figure, and cipher to cipher, hoping 
 
133 
 
 for a new contract from anew armament, and compute 
 ing the profits of a siege or a tempest."* 
 
 Our business, however, is principally with the moral 
 effects of war. 
 
 " The tenderness of nature, and the integrity of man- 
 ners, which are driven away or powerfully discounte- 
 nanced by the corruption of w^ar, are not quickly 
 recovered — and the weeds which grow up in the short- 
 est war, can hardly be pulled up and extirpated with- 
 out a long and unsuspected peace." — " War introduces 
 and propagates opinions and practice as much against 
 heaven as against eartli ; — it lays our natures and man- 
 ners as waste as our gardens and our habitations; and 
 we can as easily preserve the beauty of the one as the 
 integrity of the other, under the cursed jurisdiction of 
 drums and trumpets."t 
 
 " War does more harm to the morals of men than 
 even to their property and persons." J '' It is a tem- 
 porary repeal of all the principles of virtue. "§ "There 
 is not a virtue of gospel goodness but has its death-blow 
 from war. "II 
 
 I do not know whether the greater sum of moral evil 
 resulting from war, is suffered by those who are im- 
 mediately engaged in it, or by the public. The mischief 
 is most extensive upon the community, but upon the 
 profession it is most intense. 
 
 Rara fides pietasque viris qui castra sequuntur. 
 
 LUCAN. 
 
 No one pretends to applaud the morals of an army, 
 and for its religion, few think of it at all. A soldier is 
 depraved even to a proverb. The fact is too notorious 
 to be insisted upon, that thousands who had filled their 
 
 * Johnson — Falkland's Islands. f Lord Clarendon's Essays. 
 
 % Erasmus. § Hall. |1 William Law, A.M. 
 
134 
 
 stations in life with propriety, and been virtuous from 
 principle, have lost, by a military life, both the practice 
 and the regard of morality ; and v^hen they have 
 become habituated to the vices of war, have laughed at 
 their honest and plodding brethren who are still spirit- 
 less enough for virtue, or stupid enough for piety. The 
 vices which once had shocked them become the subject, 
 not of acquiescence, but of exultation. ''Almost all 
 the professions," says Dr. Knox, "have some charac- 
 teristic manners which the professors seem to adopt 
 with little examination, as necessary and as honourable 
 distinctions. It happens, unfortunately, that profligacy, 
 libertinism, and infidelity are thought, by weaker minds, 
 almost as necessary a part of a soldier's uniform, as his 
 shoulderknot. To hesitate at an oath, to decline in- 
 toxication, to profess a regard for religion, would be 
 almost as ignominious as to refuse a challenge."^ 
 
 It is, however, not necessary to insist upon the im- 
 moral influence of war upon the military character, 
 since no one probably will dispute it. Nor is it diffi- 
 cult to discover how the immorality is occasioned. It 
 is obvious that those who are continually engaged in a 
 practice "in which almost all the vices are incorpo- 
 rated," and who promote this practice with individual 
 eagerness, cannot, without the intervention of a miracle, 
 be otherwise than collectively depraved. 
 
 If the soldier engages in the destruction of his spe- 
 cies he should at least engage it in with reluctance, 
 and abandon it with joy. The slaughter of his fellow 
 men should be dreadful in execution and in thought. 
 But what is his aversion or reluctance ? He feels none 
 — it is not even a subject of seriousness to him. He 
 butchers his fellow candidates for heaven, as a wood- 
 
 * Essays. — No. 19. Knox justly makes much exception to the applica- 
 bility of these censures. 
 
135 
 
 man fells a coppice; with as little reluctance and as little 
 regret. 
 
 Those who will compute the tendency of this fami- 
 liarity with human destruction, cannot doubt whether 
 it will be pernicious to the moral character. What is 
 the hope, that he who is familiar with murder, who has 
 himself often perpetrated it, and who exults in the 
 perpetration, will retain undepraved the principles of 
 virtue? His moral feelings are blunted: his moral 
 vision is obscured. We say his moral vision is ob- 
 scured; for we do not think it possible that he should 
 retain even the perception of Christian purity. The 
 soldier, again, who plunders the citizen of another 
 nation without remorse or reflection, and bears away the 
 spoil with triumph, will inevitably lose something of 
 his principles of probity. These principles are shaken; 
 an inroad is made upon their integrity, and it is an in- 
 road that makes after inroads the more easy. Mankind 
 do not generally resist the influence of habit. If we 
 rob and shoot those who are "enemies" to-day, we are 
 in some degree prepared to shoot and rob those who 
 are not enemies to-morrow. The strength of the re- 
 straining moral principle is impaired. Law may, indeed, 
 still restrain us from violence; but the power and 
 efficiency of principle is diminished. And this aliena- 
 tion of the mind from the practice, the love, and the 
 perception of Christian purity therefore, of necessity 
 extends its influence to the other circumstances of life; 
 and it is hence, in part, that the general profligacy of 
 armies arises. That which we have not practised in 
 war we are little likely to practise in peace ; and there 
 is no hope we shall possess the goodness which we 
 neither love nor perceive. 
 
