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THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION.

[ESSAY III. the increase of the general profligacy; until at last, in the fourth century, Christians became soldiers without hesitation, and perhaps without 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.

Let it always be borne in mind by those who are advocating war, that they are contending for a corruption which 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.

The reader who has perused the First Essay of this work will be aware that to the present argument our answer is short :-If Christianity prohibits war, there is, to Christians, an end of the controversy. War cannot then be justified by the referring to any antecedent dispensation. One brief observation may however be offered, that those who refer, in justification of our present practice, to the authority by which the Jews prosecuted their wars, must be expected to produce the same authority for our own. Wars were commanded to the 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 example for us, who have received no such injunction, and can plead no such purpose.

It will perhaps be said that the commands to prosecute 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, that they would have been thus peremptorily enjoined. We answer, that they were not inconsistent with the will of Heaven 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 fulfilled, war should be eradicated from the world. And by what dispensation was this will to be fulfilled? By that of the "Rod out of the stem of Jesse." It is worthy of recollection, too, that David was forbidden to build the temple because he had shed blood. "As for me, it was in my mind to build an house unto the name of the Lord my God: but the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars: thou shalt not build an house unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight." So little accordancy did war possess with the purer offices even of the Jewish dispensation.

97

Perhaps the argument to which the greatest importance is attached by the advocates of war, and by which thinking men are chiefly induced to acquiesce in its lawfulness, is this,-That a distinction is to be 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 other kindred commands and prohibitions of the Christian Scriptures, have no reference to our conduct as members of the political body.

* 1 Chron. xxii. 7. 8.

CHAP. 19.]

DUTIES OF INDIVIDUALS AND NATIONS.

421

If there be soundness in the doctrines which have been delivered at the commencement of the Essay upon the "Elements of Political Rectitude," this argument possesses no force or application.

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When persons make such broad distinctions between the obligations of Christianity on private and on public affairs, the proof of the rectitude of the distinction must be expected of those who make it. General rules are laid down by Christianity, of which, in some cases, the advocate of war denies the applicability. He, therefore, is to produce the reason and the authority for the exception. And that authority must be a competent authority, the authority mediately or immediately of God. It is to no purpose for such a person to tell us of the magnitude of political affairs, of the greatness of the interests which they involve,— of "necessity," or of expediency. All these are very proper considerations in subordination to the moral law; otherwise they are wholly nugatory and irrelevant. Let the reader observe the manner in which the argument is supported. If an individual suffers aggression, 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 which their aggressions are punished. But among 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 protecitng itself from the aggression of another. The reader will observe the fundamental fallacy upon which the argument proceeds.-It assumes, that the reason why an individual is not permitted to use violence is that the laws will use it for him. Here is the error; for the foundation of the duty of forbearance in private life is, not that the laws will punish aggression, but that Christianity requires forbearance.

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 imposed 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 forbearance is imposed.

The only truth which appears to be elicited 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 obligation to obey them is the same in both. Nor let any one urge the difficulty of obedience in opposition to 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."

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OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE WAR.

[ESSAY III. Let it not, however, be supposed that we believe the difficulty of forbearance would be great in practice, as it is great in theory. Our interests are commonly promoted by the fulfilment of our duties; and we hope hereafter to show that the fulfilment of the duty of forbearance forms no exception to the applicability of the rule.

The intelligent reader will have perceived that the "War" of which we speak is all war, without reference to its objects whether offensive or defensive. In truth, respecting any other than defensive war, it is scarcely worth while to entertain a question, since no one with whom we are concerned to reason will advocate its opposite. Some persons indeed talk with much complacency of their reprobation of offensive war. Yet to reprobate no more than this is only to condemn that which wickedness itself is not wont to justify. Even those who practise offensive war affect to veil its nature by calling it by another name.

In conformity with this we find 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:" it is, "Overcome evil with good:" it is, "Do good to them that hate you :" it is "Love your enemies :" it is, "Render not evil for evil: it is, "Unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek." All this supposes previous offence, or injury, or violence; and it is then that forbearance is enjoined.

It is common with those who justify defensive war to identify the question with that of individual self-defence, and although the questions are in practice sufficiently dissimilar, it has been seen that we object not to their being regarded as identical. The rights of self-defence have already been discussed, and the conclusions to which the moral law appears to lead afford no support to the advocate of war.

We say the questions are practically dissimilar; so that if we had a right to kill a man in self-defence, very few wars would be shown to be lawful. Of the wars which are prosecuted, 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 simply for the preservation of life, and that no other alternative has remained to a people than to kill or to be killed. And let it be remembered, that unless this alternative alone remains, the case of individual self-defence is irrelevant: it applies not, practically, to the subject.

But indeed you cannot in practice make distinctions, even moderately accurate between defensive war and war for other purposes.

Supposing, the Christian Scriptures had said, An army may fight in its own defence, but not for any other purpose.-Whoever will attempt to apply this rule in practice will find that he has a very wide range of justifiable 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 promotion of interests: if in promotion of interests, they will fight in promotion of their glory and their

CHAP. 19.]

WARS ALWAYS AGGRESSIVE-PALEY.

423

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 that climax. There is, indeed, a wide distance between fighting in defence of life and fighting 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, but I know that 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, throwing 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 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 has once begun, it is vain to think of distinctions of aggres sion and defence. Moralists may talk of distinctions, but soldiers will make none; and none can be made; it is without the limits of possibility. Indeed some of the definitions of defensive or of just war which are proposed by moralists indicate how impossible it is to confine warfare within any assignable limits. "The objects of just war," says Paley, "are precaution, defence, or reparation."-" Every just war supposes an injury perpetrated, 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 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 reasonableness 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."

Violence, and rapine, and ambition are not to be restrained by morality like this. It may serve for the speculations 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 cannot be or will not be applied. Who believes that if kings and conquerors may fight when they have fears, they will not fight when they have them not? The morality allows too much latitude for the passions to retain any practical restraint upon them. And a morality that will not be practised, I had almost said, that cannot be practised, is a useless morality. It is a theory of morals. We want clearer and more exclusive rules; we want more obvious and immediate sanctions. 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 will tell him of

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THE QUAKERS IN AMERICA.

[ESSAY III.

twenty injuries that have been suffered, of a hundred that have been attempted, and of a thousand that he fears. And what answer can the philosopher make to him?

If these are the proper standards of just war, there will be little difficulty in proving any war to be just, 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 and unlawful war will be, or can be, attended 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.

OF THE PROBABLE PRACTICAL EFFECTS OF ADHERING TO THE MORAL LAW IN RESPECT TO WAR.

We have seen that the duties of the religion which God has imparted to mankind require irresistance; and surely it is reasonable to hope, even without a reference to experience, that he will make our irresistance subservient to our interests; that if, for the purpose of conforming to his will, we subject ourselves to difficulty or danger, he will protect us in our obedience 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 who have no other protection, and who have abandoned all other protection because they confide in his alone.

This we may reverently hope; yet it is never to be forgotten that our apparent interests in the present life are sometimes, in the economy of God, made subordinate to our interests in futurity.

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. There is practical truth in the position that "When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with 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 provoked, 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 amid this dreadful desolation and universal terror, the Society of