DYMONJDJ
WITH^:S
I NTROD U CTORY WORDS
JOHN BRIGHT
1
THE LIBRARY
OF
THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA
LOS ANGELES
FROM THE LIBRARY OF
ERNEST CARROLL MOORE
V
WAR.
AN ESSAY
BY
JONATHAN DYMOND.
WITH
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
BY
JOHN BRIGHT,
OF ENGLAND.
FOURTH EDITION.
FRIENDS' BOOK AND TRACT COMMITTEE,
No. 51, Fifth Avenue,
NEW YORK.
NOTE.
In reprinting this Essay, the Editors desire to remind
its readers that it is only one of a series of Essays on
Christian Morality by the same gifted writer, and that'the
others are characterized by the same clear and cogent
reasoning so noteworthy in the one now published. In
preparing the Essay on War for tlie press, they have
thought it best here and there to alter a word or sentence,
or to omit a passage or note, with a view to either modern
usage, clearness, brevity, or changed conditions ; but they
have in no case interfered with the author's argument,
either in its management or development. They desire
earnestly to commend the Essay to the careful and un-
prejudiced consideration of all thoughtful people.
oy
INTRODUCTORY WORDS M
BY THE I O r.O
RIGHT HON. JOHN BRIGHT;
AVITII PASSAGES FROM
HIS SPEECHES,
REVISED BY HIMSELF FOR THIS EDITION.
T KNOW of 110 better book dealing with morals as
applied to nations than Dymond's Essays. As the
world becomes more Christian, this book will be more
widely read, and the name of its author more revered.
I have been asked on several occasions, "What do you
think about the doctrine of the Peace Society, or of your
own Religious Body, in their opposition to all War however
necessary or however just it may seem to be, or however
much you are provoked and injured ? " I think every man
must make up his own mind on that abstract principle ;
and I would recommend him, if he wants to know a book
that says a good deal upon it, to study the New Testament,
and make up his mind from that source.
It will be time enough perhaps to discuss that question
15901.84
iv. INTRODUCTORY WORDS.
when we have abandoned everything that can be called
unjust and unnecessary in the way of War. Now, I
believe, that with wise counsels, great statesmen, large
knowledge of affairs combined with Christian principle,
there is prabably not a single war in which we have been
engaged from the time of William III. that might not have
been without difficulty avoided ; and our military system
might have been kept in great moderation, our National
Debt would never have accumulated, our population would
have been a great deal less barbarous anti less ignorant
than they are, and everything that tends to the true
grandeur and prosperity and happiness of the people would
have been infinitely advanced beyond or above what we see
now in our own time.
I think we ought to begin to ask ourselves how it is that
Christian nations — that this Christian nation — should be
involved in so many wars. If we may presume to ask our-
selves, what, in the eye of the Supreme Ruler, is the
greatest crime which His creatures commit, I think we
may almost with certainty conclude that it is the crime of
War. Somebody has described it as "the sum of all
villainies " ; and it has been the cause of sufferings, misery,
and slaughter, which neither tongue nor pen can ever
describe. And all this has been going on for eighteen
INTRODUCTORY WORDS. v.
hundred years after men have adopted the religion whose
Founder and whose Head is denominated the Prince of
Peace. It was announced as a religion which was intended
to bring "Peace on earth, and good will towards men" ;
and yet, after all these years, the peace on earth has not
come, and the goodwill among men is only partially and
occasionally exhibited ; and amongst nations we find
almost no trace of it century after century.
Now in this country we have a great institution called
the Established Church. I suppose that great institution
numbers twenty thousand or more places of worship
in various parts of the kingdom. I think this does not
include what there are in Scotland, and what there are
in Ireland. With these twenty thousand churches there
are at least twenty thousand men, educated and for the
most part Christian men, anxious to do their duty as
teachers of the religion of peace ; and besides these, there
are twenty thousand other churches which are not con-
nected with the Established institution, but have been
built, and are maintained, by that large portion of the
people who go generally under the name of Dissenters or
Nonconformists : and they have their twenty thousand
ministers ; also men, many of them, as well educated, as
truly Christian and devoted men, as the others ; and they
vi. INTRODUCTORY WORDS.
are at work continually from day to day, and they preach
from Sabbath to Sabbath what they believe to be the
doctrines of the Prince of Peace ; and yet, notwithstanding
all that, we have more than £30,000,000 a year spent by
this country in sustaining armies and navies, in view of
wars which, it is assumed, may suddenly and soon take
place. Now, why is this, I should like to ask : for all
these teachers and preachers profess to be the servants of
the Most High God, and teachers of the doctrines of His
Divine Son ; and being such, may I not appeal to them
and say — What have you, forty or fifty thousand men,
with such vast influence, what have you been doing with
this great question during all the years that you have
ministered, and called yourselves the ministers of the
Prince of Peace ?
And I would not confine my appeal to the ministers only,
but to the devout men of every church and every chapel,
who surround the minister and uphold his hands ; who do
in many things his bidding, and who join him heartily and
conscientiously in his work, — I say, what are they doing ?
Why is it that there has never been a combination of all
religious and Christian teachers of the country, with a view
of teaching the people what is true, what is Christian, upon
the subject?
INTRODUCTORY WORDS. vii.
I^believe it lies within the power of the churches to do
far more than statesmen can do in matters of this kind. I
believe they might (so brings this question home to the
hearts^and consciences of the Christian and good men and
women of their congregations, that a great combination of
public opinion might be created, which would wholly change
the aspect of this question in this country and before the
world, and would bring to the minds of statesmen that they
are not the rulers of the people of Greece, or of the maraud-
ing hordes of ancient Rome, but that they are, or ought to
be, the Christian rulers of a Christian people.
INDEX.
Revisers' Notb ...
Introductory Words
Index
Paif©
iii.
viii.
CAUSES OF WAR.
Want of Inquiry i
Indifference to Human Misery ... 6
National Irritability 6
Self-interest
Secret Motives of Cabinets
Ideas of Glory
CONSEQUENCES OF WAR.
Destruction of Human Life ... 17
Taxation 17
Moral Depravity 18
Familiarity with Plunder 20
Implicit Obedience to Superiors
Resignation of Moral Afjency
Bondage and Degradation ..
I^ffects on the Community ...
LAWFULNESS OF WAR.
Influence of Habit 29
The Appeal to Antiquity 31
The Christian Scriptures 34
Subjects of Christ's Benediction ... 40
Matthew xxvi. 52 41
The Apostles and Evangelists ... 42
The Centurion 46
Cornelius 47
Luke xxii. 36 49
John the Baptist 52
Far-fetched Arguments 53
Negative Evidence 54
Prophecies of the Old Testament ... 54
The Kequiremcnts of Christianity
are of Present Obligation 66
The Primitive Christians 57
Example and Testimony of Early
Christians . 58
Christian Soldiers 62
Wars of the Jews ... 63
Duties of Individuals and Nations . 64
Offensive and Defensive War ... 66
Wars always Aggressive 69
Paley 70
War wholly Forbidden 71
OF THE PROBABLE PRACTICAL EFFECTS OF ADHERING
TO THE MORAL LAW IN RESPECT TO WAR.
Quakers in America and Ireland ... 72
Colonisation of Pennsylvania .. 76
Confidence in the Providence of God "0
Recapitulation
General Observations
APPENDIX.
Christianity the True Remedy for
War 86
Internatio lal ArHt »tion : a Fik
tical Application of Christian
Principles 86
Some of the Consequences of the
Modern War System 87
WAR:
AN INQUIRY INTO ITS CAUSES,
CONSEQUENCES, LAWFULNESS, Etc.
IT is one amongst the numerous moral phenomena of
the present times, that 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
almost by every man both as inevitable and right. That
period has certainly ))assed away ; and not only indi-
viduals 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, whilst dis(iuisitions
are frequently issuing from the press, of which the ten-
dency is to show that War is not compatible with Chris-
tianity, few serious attempts are made to show that it is.
Whether this results from the circumstance that no par-
ticular individual is 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
2 WAR HAS HARDLY A DEFENDER.
custom rest in security tli:it the impotence of its assailants
will be of no avail against a custom so established and
so supported, — I do not know : but 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 defen-
sible or not, every man should inquire into its consistency
with tiie Moral Law. If it is defensible, he may, by
inquiry, dismiss the scruples which it is certain subsist
in the minds of multitudes, and thus exempt himself
from the ofience of participating in that which, though
pure, he " esteemeth to be unclean." If it is not defen-
sible, the propriety of investigation is increased in a ten-
fold degi-ee.
It may be a subject therefore of reasonable regret to
the frienils and the lovers of truth, that the question of the
Moral Lawfulness of War is not brought fairly before the
public. I say fairly ; because though many of the publica-
tions which impugn its la\yfulne.ss advert to the ordinary
arguments in its favour, yet it is not to be assumed that
they give to those arguments all that vigour and force
which would be imparted by a stated and an able advocate.
Few books, it is probnble, would tend more powerfully to
promote the discovery and spread 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 favour with-
out being obliged to seek for arguments, as they now must,
in incidental, or imperfect or scattered, disquisitions : and
possessing in a distinct fo;ra the evidence of both narties
BIAS IN FAVOUR OF WAR. 3
they would be enabled to judge justly between them.
Perhaps if, invited as the public are to the discussion, no
man is hereafter willing to adventure in the cause, the
conclusion will not be unreasonable, that no man is desti-
tute of a consciousness that the cause is not a good one.
Meantime it is the business of him whose inquiries have
conducted him to the conclusion that the cause is not
good, to exhibit the evidence upon which the conclusion is
founded. It happens that upon the subject of War, more
than upon almost any other subject of human inquiry, the
individual finds it difficult to contemplate its merits with
an unbiassed mind. He finds it difficult to examine it as
it would be examined by a philosopher to whom the sub-
ject was new. He is familiar with its details ; he is
habituated to the idea of its miseries ; he has perhaps
never doubted, because he has never questioned, its recti-
tude ; nay, he has associated with it ideas not of splendour
only but of honour and of merit. That such an inquirer
will not, without some efibrt of abstraction, examine the
question with impartiality and justice, is plain ; and there-
fore the first business of him who would satisfy his mind
respecting the lawfulness of War, is to divest liimself of all
those habits of thought and feeling which have been the
result not of reflection and judgment, but of the ordinary
associations of life. And perhaps he may derive some
assistance in this necessary but not easy dismissal of previous
opinions, by referring first to some of the ordinary Causes
and Consequences of War. The reference will enable us
also more satisfactorily to estimate the moral character of tne
practice itself; for it is no unimportant auxifiary in lormmg
4 CAUSES OF WAR.
such an estimate of human actions or opinions, to know
how they have been produced and what are their etiects.
CAUSES OF WAR.
WAJNT OF INQUIRY.
Of these Causes one undoubtetlly consists in the want
of inquiry. We have been accustomed from earliest life to
a familiarity with its " pomp and circumstance;" soldiers
have passed us at every step, and battles and victories
have been the topic of every one around us. It therefore
becomes familiarized to all our thoughts and interwoven
with all our associations. We have never inquired whether
these things should be : the question does not even sug-
gest itself. We acquiesce in it, as we acquiesce in the rising
of the sun, witliDut any other idea than tli.it it is a ])art of
the ordinary processes of the world. And how are we to
feel disapprobation of a system that we do not e.xamine.
