If #L -f~ LIBEAEY OF THE Theological Seminary, PRINCETON, N. J. Case, Shelf, v Book, f ) scte /07€7 *! * '<#**&$*'*' A ^AaUSSJ**J A,f- nly : Philip of Burgundy, bishop, of Utrecht, to Erasmus of Rotterdam, sendeth healtn. " My very learned, my very, dear friend Erasmus, I duly received your letter, which, I assure you, gave me great pleasure, and afforded me much relief in the esteem, without wishing, at the same time, for preferment and the privileges of a Paradise. VJ1 jnidst of those numerous cares, with which I am al- most overwhelmed. Your Complaint of Peace delights not only myself, to whom it is expressly dedicated, but all sincere professors of Christianity. Sorry should I be, that you should suffer your learning to remain in obscurity. I earnestly exhort you to finish the works you have in hand, to the honour and advantage of our age, and the admiration of posterity. For myself, it shall be my endeavour, with the blessing of almighty God, not to fall short of my pious brother's excellence, in the Episcopal function. I have written to you in few words, but with great affection and regard, both for myself and your abilities. Farewell, most excellent Erasmus, and continue, as you do, to love me. From my Chateau^ Vellenhoe, 6th December, 1517.'* If the kings and bishops of Erasmus's time felt dis- pleasure at this book, they dissembled it ; for they always shewed him singular favour, and he was im- portunately invited to spend his days in the most illustrious courts of Europe. In fact, they could not but acknowledge, that he had reason on his side ; and though they obeyed their passions, yet they stood in awe of truth, great in herself, and, when brought from her retirement, whither the cruel and false policy cf courts had driven her, by such a champion as Erasmtss ultimately invincible.- THE COMPLAINT OF PEACE. PEACE SPEAKS IN HER OWN PERSON. -1 hough I certainly deserve no ill treatment from mortals, yet, if the insults and repulses I receive •were attended with any advantage to them, I would content myself with lamenting in silence my own un- merited indignities and man's injustice. But since, in driving me away from them, they remove the source of all human blessings, and let in a deluge of calami- ties on themselves, I am more inclined to bewail their misfortune, than complain of ill usage to myself; and I am reduced to the necessity of weeping over and commiserating those whom I wished to view, rather as objects of indignation than of pity. For, though rudely to reject one who loves them as I do, may appear to be savage cruelty; to feel an aversion for one who has deserved so well of them, base ingratitude ; to trample on one who has nursed and fostered them with all a parent's care, an unnatural want of filial affection ; yet voluntarily to renounce so 10 many and so great advantages as I always bring in my train, to go in quest of evils, infinite in number and shocking in nature, how can I account for such per- verse conduct, but by attributing it to downright mad- ness ? We may be angry with the wicked, but we can only pity the insane. What can I do but weep over them ? And I weep over them the more bitterly, be- cause they weep not for themselves. No part of their misfortune is more deplorable than their insensibility to it. It is one great step to convalescence, to know the extent and inveteracy of a disease. Now, if I, whose name is Peace, am a personage glorified by the united praise of God and man, as the fountain, the parent, the nurse, the patroness, the guardian of every blessing which either heaven or earth can bestow ; if, without me nothing is flourishing, nothing safe, nothing pure or holy, nothing pleasant to mortals, or grateful to the Supreme Being : if, on the contrary, War is one vast ocean, rushing on mankind, of all the united plagues and pestilences in nature ; if, at its deadly approach, every blossom of happiness is jnstantly blasted, every thing that was improving grad- ually degenerates and dwindles away to nothing, every thing that was firmly supported totters on its foundation, every thing that was formed for long dura- tion comes to a speedy end, and every thing that was sweet, by nature, is turned into bitterness ; if war is so unhallowed, that it becomes the deadliest bane of piety and religion ; if there is nothing more calam- itous to mortals, and more detestable to heaven, I ask, how in the name of God, can I believe those beings to be rational creatures ; how can I believe them to be otherwise than stark mad ; who, with such a waste of treasure, with so ardent a zeal, with so great an effort* 11 with so many arts, so much anxiety, and so much dan- ger, endeavour to drive me away from them, and pur- chase endless misery and mischief at a price so high ? If they were wild beasts who thus despised and re- jected me, I could bear it more patiently ; because I should impute the affront to nature, who had implanted in them so savage a disposition. If I were an object a safe retreat to rest my head in undisturbed repose. Here also I find war ef another kind, less bloody, indeed, but not less furious. Scholar wages w T ar with scholar ; and, as if truth could be changed by change of place, some opinions must never pass over the sea? some never can surmount the Alps, and others do not even cross the Rhine ; nay, in the same university, the rhetorician is at variance with the logician, and the theologist with the lawyer. In the same kind of pro fession, the Scotist contends with the Thomist, the Nominalis with the Realis, the Platonic with the Peri- patetic ; insomuch that they agree not in the minutest points, and often are at the daggers drawing de lana cafirina, till the warmth of disputation advances from argument to abusive language, and from abusive lan- guage to fistycuffs ^ and, if they do not proceed to use real swords and spears, they stab one another with pens dipt in the venom of malice; they tear one ano ther with biting libels, and dart the deadly arrows of tbeir tongues against their opponent's reputation. So often disappointed, whither shall I repair ? Whither, but to the houses of religion ? Religion ! that anchor in the storm of life ? The profession of religion is, indeed, common to all christians ; but they who come recommended to us under the appellation of priests, profess it in a more peculiar manner, by the name they bear, the service they perform, and the cer- emonies they observe. When I take a view of them at a distance, every outward and visible sign makes me conclude, that among them at least) I shall cer- tainly find a safe asylum. I like the looks of their white surplices ; for white is my own favourite colour. I see figures of the cross about them, all symbolical of peace. I hear them all calling one another by the pleasant name of brother, a mark of extraordinary good will and charity ; I hear them salute each other with the words, " Peace be unto you :" apparently happy in an address so ominous of joy. I see a coni^ munity of all things ; I see them incorporated in a regular society, with the same place of worship, the same rules, and the 'same daily congregation. Who can avoid being confidently certain, that here, if no- where else in the world, a habitation will be found for peace ? _ O, shame to tell, there is scarcely one man in these religious societies, that is on good terms with his own bishop ; though even this might be passed over as a trifling matter, if they were not ton. to pieees by party disputes among each other. Where is the priest to be found, who has not a dispute with some other priest ? Paul thinks it an insufferable enormity, that a christian should go to law with a christian ; and shall a priest contend with a priest, a bishop with a bishop ? But, perhaps, it may be offered as an apology for these 21 mcn,that, by long intercourse with men of the world,and by possessing such things as the world chiefly values, they have gradually adopted the manners of the world, even in the retreat of the Church and the cloister. To themselves I leave them to strive about that property, which they claim by prescription. There remains one order of the clergy, who are so tied to religion by vows, that, if they were inclined they could no more shake it off, than the tortoise can get rid of the shell which he carries on his back, like a house. I should hope, if I had not been so often disappointed, that, among these persons, coming in the name of peace, I should gain a welcome reception. However, that I may leave no stone unturned, I go and try whether I may be allowed to fix my residence here. Do you wish to know the result of the experi- ment ? I never received a ruder repulse. What, in- deed, could I expect, where religion herself seems to be at war with religion. There are just as many par- ties as there are fraternities. The Dominicans disagree with the Minorites, the Benedictines with the Bernar- dines ; so many modes of worship, ao various the rites and ceremonies, they cannot agree in any particular ; every one likes his own, and, therefore, damns all others. Nay, the same fraternity is rent into parties ; the Observantes inveigh against the Coletse ; both unite in their hatred of a third sort, which, though it derives its name from a Convent, yet, in no article, can come to an amicable convention. By this time, as you may imagine, despairing of al- most every place, I formed a wish, that I might be permitted to seek a quiet retreat in the obscurity of some little inconsiderable monastery. With reluctance I must declare, what I wish were untrue, that I have 22 not yet been able to find one which is not coi < and spoiled by intestine jars and animosities. I bh ' to relate on what childish, flimsy causes", old i venerable for their grey beards and their gowns, and, in their own opinions, not only deeply learned, but holy, involve themselves in*endless strife. I now cherished a pleasing hope, that I might find a place in private, domestic life, amid the apparent happiness of conjugal and family endearment. It was surely reasonable to expect it, from such promising circumstances, as an eo^al partnership, founded on the choice of the heart, in the same house, the same for- tune, the same bed, the same progeny ; add to this, the mysterious union by which two become virtually one. But here also, Eris, the goddess of discord, had insinuated herself, and had torn asunder the strongest