WAR UNLAWFUL FOR CHRISTIANS.

BY JONATHAN DYMOND.

THE inquiry is silently yet not slowly spreading in the world-Is War compatible with the Christian religion? There was a period when the question was seldom asked, and when war was regarded by almost every man as both inevitable and right. That period has certainly passed away; and not only individuals but public societies, and societies in distant nations, are urging the question upon the attention of mankind. The simple circumstance that it is thus urged, contains no irrational motive to investigation; for why should men ask the question if they did not doubt? And how, after these long ages of prescription, could they begin to doubt, without a reason?

It is not unworthy of remark, that while disquisitions are frequently issuing from the press, of which the tendency is to show that war is not compatible with Christianity, few serious attempts are made to show that it is. Whether this results from the circumstance, that no individual is peculiarly interested in the proof, or that there is a secret consciousness that proof cannot be brought, or that those who may be desirous of defending the custom, rest in security that the impotence of its assailants will be of no avail against a custom so established and so supported, I do not know; yet the fact is remarkable, that scarcely a defender is to be found. It cannot be doubted that the question is one of the utmost interest and importance to man. Whether the custom be defensible or not, every man should inquire into its consistency with the Moral Law. If it is defensible, he may by inquiry dismiss the scruples which certainly subsist in the minds of multitudes, and thus exempt himself from the offence of participating in that which, though pure, he "esteemeth to be unclean." If it is not defensible, the propriety of investigation is increased in a tenfold degree.

It may, therefore, be a subject of reasonable regret, that the question of the Moral Lawfulness of War is not brought fairly before the public. I say fairly, because, though many of the publications which impugn its lawfulness, advert to the ordinary arguments in its favor, yet they do not give to those arguments all that vigor and force which would be imparted by a stated and an able advocate. Few books would probably tend more powerfully to promote the discovery and dissemination of truth, than one which should frankly, and fully, and ably advocate, upon sound moral principles, the practice of war. The public would then see the whole of what can be urged in its favor, without being obliged to seek for arguments, as they now must, in incidental, or imperfect, or scattered disquisitions; and pos

P. T. NO. LIX.

sessing in a distinct form the evidence of both parties, they would be enabled to judge justly between them.

I would recommend to him who would estimate the moral character of war, to endeavor to forget that he has ever presented to his mind the idea of a battle, and to contemplate it with those emotions which it would excite in the mind of a being who had never before heard of human slaughter. The prevailing emotions of such a being would be astonishment and horror. If he were shocked by the horribleness of the scene, he would be amazed at its absurdity. That a large number of persons should assemble by agreement, and deliberately kill one another, appears to the understanding a proceeding so preposterous, so monstrous, that I think a being such as I have supposed, would inevitably conclude they were mad. Nor is it likely, if it were attempted to explain to him some motives to such conduct, that he would be able to comprehend how any possible circumstances could make it reasonable. The ferocity and prodigious folly of the act would, in his estimation, outbalance the weight of every conceivable motive, and he would turn unsatisfied away, "astonished at the madness of mankind."

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 will acquiesce-that the arguments in favor of such a practice should be unanswerably strong.

Let it not be said that the experience and the practice 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 sanctioned by forty centuries; or that he who presumes to question it, is amusing himself with schemes of visionary philanthropy. "There is not, it may be," says Lord Clarendon, 66 a greater obstruction to the investigation of truth, or the improvement of knowledge, than the too frequent appeal, and the too supine resignation of our understanding, to antiquity." Whosoever proposes 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 reasoning, 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 peevish 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." 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 of the slave-trade; Papists urged them against Wickliffe 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."