 Another means by which war becomes pernicious 
 
 to the moral character of the soldier, is the incapacity 
 M 
 
136 
 
 which the profession occasions for the sober pursuits 
 of life. ''The profession of a soldier," says Dr. Paley, 
 ''almost always unfits men for the business of regular 
 occupations." On the question, v/hether it be better 
 that of three inhabitants of a village, one should be 
 a soldier and two husbandmen, or that all should occa- 
 sionally become both, he says that from the latter 
 arrangement the country receives three raw mihtia 
 men and three idle and pi'ojiigate peasants. War can- 
 not be continual. Soldiers must sometimes become 
 citizens : and citizens who are unfit for stated business 
 will be idle; and they who are idle will scarcely be 
 virtuous. A political project, therefore, such as a war, 
 which will eventually pour fifty or a hundred thousand 
 of such men upon the community, must of necessity be 
 an enormous evil to a state. It were an infelicitous 
 defence to say, that soldiers do not become idle until 
 the war is closed or they leave the army. — To keep 
 men out of idleness by employing them in cutting 
 other men's limbs and bodies, is at least an extraor- 
 dinary economy; and the profligacy still remains; for 
 unhappily if war keeps soldiers busy, it does not keep 
 them good. 
 
 By a peculiar and unhappy coincidence, the moral 
 evil attendant upon the profession is perpetuated by 
 the after system of half-pay. We have no concern 
 with this system on political or pecuniary considera- 
 tions ; but it wall be obvious that those w^ho return from 
 war, with the principles and habits of war, are little 
 likely to improve either by a life without necessary 
 occupation or express object. By this system, there 
 are thousands of men, in the prime or in the bloom of 
 life, who live without such object or occupation. This 
 would be an evil if it happened to any set of men, but 
 upon men who have been soldiers the evil is peculiarly 
 
137 
 
 intense. He whose sense of moral obligation has been 
 impaired by the circumstances of his former life, and 
 whose former life has induced habits of disinclination to 
 regular pursuits, is the man who, above all others, it is 
 unfortunate for the interests of purity should be sup- 
 ported on "half-pay." If w^ar have occasioned ''unfit- 
 ness for regular occupations," he will not pursue them, 
 if it have familiarized him with profligacy, he will be 
 little restrained by virtue. And the consequences of 
 consigning men under such circumstances to society, 
 at a period of life when the mind is busy and restless 
 and the passions are strong, must, of inevitable neces- 
 sity, be bad. — The officer who leaves the army with the 
 income only which the country allows him, often finds 
 sufficient difficulty in maintaining the character of a 
 gentleman. A gentleman however he will be; and he 
 who resolves to appear rich whilst he is poor, who will 
 not increase his fortune by industry, and who has learnt 
 to have few restraints from principle, sometimes easily 
 persuades himself to pursue schemes of but very ex- 
 ceptionable probity. Indeed, by his peculiar law, the 
 "law of honour," honesty is not required. 
 
 I do not know whether it be politic that he who has 
 held a commission should not be expected to use a 
 ledger or a yard ; but since, by thus becoming a "mili- 
 tary gentleman," the number is increased of those who 
 regulate their conduct by the law of honoMr, tlie rule is 
 necessarily pernicious in its effects. When H is con- 
 sidered that this law allows of " profaneness, neglect 
 of public w^orship and private devotion, cruelty to ser- 
 vants, rigorous treatment of tenants or other dependants, 
 want of charity to the poor, injuries to tradesmen 
 by insolvency or delay of payment, with numberless 
 examples of the same kind;" that it is, "in most in- 
 stances, favourable to the licentious indulgence of tho 
 
138 
 
 natural passions;" that it allows of "adultery, drunk 
 enness, prodigality, duelling-, and of revenge in the 
 extreme"^ — when all this is considered, it is manifestly 
 inevitable, that those who regulate their conduct by the 
 maxims of such a law, must become, as a body, reduced 
 to a low station in the scale of morality. f 
 
 We insist upon these things because they are the con- 
 sequences of war. We have no concern with " half-pay," 
 or with the "law of honour;" but with war, which 
 extends the evil of the one, and creates the evil of the 
 other. Soldiers may be depraved — and part of their 
 depravity is, undoubtedly, their crime, but part also is 
 their misfortune. The rvhole evil is imputable to war ; and 
 we say that this evil forms a powerful evidence against 
 it, whether we direct that evidence to the abstract ques- 
 tion of its lawfulness or to the practical question of its 
 expediency. That can scarcely be law^-^l which neces- 
 sarily occasions such enormous depravity. That can 
 scarcely be expedient w^hich is so pernicious to virtue, 
 and therefore to the state. 
 
 The economy of war requires of every soldier an 
 implicit submission to his superior; and this submission 
 is required of every gradation of rank to that above it. 
 This system may be necessary to hostile operations, but 
 I think it is unquestionably adverse to intellectual and 
 moral excellence. 
 
 * Dr. Paley. 
 
 f There is something- very unmanly and cowardly in some of the maxims 
 of this law of honour. How unlike the fortitude, the manliness of rea 
 courage, are the motives of him who fights a duel I He accepts a challenge, 
 commonly because he is afraid to refuse it. The question with him is 
 whether he fears more, a pistol or the ivorld^s di-ead frown ,- and his conduc, 
 is determined by the preponderating influence of one of these objects of fear 
 If I am told that he probably feels no fear of death; I answer, that if he fears 
 not the death of a duellist, his principles have sunk to that abyss of depra- 
 vity, whence nothing but the interposition of Omnipotence is likely to reclaim 
 them. 
 