bands of conjugal attachment, by disagreements in temper; and yet, in the domestic circle, I could much sooner have found a place, than among the professed religious, notwithstanding their fine titles, their splen- did dresses, images, crucifixes, and their various cere- monies, all of which hold out the idea of perfect char- ity, the very bond of Peace. At length I felt a wish, that I might find a snug and secure dwelling-place in the bosom, at least, of some one man. But here also I failed. One and the same man is at war with himself. Reason wages war with the passions ; one passion with another passion. Duty calls one way, and inclination another. Lust, anger, avarice, ambition, are all up in arms, each pur- suing its own purposes, and warmly engaged in the battle. Such then and so fierce, ought not men to blush at the appellation of christians, differing, as they do 23 essentially, from the peculiar and distinguishing -ex- cellence of Christ? Consider the whole of his life ; what is it, but one lesson of concord and mutual love ? What do his precepts, what do his parables inculcate, but peace and charity ? Did that excellent prophet Isaiah, when he foretold the coming of Christ as an universal reconciler, represent him as an earthly lord, a satrap, a grandee, or courtier ? Did he announce him as a mighty conqueror, a burner of villages, a destroyer of towns, as one who was to triumph over the slaughter and misery of wretched mortals? No. How then did he announce him ? As the Prince of Peace. The prophet intending to describe him as the most excellent of all the princes that ever came into the world, drew the title of that superior excellence, from what is itself the most excellent of all things, peace. Nor is it to be wondered, that Isaiah, an in- spired prophet, viewed Peace in this light, when Silius Italicus, a heathen poet, has written my character in these words : " No boon that Nature ever gave to man, May be compared with Peace. The mystic minstrel, the sweet Psalmist, has also sung : 1 " In Salem (a place of peace) is his tabernacle/ 5 Not in tents, not in camps, did this Prince, mighty to save, fix his residence ; but in Salem, the city of peace. He is, indeed, the prince of peace ; Peace is his dear delight, and War his abomination. Again, the Prophet, Isaiah, calls the work of right- eousness, peace ; meaning the same thing with Paul, (who was himself converted from the turbulent Saul, to a preacher of peace,) when preferring charity to all others gifts of the secret spirit of God, he thunder- 24 ed in the ears of the Corinthians my eulogium, with an eloquence which arose from the fine feelings of his bosom, animated by grace, and warm with benevolence. Why may I not glory in having been celebrated by one so celebrated himself, as this great Apostle ? In anoth- er place he calls Christ the God of peace ; and in a third, the peace of God ? plainly indicating that these two characters so naturally coalesce, that peace cannot come where God is not ; and that where peace is not God cannot come. In the sacred volumes we find the holy ministers of God called messengers of peace; from which it is obvious to conclude, whose ministers those men must be, who are the messengers of war. Hear this, ye mighty war- riors, and mark under whose banners ye fight ; — they are those of that accursed being, who first sowed strife between man and his maker. To this first fatal strife are to be ascribed all the woes that mortal man is doomed to feel. It is frivolous to argue, as some do, that God is call- ed, in the mysterious volumes, the God of Hosts, and the God of vengeance. There is a great difference between the God of the Jews and the God of the chris- tians, notwithstanding God, in his own essence, is one and the same. But if we must still retain the ancient Jewish titles of God, let God be called the God of hosts, while, by the word hosts, is understood, the phalanx of divine Graces, by whose energy good men are enabled to rout and destroy the vices, those dead- liest enemies of human felicity. Let him still be styled the God of vengeance, provided you understand it to be vengeance on those sins which rob us of repose. In like manner, the examples of bloody slaughter with which the Jewish histories are stuffed, should be used 25 not as incentives to the butchery of fellow-creatures, but to the utter extermination of all bad passions, hos- tile to our virtue and happiness, from the territory of our own bosoms. To proceed, however, as I had begun, with scriptural passages in favour of Peace. Whenever they mean to describe perfect happiness, they always denote it by the name of Peace ; as Isaiah, that it is deemed foolish and wicked to open one's mouth against war, or to venture a syllable in praise of peace, the constent theme of Christ's eulogy. He is- thought to be ill-affected to the king, and even to pay but little regard to the people's interest, who recojft- 44 mends what is of all things in the world the most sal- utary to both king and people, or dissuades from that which, without any exception, is the most destructive. In addition to all this, chaplains follow the army to the field of battle ; bishops preside in the camp, and abandoning their churches, enlist in the service of Bel- lona. The war multiplies priests, bishops, and car- dinals, among whom to be a camp legate is deemed an honourable preferment, and worthy the successors of the apostles. It is, therefore, the less wonderful, that priests should breathe the spirit of Mars, to whom Mars gives ecclesiastical rank, together with loaves and fishes. It is a circumstance which renders the evil less capable of remedy, that the clergy cover over this most irreligious conduct with the cloak of religion. The colours in the regiments, consecrated by minis- ters of peace, bear the figurcof the cross painted upon them. The unfeeling mercenary soldier, hired by a few pieces of paltry coin to do the work of a man-butcher, carries before him the standard of the cross, and that very figure becomes the symbol of war, which alone ought to teach every one that looks at it, that war ought to be utterly abolished. What hast thou to do with the cross of Christ on thy banners, thou blood- stained soldier ? With such a disposition as thine, with deeds like thine, of robbery and murder, thy proper standard would be a dragon, a tiger, or a wolf ! That cross is the standard of him who conquered, not by fighting, but by dying, who came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them. It is a standard, the very sight of which might teach you what sort of ene- mies you have to war against, if you are a christian, and how you may be sure to gain the victory. 45 I see you, while the standard of salvation is in one hand, rushing on with a sword in the other, to the murder of your brother ; and under the banner of the cross, destroying the life of one who to the cross owes his salvation. Even from the holy sacrament itself, for it is sometimes, at the same hour, administered in opposite camps, in which is signified the complete union of all christians, the warriors who have just received it, run instantly to arms, and endeavour to plunge the dreadful steel into each other's vitals. Of a scene thus infernal, and fit only for the eyes of accursed spirits who delight in mischief and misery, the pious warriors would make Christ the spectator, if it could be supposed that he would be present at it. The absurdest circumstance of all those respecting the use of the cross as a standard is, that you see it glittering and waving high in air, in both the contend- ing armies at once. Divine service is also performed to the same Christ in both armies at the same time. What a shocking sight ! Lo, crosses dashing against crosses, and Christ on this side firing bullets at Christ on the other ; cross against cross, and Christ against Christ. The banner of the cross, significant of the christian profession, is used on each side to strike terror into the opposite enemy. How dare they, on this occasion, to attack what on all others they adore ? Because they are unworthy to bear the true cross at all, and rather deserve to be themselves crucified. Let us now imagine we hear a soldier among these fighting christians, saying the Lord's Prayer. " Our Father," says he. O, hardened wretch, can you call him Father, when you are just going to cut your i's throlt? "Hallowed be thy name." — How can the name of God be more impiously unhallowed, 46 than by mutual bloody murder among you his sons? " Thy kingdom come." — Do you pray for the coming' of his kingdom, while you are endeavouring to estab- lish an earthly despotism, by spilling the blood of God's sons and subjects ? " Thy will be done on earth as it is in he««"en." — His will in heaven is for peace, but you are now meditating war. Dare you to say to your Fa-* ther in heaven, " Give us this day our daily bread," when you are going the next minute, perhaps, to burn up your brother's corn-fields, and had rather lose the benefit of them yourself, than suffer him to enjoy them unmolested ? With what face can you say, " Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us," when so far from forgiving your own brother, you are going with all the haste you can to murder him in cold blood for an alleged trespass, that after all, is but imaginary. Do you presume to de- precate the danger of temptation, who, not without great danger to yourself, are doing all you can to force your brother into danger ? Do you deserve to be delivered from evil, that is, from the evil being, to whose impulse you submit yourself, and by whose spirit you are now guided in contriving the greatest possible evil to your brother? Piato somewhere says, that when Grecians war with Grecians, notwithstanding they were separate and in- dependent dynasties, it is not a war, but an insurrec- tion. He would not consider them as a separate peo- ple, because they were united in name and by vicinity. And yet the christians will call it a war, and a just and necessary war too, which, on the most trimng oc- casion, with such soldiery and such weapons, one peo- ple professing Christianity wages war with- another people holding exactly the same creed, and professing the same Christianity. 