The foundation of our duty is the will of God, and that will is to be ascertained by the Revelation he has made. To Christianity, therefore, we appeal; we admit no other test of truth; and with him who thinks that the decisions of Christianity may be superseded by other considerations, we have no concern; we address not our argument to him, but leave him to find some other and better standard. Does he loosely say wars are necessary? But supposing the Christian religion to prohibit them, it is preposterous, and irreverent also, to justify ourselves in supporting them because they are necessary. To talk of a divine law which must be disobeyed, implies such confusion,as well as laxity of moral principles, that neither the philosopher nor the Christian is required to notice it.-Perhaps some who say "wars are necessary," do not very accurately inquire what they mean. There are two sorts of necessity-moral and physical; and these, it is probable, 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 degree of evil by refraining from it. If then those who say wars are necessary, mean that they are physically necessary, we deny it. If they mean that wars avert greater evils than they occasion, we ask for proof. Proof has never yet been given; and, even if we thought 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 question of this nature, the testimony of some great minds against the lawfulness of war, opposed as these testimonies are to the general prejudice and the general practice of the world. It has been observed by Beccaria, that "it is the fate of great truths to glow only like a flash of lightning amid the dark clouds in which error has enveloped the universe;" and if our testimonies are few or transient, it matters not, so that their light be the light of truth. There are indeed many who in describing the horrible particulars of a siege or a battle, indulge in some declamation on the horrors of war, such as has been often repeated, and often applauded, and as often forgotten. But such declamations 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 hero's danger, and partake 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 disregarded. "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 war. Christ suffered 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 was prohibited, which, before that order, had been considered as allowable." Wickliffe seems to have thought it wrong to take away the life of a man on any account, and that war is utterly unlawful, "I am persuaded," says Bishop Watson, "that when the spirit of Christianity shall exert its proper influence, war will cease throughout the whole Christian world. War has practices and principles peculiar to itself, which but ill quadrate with the rules of moral rectitude, and are quite abhorrent from the benignity of Christianity." "There is," says Southey, "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." Dr. Vicessimus Knox speaks in language equally specific:-"Morality and religion forbid war in its motives, conduct and consequences." The Paterines of Gazaria in Italy in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, "held that it was not lawful to bear arms, or to kill mankind.”

Those who have attended to the mode in which the moral law is instituted in the expressions of the will of God, will have no difficulty in supposing it contains no specific prohibition of war. Accordingly, if we be asked for such a prohibition in the manner in which Thou shalt not kill is directed against murder, we willingly answer that no such prohibition exists; nor is it 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 believe that suicide is not lawful; yet Christianity never forbade it. It can be shown, indeed, by implication and inference, that suicide 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 against 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 therefore sufficient to reply, that they require that which, upon this and many other subjects, Christianity has not seen fit to give.

In this discussion, we have to refer to the general tendency of the Christian revelation ;-to the individual declarations of Jesus Christ;-to his practice;-to the sentiments and practices of his commissioned followers;-to the opinions respecting its lawfulness which were held by their immediate converts; and to some other species of Christian evidence.

The moral law is a law of benevolence. This benevolence is good-will and kind affections towards one another, and is placed at the basis of practical morality; it is "the fulfilling of the law;" it is the test of the validity of our pretensions to the Christian character. This law of benevolence is universally applicable to public affairs as well as to private, to the intercourse of nations as well as of individuals.

Let us refer, then, to some of those requisitions of this law which appear peculiarly to respect the moral character of war. "Have peace one with another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.-Walk with all lowliness and meekness, with long-suffering, forbearing one another in love.-Be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another; love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous; not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing.-Be at peace among yourselves. See that none render evil for evil unto any man. God hath called us to peace.-Follow after love, patience, meekness. Be gentle, showing all meekness unto all men. Live in peace.-Lay aside all malice. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, 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, what evidence do these passages 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 obviously inconsistent with the general character of Christianity; if war could not have been permitted by its teachers, without an egregious violation of their own precepts, we think that the evidence of its unlawfulness, arising from this general character alone, is as clear, as absolute, and as exclusive, as could have been contained in any form of prohibition whatever.

But it is not from general principles alone, that the law of Christianity respecting war may be deduced. "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 neighbor, 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 which love you, what reward have ye?"

Of the precepts from the Mount the most obvious characteristic is greater moral excellence and superior purity. They are