139 
 
 The very nature of unconditional obedience implies 
 the relinquishment of the use of the reasoning powers. 
 Little more is required of the soldier than that he be 
 obedient and brave. His obedience is that of an ani- 
 mal, which is moved by a goad or a bit, without judg 
 ment or volition of his own ; and his bravery is that of 
 a mastiff, v^^hich fights whatever mastiff others pu* 
 before him. — It is obvious that in such agency, the 
 intellect and the understanding have little part. Now 
 I think that this is important. He who, v^ith whatever 
 motive, resigns the direction of his conduct implicitly 
 to another, surely cannot retain that erectness and in 
 dependence of mind, that manly consciousness of mental 
 freedom, which is one of the highest privileges of our 
 nature. The rational being becomes reduced in the 
 intellectual scale: an encroachment is made upon the 
 integrity of its independence. God has given us, in- 
 dividually, capacities for the regulation of our indivi- 
 dual conduct. To resign its direction, therefore, to the 
 despotism of another, appears to be an unmanly and 
 unjustifiable relinquishment of the privileges which he 
 has granted to its. Referring simply to the conclusions 
 of reason, I think those conclusions would be, that mili- 
 tary obedience must be pernicious to the mind. And 
 if we proceed from reasoning to facts, I believe that our 
 conclusions will be confirmed. Is the military cha- 
 racter distinguished by intellectual eminence? Is it 
 not distinguished by intellectual inferiority ? I speak 
 of course of the exercise of intellect, and I believe that 
 if we look around us, we shall find that no class of men, 
 in a parallel rank in society, exercise it less, or less 
 honourably to human nature, than the military pro- 
 fession.* I do not, however, attribute the want of intel- 
 
 * This inferiority will probably be found less conspicuous in the private 
 ihan i> his superiors. Employment in different situations, or in foreign coun- 
 M2 
 
140 
 
 lectual excellence solely to the implicit submissions of 
 a military life. Nor do I say that this want is so much 
 the fault of the soldier, as of the circumstances to which 
 he is subjected. We attribute this evil, also, to its 
 rightful parent. The resignation of our actions to the 
 direction of a foreign will, is made so familiar to us by 
 war, and is mingled with so many associations which 
 reconcile it, that I am afraid lest the reader should not 
 contemplate it with sufficient abstraction. — Let him 
 remember that in 7iot]iing but in war do we submit to it. 
 It becomes a subject yet more serious, if military 
 obedience requires the relinquishment of our moral 
 agency, — if it requires us to do, not only what may be 
 opposed to our will, but what is opposed to our con- 
 sciences. And it does require this; a soldier must 
 obey, how criminal soever the command, and how- 
 criminal soever he knows it to be. It is certain that 
 of those who compose armies many commit actions 
 which they believe to be wicked, and which they would 
 not commit but for the obligations of a military life. 
 Although a soldier determinately believes that the war 
 is unjust, although he is convinced that his particular 
 part of the service is atrociously criminal, still he must 
 proceed — he must prosecute the purposes of injustice or 
 robbery ; he must participate in the guilt, and be him- 
 self a robber. When we have sacrificed thus much of 
 principle, what do we retain ? If we abandon all use 
 of our perceptions of good and evil, to what purpose 
 has the capacity of perception been given? It were as 
 well to possess no sense of right and wrong, as to pre- 
 
 tries, and the consequent acquisition of information, often make the private 
 soldier superior in intelligence to labourers and mechanics ; a cause of supe- 
 riority which, of course, does not similarly operate amongst men of education 
 We would here beg the reader to bear in his recollection, the limitations 
 which are stated in the preface, respecting the application of any apparen 
 severity in our remarks. 
 
141 
 
 vent ourselves from the pursuit or rejection of them. 
 To abandon some of the most exalted privileges which 
 Heaven has granted to mankind, to refuse the accept- 
 ance of them, and to throw them back, as it were, upon 
 the Donor, is surely little other than profane. He who 
 hid a talent was of old punished for his wickedness: 
 what then is the offence of him who refuses to receive 
 it? Such a resignation of our moral agency is not 
 contended for or tolerated in any one other circumstance 
 of human life. War stands upon this pinnacle of 
 depravity alone. She, only, in the supremacy of crime, 
 has told us that she has abolished even the obligation to 
 be virtuous. 
 
 To what a situation is a rational and responsible 
 being reduced, who commits actions, good or bad, 
 mischievous or beneficial, at the word of another? I 
 can conceive no o^reater degradation. It is the lowest, 
 the final abjectness of the moral nature. It is this 
 if we abate the glitter of war, and if we add this glitter 
 it is nothing more. Surely the dignity of reason, and 
 the Hght of revelation, and our responsibility to God, 
 should make us pause before we become the voluntary 
 subjects of this monstrous system. 
 
 I do not know, indeed, under what circumstances 
 of responsibility di man supposes himself to be placed, 
 who thus abandons and violates his own sense of rec- 
 titude and of his duties. Either he is responsible for 
 his actions or he is not; and the question is a serious 
 one to determine. Christianity has certainly never 
 stated any cases in which personal responsibility ceases. 
 If she admits such cases, she has at least not told us so; 
 but she has told us, explicitly and repeatedly, that she 
 does require individual obedience and impose individual 
 responsibility. She has made no exceptions to the 
 imperativeness of her obligations, whether we are 
 
142 
 
 required to neglect them or not; and I can discover 
 in her sanctions, no reason to suppose that in her 
 final adjudications she admits the plea that another 
 required us to do that which she required us to for- 
 bear. — But it may be feared, it may be believed, that 
 how httle soever reUgion will abate of the responsibility 
 of those who obey, she will impose not a little upon 
 those who command. They, at least, are answerable 
 for the enormities of war; unless, indeed, any one shall 
 tell me that responsibility attaches nowhere; that that 
 which would be wickedness in another man, is innocence 
 in a soldier; and that Heaven has granted to the di- 
 rectors of war a privileged immunity, by virtue of 
 w^hich crime incurs no guilt and receives no punish- 
 ment. 
 