47 The laws of some heathen nations ordained, that he who should stain his sword with a brother's blood, should be sewed up in a sack, and thrown into the common sewer. Now they are no less strongly united as brothers whom Christ has fraternized, than those who are related by consanguinity. And yet, in war, there is a reward instead of punishment for murdering a brother. Wretched is the alternative forced upon us by war. lie who conquers, is a murderer of his brother ; and he who is conquered, dies equally guilty of fratricide, because he did his best to commit it. After all this unchristian cruelty, and all this incon- sistency, the christian warriors execrate the Turks as a tribe of unbelievers, strangers to Christ ; just as if, while they act in this manner, they w r ere christians themselves ; or as if there could possibly be a more agreeable sight to the Turks, than to behold the chris- tians running each other through the body with the bayonet. The Turks, say the christians, sacrifice to the devil ; but as there can be no victim so acceptable to the devil, as a christian sacrificed by a christian, are not you, my good christian, sacrificing to the devil as much as the Turk ? Indeed, the evil-one has, in this case, the pleasure of two victims at a time, since he who sacrifices is no less his victim, than he who is sacrificed by the hand of a christian and the sword of war. If any one favours the Turks, and wishes to be on good terms with the devil, let him offer up such victims as these. But I am well aware of the excuse which men, ever ingenious in devising mischief to themselves as well as others, offer iB extenuation of their conduct in going to war. They allege, that they are compelled to it ; that they are dragged against their will to war. 48 I answer them, deal fairly ; pull off the mask, throw away all false colours, consult your own heart, and you will find that anger, ambition, and folly, are the compulsory force that has dragged you to war, and not any necessity ; unless, indeed, you call the insatiable cravings of a covetous mind, necessity. Reserve your outside pretences to deceive the thoughtless vulgar. God is not mocked with paint and varnish. Solemn days and forms of fasting, prayer, and thanksgiving, are appointed. Loud petitions are offered up to heaven foi peace. The priests and the people roar out as vociferously as they can, " Give peace in our time, O Lord ! We beseech thee to hear us, O Lord." Might not the Lord very justly answer and say, " Why mock ye me, ye hypocrites ? You fast and pray, that I would avert a calamity, which you have brought upon your own heads. You are deprecating an evil, of which yourselves are the authors." Now if every possible offence, every little occur- rence not exactly to one's mind, is to excite a war, what is there in human affairs, that will not furnish an occasion of deadly strife ? In the tenderest connexions of domestic life, and between the most affectionate husbands and wives, there is always some fault to be connived at, some omission or commission to be mutu- ally forgiven, some occasion for reciprocal forbear- ance, unless you assert, that it would be better to cut asunder, on the first dispute, all ties of affection. Suppose some differences, like those of conjugal life, to happen between neighbouring princes, why should they immediately draw the sword, and proceed to the last sad extremities ? There are laws, there are saga- cious men, there are worthy clergymen, there are right reverend bishops, by whose salutary advice all disa- 49 greements might be reconciled, and all disturbance checked at its origin. Why do kings not make these, instead of the sword, their umpires ? Even if the ar- bitrators were unjust, which is not likely when removed from all undue influence, the disagreeing parties would come off with less injury than if they had recourse to arms, to the irrational and doubtful decision of w r ar. There is scarcely any peace so unjust, but it is pre- ferable, upon the whole, to the justest war. Sit down before you draw the sword, weigh every article, omit none, and compute the expense of blood as well as treasure which war requires, and the evils which it of necessity brings with it, and then see at the bottom of the account, whether, after the greatest success, there is likely to be a balance in your favour. The authority of the Roman pontiff is allowed to be paramount and decisive. Kings themselves allow it. And yet when nations, when kings are violently engag- ed in the most unnatural wars for years together, where is then the paramount and decisive authority of the pontiff, where then the power said to be second to none but Christ's in heaven I On this occasion, if on any, this high power would be exerted, if the holy pontiffs themselves were not slaves to the same vile passions as the wretched kings and deluded people. The pontiff summons to war. He is obeyed. He summons to peace, why is he not obeyed as readily ? If men, as they profess, really do prefer peace, and are reluctantly dragged to war, why do they obey pope Julius with so much alacrity when he calls them to war, and yield no obedience to pope Leo, when he invites them to concord and peace ? If the authority of the Roman pontiff be really divine, surely it ought then to avail most when it prescribes that conduct, 5 50 which Christ taught as the only proper conduct. It is fair to conclude, that those whom Julius had authority enough to excite to a most destructive war, and whom Leo,* a really religious pontiff, cannot allure by the most cogent arguments, to christian love and charity, are serving, (I express myself tenderly of them,) under the cloak of serving the Church, nothing else but their own vile and selfish passions. If you are, in your heart, weary of war, I will tell you how you may avoid it, and preserve a cordial and general amity. Firm and permanent peace is not to be secured by marrying one royal family to another, nor by treaties and alliances made between such deceitful and imper- fect creatures as men ; for from these very family connexions, treaties, and alliances, we see wars chiefly originate. No ; the fountains from which the streams of this evil flow must be cleansed. It is from the cor- rupt passions of the human heart, that the tumults of war arise. While each king obeys the impulse of his passions, the commonwealth, the community suf- fers ; and at the same time, the poor slave to his pas- sions is frustrated in his private and selfish purposes. Let kings then grow wise ; wise for the people, not for themselves only ; and let them be truly wise, in the proper sense of the word, not tnerely cunning, but really wise, so as to place their Majesty, their felicity, their wealth, and their splendour, in such things, and such only, as render them personally great, per- sonally superior to those whom the fortune of birth has ranked, in a civil sense, below them. Let them acquire those amiable dispositions towards the com- monwealth, the great body of the people, which a * Erasmus was mistaken in Leo's character. SX father feels for his family. Let a king think himself great, in proportion as his people are good ; let him estimate his own happiness by the happiness of those whom he governs ; let him deem himself glorious in proportion as his subjects are free; rich, if the public are rich ; and flourishing, if he can but keep the com- munity flourishing, in consequence of uninterrupted peace. Such should be our king, if we wish to establish a firm and lasting peace ; and let the noblemen and magistrates imitate the king, rendered by these means worthy of imitation. Let the public good be the rule of their conduct ; and so will they ultimately promote most effectually even their own private advantage. Now will a king of such a disposition as I have de- scribed, be easily prevailed upon to extort money from his own people, to put it into the pockets of foreign mercenaries and alien subsidiaries ? Will he reduce his own people to distress, perhaps, even for breach in order to fill the coffers of military despots and com- manders ? Will he be lavish of blood as well as treas- ure, neither of them his own, and expose the lives as well as expend the property of his people ? No. I think he will know better. Let him exercise his pow- er as far as he pleases, within those bounds which he will always see clearly, when he remembers, that he is a man governing men, a free man at the head of freemen, a christian presiding over a nation of chris- tians. In return for his good behaviour, let the people pay him just so much reverence, and yield him just so many privileges and prerogatives as are for the public good, and no more. A good king will require no more ; and as to the unreasonable desires of a bad king, the people should unite to check and repel the;m- 52^ Let there be, on both sides, a due regard paid to pri- vate happiness. Let the greatest share of honour be ever paid, not to warlike kings, the world has sorely suffered for its folly in giving them glory, but to kings who entirely reject the war system, and by their un- derstanding and counsels, not by force and arms, restore to bleeding human nature the blessings of concord and repose. Let him be called a great king, not who is continually augmenting his army, and pro- viding military stores and engines of destruction, but who exerts every effort of his mind, and uses every advantage of his situation to render armies, stores, and engines of destruction, totally unnecessary. Truly glorious as is such an attempt, not one, in the long catalogue of kings and princes, that has strutted and fretted his hour on the stage, ever conceived the thought in his heart, except the Emperor Dioclesian. But if, after all, it is not possible that a war should be avoided, let it be so conducted, that the severest of its calamities may fall upon the heads of those who gave the occasion. Yet kings, instead of suffering at all by it, wage war in perfect consistency with their personal safety. The great men grow rich upon it ; the largest part of the evil falls upon landholders, hus- bandmen, tradesmen, manufacturers, whom, perhaps, the war does not in the least concern, and who never furnished the slightest cause for a national rupture. In what consists the wisdom of a king, if he does not take these things into consideration ? In what con- sists the gracious goodness, the tender feeling of a king, if he thinks such things beneath his notice ? Some method should be discovered to keep kings from shifting their thrones