them? How much allowance then will the gospel permit us to grant to that custom which brings them into practice, which embodies them in forceful action, and applies them by system. and rule? II. We may advert to the examples in the New Testament respecting this custom. (This is one of the very few historical books which give no history of war!) These instances touch on our inquiry.* 1. Soldiers asked John the Baptist, "What shall we do?"t They were probably mercenaries, such as fight in any cause for mere pay. Can it be that the religion which breathes only love will sanction this? John did not bid them leave the service,' it is said. What argument will any one build on this mere absence of assertion? One that shall be urged to contravene the precepts we have just considered? One that may essentially modify the application of them? If any person should frame an argument on such a basis, we might content ourselves with replying, What then means the charge, "Do violence to no man,"† thus given to those trained, as their noblest, if not their ordinary employment, to the business of doing violence on multitudes of men? 2. Of a centurion, a Roman soldier, our Saviour declared, "I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." Christ, we concede, was silent as to his military character. But this silence is easily accounted for. He saw military men, perhaps daily; why should he have passed a judgment, in this respect, on this one rather than on those? Suppose that he had censured him; would this censure have arisen out of the circumstances, or have comported with them? How did he come to our Lord? Not as a soldier, but simply as a deserving person. It was, as such, that the Lord noticed him. The approbation, it will be remembered, is directed, not in any way to his profession, but exclusively to his faith. Doubtless he had, like his countrymen, been, at some former period, an idolater. May it not very naturally be supposed that Jesus would have spoken of idolatry, in this case, rather than of war? He spoke of neither. And if Christ's silence, in this case, respecting idolatry was consistent with holding it in the utmost abhorrence, who, with his precepts in remembrance, will say that his silence here respecting war is not consistent with holding that custom in equal abhorrence? * See on this topic Dymond's Essays on the Principles of Morality. Es. III., chap. 19. + Luke 3: 14. Mat. 8: 8-10. 3. The Saviour paid tribute to the Roman government.* This went, no doubt, with other moneys, into the imperial treasury. The question we are here to resolve is, Will this militate against a rigorous application of his commands? How can it? The Roman nation lived indeed on war; so also they worshipped thousands of false gods. If the Saviour's tax-paying may be taken in sanction of the custom of war, may it not, or rather, by parity of reasoning, must it not, be taken in sanction of the accustomed multiform idolatry, since idolatry along with war was maintained from the common treasury? The whole truth, as we view it, is this: Our Saviour gave, as a Jewish citizen, the tribute laid on him, as on all individuals who were such, by the Roman power. Not the shadow of inconsistency may, in this aspect of the matter, be traced between his practice and his commands. We can appropriately aver to any man, if you argue that he favored war, the argument is equally strong that he favored idolatry; if you argue that he favored any Roman war, the same argument is equally clear that he favored all those which the Romans themselves, wicked and heathen as they were, acknowledged, were terribly atrocious and vile. The 4. Before his capture by the Jewish band, Christ directed his disciples to procure swords. Why? When it was said, "Lord, here are two swords," he replied, "It is enough."+ Here the abettors of the custom under examination will find a difficulty. Two swords were not enough for twelve persons, himself and the eleven, to use in the ordinary manner. sequel of the narrative even states that, when one of the disciples had used one of them thus, Jesus miraculously healed the wound. This difficulty, however, will perhaps vanish, should it occur to the individuals troubled with it, to reflect that the call for weapons might have been made, and this occurrence permitted, by our Lord, so as to show, more impressively, and by his own example, his disapprobation of his followers relying on arms. How could he, indeed, have, with more aptness, or, in any way, better illustrated what he had taught his disciples to do, "Love your enemies," &c., than by this inversion of what the disciples had done? The sad truth which he uttered in connection with this incident, and, it would appear, as a sufficient, though not the greatest reason for the abandonment and utter disuse of physical violence for remedial purposes, confirms this view; "All they that take the sword shall perish * Mat. 17: 24, 25. † Luke 22: 36. + v. 38. § v. 51. by the sword."* We cannot, as we pass, well forbear asking, have we not here Christ giving to his precepts the enforcement of his own practice, under peculiar circumstances, which seemed to call imperatively for conduct in reverse of them? 5. Regarding the case of Cornelius,† remarks similar to those made in regard to the other centurion, are applicable.