 It appears to me that the obedience which war exacts 
 to arbitrary power possesses more of the character of 
 servility and even of slavery, than we are accustomed 
 to suppose; and as I think this consideration may 
 reasonably affect our feeling of independence, how little 
 soever higher considerations may affect our consciences, 
 I w^ould allow myself in a few sentences upon the sub- 
 ject. I will acknowledge that when I see a company 
 of men in a stated dress, and of a stated colour, ranged, 
 rank and file, in the attitude of obedience, turning or 
 walking at the w^ord of another, now changing the po- 
 sition of a limb and now altering the angle of a foot, 1 
 feel humiliation and shame. I feel humiliation and 
 shame when I think of the capacities and the prospects 
 of man, at seeing him thus drilled into obsequiousness 
 and educated into machinery. I do not know whether 
 I shall be charged with indulging in idle sentiment 
 or idler affectation. If I hold unusual language upon 
 the subject, let it be remembered that the subject is 
 itself unusual. I will retract my affectation and senti 
 
143 
 
 ment, if the reader will show me any case in life paral 
 lei to that to which I have applied it. 
 
 No one questions whether military power be arbi 
 trary. That which governs an army, says Paley, is 
 DESPOTISM : and the subjects of despotic power we call 
 slaves. Yet a man may live under an arbitrary prince 
 with only the liability to slavery ; he may live and die, 
 unmolested in his person and unrestrained in his free- 
 dom. But the despotism of an army is an operative 
 despotism, and a soldier is practically and personally a 
 slave. Submission to arbitrary authority is the business 
 of his life : the will of the despot is his rule of action. 
 
 It is vain to urge that if this be slavery, every one 
 who labours for another is a slave; because there is 
 a difference between the subjection of a soldier and that 
 of all other labourers, in which the essence of slavery 
 consists. If I order my servant to do a given action, he 
 is at liberty, if he think the action improper, or if, from 
 any other cause, he choose not to do it, to refuse his obe- 
 dience. I can discharge him from my service indeed, 
 but I cannot compel obedience or yunish his refusal. 
 The soldier is thus punishp/i or compelled. It matters 
 not whether he have entered the service voluntarily or 
 involuntarily: being there, he is required to do what 
 may be, and what in fact often is, opposed to his will 
 and his judgment. If he refuse obedience, he is dread- 
 fully punished; his flesh is lacerated and torn from his 
 body, and finally, if he persists in his refusal, he may be 
 shot. Neither is he permitted to leave the service. 
 His natural right to go whither he would, of which 
 nothing but his own crimes otherwise deprives hini; 
 is denied to him by war. If he attempt to exercise this 
 right, he is pursued as a felon, he is brought back 
 in irons, and is miserably tortured for '' desertion. '^ 
 This, therefore, we think is slavery. 
 
144 
 
 I have heard it contended that an apprentice is a 
 slave equally with a soldier; but it appears to be for- 
 gfotten that an apprentice is consigned to the govern- 
 •nent of another because he is not able to govern him- 
 self. But even were apprenticeship to continue through 
 life, it would serve the objection but little. Neither 
 custom nor law allows a master to require his ap- 
 prentice to do an immoral action. There is nothing 
 in his authority analogous to that which compels a sol- 
 dier to do what he is persuaded is wicked or unjust. 
 Neither, again, can a master compel the obedience of 
 an apprentice by the punishments of a soldier. Even 
 if his commands be reasonable, he cannot, for refracto- 
 riness, torture him into a swoon, and then revive him 
 with stimulants only to torture him again; still less 
 can he take him to a field, and shoot him. And if 
 the command be vicious, he may not punish his dis- 
 obedience at all. — Bring the despotism that governs an 
 army into the government of the state, and what 
 would Englishmen say? They would say, with one 
 voice, that Englishmen were slaves. 
 
 If this view of military subjection fail to affect our 
 pride, we are to attribute the failure to that power of 
 public opinion by which all things seem reconcilable 
 to us; by which situations, that would otherwise be 
 loathsome and revolting, are made not only tolerable 
 but pleasurable. Take away the influence and the 
 gloss of public opinion from the situation of a soldier, 
 and what should we call it? We should call it a state 
 of insufferable degradation ; of pitiable slavery. But 
 public opinion, although it may influence notions, can- 
 not alter things. Whatever may be our notion of the 
 soldier's situation, he has indisputably resigned both 
 his moral and his natural liberty to the government of 
 despotic power. He has added to ordinary slavery. 
 
145 
 
 the slaver}' of the conscience ; and he is therefore, in 
 a twofold sense, a slave. 
 
 If I be asked why I thus complain of the nature 
 of military obedience, I answer, with Dr. Watson, that 
 all "despotism is an offence against natural justice; it 
 is a degradation of the dignity of man, and ought not, 
 on any occasion, to be either practised or submitted 
 to:" — I answer that the obedience of a soldier does, 
 in point of fact, depress the erectness and independence 
 of his mind; — I answer, again, that it is a sacrifice 
 of his moral agency, which impairs and vitiates his 
 principles, and which our religion emphatically con- 
 demns; and, finally and principally I answer, that such 
 obedience is not defended or permitted for any other 
 purpose than the prosecution of war, and that it is 
 therefore a powerful evidence against the solitary 
 system that requires it. I do not question the neces- 
 sity of despotism to war: it is because I know that 
 it is necessary that I thus refer to it ; for I say that 
 whatever makes such despotism and consequent degra- 
 dation and vice necessary, must itself be bad, and 
 must be utterly incompatible with the principles of 
 Christianity.* 
 
 Yet I do not know whether, in its effects on the mi- 
 litary character, the greatest moral evil of war is to be 
 sought. Upon the community its effects are indeed 
 less apparent, because they who are the secondary 
 subjects of the immoral influence are less intensely 
 affected by it than the immediate agents of its diffusion. 
 