and dominions, and going from one dvnasty to another, because innovations in 5S matters of this kind always create disturbance, and disturbance produces war. This may be easily man- aged, if the children of kings are provided for, or established somewhere within their father's own do- minions ; or if it should appear expedient to connect them with neighbouring crowned heads, let all hope of succession be entirely cut off at the time when a marriage, or any other mode of connexion with foreign courts, is negociated. Nor let any king be allowed to sell or alienate, in any manner, the least portion of his dominions, as if free States were his private prop- erty. I say free States, for all States are free that have kings, properly so called, to govern them. States that are not free, are not under kings, whatever they may be called, but despots. By the intermarriages of kings and their progeny, and the rights of succession which thence arise, a man born in the bogs of Ireland may come to reign in the East Indies ; and another who was a king in Syria, may all of a sudden start up an Italian prince. Thus it may happen, that neither country shall have a king while he abandons his former dominions, and is not acknowledged by his newly ac- quired ones ; being a perfect stranger, born in another world, for any thing they know to the contrary. And in the mean time, while he is reducing, subduing, and securing one part of his dominions, he is impoverish- ing and exhausting the other. He sometimes loses both, while he is endeavouring to grasp both, and most ILely is not fit to govern either. Let kings once set- tle among themselves, how much and how far each ought to govern, and then let no marriage connexion among them either extend or contract ; let no treaty- alter the limits once ascertained. Thus every one will endeavour to improve his allotted portion to the 5* 54 utmost of his power. All his efforts wili be concen- trated on one country, and he will endeavour to trans- mit it to his posterity in a rich and flourishing condi- tion. The result will be, that when every one minds his own, all will thrive. Therefore, let kings be at- tached to each other, not by political intermarriages, artificial and factitious ties, but by pure and sincere friendship ; and above all, by a zeal similar and com- mon to the whole tribe, to promote the solid, substan- tial happiness of human nature. And let the king's successor be either he who is most nearly related to him, or he who shall be judged fittest for the momen- tous office, by the suffrages of the people. Let the other great men rest satisfied with being numbered among the honourable nobility. It is the duty of a king to enter into no party cabals, to know nothing of private passions or partialities, but to esteem all men and measures solely as they have a reference and ten- dency to the good of the public. Moreover, let the king avoid travelling into foreign countries, let him never wish to pass the boundaries of his own domin- ions ; but let him shew that he approves a proverbial saying, sanctioned by the wisdom of ages, frons ocri- fiitio prior est ;* by which was intimated, that nothing * This proverb deserves to be regarded by nobody more than a king- ; if he has the dispositions of a king, and not of a public plunderer, that is, if he has the public interest at heart. But now-a-days, bishops and kings transact all the proper business of their functions by other people's hands, ears, and eyes ; nor do they think themselves concerned in any thing less, than in the care of the public good, being en- tirely occupied with pursuing their own private and selfish ends, or engaged in the pleasures of fashionable life and camp an y .— Er a s m u s . 55 goes on well when conducted by secondaries and mer- cenaries only* and in the absence of the principal. Let him be persuaded, that the best method of en- riching and improving his realm, is not by taking from the territory of others, but by meliorating the condition of his own. When the expediency of war is discussed, let him not listen to the counsels of young ministers who are pleased with the false glory of war, without considering its calamities, of which, from their age, it is impossible that they should have had personal ex- perience. Neither let him consult those who have an interest in disturbing the public tranquillity, and who are fed and fattened by the sufferings of the people. Let him take the advice of old men, whose integrity has been long tried, and who have shewn that they have an unfeigned attachment to their country. Nor let him, to gratify the passions or sinister views of one ©r two violent or artful men, rashly enter on a w r ar; for war, once engaged in, cannot be put an end to at discretion. A measure the most dangerous to the ex- istence of a State as a war must be, should not be entered into by a king, by a minister, by a junto of ambitious, avaricious, or revengeful men, but by the full and unanimous consent of the whole people. The causes of war are to be cut up, root and branch, on their first and slightest appearance. Many real injuries and insults must be connived at. Men must not be too zealous about a phantom called national glory, often inconsistent with individual happiness. Gentle behaviour on one side, will tend to secure it on the other ; but the insolence of a haughty minister may give unpardonable offence,and be dearly paid for by the sufferings of the nation over which he domineers. 5& There are occasions when, if peace can be had in no other way, it must be purchased. It can scarcely be purchased too dearly, if you take into the account how much treasure you must inevitably expend in war ; and what is of infinitely greater consequence than treasure, how many of the people's lives you save by peace. Though the cost be great, yet war would certainly cost more ; besides, what is above all price, the blood of men, the blood of your own fellow-citizens and subjects, whose lives you are bound, by every tie of duty to preserve, instead of lavishing away in pros- ecuting schemes of false policy, and cruel, selfish, vil- lainous ambition. Only form a fair estimate of the quantity of mischief and misery of every kind and de- gree which you escape, and the sum of happiness you preserve in all the walks of private life, among ail the tender relations of parents, husbands, children, among those whose poverty alone makes them soldiers, the wretched instruments of involuntary bloodshed ; form but this estimate, and you will never repent the highest price you can pay for peace. While the king does his duty as the guardian and preserver, instead of the destroyer of the people com- mitted to his charge, let the right reverend the bishops- do their duty likewise. Let the priests be priests in- deed ; preachers of peace and good will, and not the instigators of war, for the sake of pleasing a corrupt minister, in whose hands are livings, stalls, and mitres ; let the whole body of the clergy remember the truly evangelical duties of their profession, and let the grave professors of theology in our universities, or wherever else they teach divinity, remember to teach nothing as men-pleasers unworthy of Christ. Let all the clergy, however they may differ in rank, order, sect> or per- 57 suasion, unite to cry down war, and discountenance it through the nation, by zealously and faithfully arraign- ing it from the pulpit. In the public functions of their several churches, in their private conversation and intercourse with the laity, let them be constantly em- ployed in the christian, benevolent, humane work of preaching, recommending, and inculcating peace. If, after all their efforts, the clergy cannot prevent the breaking out of war, let them never give it the slight- est approbation, directly or indirectly, let them never give countenance to it by their presence at its silly parade or bloody proceedings, let them never pay the smallest respect to any great patron or prime ministerj or courtier, who is the author or adviser of a state of affairs so contrary t© their holy profession, and to every duty and principle of the christian religion, as is a state of war. Let the clergy agree to refuse burial in consecrated ground to all who are slain in battle.* If there be any good men among the slain, and certainly there are very few, they will not lose the reward of christians in heaven, because they had not what is called christian burial. But the worthless, of whom the majority of warriors consists, will have one cause of that silly van- ity and self-liking, which attends and recommends their profession more than any thing else, entirely removed, when sepulchral honours are denied, after all the glory of being knocked on the head in battle, in the noble endeavour to kill a fellow-creature. *The words of Erasmus are — "Satis fit in hello csesis, in profano sepulchrum dare." Here he goes rather too far -, but it is in his benevolent design to prevent any being sl&ift in battle in future.' 58 I am speaking all along of those wars which chris- tians wage with christians, on trifling and unjustifiable occasions. I think very differently of wars, bondjide^ just and necessary ;* such as are, in a strict sense of those words, purely defensive, such as with an honest and affectionate zeal for the country, repel the violence of invaders, and at the hazard of life, preserve the public tranquillity. But in the present state of things, the clergy, for of their conduct I proceed to speak, so far from acting as servants of Christ, in the manner I have recommended, do not hesitate to hang up flags, standards, banners, and other trophies of w r ar, brought from the field of carnage, as ornaments of churches and great cathe- drals. These trophies shall be all stained and smeared with the blood of men, for whom Christ shed his most precious blood, and shall be hung in the ailes of the churches, among the tombs and images of apostles and martyrs, as if in future it were to be reckoned a mark of sanctity not to suffer martyrdom, but to inflict it ; not to lay down one's own life for the truth, but to take away the life of others for worldly purposes of vanity and avarice. It would be quite sufficient if the bloody rags were hung up in some corner of the Ex- change, or kept as curiosities in a chest or closet out of sight, disgraceful monuments as they are of human depravity. The Church which ought to be kept per- * If the learned and ingenious author stands forth the friend of JPtaee, and quotes the New-Testament in support of the «2oc rine, he certainly goes off this ground, when he holds up justification of outward wars on any occasion whatsoever. Neither Christ or his apostles give us any directions how to discriminate between a lawful or unauthorized war.