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 obtained
the general concurrence of the world, and by which they
have continued to pollute or degrade it, long after the few
who inquire into titeir nature have discovered them to be
bad. It wa.s 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. Of the effects of
this want of inquiry we have indeed frequent examples in
connection with the subject before us. Many who have all
their lives concluded that War is lawful and right, have
WANT OF INQUIRY. 6
found, when they began to examine the question, that
their conchisions were founded upon no evidence ; that
they had believed in its rectitude, not because they had
possessed themselves of proof, but because they had never
inquired whether it was capable of proof or not. In the
present moral state of the world, one of the first concerns
of him who would discover pure morality should be to
question the purity of that which now obtains.
INDIFFERENCE TO HUMAN MISERY.
Another cause of our complacency with War, and there-
fore another cause of War itself, consists in that callousness
to human misery which the custom induces. They who
are shocked at a single murder on the highway, hear with
indifference of the slaughter of a thousand on the field.
They whom the idea of a single corpse would thrill with
terror, contemplate that of heaps of human carcasses
mangled by human hands, with frigid indifference. If
a murder is committed, the narrative is given in the public
newspaper, with many adjectives of horror, with many
expressions of commiseration, 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 gladden the
public with the intelligence, that in an engagement which
has just taken place, eight hundred and fifty of the enemy
were killed. Now, is not this latter intelligence eight
hundred and fifty times as deplorable as the first? Yet
the first is the subject of our sorrow, and this — of our joy '
The inconsistency and want of proportion which have been
6 . CAUSES OF WAR.
occasioned in our sentiments of benevolence, offer a curious
moral plienomenon.
The immolations of the Hindoos fill us with compassion
or horror ; the sacrifices of life by our own criminal execu-
tions are the subject of our anxious commiseration. We
feel that the life of a Hindoo, or of a malefactor, is a serious
thing, and that nothing but imperious necessity should
induce us to destroy the one, or to permit the destruction
of the other. Yet what are these sacrifices of life in com-
parison with the sacrifices of War? In Napoleon's cam-
paign 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 peculiar intensity of suffering. We
are carrying our benevolence to the Indies, but what
becomes of it in Russia, or at Leipsic ? We labour to save
a few lives from the gallows, but where is our solicitude to
save them on the field ? Life is life wheresoever it be
sacrificed, and has everywhere equal claims to our regard.
I am not now saying that War is wrong, but that we regard
its miseries with an indifference with which we regard no
others ; that if our sympathy were reasonably excited
respecting them, we should be powerfully prompted to
avoid War ; and that the want of this reasonable and
virtuous sympatjjy is one cause of its prevalence in the
world.
NATIONAL IRRITABILITY.
And another consists in national irritability. It is often
assumed (not indeed upon the most rational grounds) that
NATIONAL IRRITABILITY. 7
the best way of supporting the dignity and maintaining
the security of a nation is, when occasions of disagreement
arise, to assume a high attitude and a combative tone.
We keep ourselves in a state of irritability which is con-
tinually alive to occasions of offence ; and he that is pre-
pared to be offended readily finds offences. 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 ina^lverteucy. They who are
easily offended will also easily offend. What is the experi-
ence of private life ? The man who is always on the alert
to discover trespasses 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 tiie trespasses of accident,
and savagely retaliated insignificant injuries. The viper
that we chance to molest, we suffer to live if he contmues
to be quiet ; but if he raise himself in menaces of destruc-
tion we knock him on the head.
It is with nations as with men. If on every offence we
fly to arms, we shall of necessity provoke exasperation ;
and if we exasperate a people as petulant 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, often equivalent
« CAUSES OF WAK.
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 ?
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 is a threat ;
and the nation, which would give satisfaction to an inquiry,
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 because we are angry. One example may be
offered : " In 1789, a small Spanish vessel committed some
violence in Nootka Sound, under the pretence that the
country belonged to Spain. This appears to have been the
principal ground of offence : and with this both the
Government and the people of England were very angry.
The irritability and haughtiness which they manifested
were unaccountable to the Spaniards, and the peremptory
tone was imputed by Spain, not to the feelings of offended
dignity and violated justice, but to some lurking enmity,
and some secret designs which we did not choose to avow."*
If the tone had been less peremptory and more rational, no
such suspicion would have been excited, and the hostility
whioh was consequent upon the suspicion would, of course,
■ Sniollett'f England
NATIONAL IRRITABILITY. 9
have been avoided. Happily the English were not so
passionate but that before they proceeded to fight they
negotiated, and settled the affair amicably. The prepara-
tions for this foolish threatened war cost, however, tliree
millions one hundred and thirty-three thousand pounds !
So well indeed is national irritability known to be an
efficient cause of War, that they who from any motive wish
to promote it, endeavour to rouse the temper of a people
by stimulating their passions, just as the boys in our streets
stimulate two dogs to fight. These persons talk of the
insults, or the encroachments, or the contempts, of the
destined enemy, with every artifice of aggi-avation ; 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. They pursue their
object, certainly, by efficacious means ; they desire a war,
and therefore irritate our passions ; and when men are
angry they are easily persuaded to fight.
That this cause of War is morally bad, that petulance
and irritability are wholly incompatible with Christianity,
will be universally admitted.
SELF-INTEREST.
Wars are often promoted from considerations of interest,
as well as from passion. The love of gain adds its influ-
ence 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 depends on its continu-
10 CAUSES OF WAR.
Auce ; and a countless host of commissaries, and purveyors,
and agents, and mechanics, commend a war because it fills
their pockets. Arid unhappily, if money is in prospect, the
desolation of a kingdom is often of little concern : destruc-
tion and slaughter are not to be put in competition with
definite personal gain. In truth, it seems sometimes to be
the system of the conductors of a war to give to the sources
of gain endless ramifications. The more there are who
profit by it, the more numerous are its supporters ; and
thus the projects of a cabinet become identified with the
wislies of the people, and both are gratified in the prosecu-
tion of War.
A support more systematic and powerful is however given
to War, because it offers to the higher ranks of society a
profession which unites gentility with profit, and which,
without the vulgarity of trade, maintains or enriches them.
It i.s of little consequence to inquire whether the distinc-
tion, as regards vulgarity, between the toils of War and the
toils of commerce be fictitious. In the abstract, it is fic-
titious ; but of this species of reputation public opinion
holds the arhitrium et jus et norma ; and public opinion is
in favour of AVur.
The army and the navy, therefore, afford to the middle
and higher classes a most acceptable profession. The pro-
fession of arms is, like the profession of law or of physic,
a regular source of employment and ])rofit. Boys are
eiliicated fof the army as they are educated for tiie bar;
and many parents appear to have no other idea than that
War i.s part of the business of the world. 0^ younger sons,
whose fathers, in pursuance of the unhappy system of
SELF-INTEREST. 11
primogeniture, do not choose to support them at the ex-
pense 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 is a calamity ; and
though they may not lift their voices in favour of new hos-
tilities for the sake of gain, it is unhappily certain that they
often secretly desire it.
It is in this manner that much of the rank, of the influ-
ence, and of the wealth, of a country become interested in
a promotion of wars ; and when a custom is promoted by
wealtli, and influence, and rank, what is the wonder that it
should be continued? 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."
By depending upon War for a subsistence, a powerful
inducement is given to desire it ; and when the question of
War is to be decided, it is to be feared that the whispers of
interest will prevail, and that humanity, and religion, and
■conscience, will be sacrificed to promote it.
SECRET MOTIVES OF CABINETS.
Of those causes of War which consist in the ambition of
'priiices, or statesmen, or commanders, it is not necessary to
speak, because no one to whom the world will listen is
willing to defend them.
Statesmen however have, besides ambition, many pur-
poses of subtle policy which make wars convenient ; and
when they have such purposes, they are sometimes cool
speculators in the lives of men. They who have much
patronage have many dependents, and they who have many
12 CAUSES OF WAit.
dependents have much power. By a war, thousands become
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 by an office the clamour of opposition, and to secure
by a bribe the suffrages of venality. He has, therefore,
many motives to War : in ambition, that does not refer to
conquest ; or in fear, that extends only to his office or his
pocket : and fear and ambition are sometimes more interest-
ing considerations than the happiness and the lives of men.
Cabinets have, in truth, many secret motives to wars of
which the people know little. They talk in public of in-
vasions of right, or of breaches of treaty, of the support of
honour, of the necessity of retaliation, when these motives
have no influence on their determinations. Some untold
purpose of ex])ediency, or the private (piarrel of a prince,
or the pique or anger of a minister, are often the real
motives to a contest, whilst its promoters are loudly talk-
ing of the honour or of the safety of the (.-oimtry.
IDEAS OF GLORY.
But perhaps the most operative 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 profession. 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 thousarnl times of dying ktroes,
who "resign their lives amidst the joys of c()n(^uest, and^
IDEAS OF GLORY. 13
filled with their country'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.
Into the nature and principles of this fame and glory we
cannot now minutely inquire ; but in the view alike of virtue
and of intellect, they are low and bad. " I cannot tell "
said Jane Taylor, " how or why the love of glory is a less
selfish principle than the love of riches." "Christianity"
says Bishop Watson, " quite annihilates the disposition for
martial glory." Another testimony, and from an advocate
of War (Paley's Ev'id., p. ii. c. 2), goes further, and says
" that no two things can be more different than the heroic
and the Christian character."
Such is the foundation of the glory which has for so
many ages deceived and deluded multitudes of mankind !
Upon this foundation a structure has been raised so vast, so
brilliant, so attractive, that the greater portion of mankind
are content to ga/e in admiration, without any inquiry into
its basis, or 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 apart-
ments as their paramount and final good, to pause ere they
proceed. If they desire a reputation that shall outlive
guilt and fictioii, 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 glor}' has been found to be a glittering bubble, that
has burst, and been forgotten. Look at the days of chivalry.
14 CAUSES OF WAR.
Of the ten thousand Quixotes of the middle a<?es, where is
now the honour or the name ? Yet poets once sang their
prai.^es, and the chronicler of their achievements believed
he was recording an everlasting fame. Where are now the
jflories of tiie tournament ? — glories
" Of which all Europe rang from side to side."
Where is the champion whom princesses 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 wlien
the applauses of military 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 consistency 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.
Of this factitious glory as a cause of War, Gibbon speaks
in his Decline and Fall. " As long as mankind " says he,
" shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their
destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military
glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters."
" '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 miKyuidatice of
the affection a lover of mankind becomes a ravager ; a
SUMMING UP. 15
hero and deliverer becomes an oppressor and destroyer."
These are amongst the great perpetual causes of War.
And what are they ? First, That we do not inquire whether
War is right or wrong. Secondly, That we are habitually
loaughty and irritable in our intercourse with other nations.
Thirdly, That War is a source of profit to individuals, and
establishes professions which are very convenient to the
middle and higher ranks of life. Fourthly, That it gratifies
the ambition of public men, and serves the purposes of state
policy. Fifthly, That notions of glory are attached to war-
like atfairs ; which glory is factitious and impure.
In the view of reason, and especially in the view of
religion, what is the character of these Causes ? Are they
pure ? Are they honourable ? Are they, when connected
with their effects, compatible with the Moral Law ? — Lastly,
and especially, Is it probable that a system of which these are
the great ever-duriug Causes, can itself be good or right i
CONSEQUENCES OF WAR.
To expatiate upon the miseries which War brings uj>on
mankind, appears a trite and a needless employment. W^e
all know that its evils are great and dreadful. Yet the
very circumstance that the knowledge is familiar may make
it inoperative upon our sentiments and our conduct. It is
not the intensity of misery, it is not the extent of evil
alone, which is necessary to animate us to that exertion
which evil and misery should excite ; if it were, surely we
should be much more averse than we now are to contribute,
in word or in action, to the promotion of War.
