who know that the real prosperity of every nation depends on the consistency of its counsels with the will of God.7

7 Although I can by no means accede to the doctrines of the late William Paley on the subject of oaths, I have pleasure in directing the reader's attention to the following excellent remarks in his treatise on the subject. "The obscure and elliptical form (of the English oath), together with the levity and frequency with which it is administered, has brought about a general inadvertency to the obligation of oaths, which, both in a religious and political view, is much to be lamented; and it merits public consideration, whether the requiring of oaths on so many frivolous occasions, especially in the customs, and in the qualification for petty offices, has any other effect than to make them cheap in the minds of the people. A pound of tea cannot travel regularly from the ship to the consumer, without costing half a dozen oaths at least; and the same security for the due discharge of their office, namely, that of an oath, is required from a churchwarden and an archbishop, from a petty constable and the chief justice of England. Let the law continue its own sanctions, but let it spare the solemnity of an oath. And where it is necessary, for the want of something better to depend upon, to accept men's own word or own account, let it annex to prevarication penalties proportioned to the public conconsequences of the offence:" Moral Phil. vol. 1, ch. xvi, p. 193.

CHAPTER XI.

ON WAR.

Of all the practices which disturb the tranquillity and lay waste the welfare of men, there is none which operates to so great an extent, or with so prodigious an efficacy, as war. Not only is this tremendous and dreadfully-prevalent scourge productive of an incalculable amount of bodily and mental suffering,-so that, in that point of view alone, it may be considered one of the most terrible enemies of the happiness of the human race-but it must also be regarded as a moral evil of the deepest dye. "From whence come wars and fightings among you?" said the apostle James; "come they not hence, even of your lusts which war in your members? Ye lust and have not; ye kill and desire to have, and cannot obtain; ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not." 1 War, therefore, has its rise in the inordinate desires. and corrupt passions of men; and as is its origin, so is its result. Growing out of an evil root, this tree of bitterness seldom fails to produce, in vast abundance,

the fruits of malice, wrath, cruelty, fraud, rapine, lasciviousness, confusion, and murder.

Although there are few persons who will dispute the accuracy of this picture of war-although every one knows that such a custom is evil in itself and arises out of an evil source-and although the general position, that war is at variance with the principles of Christianity, has a very extensive currency among the professors of that religion-it is a singular fact, that Friends are almost the only class of Christians who hold it to be their duty to God, to their neighbour, and to themselves, entirely to abstain from that most injurious practice. While the views of Friends on the subject are thus complete, the generality of professing Christians, and many even of a reflecting and serious character, are still accustomed to make distinctions between one kind of war and another. They will condemn a war which is oppressive and unjust; and, in this respect, they advance no further than the moralists of every age, country, and religion. On the other hand, they hesitate as little in expressing their approbation of wars which are defensive, or which are otherwise undertaken in a just cause.

The main argument, of a scriptural character, by which warfare in a just cause (as it is termed) is defended, and its rectitude maintained, is the divinelysanctioned example of the ancient Israelites. That the Israelites were engaged in many contests with other nations; that those contests were often of a very destructive character; and that they were carried forward, on the part of the Israelites, under the direct sanction, and often in consequence of the clear com

mand of the Almighty, are points which no one, who reads the history of the Old Testament, can pretend to deny. But we are not to forget that the wars of the Israelites differed from wars in general (even from those of the least exceptionable character in point of justice) in certain important and striking particulars. That very divine sanction, which is pleaded as giving to the example of that people an authority of which other nations may still avail themselves in the maintenance of a similar practice, did, in fact, distinguish their wars from all those in which any other nation is known to have been ever engaged. They were undertaken in pursuance of the express command of the Almighty Governor of mankind; and they were directed to the accomplishment of certain revealed designs of his especial providence. These designs. had a twofold object: the temporal preservation and prosperity of God's peculiar people, on the one hand, and the punishment and destruction of idolatrous nations, on the other. The Israelites and their kings. were, indeed, sometimes engaged in combating their neighbours, without any direction from their divine Governor, and even against his declared will; and these instances will not, of course, be pleaded as an authority for the practice of war: but such of their military operations as were sanctioned and ordered of the Lord (and these only are adduced in the argument in favour of war) assumed the character of a work of obedience and faith. They went forth to battle, from time to time, in compliance with the divine command, and in dependence upon that Being who condescended to regulate their movements, and

to direct their efforts in the furtherance of his own providence. These characteristics in the divinelysanctioned warfare of the Hebrews were attended with two consequences, of the most marked and distinguishing nature. In the first place, the conflicts in which this people were thus engaged, and which so conspicuously called into exercise their obedience and faith, were far from being attended by that destruction of moral and pious feeling which is so generally the effect of war; but, on the contrary, they were often accompanied by a condition of high religious excellence in those who were thus employed in fighting the battles of the Lord—an observation very plainly suggested by the history of Joshua and his followers, of the successive Judges, and of David. And secondly, the contests which were undertaken and conducted on the principles now stated were followed by uniform success. The Lord was carrying on his own designs through certain appointed instruments; and, under such circumstances, while failure was impossible, success afforded an evidence of the divine approbation. Now, it cannot be predicated even of the wars which have the greatest appearance of justice, as they are usually carried on among the nations of the world, that they are undertaken with the revealed sanction, or by the direct command, of Jehovah-or that they are a work of obedience and faith-or that they are often accompanied with a condition of high religious excellence in those who undertake them—or that they are followed by uniform success. On the supposition, therefore, that the system of Israelitish morals is still in force, without alteration and improvement, it is