— " Ren- der not evil for evil." — American Euitos, lectJy pure, ami emblematic of the purest of religions, -should not be defiled with any thing stained with the blood of man, shed by the hand of man alienated, as is clear by the very act, both from Christ and from Na- ture. But you argue in defence of this indecent practice of hanging up flags or colours, as they are called, in churches, that the ancients used to deposit the mon- uments of their victories in the temples of their gods. It is true ; but what were their gods but demons, de- lighting in blood and impurity ; not the God who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. Never let priests, dedicated to a God like this, have any tiling to do with war, unless it is to put an end to it, and promote love and reconciliation. If the clergy we^e but unanimous in such sentiments, if they would inculcate them every where, there is no doubt, notwithstanding the great power of the secular arm, that their authority, personal and professional, would have a preponderance against the influence of courts and ministers of State, and thus prevent war, the calamity of human nature. But if there is a fatal propensity in the human heart to war, if the dreadful disease is interwoven with the constitution of man, so that it cannot abstain from war, why is not vent given to the virulence in exertions against the common enemy of Christianity, the unbe- lieving Turk ? Yet, even here let me pause — is not the Turk a man, a brother ? Then it were far better to allure him by gentle, kind, and friendly treatment, by exhibiting the beauty of our christian religion in the innocence of our lives, than by attacking him with the drawn sword, as if he were a savage brute without a heart to feel, or a reasoning faculty to be persuaded. Nevertheless, if we must of necessity go to war, as I 60 said before, it is certainly a less evil to contend with an infidel, than that christians should mutually harass and destroy their own fraternity. If charity will not cement their hearts, certainly one common enemy may unite their hands ; and though this may not be a cor- dial unity, yet it will be better than a real rupture. Upon the whole it must be said, that the first and most important step towards peace, is sincerely to de- sire it. They who once love peace in their hearts, will eagerly seize every opportunity of establishing or recovering it. All obstacles to it they will despise or remove, all hardships and difficulties they will bear with patience, so long as they keep this one great blessing, including as it does so many others, whole and entire. On the contrary, men in our times go out of their way to seek occasions of war ; and what- ever makes for peace, they run down in their sophis- tical speeches, or even basely conceal from the public ; but whatever tends to promote their favourite war system, they industriously exaggerate and enflame, not scrupling to propagate lies of the most mischiev- ous kind, false or garbled intelligence, and the grossest misrepresentation of the enemy. I am ashamed to relate what real and dreadful tragedies in real life, they sound on these vile despicable trifles ; from how small an ember they blow up a flame and set the world on fire. Then they summon before them the whole catalogue of supposed injuries received; and each party views its own grievance with a glass that mag- nifies beyond all bounds ; but as for benefits received, they all fall into the profoundest oblivion as soon as received, so that upon the whole, an impartial observer would swear that great men love war for its own sake, with all their hearts and souls, provided their own persons are safe* 61 After all the pretences thrown out, and the artifices used to irritate the vulgar, there often lurks, as the true cause of wars, in the bosoms of kings, some pri- vate, mean, and selfish motive, which is to force their subjects to take up weapons to kill one another at the word of command, and as they wish to evince their loyalty. But, instead of a private and selfish object, there ought to be an object in which not only the pub- lic, that fe, not only one single community, but in which man, human nature, is deeply interested to justify the voluntary commencement of a war. But when kings can find no cause of this kind, as, indeed, they seldom can, then they set their wits to work to invent some fictitious, but plausible occasion for a rupture. They will make use of the names of foreign countries, artfully rendered odious to the people, in order to feed the popular odium till it be- comes ripe for war, and thirsts for the blood of the outlandish nation, whose very name is rendered a cause of hostility. This weakness and folly of the very lowest classes of the people, the grandees increase by artful insinuations, watchwords, and nicknames, cunningly thrown out in debates, pamphlets, and journals. Cer- tain of the clergy, whose interest it is to co-operate with the grandees in any unchristian work, join, with great effect, aided by religion, in a pious imposition on the poor. Thus, for instance, an Englishman, say they, is the natural enemy of a Frenchman, because he is a Frenchman. A man born on this side the river Tweed must hate a Scotchman, because he is a Scotchman. A German naturally disagrees with a Frank ; a Spaniard with both. O, villanous depravity ! The name of a place or region, in itself a circumstance oT indifference, shall be enough to dissever your hearts 6 62 more widely than the distance of place, your persons I A name is nothing ; but there are many circumstances, very important realities, which ought to endear and unite men of different nations. As an Englishman, you bear ill-will to a Frenchman. Why not rather, as a man to a man, do you not bear him good will ? Why not as a christian to a christian? How happens it, that such a frivolous thing as a name, avails more with you than the tender ties of nature, the strong bonds of Christianity ? Place, local distance, separates the per- sons of men, but not their minds. Hearts can gravitate to each other through intervening seas and mountains. The river Rhine once separated the Frenchman from the German, but it was beyond its power to separate the christian from the christian. The Pyrenean moun- tains divide the Spaniards from the French, but they break not that invisible bond which holds them together in defiance of all partition, the communion of the Church. A little gut of a sea divides the English from the French ; but if the whole Atlantic ocean rolled between them, it could not disjoin them as men united by nature ; and while they mutually retain the christian religion, still more indissolubly cemented by grace. The apostle Paul expresses his indignation, that .christians, separating into sects, should say, " I am of Apollos ; I am of Cephas ; I am of Paul ;" nor would he suffer the unnatural distinction of a name to parcel out Christ, who is one with all his members ; and who has formed all into one inviolable whole. And shall we think the common name of a native country cause sufficient, why one race of men should hunt down another race of men, even to extermination ; should engage them with each other in a Bellum ad interne- 63 cionem ; a war to cut off on one side or the other, man, woman, and child, and leave not a tongue to tell the tale ? The hostile distinction of different nations as natural enemies, because they are separated by place and di- versified by name, is not enough to satisfy some among the blood-thirsty wretches who delight in war. Such is the depravity of their minds, that they seek occasions of difference where none is afforded either by nature or institution. They would divide France against itself, in verbal and nominal distinctions of the inhabi- tants ; a country which is not divided by seas or by mountains, and is, indeed, one and indivisible, however artful men may endeavour to cause divisions in it by distinctions merely nominal. Thus some of the French they will denominate Germans, lest the circumstance of indentity of name should produce that unanimity which they diabolically wish to interrupt. Now if in courts of judicature, the judge will not admit of suits which are frivolous and vexatious ; if he will not admit of all sorts of evidence, especially that which arises from a personal pique and resentment, how happens it, that in a business of far more conse- quence to human nature even than courts of judica- ture, in an affair the most odious and abominable, such as the promoting discord amorg human creatures and whole neighbouring nations, causes the most frivolous and vexatious are freely admitted as competent and valid. Let the lovers of discord, and the promoters of bloodshed between nations, divided only by a name and a channel, rather reflect that this world, the whole of the planet called earth, is the common country of all who live and breath upon it, if the title of one's ^ountrv is allowed to be a sufficient reason for unilv amofig fellow-countrymen ; and let them also remem- ber, that all men, however distinguished by political or accidental causes, are sprung from the same par- ents, if consanguinity and affinity are allowed to be available to concord and peace. If the Church also is- a subdivision of this one great universal family, a fam- ily of itself consisting of all who belong to that Church, and if the being of the same family necessarily con- nects all the members in a common interest and a common regard for each other, then the opposers must be ingenious in their malice, if they can deny, that all who are of the same Church, the grand cath- olic Church of all Christendom, must also have a com- mon interest, a common regard for each other, and, therefore, be united in love. In private life you bear with some things in a brother in law, which you bear with only because he is a brother in law ; and will you bear with nothing in him who by the tie of the same religion is also a brother ? You pardon many little offences on account of near- ness of