 * I would scarcely refer to the monstrous practice of impressing seamen, 
 because there are many who deplore and many who condemn it. W'hether 
 this also be necessary to war, I know not : — probably it is necessary ; and if 
 it be, I would ask no other evidence against the system that requires it. 
 8uch an invasion of the natural rights of man, such a monstrous assumption 
 of arbitrary power, such a violation of every principle of justice^ cannot 
 possibly be nf^cessary to any fy?tem of which Christianity approves, 
 
 T 
 
14G 
 
 But whatever is deficient in the degree cf evil, is pro- 
 bably more than compensated by its extent. The 
 influence is like that of a continual and noxious va- 
 pour; we neither regard nor perceive it, but it secretly 
 undermines the moral health. 
 
 Every one knows that vice is contagious. The 
 depravity of one man has always a tendency to deprave 
 his neighbours; and it therefore requires no unusual 
 acuteness to discover, that the prodigious mass of im- 
 morality and crime, which are accumulated by a w^ar, 
 must have a powerful effect in "demoralizing" the 
 public. But there is one circumstance connected with 
 the injurious influence of war, which makes it pecu- 
 liarly operative and malignant. It is, that w^e do not 
 hate or fear the influence, and do not fortify ourselves 
 ao^ainst it. Other vicious influences insinuate them- 
 selves into our minds by stealth ; but this v/e receive 
 with open embrace. If a felon exhibits an example 
 of depravity and outrage, we are little likely to be cor- 
 rupted by it ; because we do not love his conduct or 
 approve it. But from whatever cause it happens, 
 the whole system of war is the subject of our compla- 
 cency or pleasure; and it is therefore that its mischief 
 is so immense. If the soldier who is familiarized wdth 
 slaughter and rejoices in it, loses some of his Christian 
 dispositions, the citizen who, without committing the 
 slaughter, unites in the exultation, loses also some of 
 his. If he who ravages a city and plunders its inhabit- 
 ants, impairs his principles of probity, he who ap- 
 proves and applauds the outrage, loses also something 
 of his integrity or benevolence. We acknowledge 
 these truths when applied to other cases. It is agreed 
 that a frequency of capital punishments has a tendency 
 to make the people callous, to harden them against 
 human suffering, and to deprave their moral principles. 
 
147 
 
 And the same effect will necessarily be produced 
 by war, of which the destruction of life is incom- 
 parably greater, and of which our abhorrence is incom- 
 parably less. — The simple truth is, that we are gratified 
 and delighted with things which are incompatible with 
 Christianity, and that our minds therefore become alien- 
 ated from its love. Our affections cannot be fully 
 directed to "two masters." If we love and delight in 
 war, we are little likely to love and delight in the 
 dispositions of Christianity. — And the evil is in its own 
 nature of almost universal operation. During a war, a 
 whole people become familiarized with the utmost 
 excesses of enormity — with the utmost intensity of 
 human wickedness — and they rejoice and exult in 
 them; so that there is probably not an individual in 
 a hundred who does not lose something of his Chris- 
 tian principles by a ten years' war. 
 
 The effect of the system in preventing the percep- 
 tion, the love, and the operation of Christian princi- 
 ples, in the minds of men who know the nature and 
 obligations of them, needs little illustration. We often 
 see that Christianity cannot accord with the system, 
 but the conviction does not often operate on our minds. 
 In one of the speeches of Bishop Watson in the House 
 of Lords, there occur these words: — "Would to God, 
 my lords, that the spirit of the Christian religion 
 would exert its influence over the hearts of individuals 
 in their public capacity ; then would revenge, avarice, 
 and ambition, which have fattened the earth with the 
 blood of her children, be banished from the counsels 
 .of princes, and there would be no more war. The time 
 will come — the prophet hath said it, and I believe it — 
 the time will assuredly come when nation, literally 
 speaking, shall no longer lift up hand against nation. 
 
 No man will rejoice, my lords, more than I shaj.. .4 r^c» 
 
 N 
 
143 
 
 the time when peace shall depend on an obedience to 
 the benevolent principles of the gospel."* This is 
 language becoming a Christian. Would it have been 
 believed that this same man voluntarily and studiously 
 added almost one half to the power of gunpowder, 
 in order that the ball which before would kill but six 
 men, might now kill ten ; and that he did this, knowing 
 that this purpose was to spread wider destruction 
 and bloodier slaughter? Above all, would it be believ- 
 ed that he recorded this achievement as an evidence of 
 his sagacity, and that he recorded it in the book which 
 contains the declaration I have quoted? 
 
 The same consequences attach to the influence of the 
 soldier's personal character. Whatever that character 
 be, if it arise out of his profession, we seldom regard it 
 with repulsion. We look upon him as a man whose 
 honour and spirit compensate for "venial errors." If 
 he be spirited and gallant, we ask not for his virtue and 
 care not for his profligacy. We look upon the sailor 
 as a brave and noble fellow^ who may reasonably be 
 allowed in droll profaneness, and sailorlike debauche- 
 ries — debaucheries, which, in the paid-ofl" crew of a 
 man-of-war, seem sometimes to be animated by 
 
 the dissoluted Spirit that fell, 
 
 The fleshliest Incubus. 
 