16 CONSEQUENCES OF WAR.
But there are mischiefs attendant upon the system which
are not to every man thus familiar, and on which, for that
reason, it is expedient to remark. In referring especially
to some of those Moral conse(iuences of War which com-
monly obtain little of our attention, it may be observed,
that social and political considerations are necessarily in-
volved in the moral tendency : for the happiness of society
is always diminished by the diminution of morality ; and
enlightened policy knows that the greatest support of a
state is the virtue of the people.
And yet the reader should bear in mind — what nothing
but the frequency of the calamity can make him forget —
the intense sufferings and irreparable deprivations which
one battle inevitably entails upon private life. 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 poverty, for whom it does not care. To
these the conquest of a kingdom is of little importance
The loss of a protector or of 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
DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE. 17
reganleil as, at most, haif-seeing politicians. The legiti-
mate object of political measures is the good of the people ;
— and a great :um of good a war must produce, if it out-
balances even this portion of its mischiefs.
DESTRUCTION OF HUMAN LIFE.
Nor should we be forgetful of that dreadful part of all
warfare, the destruction of mankind. The frequency with
which this destruction is represented to our minds, has
almost extinguished our perception of its awfulness and
horror. Between the years 114.1 and 1815, an interval of
six hundred and seventy years, our country was at war
with France alone tiro huiidred 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 pictures
of human violence ! How many of our fellow-men, of our
fellow-Christians, have the.-^e centuries of slaughter cut off !
What is the sum total of the misery of their deaths ! *
TAXATION.
When political writers expatiate upon the extent and
the evils of taxation, they do not sufficiently bear in mind
the reflection that almost all our taxation is the effect of
War. A man declaims upon national debts. He ought to
declaim upon the parent of those debts. Do we reflect
that if heavy taxation entails evils and misery upon the
community, that misery and those evils are inilicted upon
us by War ? The amount of supplies in Queen Anne's
*" Since the peace of Amiens more tlian /owr millioiu of bnnian
beings have been sacrificed to the personal ainbitinn of Napoleon
Buonapai tc." — Quarterly Review, No. xxv. Art. 1, 1^25.
18 CONSEQUENCES UF WAR.
reign was about seventy millious ; and of this about sixty-
six millions was expended in War. Where is our equiva-
lent good ?
Such considerations ought, undoubtedly, to influence the
conduct of public men in their disagreement with other
states, even if higher 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 suff'ering
and loss of human enjoyment are occasioned by the
pecuniary distresses of a war, than any ordinary advantages
of a war compensate. But this consideration seems too
remote to obtain our notice. Anger at offence, or hope
of triumph, overpowers the sober calculations of reason,
and outbalances tTie weight of after and long-continued
calamities. The only question appears to be, whether taxes
enough for a war can be raised, and whether a people will
be willing to pay them. But the great question ought to
be (setting questions of Christianity aside), whether the
nation will gain as much by tlie war as they will lose by
taxation and its other calamities.
If the happiness of the people were, what it ought to be,
the primary and the ultimate object of national measures,
I 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 would those evils which the war may have
been designed to aroid.
MORAL DKPUAVITY.
" But War " says Erasmus, " does more harm to the
morals of men than even to their property and persons.'*
MORAL DEJ^RAVITY. l»
If, indeed, it depraves our morals more than it injures our
persons and deducts from onr property, how enormous must
its mischiefs be !
I do not know whether the greater sum of moral evil
resulting from "War is suffered by those who are immediately
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 seqmintur. — Lucan.
No one pretends to applaud the morals of an army, and
as for its religion, few think of it at all. The fact is too
notorious to be insisted upon, that thousands who had filled
their 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 when they have become
habituated to the vices of War, have laughed at their
honest and plodding brethren, who are still spiritless
enough for virtue or stupid enough for piety.
Does any man ask, What occasions depravity in military
life ? I answer in the words of Robert Hall, "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." And it requires no sagacity to discover
that those who are engaged in a practice which reverses all
the rules of morality, which repeals all the principles of
virtue, and in which nearly all the vices are incorporated,
cannot, without the intervention of a miracle, retain their
minds and morals undepraved.
tt CONSEQUENCES OF WAR.
FAMILIARITY WITH PLUNDER.
Look, for illustration, to the familiarity with the plunder
of pro})erty and the slaughter of mankind which War
induces. He who plunders the citizen of another nation
without remorse or reflection, and bears away the spoil with
triumph, will inevitably lose something of liis principles of
probity.* He who is familiar with slaughter, who has
himself often perpetrated it, and who exults in the per-
oetration, will not retain undepraved the principles of
virtue. His moral feelings are blunted ; his moral vision
is obscured ; his principles are shaken ; an inroad is made
upon their integrity, and it is an inroad that makes after
inroads the more easy. Mankind do not generally resist
the influence of habit. If to-day we rob and shoot those
who are " enemies " we are to-morrow in some degree pre-
pared to shoot and rob those who are not enemies. Law may
indeed still restrain us from violence ; but the power and
efficiency of Principle is diminished • and this alienation
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. 7 lie trhoU
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 question of its lawfulness, or to
the practical question of its expediency. T/iat can scarcely
be lawful which necessarily occasions such wide-spread
• "This torrible tnith, which I cannot lielp repealing, must be
acknowledged : indifference and sellisliness are tlie predominant feel-
ings in an army." Miot's Memoir es de PExpAlition en Egypte, &a
Mem. in the MS
FAMILIARITY WITH PLUNDER. 2*
immorality. That can scarcely be expedient, which is so
pernicious to virtue, and therefore to the State.
IMPLICIT OBEDIENCE TO SUPEMIORS.
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. " I swear to
obey the orders of the othcers who are set over me : so
help me, God." This system may be necessary to hostile
operations, but I think it is unquestionably adverse to in-
tellectual and moral excellence.
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 animal which is
moved by a goad or a bit without judgment of its own ;
and his bravery is that of a mastiff that fights whatever
mastiff others ]iut before it.* It is obvious that in such
agency the intellect and the understanding have little part.
Now I think that this is important. He who, with what-
ever motive, resigns the direction of his conduct implicitly
to another, surely cannot retain that erectness and inde-
pendence of mind, that manly consciousness of mental
freedom, which is one of the highest privileges of our
nature. A British Captain declares that " the tendency of
strict discipline, such as prevails on board ships of war,
where almost every act of a man's life is regulated by the
orders of his superiors, is to weaken the faculty of inde-
• By one article of the Constitutional Code even of republican
France, " the army were expressly prohibited from deliberating on any-
subject whatever."
-22 CONSEQUENCES OF WAR.
pendent tlioiit^ht." * Thus the rational being becomes
reduced iu the intellectual scale : an encroachment is made
upon the integrity of its independence. God has given us,
individually, capacities for the reguUition of our individual
conduct. To resign its direction, therefore, to the absolute
disposal of another, appears to be an unmanly and unjusti-
fiable relinquishment of the privileges which He has granted
to us. And the effect is obviously bad ; for although no
character will apply universally to any large class of men,
and although the intellectual character of the military pro-
fession does not result only from this unhappy subjection,
yet it will not be dis{)uted, that the honourable exercise of
intellect amongst that profession is not relatively great.
It is not from them that we expect, because it is not in
them that we generally find, those vigorous exertions of
intellect which dignify our nature, and which extend the
boundaries of human knowledge.
RESIGNATION OF MORAL AGENCY.
But the intellectual effects of military subjection foi-m
but a small portion of its evils. The great mischief is,
that it requires the relinquishment of our moral agency ;
that it requires us to do what is opposed to our consciences,
and what we know to be wrong. 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 l)e
wicked, and which they would not commit but for the
* Captain Basil Hall's Voyage to Loo Choo, c. 2. We make no
distinction between the military and naval professions, and employ one
word to indicate botli.
RESIGNATION OF MORAL AGENCY, 23
obligations of a military life. Although a soldier deter-
miiiately believes that the war is unjust, although he is
convinced that his particular part of the service is atro-
ciously criminal, still he must proceed, — he must prosecute
the purposes of injustice or robbery, he must particii)ate in
the guilt, and be himself a robber.
To what a situation is a rational and responsible being
reduced, who commits actions, good or bad, at the word of
another ? I can conceive no greater degi-adation. It is the
lowest, the final abjectness of the moral nature. We see
that it ?> this if we take away the glitter of War, and if we
add this glitter it remains the same.
Such a resignation of our moral agency is not contended
for, or tolerated, in any other circumstance of human life.
War stands alone upon this pinnacle of depravity. She
only, in the supremacy of crime, has told us that she has
abolished even the obligation to be virtuous.
Some writers who have perceived the monstrousness of
this system, have told us that a soldier should assure him-
self, before he engages in a war, that it is a lawful and just
one ; and they acknowledge that, if he does not feel this
assurance, he is a "murderer." liut how is he to know
that the war is just? It is frequently difficult for the
people distinctly to discover what the objects of a war are.
And if the soldier knew tiiat it was just in its commence-
ment, how is he to know that it will continue just in its
prosecution ? Every war is, in some parts of its course,
wicked and unjust ; and who can tell w^hat that course will
be ? You say, When he discovers any injustice or wicked-
ness, let him withdraw : wo answer. He cannot : and the
24 .. CONSEQUENCES OF WAR.
truth is, that there is no way of avoiding the evil, but by
avoiding the army.
It is an inquiry of much interest, under what circum-
stances of responsibility a man supposes himself to be
placed, who thus abandons and violates his own sense of
rectitude 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 jiersonal 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 indi-
vidual obedience and impose individual responsibility. She
has made no exceptions to the imperativeness of her obliga-
tions, whether we are required by others to neglect them or
not ; and 1 can discover in her sanctions no reason to sup
pose that in her final adjudications she admits the plea,
that another required us to do that which she required us to
forbear. But it may be feared, it may be believed, that
how little soever Religion 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 respon-
sibility attaches nowhere ; that that which would be wicked-
* Vattel indeed tells us that soldiers ought to "submit their judg-
ment." "What" says he " would be the consequence, if at every step
of the Sovereign the subjects were at liberty to weigh the justice of
lis reasons, and refuse to march to a war which, to tiicin, might ajipear
unjust?" — Law of Nations, b. 3, c. 11, sec. 187. Gisl)onn! holds very
<lifferent language. "It is" he says "at all times the duty of an
Englishman steadfastly to decline obeying any orders of his superiors
which his conscience should tell him were in any degrt-c impious or
unjust." — Dntien of Men.
RESIGNATION OF MORAL AGENCY. 25
Dess in another man is innocence in a soldier ; and that
Heaven has granted to the directors of War a privilesjed
immunity, by virtue of which crime incurs no guilt and
receives no punishment.
BONDAGE AND DEGRADATION.
Again, no one doubts that military power is essentially
arbitrary. And what are the customary feelings of mankind
with respect to a subjection to arbitrary power ? How do we
feel and think, when we hear of a person who is obliged to
do whatever other men command, and who, the moment he
refuses, is punished for attempting to be free ? If a man
orders his servant to do a given action, he is at liberty, if
he think the action improper, or if, from an)'' other cause,
he choose not to do it, to refuse his obedience. Far other
is the nature of military subjection. The soldier is com-
pelled to obey, whatever be his inclination or his will.