kindred, and will you pardon nothing on ac- count of an affinity founded in religion ? Yet there is> no doubt, but that the closest possible tie among all the christian brotherhood, is confraternity in Christ. Why are you always fixing your attention upon the sore place, where the insult or injury received from a fellow-creature festers and rankles ? If you seek peace and ensue it, as you ought to do, you will rather say- to yourself, " He hurt me in this instance, it is true ; hut in other instances he has often served and gratifi- ed me, and in this one, he was, perhaps, incited to momentary wrong by passion, mistake, or by another's impulse." As in the poet Homer, the persons who sxek to effect a reconciliation between Agamemnon 65 and Achilles, throw all the blame of their quarrel o* the goddess Ate ; so in real life, offences that cannot be excused consistently with strict veracity, should good-naturedly be imputed to ill-fortune, or, if you please, to a man's evil genius ; that the resentment may be transferred from men to those imaginary be- ings, who can bear the load, however great, without the slightest inconvenience. Why should men shew more sagacity in creating misery, than in securing and increasing the comforts of life ? Why should they be more quicksighted in finding evil than good ? All men of sense weigh, con- sider, and use great circumspection, before they enter upon any private business of momentous consequence And yet they throw themselves headlong into war, with their eyes shut, notwithstanding war is that kind of evil which, when once admitted, cannot be ex^Vided again at will ; but usually, from a little one, becomes a very great one ; from a single one, multi- plies ipto a complication ; from an unbloody contest, changes to carnage, and at last rises to a storm, which does not overwhelm merely o»e or two, and those the chief instigators, to the mischief, but all the unoffend- ing people also ; e&nfounding the innocent with the guilty. ^ PS If the poor people, of the very lowest order, are too thoughtless to consider these things,it can be no excuse for the king and the nobles, whose indispensible duty it is to consider them well ; and it is the particular business of the clergy to enforce these pacific opinions, with every argument which ingenuity and learning can derive from reason and religion ; to enforce them. I say, and inculcate them on the minds of both the great vulgar and the small) " instantly in season, and 6* 66 oat of season ; whether they will bear, or whether they will forbear." Something will at last stick, if it is inces- santly applied ; and, therefore, let the pulpits and con- versation of the clergy teach the bland doctrines of peace and love, every where and always. Mortal man, for so I address thee even on a throne, dost thou exult at hearing the rumour of an ensuing war ? Check thy joy a moment, and examine accur- ately the nature and consequences of peace, and the nature and consequences of war ; what blessings follow in the train of peace, and what curses march in the rear of war, and then form a true and solid judgment, whether it can ever be expedient to exchange peace for war ? If it is a goodly and beautiful sight to behold a country flourishing in the highest prosperity, its cities well built, its lands well cultivated, the best of laws well executed ; arts, sciences, and learning, those honourable employments of the human mind encour- aged ; men's morals, virtuous and honest, then >may it please your Majesty to lay your hand on your heart, and let your conscience whisper to you, f All this happiness I must disturb or destroy, if X engage in this meditated war." On the other h?"dj if you have ever beheld the ruins of cities, villages burnt, churches battered down, fields laid \ ^olate, and if this sight could wring a tear of pity from thine eye, then, Sire, remember that these are the blasted fruits of accursed war i If you think it a great inconvenience to be obliged to admit an inundation of hired soldiers into your realms, to feed and clothe them at the expense of your subjects, to be very submissive to them, meanly to court their favour, in order to keep them in good humour, well affected and loyal ; and after all to trust, which is unavoidable in these circumstances, your own 6? person and your safety to the discretion of such a rab- ble, recollect that such is the condition of a state of warfare, and that these evils, great as they are, become necessary when you have made yourself their slave, in order to enslave or destroy an imaginary enemy. If you detest robbery and pillage, remember these are among the duties of war ; and that, to learn how to commit them adroitly, is a part of military discipline. Do you shudder at the idea of murder ? You cannot require to be told that, to commit it with despatch and by wholesale, constitutes the celebrated art of war. If murder were not learned by this art, how could a man, who would shudder to kill one individual even when provoked, go, in cold blood, and cut the throats of many for a little paltry pay, and under no better authority than a commission from a mortal as weak, wicked, and wretched as himself, who does not, per- haps, know even his person, and would not care if both his body and soul were annihilated ? If there can- not be a greater misfortune 4 to the commonwealth, than a general neglect and disobedience of the laws, let it be considered as a certain truth, that the voice of law, divine or human, is never heard amid the clangor of arms, and the din of battle. If you deem debauchery, rapes, incest, and crimes of still greater turpitude than these, foul disgraces to human nature, depend upon it that war leads to all of them, in their most ag- gravated atrocity. If impiety or a total neglect of religion is the source of all villany, be assured that religion is always overwhelmed in the storms of war. If you think that the very worst possible condition of society, when the worst of men possess the greatest share of power, you may take it as an infallible obser- vation* that the wickedest, most unprincipled and most 68 unfeeling wretches, bear the greatest sway in a state of war ; and that such as would come to the gallows in time of peace, are men of prime use and energy in the operations of a siege or a battle. For who can lead troops through secret ways more skilfully than an ex- experienced robber, who has spent an apprenticeship to the art among thieves ? Who will pull down a house or rob a church more dexterously, than one who has been trained to burglary and sacrilege ? Who will plunge his bayonet into the enemy's heart, or rip up his bowels with more facility of execution, than a practised assassin or thorough-paced cut-throat by pro- fession ? Who is better qualified to set fire to a village, or a city, or a ship, than a notorious incendiary ? Who will brave the hardships and perils of the sea, better than a pirate long used to rob, sink, and destroy mer- chant vessels, inoffensively traversing the great waters ? In short, if you would form an adequate idea of the villany of war, only observe by whom it is carried into actual execution. If nothing can be a more desirable object to a pious king, than the safety and welfare of those who are committed to his charge, then, consistently with this object, war must of necessity be held in the greatest conceivable abhorrence. If it is the happiness of a king to govern the happy, he cannot but delight in peace. If a good king wishes for nothing so much as to have his people good, like himself, he must detest war as the foul sink of sin as well as misery. If he has sense and liberality enough to consider his sub- jects* riches, the best and truest opulence he can him- self possess, then let him shun war by all possible means, because, though it should turn out ever so for- tunate, it certainly diminishes every body's property, 0* and expends that which was earned by honest, hon- ©urablc, and useful employments, on certain savage butchers of the human race. Let him also consider again and again, that every man is apt to flatter him- self, that his own cause is a good one, that every man is pleased with his own schemes and purposes ; and that every measure appears to a man agitated with passion the most equitable, though it is the most unjust 9 the most imprudect, and the most fallacious in the issue. But, suppose the cause the justest in the world, the event the most prosperous, yet take into the ac- count all the damages of war, of every kind and degree, and weigh them in the balance with all the advantages of victory, and you will find the most brilliant success not worth the trouble. Seldom can a conquest be gained without the effusion of blood. Therefore, in the midst of the rejoicings, illuminations, acclamations, and all the tumult of joy excited by knaves among fools, it must occur to a king with a feeling heart, that he has embrued hands, hitherto unspotted, in the pol- lution of human gore. Add to this circumstance, dis- tressing to every humane heart, the injury done to the morals of the people, and the general good order and discipline cf the state, and you will find this a loss which neither money, nor territory, nor glory can com- pensate. You have exhausted your treasury, you have fleeced your people, you have loaded peaceable good subjects with unnecessary burdens, and you have en- couraged all the wicked unprincipled adventurers in j»-cts of rapine and violence ; and after all, even when ihe war is put an end to, the bad consequences of the war still remain, not to be removed by the most splen- did victory. The taste for science, arts, and letters, languishes a long while. Trade- and commerce con- 70 tinue shackled and impeded. Though you should be able to block up the enemy, yet in doing it, you, in fact, block up yourself and your own people ; for nei- ther you nor they dare enter the neighbouring nation, which before the war was open to egress and regress ; while peace, by opening an universal intercourse among mankind, renders, in some measure, all the neighbouring dynasties one common country. Consider what mighty matters you have done, by thus boldly rushing into war. Your own hereditary dominions can scarcely be called your own. The pos- session is rendered insecure, being constantly exposed to hostile invasion. In order to demolish a poor little town, how much artillery, how