‡ 6. The first Christians were directed to flee from Jerusalem when they should see it encompassed with armies. They had been inoffensive men; and was it not their homes, their kinsmen, their earthly all which would be assailed? Why should they depart then? Should they not have stayed especially then? Forty years beforehand this direction was given. Yet it was no foresight of a weak fear that gave it. The lips of him who at that time bade them fly, had previously bidden them, "Fear not them which kill the body;" and he himself soon afterward met a death fraught with sufferings such as have never been paralleled, with unblanching courage, herein, as in other things, leaving them an example which, both before and after this flight, they shrunk not from following, till "the king of terrors came to them arrayed in his most frightful forms. Let it be that this direction was given to them with reference to a singular emergency, and in view of such miseries to be occasioned by war as earth never had seen, and should never see again; yet it teaches plainly a lesson which all the Saviour's friends may learn. It confessedly presents nothing in favor of withstanding war even in the instance of its being brought against us. What is its bearing, then, upon the custom, and the love of making war? Regarding this, what else does it inculcate? Thus far the examples. Are not Christians, from their testimony also, authorized to regard this custom as discordant with the "will of God concerning us?" They tally and are coincident in spirit with the precepts of the gospel. And how beautifully do the maxims and injunctions of the latter dispensation harmonize with, and fulfil, the prophecies of the former ! Thus have we sought to trace out Christian duty, as to this custom, from the inspired writings. And the examination has led to this result: If we are permitted to do any thing of warlike kind, it must not exceed the limits of simple resistance against perilous assaults; and the heart must, in the mean time, be kept wholly free from inimical and revengeful feel *Mat. 26: 52. † Acts 10. + (2) above. Mat. 24: 21. ings; still loving its neighbors (its assailants) as itself. Every thing beyond this, the love of war, the spirit of war, the complacent regard, the custom, of war, it forbids. In what state are Christians to place themselves towards that which the gospel forbids? They may not abstain from it merely; they must set themselves in opposition to it. They always, so far as their ability extends, should, in the use of those means which the gospel affords, and to which the providence of God directs, seek, discreetly and conscientiously, to extirpate and expel it from the world. The will of Jehovah is paramount authority. If no important error lurks in the statements and reasoning here presented, our duty stands clearly revealed. We will each rest in this conclusion: God calls me to aid in taking away from this world the practice and love of war. He requires me, not only to disapprove the custom, but to put forth strenuously every judicious effort, by legal, moral, rightful, Christian influence, to abolish it for ever. ARTICLE V. MR. WOLFF'S ADDRESS ON PEACE. MR. WOLFF, the converted Jew, delivered, on the evening of Sept. 9th, 1837, before the New York Peace Society, an address, of which we copy the following abstract from Zion's Watchman: My dear Friends:-1 am indebted to this Society for having considered a passage of Scripture the past week more attentively than I ever did before. I am fully convinced, as a student of prophecy, that peace shall be established on earth at the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. But, if we must not speak of this till that time, we might as well not speak of any thing concerning the gospel till that time. We must, therefore, see if this Society can be defended by Scripture; and if so, we must advocate it, though its principles may not agree with our own in every respect. That it is scriptural to advocate the cause of peace, cannot for a moment be doubted; for when our blessed Lord, who is King of kings, and Lord of lords, was lying in the manger, even at that time, when he was first born for suffering, the heavenly host sang, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth And peace, peace, peace, not strife,-good-will to man. this was done eighteen hundred years ago. But the heavenly host knew full well, that peace would not be established at that time. Our Lord says in his sermon, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." And every one of the apostles begins his epistle by wishing peace to those to whom they wrote; and the apostle Paul distinctly tells us, "How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things!" Peace was the object of their preaching. Beside this, we find that peace is the grand design of the coming of the gospel. And to prove that this cannot be doubted, one of the greatest objections made against embracing Christianity by the heathen, the Mohammedans and the Jews, is this war-spirit among Christians. I once gave to a Turk, who was a Mohammedan, the gospel to read; and to show him the beauty of the doctrine taught in them, I read to him the fifth chapter of Matthew. "But," said he, "you Christians are the greatest hypocrites in the world." "Why?" said I. He replied, "Here it is said, 'Blessed are the peacemakers,' and yet you, more than any others, teach us to make war. How can you be so shameless, when I know that you Christians are the greatest warriors in the world?" Literally true! "And your whole policy is to make us Turks your enemies, and then you teach us how to butcher one another. Now you call yourselves all peacemakers!" A Jew in London once said to me, "You go to war, and you call the Lord Jesus Christ the Prince of peace, and you pray to him, as the Prince of peace, to aid your warriors, and vanquish your enemies; and then after battle, you go to your churches, and sing te deum for the victory." Three years ago, in the land of the Afghans, one of the ministers of the prince of Peshaw asked me, "What is your object? Have you any religion? The English have no religion." I tell him we have a religion; and he says, "What is your religion? You send messengers to Boskhara, and try to bribe the king of Boskhara, in order that his enemies may get the advantage of him." How awful this, that we should have to put this example upon Christians! For you know, that these barbarians always think for themselves. I bring to them the gospel, and tell them the message and spirit of the gospel; but what a shame to have to admit that there are so few Christians in the world! Now, therefore, you see how |