with the hope of a little paltry gain, eagerly hasten as volunteers to the battle, ready to bear arms on either side, even against their own kindred and their own prince. Wretches like these, when they return home from such engagements, presume to relate their exploits, as soldiers; nor are punished, as they ought to be, like robbers, traitors, and deserters. Every one holds the common hangman in abhorrence, though hired to do his work, though he only puts to death those who are found guilty, and condemned by the laws of his country; while, at the same time, men who, forsaking their parents, their wives, and their children, rush as volunteers or privateers into the war, not hired, but ambitious to be hired, for the unnatural work of human butchery, shall be received, when they return home, with a heartier welcome than if they had never gone to rob and murder. By such exploits they imagine that they acquire something of nobility. A man is counted infamous who steals a coat; but if the same man goes to the wars, and, after shedding blood, returns from the battle, laden with the property of a great number of innocent men, he is ranked among honest and reputable members of society and any one among the common soldiers, who has behaved himself with remarkable ferocity, is judged worthy of being made a petty officer in the next war. If therefore we duly consider the humane discipline of the ancient warriors in heathen nations, the wars of Christians will appear, on comparison, to be merely systems of plunder.

And if you contrast Christian monarchs with heathen monarchs in their conduct of war, in how much worse a light will the Christians appear? The kings of the heathens sought not gain, but glory; they took delight in promoting the prosperity of the provinces which they subdued in war; barbarous

nations, who lived like the brutes, without letters and without laws, they polished and refined by the arts of civilisation; they adorned uncultivated regions by building cities and towns in them; whatever they found unprotected, they fortified; they built bridges, they embanked rivers, they drained swamps, they improved human life, they facilitated and sweetened human intercourse, by a thousand similar accommodations; so that it became in those days of generous heroism, an advantage to have been conquered. How many things are handed down to us by tradition, which they said wisely, or acted humanely and temperately, even in the midst of war. But the military transactions of Christians are too offensive and atrocious to bear particular enumeration. Upon the whole, whatever was the worst part of the conduct of heathens in war, that alone we closely imitate, in that alone we exceed them.

It may now be worth while to observe in what manner Christians defend the madness of war.

If, say they, war had been absolutely unlawful, God would not have excited the Jews to wage war against their enemies. I hear the argument, and observe upon it, that the objector should in justice add, that the Jews scarcely ever waged war, as the Christians do, against each other, but against aliens and infidels. We Christians draw the sword against Christians. To them, a difference in religion, and the worship of strange gods, was the source of contest. We are urged to war either by childish anger, or a hunger and thirst for riches and glory, and oftentimes merely for base and filthy lucre. They fought at the express command of God; we at the command of our own passions. But if we are so fond of the Jewish model as to make their going to war a precedent for us, why do we not, at the same time, adopt

their practice of circumcision? why not sacrifice cattle? why not abstain from swine's flesh? why not admit polygamy? Since we execrate these practices, why do we pitch upon their warlike actions as the only model for our imitation? Why, lastly, do we follow the letter which killeth, and neglect the spirit of their institutions? To the Jews war was permitted, for the same reason as divorce, because of the hardness of their hearts.

But since the time that Jesus Christ said, put up thy sword into its scabbard, Christians ought not to go to war; unless it be in that most honourable warfare, with the vilest enemies of the church, the inordinate love of money, anger, ambition, and the fear of death. These are our Philistines, these our Nabuchodonosors, these our Moabites and Ammonites, with whom we ought never to make a truce: with these we must engage without intermission, till the enemy being utterly extirpated, peace may be firmly established. Unless we subdue such enemies as these, we can neither have peace with ourselves, nor peace with any one else. This is the only war which tends to produce a real and a lasting peace. He who shall have once conquered foes like these, will never wish to wage war with any mortal man upon the face of that earth, on which God placed all men to live, to let live, and to enjoy the life he gave.

I lay no stress on the opinion of those who interpret the two swords given to Peter to mean two powers, the civil and ecclesiastical, claimed by the successors of Peter, since Christ suffered Peter himself to fall into an error in this matter, on purpose that, when he was ordered to put up his sword, it might remain no longer a doubt, that war was prohibited; which, before that order, had been considered as allowable.

But Peter, they allege, did actually use his sword. It is true he did; but while he was still a Jew, and had not yet received the genuine spirit of Christianity. He used his sword, not in support of any disputable claim to property; not to defend goods, chattels, lands, and estates, as we do; nor yet for his own. life, but for the life of his Lord and Master. Let it also be remembered, that he who used the sword in defence of his master, very soon after denied and renounced that master. If Peter is to be our model, and if we are so much pleased with the example of Peter fighting for Christ, we may probably approve also the example of Peter denying Christ.

Peter, in using his sword, only made a slip in consequence of the impulse of a sudden passion, yet he was reprimanded. But if Christ approved this mode of defence as some most absurdly infer from this transaction, how happens it that the uniform tenour of his whole life and doctrine teaches nothing else but forbearance? Why, when he commissioned his disciples, did he expose them to the despots of the world, armed only with a walking-stick and a wallet

a staff and a scrip? If by that sword, which Christ ordered them, after selling every thing else, to buy, is meant a moderate defence against persecution, as some men not only ignorantly but wickedly interpret it, how came it to pass that the martyrs never used it?

Here it is usual to bring forward the rabbinical limitations, and to say, that it is lawful for a hired soldier to fight, just as it is for a butcher to practise his trade for a livelihood; since the one has served an apprenticeship to the art of killing sheep and oxen, and the other to the art of killing men, both may equally follow their trade in perfect consistence with the character of good and worthy members of

society, provided always that the war be just and necessary. And their definition of a just and necessary war is as follows:-That is a just and necessary war which, whatsoever it be, howsoever it originates, on whomsoever it is waged, any prince whatever may have thought proper to declare. Priests may not indeed actually brandish the sword of war, but they may be present at, preside over, and superintend by their counsels, all its operations. They would not, indeed, for the world go to war from motives of revenge, but solely from a love of justice, and a desire to promote a righteous cause: but what man alive is there who does not think, or at least maintain, that his own cause is a righteous cause?

Christ, indeed, sent forth his messengers without weapons; but while he was with them, they did not want weapons. When the time of his departure was at hand, he advised them to take a scrip and a sword; a scrip to provide against hunger, and a sword to guard against enemies. These precepts nevertheless, such as, take no thought for the morrow, do good to them that hate you, and the like, remained in full force. If St. Paul and St. Peter give similar admonitions about defence and provision, it must be remembered that they are of the nature of temporary advice only, not of precepts or fixed rules of perpetual and universal obligation. But it is with these occasional admonitions or advice, sophistically represented as everlasting rules, that we feed the ambition of princes, and hold out something with which they flatter themselves that their conduct is justifiable, and reconcileable to the principles of the gospel: and, as if there were danger lest the world should enjoy a repose from the horrors of war, we assert the propriety or expediency of war from the sword, one part only of these words of