much camp-equipage, and all other military apparatus do you find requisite ? You must build a sort of temporary town, in order to overthrow a real one ; and for less money than the whole business of destruction costs you, you might build another town by the side of that you are going to level in the dust, where human beings might enjoy, if you would let them, the comforts of that life which Cod has been pleased to bestow, in peace and plenty. In order to prevent the enemy from going out of the gates of his own town, you are obliged to sleep for months out of yours in a tent or the open air, and continue in a state of transportation and exile from your own home. You might build new walls for less than it costs you to batter down the old ones with your cannon-balls, and all the expensive contrivances form- ed for the hellish purposes of marring and demolish- ing the works of human industry. In this cursorj computation of your expense, for that I am chiefly considering, and the gain that accrues from victory, ! do not reckon the vast sums that 6tick to the fingers 71 •t commissioners, contractors, generals, admirals, and captains, which is certainly a great part of the whole. If you could bring all these articles into a fair and honest calculation, I will patiently suffer myself to be every where driven from you mortals as I am, unless it should appear that you might have purchased peace, without a drop of blood, at a tenth part of the expen- diture. But y6u think it would be mean and humili- ating, inconsistent with your own and your nation's honour, to put up with the slightest injury : now I can assure you, that there is no stronger proof of a pool- spirit, a narrow, cowardly, and unkingly heart, than revenge ; especially as a king does not risk his own person in taking it, but employs the money of the peo- ple and the courage of the poor. You think it incon- sistent with your august Majesty, and that it would be departing from your royal dignity, to recede one inch from your strict right in favour of a neighbouring king, though related to you by consanguinity or marriage, and, perhaps, one who has formerly rendered you ben- eficial services. Poor strutting mortal, how much more effectually do you let down your august Majesty and royal dignity, when you are obliged to sacrifice with oblations of gold to foreign and barbarous mer- cenaries, to the lowest dregs, the most profligate wretches on the face of the earth ; when with the most abject adulation and in the meanest form of a petitioner, you send ambassadors or commissioners to the vilest and most mischievous nations around, to ask them to receive your subsidies ; trusting your august Majesty's life, and the property and political existence of your people, to the good faith of allies who appear to have no regard to the most sacred engagements, and are n» less inclined to violate justice than humanity. If the preservation of peace is attended with the necessity of submitting to some circumstances rather disadvantageous, and, perhaps, unjust, \lo not say to yourself, that you incur such a loss by resolving on peace instead of war, but that you purchase the ines- timable benefit of peace at such a price. You could not get it cheaper ; but the consolation is, that it can- not be bought too dearly. Yet methinks a royal ob- jector says, " I would very willingly give up such and .such points if I were a private man, and the things in question were my own property; but I am a king, and whether I like it or not, am under the necessity of acting as I do, for the public." For the public, says your Majesty ? Let me tell you, " that the king will not easily be induced to enter on a war, who has no regard but for the public." On the contrary, we see that almost all the real causes of wars, are things which have no reference at all to the wel- fare of the public. Is your object to claim and gain possession of this or that part of another's territory, what is that to the welfare of the people ? Do you de- sire to take royal revenge on a crowned head in your vicinity, who has presumed to refuse your daughter in marriage, or repudiated her after marriage; what is that to the welfare of the people ? How is it, in the smallest degree, a business of the State, the community at large ? If you mean really to support your august Majesty and royal dignity, the only way is to support the character of a good, just, and wise man, by taking all these things into your most serious consideration., and acting accordingly. Which of you modern kings ever extended his empire so widely, or governed with so much majesty artd dignity as Augustus Caesar ? But he, in all his ^loiy, Mas desirous of relinquishing bis power, if tlic people could have found any prince to preside over them with more advantage to the commonwealth. The saying of a certain Emperor of antiquity, is justly celebrated by the best writers : — " Perish, said he, my sons and heirs, if any other successor can be found more likely than any of them, to consult the happiness of the people.'* These two Emperors not being chris- tians, are called impious, heathenish men by chris- tians, by those who would go to war in defence of law, order, and religion ; and yet such benevolent disposi- tions did these impious, heathen Emperors display towards promoting the welfare of the people, the hap- piness of man in society ! In the mean time, christian Emperors consider a whole christian people as a swin- ish multitude, as so little worthy of their regard, that they would set the world on fire, without consulting the people, to revenge the disappointment of their own selfish desires, or to secure their full gratification. Still I hear certain potentates captiously exclaiming, that it does not signify arguing, and that they c juld jiotbe personally safe, if they did not repel by fire and sword the power of ill-designing men, who, not having the fear of God before their eyes, might even attack, with success, their own august Majesty. How hap- pened it, I ask then in return, that among all the Ro- man emperors, Antoninus Pius and Antoninus the philosopher were the only ones that were never at- tacked ? From these two instances it appears, that no kings sit more firmly on their thrones, than they who shew that they are ready at any time to quit them, when their resignation appears likely to benefit the public ; and that their power is a trust resumable af will, reposed in them by the people for the good of 7 74 the people, and not to gratify their own pride or ava- rice, by lavishing away other men's blood and money. May it please your most christian majesties, if no- thing will move you, if neither the feelings of nature, the reflections of conscience, nor the actual pressure of calamity, at least let the reproach of the christian profession, for which you pretend to be so zealous, bring you back to long relinquished christian unanimity. May it please you who would go to war in defence of religion, as well as of law and order, to consider how small a portion of the terraqueous globe is occu- pied by christians. And this portion, small as it is, constitutes what is called in the scriptures, a city sit- uated on a holy mountain, to be constantly reverenced^ and preserved inviolate, both by God and man. But what must we suppose a nation of Atheists, if any such there be, or of unbelievers in Christ, think and say ? What reproaches must they vomit out against Christ, when they see his professed followers cutting one another in pieces, from more trifling causes than the heathens, with greater cruelty than Atheists, and with more destructive instruments of mutual murder than Pagans could ever find in their hearts to use, or in their understandings to contrive. Whose invention was a cannon ? Was it not the in- vention of the meek, lowly, merciful followers of Jesus Christ, whose law was love, and whose last legacy to his disciples and the world, peace ? The cannon was the contrivance of christians ; and to add to their infa- my, it is usual to mark the names of the apostles, and to engrave the images of saints upon the great guns. Cruel mockery of Christ, and of human misery ! Paul the constant teacher and preacher of peace, gives a name to a piece of artillery, and is thus made to hurl i o u dreadful ball at the head of a christian ! The church militant with a vengeance ! If we are so anxious as we pretend to support re- ligion, law, and order, and particularly to convert an unbelieving nation to Christianity, let us first prove ourselves to be sincere followers of Christ. Will the nation to whom we intend the favour of conversion to Christianity by fire and sword, believe that we ourselves are christians, when they see what is too evident to be denied, that no people on the earth quarrel and fight one among another more savagely than we christians ; though Christ, the founder of the very religion which we mean to propagate among them, declared his utter detestation of all contention, and particularly of war. A great heathen poet expresses his admiration, that among Heathens whom we pity for their ignorance, though there is a time when men have enough of the sweetest enjoyments of life, as of sleep, of food, of wine, of the dance, and the melody of music, yet that they seem never to have enough of the miseries of war. What he said of the Heathens, his cotemporaries and countrymen, is strictly true among those to whom the very name of war, the very word, as signifying a thing disgraceful to human nature, ought to be held n utter abomination. Rome, ancient Rome, mad as she was with martial rage, and intoxicated with the vanity of military glory, yet sometimes shut the temple of her Janus. How then happens it, that among you, ye christian kings and people, no recess, no holiday, no vacation, no rest is allowed in the work of war ? With what face shall you dare to recommend the christian religion to an unb- ' as t rtrhen you yourselves are. never at peace, but engaged in bitter 76 quarrels and hostilities among each other, without the least intermission ?, What encouragement must it give the common enemy to see you thus divided. Divide and conquer is a maxim ; and no victory is easier than that over men torn to pieces by internal dissension. Would you, as a nation of christians, be formidable to those who have renounced, or never knew Christianity ? To be formidable, be united. Why should you, wretched