Being in the service, he has but one alternative — submission
to arbitrary power, or punishment — the punishment of
death perhaps, — for refusing to submit. Let the reader
imagine to himself any other cause or purpose for which
freemen shall be subjected to such a condition, and he will
then see that condition in its proper light. The iniiuence
of habit and the gloss of public opinion make situations
that would otherwise be loathsome and revolting, not only
tolerable but pleasurable. Take away this influence and
this gloss from the situation of a soldier, and what should
we call it ? We should call it a state of degradation and
of bondage. But habit and public opinion, although they
may influence notions, cannot alter things. It is a state
26 CONSEQUENCES OF WAR.
intellectually, morally, and politically, of bondaa^e and
degradation.
But the reader will say that this submission to arbitrary
power is necessary to the prosecution of War. I know i*- •
and that is the very point for observation. It is because it
is necessary to War that it is noticed here : for a brief but
clear argument results : — That custom to which such a
state of mankind is necessary must inevitably be bad ; it
must inevitably be adverse to rectitude and to Christianity.
EFFECTS ON THE COMMUNITY.
Yet I do not know whether the greatest moral evil oi
War is to be sought in its effects on the military character.
Upon the community its effects are indeed less apparent,
because they who are the secondary subjects of the im-
moral influence, are less intensely affected by it than the
immediate agents of its diffusion. But whatever is de-
ficient in the degree of evil, is probably more than com-
pensated by its extent. The influence is like that of a
continual and noxious vapour : 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 neigh-
bours ; and it therefore requires no unusual acuteness to
discover, that the prodigious mass of immorality and
crime which is accumulated by a war, must have a powerful
effect in "demoralizing" the public. But there is one
circumstance connected with the injurious influence of
War, which makes it peculiarly operative and malignant.
It is, that we do not hate or fear the influence, and do not
EFFECTS ON THE COMMUNITY. . 27
fortify ourselves against it. Otlier vicious influences in-
sinuate themselves into our minds by stealth ; but this we
receive with open embrace. Glory, and patriotism, and
bravery, and conquest, are bright and glittering things.
Who, when he is looking delighted upon these things, is
armed against the mischiefs which they may veil ?
The evil is in its own nature of almost universal opera-
tion. 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 one man in a
hundred who does not lose something of his Christian
principles during a period of war.
"It is in my mind" said C. J. Fox, "no small misfortune
to live at a period when scenes of horror and blood are
frequent. * * * One of the most evil consequences of War
is, that it tends to render the hearts of mankind callous to
the feelings and sentiments of humanity."
Those who know what the moral law of God is, and who
feel an interest in the virtue and the happiness of the
world, will not regard the bitterness and the restless-
ness of resentment which are produced by a war, as
trifling evils. If anything be opposite to Christianity, it is
retaliation and revenge. In the obligation to restrain
these dispositions, much of the characteristic placability of
Christianity 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 to be proved. When a war is in
28 . CONSEQUENCES OF WAR.
contemplation, or when it lias been begun, what are the
endeavours of its promoters ? They animate us by every
artitice of excitement to hatred and animosity. Pamphlets,
placards, newspapers, caricatures, — every agent is in requi-
sition to irritate us into malignity. Nay, dreadful as it
is, the pulpit has too often resounded with declamations
to stimuJate our too sluggish resentment, and to invite us
to slaughter. And thus the most unchristianlike of all
our passions, the passion 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 extinguish the dispositions of our religion. War and
Christianity 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 dreadful to
a State. Slaughter and devastation are sufficiently terrible,
but their collateral evils are their greatest. It is the im-
moral feeling that War diffuses, — it is the depravation of
Pri7iciple which forms the mass of its mischief.
To attempt to pursue the consequences of War through
all their 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 multiplied evils, War produces
some good, I have no wish to deny. I know that it some-
times elicits valuable qualities which had otherwise been
EFFECTS ON THE COMMUNITY. 29
concealed, and that it often produces collateral and adven-
titious, 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.
Tha/c any wide-extended system should not produce r^ome
benefits can never happen. In such a system, it were an
unheard-of purity of evil, which was evil without any mix-
ture of good. — But, to compare the ascertained advantages
of War with its ascertained mischiefs, and to maintain a
question as to the preponderance of the balance, implies
not ignorance, but disingenuousness, not incapacity to de-
cide, but a voluntary concealment of truth.
And why do we insist upon these consequences of "War ?
— Because the review prepares the reader for a more ac-
curate judgment respecting its lawfulness. Because it
reminds him what War is, and because, knowing and re-
membering what it is, he will be the better able to compare
it with the Standard of Rectitude.
LAWFULNESS OP WAR.
INFLUENCE OF HABIT.
I would recommend to him who would estimate the
moral character of War, to endeavour to forget that lie has
ever presented to his mind the idea of a battle, and to en-
deavour 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
so LAWFULNESS OF WAR.
were shocked by the horribleness of the scene, he would be
amazed at its absurdity. That a large number of persons
shoild assemble by agreement and deliberately kill one
another, appears to the understanding a proceeding so pre-
posterous, so monstrous, that I think a being such as I have
supposed would inevitably conclude that 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 compre-
hend how any possible circumstances could make it reason-
able. The ferocity and prodigious folly of the act would,
in his estimation, outbalance the weight of every conceiv-
able motive, and he would turn unsatisfied away,
" Astonished at the madness of mankind."
There is an advantage in making suppositions such as
these ; because when the mind has been familiarized to a
practice however monstrous or inhuman, it loses some of
its sagacity of moral perception ; the practice is perhaps
veiled in glittering fictions, or the mind is become callous
to its enormities. But if the subject is by some circum-
stance presented to the mind unconnected with any of its
previous associations, we see it with a new judgment and
new feeling ; 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 determine whether we
approve them from a decision of our judgment, or wiiether
we yield them only the acquiescence of habit.
It may properly be a subject of wonder that the argu-
ments which are brought to justify a ("ustom such as War
INFLUENCE OF HABIT. 31
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
favour of such a practice should be unanswerably strong.
THE APPEAL TO ANTIQUITY.
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 lawful-
ness 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 in his Essays, " a greater
obstruction to the investigation of truth or to the improve-
ment of knowledge, fhan 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 oppo-
sition, 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 older. " Nor is it out of mode.sty "
continues Lord Clarendon, " 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 proiul and as peevish
as any of our progenitors ; but it is out of laziness ; we will
32 LAWFULNESS OF WAR.
rather take their words thau take the pains to examme the
reason they governed themselves by." To those who urge
objections from the authority of ages, it is indeed a suthcient
answer to say, that they apply to every long-continued cus-
tom. Slave-dealers urged them against the friends of the
abolition; 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."
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 Bcccaria, that " it is the fate of
great truths to glow oidy like a Hash of lightning amidst
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 in-
deed 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
aiid 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.
THE APPEAL '['() ANTIQUITY. 3S
There are, however, testimonies dehvered in the calm of
reflection by acute and enlightened men, which may reason-
ably 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 tliat
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." — "Wickliff'e," says Priestley,
" seems to have thought it was wrong to take away the life
of man on any account, and that War was utterly unlawful."
— "I am persuaded," says Bishop Watson of Llandaff, "that
when the spirit of Christianity shall exert its proper influ-
ence War will cease throughout the whole Christian world"
"War," says the same acute prelate, "has practices and
principles peculiar to itself, which but ill quadrate with the
rule of moral rectitude, and are quite abhorrent from th«
benignity of Christianity." The poet Southey bears this
remarkable testimony : " There is but one community of
Christians in the wc/ld, and that, unhappily, of all com-
munities one of the smallest, enlightened enough to under-
stand the prohibition of War by our Divine Master, in
its plain, literal, and undeniable sense, and conscientious
34 LAWFULNESS OF WAR.
enough to obey it, subfhiini:: the very instinct of nature to
obedience."
THE CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES.
Those who have attended to the mode in which the Moral
Law is instituted in the expressions of the Will of God,
wiil not be surprised to find that it contains no specific pro-
hibition of War. Accordingly, if we be asked for such a
prohibition, — in the manner, for instance, in which " Thou
shalt not kill" is directed to murder, — we willingly answei
that no such prohibition exists ; — and it is not necessary
to tlie argument. Even those who would require such a
prohibition, are themselves satisfied respecting the obliga-
tion 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 cor.l.i 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 evi-
dence against the lawfulness of suicide as there is against
the lawfulness of War. To those who require such a com-
mand as " Tilou shalt not evgage in War," it is therefore
sufficient to reply, that they require that, which, upon this
ami upon many other subjects, Christianity has not seen
fit to give.
We suppose that no thoughtful man will deny that the
characteristic nature of the Moral Law is a law of Benevo-
lence. Benevolence means good-will and kind affections
towards one another, and is placed at the base of practical
THE CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES. 35
morality, — it is " the fulfilling: of the law ; " it is the t€st
of the validity of our pretensions to the Christian character.
We can moreover see no reason to doubt, that this law of
Benevolence is universally applicable to public affairs as
well as to private, to the intercourse of nations as well as
of men. Let us refer, then, to some of those requisitions
of this law which appear peculiarly to respect the question
of 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 o?ie to another.
IValk with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering,
forbearing one another in love.
Be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another ;
love as brethren, be pitiful, he 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. — Put off anger, wrath, malice. —
Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and
evil speaking, be put away from you, xvith 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 nny man who looks over these passages,
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
g)oss inconsistency ? — But if War is obviously and most
36 LAWFULNESS OF VVAB
grossly inconsistent with the general character of Chris-
tianit)'^ ; if War could not have been permitted by its
teachers, without an egregious violation of their own pre-
cepts, 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 / 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 lo\e thy neighbour, and hate thine
enemy: but /say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them
that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and praj
for them which desi)itefully 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 directed, not so immediately to the external
regulation of the conduct, as to the restraint and purifica-
tion of the affections. In another precept 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 discourse 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 / say unto you, that whosoever is
angry with his brother, shall be in danger of the judg-
THE CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURPIS. 37
ment." 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 those passions which He
prohibits. Our argument, therefore, is syllogistical : — War
cannot be allowed, if that which is necessary to War is
prohibited. This, indeed, is precisely the argument of
Erasmus : — " They who defend War must defend the dis-
positions which lead to War ; and these di^jxjsitions are
absolutely forbidd^'ii."
Whatever might have been allowed under the Mosaic
institution as to retaliation or resentment, Christianity
says, " If ye love them only which love you, what reward
have ye? — Love your enemies." Now what sort of love
does that man bear towards his enemy, who runs him
through with a bayonet ? We repeat, that the distinguish-
ing duties of Christianity must be sacrificed when War is
carried 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," etc., 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, -with complacent exultation,
* Yet the retention of both lias been, unhappily enough, attempted.
In a hite publication, of which a part is devoted to the defence of
War, the author gravely reconiniends soldiers, wliilst shooting and
stabbing their enemies, to maintain towards them a feeling of " good-
will!" — Tracts and Essnyx by the late William Hey, Esq., F.R.S.
And Gisborne, in his Duties of Men, holds similar laneruasre. He
advises the soldier "never to forget the common ties of human nature
by which he is inseparably utdted to his enemy 1"
38 LAWKILNESS OF WAH.
Wliat would these advocates of peace say to him who struck
them on the right cheek ? Would they turn to tiim tne
other ? What would these patieut moralists say to him
who robbed them of a coat ? Would they give 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 argument am ad homiui'm ; one exam-
ple amongst the many, of that low and dislionest mode of
intellectual warfare, which consists in exciting the feelings
instead of convincing the unders.Andiiig. It is, howpver,
some satisfaction that the motive to the adoption of ihis
mode of warfare is itself an indication of a bad cause :
for what honest reasoner would [)roduce only a laugh, if
he were able to produce conviction ?