 We are, however, much diverted by them. The sai- 
 lor's cool and clumsy vices are very amusing to us; 
 and so that he amuses us, we are indifferent to his 
 crimes. That some men should be wicked, is bad — 
 that the many should feel complacency in wickedness 
 is, perhaps, worse. We may flatter ourselves v^^ith 
 dreams of our own virtue, but that virtue is very ques- 
 
 * Life of Bishop Watson. 
 
149 
 
 tionable — those principles are very unoperative, which 
 permit us to receive pleasure from the contemplation 
 of human depravity, with whatever "honour or spirit" 
 that depravity is connected. Such principles and 
 virtue will oppose, at any rate, little resistance to temp- 
 tation. An abhorrence of wickedness is more than an 
 outwork of the moral citadel. He that does not hate 
 vice has opened a passage for its entrance.* 
 
 1 do not think that those who feel an interest m the 
 virtue and the happiness of the world will regard the 
 animosity of party and the restlessness of resentment 
 which are produced by a war, as trifling evils. If any 
 thing be opposite to Christianity, it is retaliation and 
 revenge. In the obligation to restrain these disposi- 
 tions, much of the characteristic placability of Chris- 
 tianity consists. The very essence and spirit of our 
 religion are abhorrent from resentment. — The very 
 essence and spirit of war are promotive of resentment ; 
 and what then must be their mutual adverseness? 
 That war excites these passions, needs not be proved. 
 When a war is in contemplation, or when it has been 
 begun, what are the endeavours of its promoters ? They 
 animate us by every artifice of excitement to hatred 
 and animosity. Pamphlets, placards, newspapers, cari- 
 catures — every agent is in requisition to irritate us 
 into malignity. Nay, dreadful as it is, the pulpit 
 resounds with declamations to stimulate our too sluggish 
 resentment, and to invite us to blood. — And thus the 
 most unchristianlike of all our passions, the passion 
 
 * All sober men allow this to be true in relation to the influence of those 
 Novels which decorate a profligate character with objects of attraction. They 
 allow that our complacency with these subjects abates our hatred of the 
 accompanying vices. And the same also is true in relation to war ; with the 
 difference, indeed, which is likely to exist between the influence of the vices 
 of fiction and that of the vices of real life. 
 
150 
 
 which it is most the object of our religion to repress, is 
 excited and fostered. Christianity cannot be flourishing 
 under circumstances like these. The more effectually 
 we are animated to war, the more nearly we extino-uisli 
 the dispositions of our religion. War and Christian- 
 ity are like the opposite ends of a balance, of which 
 one is depressed by the elevation of the other. 
 
 These are the consequences which make war dread- 
 ful to a state. Slaughter and devastation are suffi- 
 ciently terrible, but their collateral evils are their 
 greatest. It is the immoral feeling that war diffuses — 
 it is the depravation of principle, which forms the mass 
 of its mischief 
 
 There is one mode of hostility that is allowed and 
 encouraged by war, which appears to be distinguished 
 by peculiar atrocity : I mean privateering. If war 
 could be shown to be necessary or right, I think this, 
 at least, were indefensible. It were surely enough 
 that army slaughtered army, and that fleet destroyed 
 fleet, without arming individual avarice for private 
 plunder, and legalizing robbery because it is not of our 
 countrymen. Who are the victims of this plunder, 
 and what are its effects? Does it produce any mis- 
 chief to our enemies but the ruin of those who perhaps 
 would gladly have been friends? — of those who are 
 made enemies only by the will of their rulers, and who 
 now conduct their commerce with no other solicitude 
 about the war than how they may escape the rapine 
 which it sanctions? Privateering can scarcely plead 
 even the merit of public mischief in its favour. An 
 empire is little injured by the wretchedness and star- 
 vation of a few of its citizens. The robbery may, in- 
 deed, be carried to such extent, and such multitudes 
 may be plundered, that the ruin of individuals may 
 impart poverty to a state. But for this mischief the 
 
151 
 
 privateer can seldom hope : and what is that practice, 
 of which the only topic of defence is the enormity of 
 its mischief! 
 
 There is a yet more dreadful consideration : — The 
 privateer is not only a robber, but a murderer. If he 
 cannot otherwise plunder his victim, human life is no 
 obstacle to his rapine. Robbery is his object, and his 
 object he will attain. Nor has he the ordinary excuses 
 of slaughter in his defence. His government does not 
 require it of him : he makes no pretext of patriotism, 
 but robs and murders of his own choice, and simply 
 for gain. The soldier makes a bad apology when 
 he pleads the command of his superior, but the pri- 
 vateer has no command to plead ; and with no object 
 but plunder, he deliberately seeks a set of ruffians who 
 are unprincipled enough for robbery and ferocious 
 enough for murder, and sallies with them upon the 
 ocean, like tigers upon a desert, and like tigers prowl- 
 ing for prey, — To talk of Christianity, as permitting 
 these monstrous proceedings, implies deplorable fatuity 
 or more deplorable profaneness. I would, however, 
 hope that he who sends out a privateer has not so little 
 shame as to pretend to conscience or honesty. — If he 
 will be a robber and a murderer, let him at least not be 
 a hypocrite; for it is hypocrisy for such men to pre- 
 tend to religion or morality. He that thus robs the 
 subjects of another country, wants nothing but im- 
 punity to make him rob his neighbour: he has no 
 restraint from principle. 
 
 I know not how it happens that men make preten- 
 sions to Christianity whilst they sanction or promote 
 such prodigious wickedness. It is sufficiently certain, 
 that whatever be their pretensions to it, it is not ope- 
 rative upon their conduct. Such men may talk of 
 religion, but they neither possess nor regard it : and 
 
 /Y2 
 
152 
 
 although I would not embrace in such censure those 
 who, without immediate or remote participation in the 
 crime, look upon it with secret approbation because 
 it injures their " enemies," I would nevertheless sug- 
 gest to their consideration whether their moral prin- 
 ciples are at that point in the scale of purity and 
 benevolence which religion enjoins. 
 
 We often hear, during a war, of subsidies from one 
 nation to another for the loan of an army ; and we hear 
 of this without any emotion, except perhaps of joy at 
 the greater probability of triumph, or of anger that 
 our money is expended. Yet, surely, if we contem- 
 plate such a bargain for a moment, we shall perceive 
 that our first and greatest emotion ought to be abhor- 
 rence. — To borrow ten thousand men w^ho know 
 nothing of our quarrel, and care nothing for it, to help 
 us to slaughter their fellows! To pay for their help in 
 guineas to their sovereign ! Well has it been exclaimed. 
 
 War is a game, that were their subjects wise, 
 Kings would not play at. 
 
 A king sells his subjects as a farmer sells his cattle; 
 and sends them to destroy a people, whom, if they had 
 been higher bidders, he w^ould perhaps have sent them 
 to defend. That kings should do this may grieve, but 
 it cannot surprise us : avarice has been as unprincipled 
 in humbler life; the possible malignity of individual 
 wickedness is perhaps without any limit. But that 
 a large number of persons, with the feelings and reason 
 of men, should coolly listen to the bargain of their 
 sale, should compute the guineas that will pay for their 
 blood, and should then quietly be led to a place where 
 they are to kill people towards whom they have no 
 animosity, is simply w^onderful. To what has invete- 
 racy of habit reconciled mankind ' I have no capacity 
 
153 
 
 of supposing a case of slavery, if slavery be denied in 
 this. Men have been sold in another continent, and 
 England has been shocked and aronsed to interference; 
 yet these men were sold, not to be slaughtered, but 
 to work : but of the purchases and sales of the world's 
 political butchers, England cares nothing and thinks 
 nothing; nay, she is a participator in the bargains. 
 There is no reason to doubt that upon other subjects of 
 horror, similar familiarity of habit would produce simi- 
 lar effects; or that he who heedlessly contemplates the 
 purchase of an army, wants nothing but this familiarity 
 to make him heedlessly look on at the commission 
 of parricide. If we could for one moment emanciptae 
 ourselves from this power of habit, how would it change 
 the scene that is before us ! Little would remain to 
 war of splendour or glory, but we should be left with 
 one wide waste of iniquity and wretchedness. 
 
 It is the custom, during the continuance of a war, to 
 offer public prayers for the success of our arms ; and 
 our enemies pray also for the success of theirs. I will 
 acknowledge that this practice appears to me to be 
 eminently shocking and profane. The idea of two 
 communities of Christians, separated perhaps by a 
 creek, at the same moment begging their common 
 Father to assist them in reciprocal destruction, is an 
 idea of horror to which I know no parallel. Lord^ 
 assist us to slaughter our enemies : This is our petition. 
 — "Father, forgive them; they know not what they 
 do." This is the petition of Christ. 
 
 It is certain that of two contending communities, 
 both cannot be in the right. Yet both appeal to Heaven 
 to avouch the justice of their cause, and both mingle 
 with their petitions for the increase, perhaps, of Chris- 
 tian dispositions, importunities to the God of mercy to 
 assist them in the destruction of one another. Taking 
 
 U 
 
154 
 
 into account the ferocity of the request — the solemnity 
 of its circumstances — the falsehood of its representations 
 — the fact that both parties are Christians, and that 
 their importunities are simultaneous to their common 
 Lord, I do not think that the world exhibits another 
 example of such irreverent and shocking iniquity- 
 Surely it were enough that we slaughter one another 
 alone in our pigmy quarrels, without sohciting the Fa- 
 ther of the universe to be concerned in them: surely it 
 were enough that each reviles the other with the iniquity 
 of his cause, without each assuring Heaven that he only 
 is in the right — an assurance that is false, probably in 
 both, and certainly in one. 
 
 To attempt to pursue the consequences of war 
 through all her ramifications of evil were, however, 
 both endless and vain. It is a moral gangrene which 
 diffuses its humours through the whole political and 
 social system. To expose its mischief is to exhibit all 
 evil; for there is no evil which it does not occasion, and 
 it has much that is peculiar to itself 
 
 That, together with its muliplied evils, war produces 
 some good, I have no wish to deny. I know that it 
 sometimes elicits valuable qualities which had other- 
 wise been concealed, and that it often produces collateral 
 and adventitious, and sometimes immediate advantages. 
 If all this could be denied, it would be needless to deny 
 it, for it is of no consequence to the question whether 
 it be proved. That any wide extended system should 
 not produce some benefits, can never happen. In such 
 a system, it were an unheard-of purity of evil, which 
 was evil without any mixture of good. But, to com- 
 pare the ascertained advantages of war with its as- 
 certained mischiefs, or with the ascertained advantages 
 of a system of peace, and to maintain a question as to 
 the preponderance of good, implies not ignorance, but 
 
155 
 
 guilt — not incapacity of determination, but voluntary 
 falsehood. 
 