We willingly grant that not all the precepts from the
Mount were designed to be literally obeyed in the inter-
course of life. But what then? To show that their mean-
ing is not literal, is not to show that they do not forbid
War. We ask in our turn, What is the meaning of the
precepts? What is the meaning of "Resist not evil?"
Does it mean to allow bombardment, — devastation, —
slaughter? 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 tlieir
commerce," — " s- ik their fleets," — "plundor their cities,"
— "shoot through their hearts?" If the precept does not
mean to allow all tliis, it does not mean to allow War. It
is therefore not at all necessary here to discuss the precise
«ignification of some of the |iiecepts from the Mount, or to
THE CHRISTIAN SCRIPTURES. 3fl
define what limits Christianity may admit in their appli-
cation ; since, whatever exceptions she may allow, it is
manifest what she does not allow : * for if we give to our
objectors whatever license of interpretation they may
desire, they cannot, without virtually rejecting the precepts,
so interpret them as to make them allow War.
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 inculcation of
forbearance, and forgiveness, and benevolence, and love.
They forbid, not specifically the act, but the sphu't of War;
and this method of prohibition Christ ordinarily employed.
He did not often condemn the individual doctrines or
customs of the age, however 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 profligacy
might arise which the world had not yet practised : in the
gradual vicissitudes of human error, many new fallacies
might obtain which the world had not yet held : and how
were these errors and these crimes to be opposed, but by
the inculcation of principles that were applicable to every
crime and to every error ? — principles which do not always
• It is manifest, from the New Testament, tliat we are not required
to give a "cloak," in every case, to liini who robs us of "a coat ;" but
I think it is equally manifest that we are required to give it 7iot the
less, because 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 requiie
relief, it is the business of the plundered to relieve them.
40 LAWFULNESS OF WAK.
define what is wrong, but which tell us what always is
right.
SUBJECTS OF Christ's benediction.
There are two modes of censure or condemnation • the
one is to reprobate evil, and the other to enforce the oppo-
site good ; and both these modes were adopted by Christ.
— He not only censured the passions that are necessary to
War, but inculcated the affections which ore most opposed
to them. The conduct and dispositions upon which He
pronounced His solemn benediction are exceedingly re-
markable. They are these, and in this order : Poverty of
spirit; — Mourning ; — Meekness ; — Desire of right eousne.ss ;
— Mercy ; — Purity of heart ; — Peace-making ; — Sufferance
of persecution. Now let the reader try whether he can
propose 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-ma hem. " Blessed are
the peace-makers : for the}'^ shall be called the children of
God." Higher praise or a higher title, no man can receive.
Now, I do not say that these benedictions contain an abso-
lute 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 approbation ; and not one of
them possesses any congi'uity with War, and some of them
cannot possibly e.xi.st in conjunction with it. Can any one
believe that He who made this selection, and who distin-
gui.slied the peace-makers with peculiar approbation, could
SUBJECTS OF CHRIST'S BENEDICTION. 41
have sanctioned that His followers should destroy 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 destruction ? If I
be told that a temporary suspension of Christian disposi-
tions, 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 Chris-
tianity.
MATTHEW XXVI. 52.
When the betrayers and murderers of Jesus Christ ap-
proached 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 again thy
sword into his place," said his Divine Master, " for all
they that take the sword shall perish with the sword."
There is the greater importance in the circumstances of
this command, because it prohibited the destruction of
human life in a cause in which there were the best of
possible reasons for destroying it. The question, "Shall
we smite with the sword ? " obviously refers to the defence
of the Redeemer from His assailants by force of arms.
His followers 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,
42 LAWFULNESS OF WAR.
for what reason can it be lawful to draw it ? The advo-
cates of War are at least bound to show a better 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 context. He does
indeed assign it ; but the primary reason, the immediate
context is, — " for all they that take the sword shall perish
with the sword." The reference to the destined sacrifice of
His life is an after reference. This destined sacritice might
perhaps have formed a reason why His followers should not
fight then ; b\;t the first, the principal, reason which He as-
signed, was the 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.
THE APOSTLES AND EVANGELISTS.
It is with the apostles as with Christ Himself. The in-
cessant object of their discourses and writings is the incul-
cation of peace, of mildness, of placability. It might be
supposed that they continually retained in prospect the re-
ward 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
their approval of War. Do the tenor and spirit of their
THE APOSTLES AND EVANGELISTS. 43
writings bear any congruity with it ? Are not their spirit
and tenor entirely opposed to it ? We are entitled to
renew the observation, that the pacific nature of the
apostolic writings proves presumptively that the writers
disallowed 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 among you ? " is the
interrogation of the apostle James, to some whom 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 members ? " This accords pre-
cisely with the argument that we urge. Christ forbade the
passions which lead to War ; and now, when these passions
had broken out into actual strife, His apostle in condemn-
ing War refers it back to their passions. We have been
saying that the passions 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 eradi-
cate the passions which produce it.
In the following quotation we are told, not only what the
t.rms of the apostles were not, but also what they were.
" The weapons of our warfare are not carnal," says the
apostle Paul, " but mighty through God to the pulling down
of strongholds ; and bringing into captivity every thought to
the obedience of Christ." I quote this, not only because it
assures us that the apostles had nothing to do with military
weapons, but because it tells us the object of their warfare
— the bringing of every thought to the obedience of Christ :
■and this object I would beg the reader to notice because it
44 LAWFULNESS OF WAR.
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 reason to fear that his converts would slaughter
one another. He followed the example of his Master.
He attacked wickedness at its root ; and inculcated those
general principles of purity and forbearance, which in their
prevalence would abolish War, as they would abolish all
other crimes. The teachers of Christianity addressed them-
selves not to communities but to 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 philosoi)hy, that
whatever duties 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 con-
demned that was notoriously 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 degree of atrocity ; but the act itself no one thinks
of censuring, because every one knows that it is wicked.
Setting statutes aside, I doubt whether, if an Otaheitan
should choose to argue that Christians allow murder be-
cause he cannot find it formally prohibited in their writ-
ings, 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
THE APOSTLES AND EVANGELISTS. 46
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 virtually forbid it ; unless
any one shall say that they disallowed the passions which
occasion War, but did not disallow War itself; that Chris-
tianity prohibits the cause but permits tlie effect ; which is
much the same as to say, that a law which forbade the ad-
ministering of arsenic did not forbid poisoning.
But although the general tenor of Christianity and some
of its particular precepts appear distinctly 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 per-
ceive that War is unlawful to them.
In examining the arguments by which War is defended,
two important considerations should be borne m mind.
First, that those who urge them are not sim])ly defending
War, they are also defending themselves. If War be wrong,
their conduct is wrong ; and the desire of self-justification
prompts them to give importance to whatever arguments
they can advance in its favour. Their decisions may there-
fore with reason be regarded as in some degree the decisions
of a party in the cause. The other consideration is, that
the defenders of War come to the discussion prepossessed
in its favour. They are attached to it by their earliest
habits. They do not examine the question as a philosopher
would examine it to whom the subject was new. Their
opinions had been already formed. They are discussing a
question which they had already determined : and every
46 LAWFULNESS OF WAR.
man who is acquainted with the effects of evidence on the
mind, knows that under these circumstances a very slender
argument in favour of the previous opinions possesses more
influence than any great ones against it. Now all this
cannot be predicated of the advocates of Peace ; they are
itpposing the influence of habit ; they are contending
against the general prejudice ; they are perhaps dismissing
their own previous opinions : and I would submit it to the
candour of the reader, that these circumstances ought to
attach in his mind suspicion as to the validity of the
arguments against us.
THE CENTURION
The narrative of the centurion, who came to Jesus at
Capernaum to solicit him to heal his servant, furnishes 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 oppor-
tunity of censuring it ; and that, instead of such censure,
He highly commended the ofiicer, 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 an approval, but upon silence. Appro-
bation is indeed expressed, but it is directed, not to his
arms, but to his "faith;" and those who will read the nar-
rative will find that no occasion was given for noticing 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 pronounced, but it would
have been a gratuitous censure, a censure that did not
THE CENTURION. 47
naturally arise out of the case. The objection is, in its
greatest weight, presumptive only ; for none can be sup-
posed to countenance everything that he does not condemn.
To observe silence * in such cases, was indeed the ordinary
practice of Christ. He very seldom mterfered with the
civil or political institutions of the world. In these insti-
tutions there was sufficient wickedness around Him ; but
some of them, flagitious as they were, He never on any oc-
casion even noticed. His mode of condemning and extir-
pating political vices was by the inculcation of general rules
of purity, which, in their eventual and universal application,
would reform them all.
But how happens it that Christ did not notice the cen-
turion's religion ? He probably was an idolater. And if
BO, would there not be as good reason for maintaining
that Christ approved idolatry because Ho did not condemn
it, as that He approved War because He did not condemn
it ? Reasoning from analogy, we should conclude that
idolatry was 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 evidence of its
lawfulness.
CORNELIUS.
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
* "Christianity, soliciting admission into all nations of tlie world, ab-
stained, as behoved it, from mterineddling with the civil institutions of
any. But does it follow, from the silence of Scripture concerning tliem,
that all the civil institutions whicli then prevailed were right, or that
the bad siiould not be exchanged for better ?" — Paley.
48 LAWFULNESS OF WAK.
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 simply negative. We do not find, it may be urged,
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, as silence is less than approbation. Yot 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
gi-ound 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 em-
braced 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 Cornelius 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 either paid taxes
to the Roman Government, or approved of their pa}'Tnent, at
a time when it was engaged in war, and when therefore the
CORNELIUS. 49
money that He paid would be employed in its prosecution.
This we shall readily grant ; but it a])pears 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 gratification of the emperor's
personal vices, and to his gladiatorial exhibitions, etc. : and
certainly to the support of a miserable idolatry. If there-
fore the payment of taxes to such a Government proves an
approbation of War, it proves an ap])robation of many other
enormities. Moreover, the argument goes too far in rela-
tion even to War ; for it must necessarily make Christ ap-
prove of all the Roman wars, without distinction of their
justice or injustice, — of the most ambitious, the most atro-
cious, and the most aggi-essive ; and these even our ob-
jectors will not defend. The paj'ment of tribute by our
Lord was accordant with His usual system of avoiding
direct interference in the civil or political institutions of
the world.
LUKE XXII. 36.
" He that hath no sword, let him 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 ? " It may be doubted
* Upon the interpretation of this jiassage of Scripture, I would sub-
join tlie seutuuents of two or tliree authors. Bishop Pearce says, " It
is plain that Jesus never intended to make any resistance, or suffer a
sword to be used on this occasion." And Campbell says, "We are
sure tiiat he did not intend to be understood literally, but as speaking
of the weapons of their spiritual warfare." And Beza : " This whole
50 LAWFULNESS OF WAR.
whether with some of those who advance this objection it
is not an objection of words rather than of opinion. It may
be doubted 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 ever 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 ta
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 something
far other than steel. There appears little reason for sup-
posing that physical weapons were intended in the instruc-
tion of Chris ^. I believe 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 7)ot carnal, and partly because
the word "sword" is often used to imply "dissension," or
speech is allegorical. My fellow soldiers, you have hitherto lived in
peace, but now a dreadful war Is at hand ; so that, omitting all other
things, you must think only of artns. But when he prayed in the
garden, and reproved Peter for smiting with the sword, lie Himself
showed what these arms were." — See Peace aiid War, an Essay.
Hatchard, 1824.
LUKE XXII. 36. 51
the religious warfare of the Christian. Such a use of lan-
guage 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 hsNQ fought the
goodi fight of faith."
But it will be said that the apostles did provide them-
selves with swords, for on that same evening they asked,
" Shall we smite with the sword ? " This is true, and it
may probably be true also, that some of them provided
themselves with swords in consequence of the injunction of
their Master. But what then ? It appears to me that they
acted on this occasion upon the principles upon which they
had wished to act on another, when they asked, "Wilt Thou
that we command fire to come down from heaven, and con-
sume them ? " And that their Master's principles 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 instruc-
tion 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 conceives of an apostle,
preaching peace and reconciliation, crying "forgive injuries,"
— " love your enemies," — " render not evil for evil ; " and
at the conclusion of the discourse, if he chanced to meet
violence or insult, promptly drawing his sword and maiming
62 LAWFULNESS OF WAR.
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 way in which they could have been
used, but some such as that which we have been supposing.
If therefore the words, " He that hath no sword let him sell
his garment and buy one," do not mean to authorize such a
iise of the sword, they do not mean to authorize its use at
all : and those who adduce the passage, must allow its
application in such a case, or they must exclude it from any
application to their purpose.
JOHN THE BAPTI.ST.
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 military 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 con-
ceive, nothing to do with it ; ibr I think that we need not
inquire what .Tohn allowed, or what he forbade. He con-
fessedly 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 Baptist.
Even if 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 busi-
ness. Yet, if any one still insists upon the authority of John,
I would refer him for an answer to Jesus Christ Himself.
JOHN THE BAPTIST. 53
What authority He attached to John on questions relating
to His own Dispensation, may be learut from this, — "The
least in the kingdom of lieaven is greater than he."
FAR-FETCHED ARGUMENTS.
It is perhaps no trifling indication of the difficulty which
writers have found in discovering in the Christian Scrip-
tures arguments in support of War, that they have had
recourse to such equivocal and far-fetched arguments.
Grotius, in his Rights of War and Peace adduces a pas-
sage, which he says is "a leading point of evidence, to show
that the right of War is not taken away by the law of the
Gospel." And what is this leading evidence ? That Paul,
in writing to Timothy, exhorts that prayer should be made
"for kings!" Another evidence which this great man
adduces is, that Paul suffered himself to be protected on
his journey by a guard of soldiers, without hinting any
disapprobation of repelling force by force. But how does
Grotius know that Paul did not hint this ? And who can
imagine that for a prisoner to suffer himself to be guarded
by a military escort, in the appointment of which he had
no contro^, was to approve War ?
But perhaps the real absence of sound Christian argu-
ments in favour of War, is in no circumstance so remark-
ably intimated as in the citations of Milton in his Christian
Doctrine. "With regard to the duties of War," he quotes,
or refers to, thirty-nine passages of Scripture, — -thirty-eight
of which are from the Hebrew Scriptures. And what is the
individual one from the Christian ? — " What king going to
war with another king. etc. ! '
M LAWFULNESS OF WAR.
NEGATIVE EVIDENCE.
Such are the arguments which are adduced from the
Chnstian Scriptures, by the advocates of War. In these
five passages the principal of the New Testament evidences
in its favour unquestionably consist : they are the passages
which men of acute minds, studiously seeking for evidence,
have selected. And what are they ? Their evidence is in
the majority of instances negative at best. A "not" inter-
venes. The centurion was iwt found fault with : Cornelius
was not told to leave the profession : John did not tell the
soldiers to abandon the army : Paul did not refuse a
military guard. I cannot forbear to solicit the reader to
compare these objections with the pacific evidence of 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.
PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
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 Testament respect-
ing the arrival of a period of universal Peace. The belief
is perhaps general amongst Christians that a time will come
when vice shall be eradicated from the world, when the
violent passions of mankind shall be repressed, and when
the pure benignity of Christianity shall be universally
diffused. That such a period will come we indeed know
assuredly, for God has promised it.
Of the many propliecies of the Old Testament respecting
this period, we refer only to a few from the writings of
PROPHECIES OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 55
Isaiah. In his predictions respecting the " last times," by
which it is not disputed that he referred to the prevalence
of the Christian relioion, the prophet says, — " They shall
beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into
pruning hooks : nation shall not lift up sword against
nation, neither shall they learn War any more." Again,
referring to the same period, he says — " They shall not
hurt or destroy in all ^ly holy mountain : for the earth
shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters
cover the sea." And again, respecting the same era, —
" Violence shall no more be heard in ihy land, wasting nor
destruction within thy borders."
Two things are to be observed in relation to these
prophecies. First, that it is the will of God that War
should eventually be abolished. This consideration is of
importance ; for if War be not accordant with His will,
War cannot be accordant with Christianity, which is the
revelation of His will. Our business, however, is prin-
cipally with the second consideration. — that Gkristianity
will he the means of introducing this period of Peace.
From those who say that our religion sanctions War, an
answer must be expected to questions such as these : — By
what instrumentality, and by the diffusion of what prin-
ciples, will the prophecies of Isaiah be fulfilled ? Are we
to expect some new system of religion, by which the imper-
fections of Christianity shall be removed and its deficiencies
supplied ? Are we to believe that God sent His only Son
into the world to institute a religion such as this, — a
religion that, in a few centuries, would require to be altered
and amended ? If Christianity allows of War, they must
66 LAWFULNESS OF WAR.
tell us what it is that is to extirpate AVar. If she allows
"violence, and wasting, and destrnction," they must tell us
what are the principles that are to produce gentleness, and
benevolence, and forbearance. — I know not what answer
such inquiries will receive from the advocate of War, but
I know that Isaiah sa3^s 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 : — " Though we or an angel from Heaven," says
Paul, " preach any other Gospel unto you, than that which
we have preached unto 3'ou, let him be accursed."
THE REQUIREMENTS OF CHRISTIANITY ARE OF PRESENT
OBLIGATION.
Whatever the principles of Christiauit}' will require
hereafter, they require now. Christianity, witli its present
principles and obligations, is to produce universal Peace.
It becomes therefore an absurdity, a simple contradiction,
to maintain tliat 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 religion sanction War ?
The case is clear. A more perfect obedience to that
same Gor^pel which, we are told, sanctions slaughter, will be
the means, and the only means, of exterminating slaughter
from the world. It is not from an alteration of Chris-
tianity, but from an assimilation of Christians to its nature,
that we are to hope. It is because we violate the principles
of our religion, because we are not what they require us to
THE PRIxMITIVE CHRISTIANS. K
be, that wars are continued. If we will not be peaceable
let us t.hen at least be honest, and acknowledge that w<
continue to slaughter one another, not because Christianity
permits it, but because we reject her laws.
THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANS.
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 adulterations 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 forbid-
den War ; and that, in consequence of this belief, many oi
them refused to engage in it whatever were the consequences,
whether reproach, or imprisonment, or death. These facts
are indisputable. " It is as easie," says a learned writer of
the seventeenth century, " to obscure the sun at mid-day,
as to deny that the primitive Christians renounced all
revenge and War." 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 w^hich had been delivered ? They applied them to
War ; they were assured that the precepts absolutely for-
bade it. This belief they derived from those very precept?
on which we have insisted ; they referred expressly to the
same passages in the New Testament, and from the
authority and obligation of those vasso.a^s tliev refused to
68 LAWFULNESS OF WAR.
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.
EXAMPLE AND TESTIMONY OF EARLY CHRISTIANS.
Maximilian, as it is related in the Acts of the First
Martyrs, by Ruinart, was brought before the tribunal to be
enrolled as a soldier. On the proconsul's asking his niime,
Maximilian 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 Christian.
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 : — " I cannot fight," said he,
" if I die." He continued steadfast to his principles, and
was consigned to the executioner.
The primitive Christians not only refused to be enlisted
in the army, but when they embraced Christianity, whilst
already enlisted, they abandoned the profession 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 Christianity. " It is not lawful," said he, " for a
Christian to bear arms for any earthly consideration ; " and
he waa in consequence put to death Almost immediately
EXAMPLE OF EARLY CHRISTIANS. 59
afterwards, Cassian, who was notary to the same legion,
gave up his office. He steadfastly maintained the senti-
ments of Marcellus ; and like him was consigned to the
executioner. Martin, of whom so much is said by Sul-
picius Severus, was bred to the profession of arms, which,
on his acceptance of Christianity, he abandoned. To
Julian the Apostate, the only reason that we find he gave
for his conduct was this : — "I am a Christian, and there-
fore I cannot fight."
These were not the sentiments, and this was not the
conduct, of isolated individuals who might be actuated
by individual opinion, or by their private interpretations of
the duties of Christianity. Their principles were the prin-
ciples 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. Clement, 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 Christianity, charged the
Christians with refusing to bear 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 was unlawful. Even after Chris-
tianity had spread over almost the whole of the known
world, TertuUian, in speaking of a part of the Roman
bO LAWFULNESS OF WAR.
armies, including more than one-third of the standing
legions of Rome, distinctly informs us that "not a Christian
could be found amongst them."
All this is explicit. The evidence of the following facts
IS however yet more determinate and satisfactory. Some
of tlie arguments which, at the present day, are brought
against the advocates of Peace, were then urged against
these early Christians ; and the?'' arguments they examined
and repelled. This indicates investigation and inquiry,
and manifests that their belief as to the unlawfulness of
War was not a vague opinion, hastily admitted and
loosplv floating amongst them, but that it was the result
of deliberate examination, and a consequent firm conviction
that vin"ist had forbidden it. The very same arguments
which art; 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 repelled by
these faithful contenders for the purity of our religion. It
is remarkable, too, that Tertullian appeals to the precepts
from the Mount, in proof of those principles on which tliis
Essay has been insisting : — that the dispositions which the
precepts inculcate are not compatible mth War, and that
War therefore is irreconcilable with Christianity.
If it be possible, a still stronger evidence of the primitive
belief is contained in the circumstance, that some of the
Christian authors declared that the refusal of the Christians
CO bear arms was a fulfilment of ancient prophecy. The
peculiar strength of this evidence consists in this, — that the
fact of a refusal to bear arms is assumed as notorious and
unquestioned. Irenajus, who lived about the year 180
EXAMPLE OF EARLY CHRISTIANS. 61
aflirins that the prophecy 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 they know
not how 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
now fight with our enemies'' Tertullian, who lived later,
says, " You must confess that the prophecy has been ac-
complished, as far as the practice of every individual is
concerned to whom it is applicable."
It has been sometimes said, that the motive which influ-
enced the early Christians to refuse to engage in War, con-
sisted in the idolatry which was connected with the Roman
armies. — One motive this idolatry unquestionably afforded;
but it is obvious, from the quotations which we have given,
that their belief of the unlawfulness oi fighting, independent
of any question of idolatry, was an insuperable objection to
engaging in War. Their words are explicit : " I cannot^^A^,
if I die." — " I am a Christian, and therefore I cannot ^"^Z^^."
— " Christ," says Tertullian, ''by 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 be present at the gladiatorial fights, " lest," says
Theophilus, " we should become partakers of the murders
committed there." Can anyone believe that they, who
would not even witness a battle between two men, would
themselves fight in a battle between armies ? And the
'62 LAWFULNESS OF WAR.
destruction of a gladiator, it should be remembered, was
authorized by the State as much as was 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 forbidden War ; —
that they openly avowed this belief ; and that in support of
it they were willing to sacrifice, and did sacrifice, their for-
tunes and their lives.
CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS.
Christians it is true afterwards became soldiers. But when?
When their general fidelity to Christianity became relaxed;
— when, in 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 the idoFs
temple ; " — when Christians accepted even the priesthoods
of idolatry. In a word they became soldiers when they had
ceased to be Christians.