 But I rejoice in the conviction that the hour is ap- 
 proaching, when Christians shall cease to be the mur- 
 derers of one another. Christian light is certainly 
 spreading, and there is scarcely a country in Europe, 
 in which the arguments for unconditional peace have 
 not recently produced conviction. This conviction is 
 extending in oar own country, in such a degree, and 
 upon such minds, that it makes the charge of enthusi- 
 asm or folly, vain and idle. The friends of peace, if 
 we choose to despise their opinions, cannot themselves 
 be despised ; and every year is adding to their number, 
 and to the sum of their learnino^ and their intellect. 
 
 It will perhaps be asked, what then are the duties 
 of a subject who believes that all war is incompatible 
 with his religion, but whose governors engage in a war 
 and demand his service? We answer explicitly, It 
 is his duty, mildly and teinperately, yet firmly, to refuse 
 to serve. — There are some persons, who, without any 
 determinate process of reasoning, appear to conclude 
 that responsibility for national measures attaches solely 
 to those who direct them; that it is the business of 
 governments to consider what is good for the commu- 
 nity, and that, in these cases, the duty of the subject is 
 mero^ed in the will of the sovereign. Considerations 
 like these are, I believe, often voluntarily permitted to 
 become opiates of the conscience. I have no part, it is 
 said, in the counsels of the government, and am not 
 therefore responsible for its crimes. We are, indeed, 
 not responsible for the crimes of our rulers, but we are 
 responsible for our own; and the crimes of oar rulers 
 are our own; if, whilst we believe them to be crimes, 
 
156 
 
 we promote them by our co-operation. "It is at all 
 times/' says Gisborne, ''the duty of an Englishman, 
 steadfastly to decline obeying any orders of his supe- 
 riors, which his conscience should tell him were in any 
 degree impious or unjust."* The apostles, who in- 
 structed their converts to be subject to every ordinance 
 of man for conscience' sake, and to submit themselves 
 to those who were in authority, and who taught them, 
 that whoever resisted the power, resisted the ordinance 
 of God, made one necessary and uniform provision — 
 that the magistrate did not command them to do, what 
 God had commanded them to forbear. With the regu- 
 lations w^hich the government of a country thought 
 fit to establish, the apostles complied, whatever they 
 might think of their wisdom or expediency, provided, 
 and only provided, they did not, by this compliance, 
 abandon their allegiance to the Governor of the world. 
 It is scarcely necessary to observe in how many cases 
 they refused to obey the commands of the governments 
 under which they were placed, or how openly they 
 maintained the duty of refusal, whenever these com- 
 mands interfered with their higher obligations. It is 
 narrated very early in "the Acts," that one of their 
 number was imprisoned for preaching, that he was 
 commanded to preach no more, and was then released. 
 Soon afterwards all the apostles were imprisoned. 
 "Did we not straitly command you," said the rulers, 
 " that ye should not teach in this name?" The answer 
 which they made is in point: — "We ought to obey 
 God raiher then men."t And this system they con- 
 tinued to pursue. If Csesar had ordered one of the 
 apostles to be enrolled in his legions, does any one 
 believe that he would have served ? 
 
 But those who suppose that obedience in all things 
 
 * Duties of Men in Society. f Acts vi. 28. 
 
157 
 
 is required, or that responsibility in political affairs 
 is transferred from the subject to the sovereign, reduce 
 themselves to a great dilemma. It is to say that we 
 must resign our conduct and our consciences to the 
 will of others, and act wickedly or well, as their good 
 or evil may preponderate, without merit for virtue 
 or responsibility for crime. If the government direct 
 you to fire your neighbour's property, or to throw him 
 over a precipice, will you obey? If you will not, 
 there is an end of the argument; for if you may reject 
 its authority in one instance, where is the limit to 
 rejection ? There is no rational limit but that which is 
 assigned by Christianity, and that is both rational and 
 practicable. If any one should ask the meaning of 
 the words "whoso resisteth the power resisteth the 
 ordinance of God"— v/e answer, that it refers to active 
 resistance; passive resistance, or non-compliance, the 
 apostles themselves practised. On this point we should 
 be distinctly understood. We are not so inconsis- 
 tent as to recommend a civil war, in order to avoid 
 a foreign one— Refusal to obey is the Jinal duty of 
 Christians. 
 
 We think, then, that it is the business of every man, 
 who believes that war is inconsistent with our religion, 
 respectfully, but steadfastly, to refuse to engage in it. 
 Let such as these remember that an honourable and 
 an awful duty is laid upon them. It is upon their 
 fidelity, so far as human agency is concerned, that the 
 cause of peace is suspended. Let them then be will- 
 ing to avow their opinions and to defend them. Nei- 
 ther let them be contented with words, if more than 
 words, if suffering also, is required. It is only by the 
 unyielding perseverance of good that corruption can 
 be extirpated. If you believe that Jesus Christ has 
 prohibited slaughter, let not the opinion or the com- 
 
158 
 
 mands of a world induce you to join in it. By this 
 '* steady and determinate pursuit of virtue/' the bene- 
 diction which attaches to those who hear the sayings 
 of God and do them, will rest upon you, and the time 
 will come when even the world will honour you, as 
 contributors to the work of human reformation 
 
 THE END. 
 

 DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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 GA.YLCRD 
 
 
 
 PRINTED IN U..S. A.