The departure from the original faithfulness, was how-
ever not suddenly general. Like every other corruption,
War obtained by degrees. During the first two hundred
years, not a Christian soldier is upon record. In the third
century, when Christianity became partially corrupted.
Christian soldiers were common. The number increased
with the increase of the general profligacy ; until at last, in
the fourth century. Christians became soldiers without hesi-
tation, and i>erhaps without remorse. Here and there,
however, an ancinnt father still lifted up his voice for Peace;
CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS. 63
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 ad-
vocating 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 fol-
lowers offered up their lives because they would not commit.
WARS OF THE JEWS.
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.
To such an argument our answer is short : — If C/n-is-
tianity prohibits War, there is to Christians an end of the
controversy. War cannot be justified by the referring to
any antecedent Dispensation.
But even under the Old Dispensation the prophets foresaw
that wars 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 that Will to be fulfilled ? By that of the
" Rod out of the stem of Jesse." It is worthy of recollec-
tion, too, that David was forbidden to build the tenipU
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 gi-eat wars: thou shall
64 LAWFULNESS OF WAR.
Qot build an house unto my name, becanse thou hast shed
much blood upou the earth in My sight." So little accor-
dancy did War possess with the purer offices even of tbo
Jewish Dispensation.
DUTIES OF INDIVIDUALS AND NATIONS.
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 ap-
ply to us as individiuils, and rules which apply to us a^ sub-
jects 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. In the
judgment of the wTiter this argument possesses no force or
application.
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 ex-
pected 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 ; — other-
DUTIES OF INDIVIDUALS AND NATIONS. 65
wise they are wholly nugatory and irrelevant. Let the
reader observe the manner in which the argument is sup-
ported.— If an individual, it is argued, suffers aggression,
there is a power to which he can apply that is above him-
self and above the aggi-essor ; a power by which the bad
passions of those around him are restrained, or by which
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 coidd
be enforced, but by the sword. War therefore is the only
means which one nation possesses of protecting 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 laivs will use it for him. Here
is the error ; for the foundation of the duty of forbearance
in pi'ivate 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 slie 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 b«»
66 LAWFULNESS OF WAR.
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 ante-
cedent to all considerations respectiUj^ 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 for-
bearing 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 es-
pecially 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. 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.
OFFENSIVE AND DKIENSIVE WAR.
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
OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE WAR. 67
any other than defensive War, it is scarcely worth while to
entertain a question, since no one with whom we are con-
cerned 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 forbear-
ance 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 dis-
similar, it has been seen that we do not object 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 advo-
cate of Wai. [See Dymond's Essays, Eighth Ed., p. 259.]
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 m
68 LAWFULNESS OP WAR.
assertion of technical rights ; and some, antioubtedly, to
repel invasion 'Die last are perhaps the fewest ; and of
these only it can be .said that they bear any analogy what-
ever 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 lemained to a
people than to kill, or to be killed. And let it be remem-
bered, that unless this alternative alone remains, the case
of individual self-defence is n-relevant ; 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 otiier 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 them 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 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
OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE WAR. 69
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 lom-
pestuous ocean of slaughter.
WARS rt.LW\YS AGGRESSIVE.
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 busi-
ness 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 aggression
and defence. Moralists may talk of distinctions, but sol-
diers will make none ; and none can be made ; it is outside
the limits of possibility.
70 LAWFULNESS OF WAR.
PALEY.
Indeed some of the definitions of defensive or of just
War which are proposed by moralists, indicate how impos-
sible 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 temp-
tation to transgress it is before him, is almost sure to reason
himself into an error."
Violence, and rapine, and ambition, are not to be re-
strained by morality like this. It may serve for the specu-
lations 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 to the passions, to retain uiy practical restraint
upon them. And a morali'-y that will not be practised, — I
PALEY. 71
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 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 ?
WAR WHOLLY FORBIDDEN.
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 foi-bidden, 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 Chris-
tianity, 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
72 EFFECTS OF ADHERING TO MORAL LAW.
OP THE PROBABLE PRACTICAL EFFECTS
OF ADHERING TO THE MORAL LAW
IN RESPECT TO WAR.
We have seen that the duties of the reh'gion which God
nas imparted to mankind require irresistance ; and surely
it is reasonable to hope, even without a reference to experi-
ence, that He will make our irresistance subservient to
our interests : — that if, for the purpose of conform lug 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 concernsfi 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 hoj)e ; yet it is never to be for-
gotten that our apparent interests in the present life are
sometimes, in the economy of God, made subordinate to our
interests in futurity.
Y''et, even in reference only to the present state of exist-
ence, 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."
QUAKERS IN AMERICA AND IRELAND.
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
aettlers ; a warfare that was provoked — as such warfare has
QUAKERS IN AMERICA AND IRELAND. 73
almost always originally been — by the unjust and violent con-
duct of the Christians. The mode of destruction was secret
and sudden. The barbarians sometimes lay in wait for those
who might come Nvithin 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 abandon-
ing 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 desolation and universal terror, the
Society of Friends, who were a considerable portion of the
whole population, 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
occupations 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 princi-
ples. Two of these victims were men who, in the simple
language of the narrator, " used to go to their labour with-
out any weapons, and trusted to the Almighty, and de-
pended on His providence to protect them (it being their
74 EFFECTS OF ADHERING TO MORAL LAW.
principle not to use weapons of war to otlentl others, or to
defend themselves) ; but a spirit of distrust taking place
in their minds, they took weapons of war to defend them-
selves ; and the Indians, — who had seen them several times
without them, and let them alone, saying they were peace-
able men and hurt nobody, therefore they would not hurt
them, — now seeino- them have guns, and supposing they
designed to kill the Indians, therefore shot the men dead."
The third whose life was sacrificed was a woman, who
" had remained in her habitation," not thinking herself
warranted in goiui; " to a fortified place for preservation,
neither she, her son, nor daughter, nor to take thither the
little ones ; but the poor woman after some time began to
(et 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
w^ay, and killed her." {^Select Anecdotes, by John Barclay,
pp. 71, 79.]
The fate of the Quakers during the Rebellion in Ireland
was nearly similar. It is well known that the Rebellion
was a time not only of open War but of cold-blooded mur-
der; of the utmost fury of bigotry, and of the utmost exas-
peration of revenge. Yet the Quakers were preserved even
to a proverb ; and when strangers i)assed through streets of
ruin and observed :i house standing uninjured and alone,
they would sometimes point, and say, " That, doubtless, is
the house of a Quaker." * So complete indeed was the
preservation which these people experienced, that in an
* The Moravians, whose principles upon the subject of war were similar
to those of the Quakers, experienced also similar preservation.
QUAKERS IN AMERICA AND IRELAND. 75
official document of the Society they say, — " No member of
our Society fell a sacrifice but one young man ; " and that
young man had assumed regimentals and arms. [Hancock's
Principles of Pence hJxempliJiedS\
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 previously known to be an unoffending people, or
because the Quakers had previously gained the love of these
by forbearance or good offices : — we concede all this; it is a
part of the argument which we maintain. We say, that a
uniform, undeviating regard to the peaceable obligations of
Christianity becomes 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 who should adopt their conduct. No reason can
be assigned why, if their number had been multiplied ten-
fold or a hundred-fold, 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 invader, and should on a suddeD
76 EFFECTS OF ADiIERIN(} TO MORAL LAW.
choose to declare that they would try whether Providence
would protect them, — of such a ))eople, we do not say that
they would experience protectioti, and that none of them
would bs killed : but we say, that the evidence of experi-
ence is that a people who habitnally regard the obligations
of Christianity in their conduct towards other men, and
who steadfastly refuse through whatever consequences to
engage in acts of liostility, 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 conduct
upon the minds of men.*
COLONISATION OF PENNSYLVANIA.
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
* Ramond, in his Travels in the Pyrenees, says he fell in from time
to time with those desperate marauders who infested tlie boundaries of
Spain and Italy, — men who were familiar with danger and robbery and
blood. What did experience teach hmi was the most etlicient means of
preserving himself from injury? To go "unarvied." He found that he
had " httle to apprehend from men whom we inspire with no distnist
nor envy, and everything to expect in those from whom we claim only
what is due from man to man. The laws of nature still exist for tiiose
who have long shaken off the law of civil government."— "Tiie assassin
has been my guide in the defiles of the boundaries of Italy ; the
smuggler of the Pyrenees has received me with a welcome in his secret
paths. Armed I should have been the enemy of both : unarmed they
have alike respected me. In such expectation I have long since laid
aside all menacing apparatus whatever. Arms irritate the wicked and
intimidate the simple : the man of peace amongst mankind lias a mucb
more sacred defence — his character."
COLONISATION OF PENNSYLVANIA. 77
political circumstances enabled it to prove, all that hu-
manity could desire, and all that scepticism could demand,
in favour of our argument.
It has been the ordinary practice of those who have
colonised di-stant countries to force a footing, or to maintain
it, with the sword. One of the tirst objects has been to
build a fort and to provide a military. The adventurers
became soldiers, and the colony was a garrison. Pennsyl-
vania was however colonised by men who believed that
War was absolutely incompatible with Christianity, and
who therefore resolved not to practise it. Having deter-
mined not to light, 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
unarmed. If easiness of conquest, or incapability of defence,
could subject them to outrage, the Pennsylvanians 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 outrage, 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 would not use them.
These Indians were sufficiently ready to commit outrages
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
78 EFFECTS OF ADHERING TO MORAL LAW.
civilisation had not reclaimed from cruelty, and whom re-
ligion had not awed into forbearance. "But whatever the
quarrels of the Pennsylvauian Indians were with others,"
says Clarkson in his Life of Penn, " they uniformly re-
spected and held as it were sacred, the territories of William
Penn." The same writer also quotes Oldmixon as saying in
1708, "The Pennsylvanians never lost man, woman, or child,
by Indians ; which neither the colony of Maryland, nor that
of Virginia can say, no more than the gi'eat colony of New
England."
The security and quiet of Pennsylvania was not a tran-
sient freedom from War, such as might accidentally happen
to any nation. " She continued to enjoy it," says Old-
mixon, " for more than seventy years : " and, says Proud,
" subsisted in the midst of six Indian nations, without so
much as a militia for her defence." "The Pennsylvanians,"
says Clarkson again, " became armed, though without arms;
they became strong, thongli without strength; they became
safe, without the ordinary means of .safety. The con-
stable's staiT was the only instrument of authority amongst
them for the greater part of a century, and never, during
the administration of Penn, or that of his proper successors,
was there a quarrel or a war."
I cannot wonder that these ])eople were not molested, —
extraordinary and unexampled as their security was. There
is something so noble in this perfect confidence in the Su-
preme Protector, in this utter exclusion of "slavish fear,"
in this voluntary relinquishment of the means of injur}^ or
of defence, that I do not wonder that even ferocity could
be disarmed by such virtue. A people generously living
COLONISATION OF PENNSYLVANIA. 79
without arms amidst nations of warriors ! Who would
attack a people such as this ? There are few men so aban-
doned as not to respect such confidence. It were a pecuHar
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 outvotea
in its legislature ; when they who supposed that there wab
greater security in the sivord than in Christianity became
the predominating body. From that hour the Pennsylvanians
transferred their confidence in Christian Principles to a con-
fidence in their arms ; — and from that hour to the present
they have been subject to War. [Clarkson's Penn.^
Such is the evidence, derived from a national example, of
the consequences of a pursuit of the Christinu policy in re-
lation to War. Here are a people who absolutely refused
to fight, and who incapacitated themselves for resistance by
refusing to possess arms : and these were the people whose
land, amidst surrounding broils and slaughter, was selected
as a land of security and peace. The only national oppor-
tunity 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.
CONFIDENCE IN THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD.
If the evidence which we possess does not satisfy us of the
expediency of confiding in God, what ev^idence do we a.sk,
or what can we receive ? We havft His promise that He
will protect those who abandon their seeming interests in
80 EFFECTS OF ADHERING TO MORAL LAW.
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 W^.r produce one single instance
in the history of man of a person who had given an uncon-
ditional obedience to the will of Heaven, and who did not
find that his conduct was wise as well as virtuous, that it
accorded 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, in
observance of the forbearing duties of Christianity, he con-
signed his preservation to the superintendence of God ? —
And the solitary national example that is before us con-
firms the testimony of private life ; for there is sufficient
reason for believing that no nation, in modem ages, has
possessed so large a portion of virtue and 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 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
• " 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 disbehef in the
superintendence of Divine Providence." — The L'lwful nexs of Dffensivt
War impart tally considered. By a Member of tlie Church of Eng-
land
CONFIDENCE IN THE PROVIDENCE OF GOD. 81
wonderfully little. Who is he that confides in Providence,
and for what does he trust Him ? Does his confidence in-
duce him to set aside his own views of interest and safety,
and simply to obey Divine precepts even if they appear in-
expedient and unsafe ? This is the confidence that is of
value, and of which 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 un-
yielding stand against it. They can talk of the loveliness
of Peace, ay, and argue against the lawfulne.>*s 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 peacefulness which they say they ad-
mire. Those who are ready to sustain the consequences of
undeviating obedience, are the supporters of whom Chris-
tianity stands in need. She wants men who are willing
to suffer for her principles.
RECAPITULATION.
The positions then which we have endeavoured to estab-
lish are these : —
I. That those considerations which operate as general Causes of
War, are commonly such as Christianity condemns.
II. That the effects of War are, to a very great extent, prejudicial
to the moral character of a people, and to their social and political
welfare.
III. That the general character of Christianity is wholly incongruous
with War, and that its general duties are incompatible with it.
IV. That some of the express precepts and declarations of the
Christian Scriptures virtually forbid it.
82 EFFECTS OF ADHERING TO MORAL LAW.
V. That the Primitive Christians l)elieved that Christ had forbidden
War ; and that some of them suffered death in attirmance of tliis
belief.
VI. That God has declared in Prophecy, that it is His will that War
should eventually be eradicated from the earth ; and that this
eradication will be effected by Christianity, by the influence of its
present principles.
VII. That those who liave refu.sed to engage in War, in consequence
of their belief that it is inconsistent with Christianity, have found
that Providence has protected them.
N o\v we think that the establishment of any considerable
number of tliese positions is sufficient for our argument.
The establishment of the whole, forms a body of Evidence,
which must, I cannot but believe, convince any inquirer, to
whom the subject was new. But since such an inquirer
cannot be found, I would invite the reader to lay prepos-
session aside, to suppose himself to have now first heard
of battles and slaughter, and dispassionately 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 whatever may be the determination
upon this question, surely it is reasonable to try the ex-
periment, 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;;alions of Christianity, we have to chooise between evils
that are certain and evils that are doubtful ; between the
actual endurance of a great calamity, and the possibility of
a less. It certainly cannot be proved that Peace would not
be the best policy ; and since we know tliat the present
system is bad, it were reasonable and wise to try whether
RECAPITULATION. 83
the other is not better. In reality I can scarcely conceive
the possibility of a greater evil than that which mankind
now endures ; an evil, moral and physical, of far wider ex-
tent, and far greater intensity, than our familiarity with it
allows us to suppose. If a system of Peace be not produc-
tive of less evil than the system of War, its consequences
must indeed be enormously bad ; and that it would produce
such consequences we have no warrant for believing, either
from reason or from practice, — either from the principles of
the moral government of God, or from the exi)erience 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 Christianity understands
their interests better than they do 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 in his
Falkland Islands, "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 no longer be heard in our land,
wasting nor destruction within our borders ; " — that era in
which God has promised that " they shall not hurt nor de-
stroy in all His holy mountain." That a period like this
will come, I am not able to doubt : I believe it, because it
84 EFFECTS OF ADHERING TO MORAL LAW.
is not credible that He will always endure the butchery oi
man by man, because He has declared that He will not en-
dure it ; and because I think there is a perceptible approach
of that period in which He will say — " It is enough." In
this belief the Christian may rejoice ; he may rejoice that
the number is increasing of those who are asking — " Shall
the sword devour for ever ? " and of those who, whatever be
the opinions or the practice of others, are openly saying, "I
am for Peace." [Psalm cxx. 7.]
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS.
It will perhaps be asked, What then are the duties of a
subj<?ct 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 temperately, yet firmly, to refuse to serve. — Let such as
these remember, that an honourable and a most solemn duty
is laid upon them. It is upon their fidelity, so far as
human agency is concerned, that the Cause of Peace hangs.
Let them then be willing to avow their opinions and to de-
fend them. Neither let them be contented with words, if
more than words, if suffering also, is required. It is only by
the unyielding fidelity of virtue that corruption can be ex-
tArpated. If you believe that Jesus Christ has prohibited
slaughter, let not the opinions or the commands of a world
induce you to join in it. By this " steady and determinate
pursuit of virtue," the benediction which attaches to those
who hear the .sayings of Cod 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.
APPENDIX
CHRISTIANITY THE TRUE REMEDY FOR
WAR.
OPINIONS OF EMINENT MEN.
JiisHOP Fkaser. — " War is not the triumph of righteousness. It is
the triumph of brute force. Can anything be conceived more unchris-
tian, more irrational, than the present mode by which international
quarrels are commonly adjusted ^"
Dr. Chalmeks. — "The mere existence of the prophecy, 'They shall
learn War no more,' is a sentence of condemnation on War.'
Robert Hall. — " War is notliing less than a temporary repeal of
the principles of virtue."
Sydney Smith. — " God is forgotten in War : every princqjle of
Christianity is trampled upon."
John Wesley. — "yiiall Christians assist the Prince of Hell, who
was a murderer from the beginning, by telling the world of the hevefU
or the need of War ? "
Dr. Adam Clarke. — " War is as contrary to the spirit of Christi-
anity as murder."
Henry Richard. — " I will venture to say this, that if all the minis-
ters of Christ's Gospel were with one voice, constantly, courageously,
earnestly, to preach to the nations the Truce of God, and were to de-
nounce War, not merely as costly, and cruel, and barl)arous, but as
essentially and eternally unchristian, another War in the civilized world
would become impossible."
Lord Carnarvon. — " You have no right to divorce your system of
politics from your system of morals. There are no two sides to that
silver sliield."
66 APPENDIX.
Duke of Wellington (to Lord Shaftesbury). — "War is a most
detestable tiling. If you had seen but one day of War, you wou'd pray
God that you might never see another."
INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION
A PRACTICAL APPLICATION OF CHRISTIAN PRINCIl»LE.
OPINIONS OF EMINENT MEN.
Qrotius, m his great work, De Jure Belli ac Pads, says of Arbi-
tration : — " Christian kings and States are bound, above all others, to
adopt this expedient to prevent War. Therefore, it would be useful,
and in some sort necessary, that the Christian Powers should appoint
some body in which the disputes of any States might be settled by the
judgment of the others which are not interested."
William Penn says: — "The Princes of Europe should establish
one Sovereign Assembly, before which all international dilJ'erences
should be brought, which cannot be settled by the Embassies." — Essay
on the Peace of Europe.
Lord Russell. — "On looking at all the wars which have been
carried on during the last century, and examining into the causes of
them, / do not see one of these wars, in which, if there had been
proper temper between the parties, the questions in dispute might not
have been stttled without recourse to arm^,"
Earl Derby (when Secretary of State for Foreign Affiiirs, 1867). —
" Unhappily there is no International Triliunal to which cases can be
referred, and there Ls no International Law by which parties can be
required to refer their disjjutes. If such a Tribunal existed, it would
be a ijreat benefit to the civilized v}orld."
Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone.—" I am fully convinced that there
is reserved for this country a great and honourable destuiy in connection
with this subject. If we are to lieoome etlective missionaries of these
principles, we can only derive authority by making tliem our own, and
by giving to them practiral etl'ect liy acting on the principles of moder-
ation, goodwill, ami justice. If we do so, then every year will add more
and more weight to the abstract doctrines we ureach."
APPENDIX. 87
Sir Stafford Northoote (when Secretary of State).—" It is our
sincere and earnest belief that the interests of this country and of the
whole world lie in the direction of a peaceful instead of a warlike
policy. We firmly believe that the dirt'erences between nations may
best be settled by the counsels that prevail in time of peace, and not
iimidst the excitement and clash of War.''
Since the Peace of 1815 there have been about sixty instances
Of Arbitration for the settlement of International disputes, some
of them inuoluing great and difficult questions. In all of these
cases a satisfactory and permanent settlement iv'as effected.
SOME OP THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE
MODERN V7AR SYSTEM.
DESTRUCTION OF LIFE FROM WAR IN 25 YEARS (1855-80).
Killed in hsitcle, or died
of wounds and disease.
CRIMEAN WAR 750,000
Italian War, 1859 45,000
War of Schleswig-Holstein ,3,000
AMERICAN CIVIL WAR-the North -JSO.OOO
„ „ „ —the Soulli 520,000
War between Prussia, Austria, and Italy in 186H . 45,000
Expeditions to Mexico, Cocliin Ciiina, Morocco,
Paraguay, etc {55,000
FRANCO-GERMAN WAR OF 1870-71 :
-France 15.5,000
—Germany 60,000
RUSSIAN AND TURKISH WAR OF 1S77 . 225 000
ZULU AND AFGHAN WARS, lbl9 40,000
Total 2,188,000
Killed in 25 years of nineteenth century "civilization ! "
If the execution of two or three crimhials justly excites horror, what
should be the feeling produced by the contemplation of such an awful
sacrifice of human life in millions upon millions, and often amid cir-
cumstances of unimaginable horror.
88 APPENDIX.
THE COST OF RECENT WARS (ISoS-SO).
Crimean War .?], 66(5,000,000
Italian War of 1859 •2!)4,000,000
American Civil War-North 4,60(i,000,000
—South 2,-2o4,0()0,000
Schleswig-Holstein War 3-4,300,000
Austrian and Prussian War, 1866 323,400,000
Expeditions to Mexico, Morocco, Paraguay,
etc. (say only) ' .".. l!)(i,000,000
Franco- Prussian War •2,450,000,000
Russian and Turkish War, 1877 1.0-2!»,(i00,000
Zulu and Afuhan Wars, 1879 147,000,000
$12,999,700,000
This vast sum is equal to §10 for every man, wcmian, and child in
the world ! It represents a mass of wasted labour and money, which
might, if wisely directed, have been an untold blessing to the nations.
It has been computed that the actual workers in Great Britain, even
in time of peace, work every day of the year to jiay the interest of the
National Debt, twenty-six minutes ; for the maintenance of arma-
ments, thirty minutes a day ; for the cost of collecting the taxes, four
minutes a day ; for the relief of the poor, nine minutes a day ; for local
taxes, nine minutes a day ; for the cost of civil government, twelve
mirmtes a day. Adding these together, we find that British labourers
work every day of the year one hour and thirty minutes, or nine hours
per week, for the payment of national and local taxes. Very nearly
two-thirds of this time is occupied in producing the cost of the War
system, that is, of the National Debt and of Armaments.
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