mortals, of your own accord, poison the pleasure, embitter all the enjoy- ment of this present life, and at the same time cut yourselves off from all chance of future felicity? Few and evil are the days of man, numberless the unavoid- able calamities of human life ; but a great part of the misery may be alleviated by love and friendship ; while, by mutual kind offices, all men afford each otheiy m difficulties that are surmountable, assistance, and under distress, that admits no remedy, consolation. The good that falls to man's lot, will be sweeter in its enjoyment, and more extensive in its effects by con- cord ; while every man considers every other man as a friend, imparts a share of his possessions where he can; and where he cannot, makes him a partaker of his good humour and good will. How frivolous, what childish trifles, and how soon will they perish like yourselves ! About which you make such disturbance, and to obtain which, you deal deaih and desolation round the land. Death ! you have no occasion for swords and muskets to accelerate it. Poor insects of a summer's day ! Death hovers over all of you, in act to strike, with unerring dart, the king in all his glory, at the head of armies, as suddenly as the labourer in the field and the manufactory. What a tumult is excited by an Animalcule, with a crown 77 on his head, a being who will soon vanish like the smoke, into the air, and leave not a vestige of its ex- istence. At the very portal of your palace, at the en- trance of your military Pavilion, lo, the brink of eter- nity ! Why then will you fret and fume about shadows, phantoms, air-drawn objects of a waking dream, as if this life were endless, and there were time enough in it to be wantonly mad and miserable. O wretched man, ye who will not believe in the fu- ture happiness of the good, or who dare not hope it for yourselves under that description. Most unreas- onable as well as miserable, if you think that the road to the blissful country of heaven, lies through the field of battle and the walks of war ! The very bliss of heaven itself is but an undescribable union of beatified minds ; to take place when that shall be fully accom- plished, which Christ earnestly prayed for to his heav- enly Father, desiring that christians might be as inti- mately and mysteriously united to each other, as he is with the Father. How can you ever be fit for this perfect union, unless you meditate upon it in the interval, and endeavour with your utmost efforts to attain it ? As the transition would be too sudden and violent, from a foul and filthy glutton tc an angel of light, so would it be, from a bloody warrior to the company of martyrs, and those who have kept them- selves unspotted from the world, unstained with human gore. Enough, and more than enough of christian blood, enough of human blood has been already spilt ; enough have you acted the part of madmen to your mutual destruction ; enough have you sacrificed to the evil spirits of hell ; long enough have you been acting a tragedy for the entertainment of unbelievers. I pray 78 you, after so long and sad experience of the evils of war, submitted to by the principal sufferers a great while ago too patiently, repent and be wise. Let the folly that is past be imputed, if you will, to the destinies, to any thing you please. Let the chris- tians vote, what the Heathens sometimes voted, an entire amnesty of all past errors and misfortunes ; but for the time to come, apply yourselves, one and all, to the preservation and perpetuation of peace. Bind up discord, not with hempen bands liable to be broken or untwisted, but with chains of steel and adamant, never to be burst asunder till time shall be no more. Kings, to you I make my first appeal. On your nod, such is the constitution of human affairs, the hap- piness of mortals is made to depend. You assume to be the images and representatives of Christ, your Sov- ereign. Then, as you wish men to hear your voice, shew the example of obedience, and hear the voice of your sovereign Lord commanding you, upon your duty, to seek peace and abolish war. Be persuaded that the world, wearied with its long continued calam- ities, demands this, and has a right to insist on your immediate compliance. Priests, to you I appeal as consecrated to the God of love and mercy. On your consciences I require you to promote, with all the zeal of your hearts and abilities of your minds, that which you know is most agreeable to God ; and to explode, discountenance, and repel with equal ardor and activity, what you know in your hearts he abhors. Preachers of all denominations, to you I appeal. Preach the gospel of peace ; let the doctrines of peace and good will forever resound in the ears of the peo- ple. 79 Bishops, and all who are pre-eminent in ecclesiasti- cal dignity, I call upon you, that the high authority and influence which you possess over the minds, of both kings and people, may be exerted to bind upon their hearts, with bonds indissoluble, the sacred obli- gations to peace. Dukes, lords, grandees, placemen, and magistrates of every description, I appeal to you, that your hearty good will may co-operate in the work of peace, with the wisdom of kings and the piety of priests. I appeal to all who call themselves christians, I urge them, as they would manifest their sincerity and pre- serve their consistency, to unite with one heart and one soul, in the abolition of war, and the establishment of perpetual and universal peace. Here, and in this instance shew the world, how much can be effected by the union of the multitude, the mass of the people, against the despotism of the few and the powerful. Hither let all ranks and orders, equally zealous and intent in the glorious cause, bring and unite all their wisdom and abilities. Let eternal corcord connect those whom nature has connected in many points, and Christ in all. Let all act with equal zeal in accom- plishing a purpose which will contribute equally to the happiness of all. Hither every circumstance in- vites you to co-operate ; in the first place, the natural feelings of man's heart, the spontaneous dictates of common humanity ; and in the next, the author and disposer of all human happiness, Christ. The innu- merable blessings of peace and the unutterable mise- ries of war, I have already endeavoured to describe. Hither also the inclinations of kings themselves, in our times, the favouring influence of God's grace im- 80 pelling their minds to concord, seemto invite. Be- hold the mild and pacific Leo,* acting the part of Christ's true vicar, has lifted up the signal of peace, and exhorted all men to flock to its standard. If then you are true sheep, follow your Shepherd. If you are true sons, listen to the voice of your Father. Hither likewise Francis, king of France, and the most chris- tian king, not in title only, summons you. He dis- dains not to purchase peace ; nor does he regard his own pomp and external dignity, so long as he can promote and preserve the public tranquillity. He has shewn that the true splendour of royalty, the real majesty of a king, consists in an endeavour to deserve well of the human race, to promote the happiness of individuals, and not to involve them in misery and de- struction, in a wild Quixotic pursuit of glory. Hither also you are called by the renowned Charles the Fifth, a young man of a disposition naturally good, and hap- pily not yet corrupted. Caesar Maximilian appears to have no objection to peace, nor does Henry, the fa- mous king of England, refuse his concurrence. As to the people, in all these countries the greater part of the people certainly detest war, and most de- voutly wish for peace. A very few of them,indeed,whose unnatural happiness depends upon the public misery, may wish for war ; but be it yours to decide, whether it is equitable or not, that the unprincipled selfish- ness of such wretches should have more weight than the anxious wishes of all good men united. You * Erasmus was much mistaken in Leo and other potentates of his time. But it was necessary for personal safety, to pay such compliments. Besides, that praise which they did not deserve was a severe reproach, and might stimulate them to endeavour to deserve it. 81 plainly see, that hitherto nothing has been effectually done towards permanent peace by treaties, no good end answered by royal intermarriages, neither by vio- lence nor by revenge. Now then it is time to pursue different measures ; to try the experiment, what a placable disposition, and a mutual desire to do acts of friendship and kindness, can accomplish in promoting national amity. It is the nature of wars, that one should sow the seeds of another ; it is the nature of revenge to produce reciprocal revenge. Now then, on the contrary, let kindness generate kindness, one good turn become productive of another ; and let him be considered as the most kingly character, the greatest and best potentate, who is ready to concede the most from his own strict right, and to sacrifice all exclusive privilege to the happiness of the people. What has been done by mere human policy, and for temporal purposes only, has not yet suceeded; but Christ will give success to those pious designs, which shall appear to be undertaken under his au- spices and by his authority. He will be present and propitious, and favour those who favour that state of human affairs, which he himself evidently appeared, while on earth, so remarkably, decidedly to promote. Let the public good overcome all private and selfish regards of every kind and degree ; though in truth, even private and selfish regards, and every man's own interest, will be best promoted by the preservation of peace. Kings will find, that to reign is a more glori- ous thing than ever it has been, when they reign over a weil-principled and happy people, and when they reign by the mild authority of law, and not by arms and violence. The nobility will find their dignity greater in itself, and established on more reasonable, is and, therefore, more permanent principles. The clergy will enjoy their ease with less interruption. The peo- ple will possess tranquillity with greater plenty, and plenty with greater tranquillity, than they yet have ever known. The christian profession will become respectable to the enemies of the cross, Finally, every man will become dear and pleasing to every other man, all will be beloved by all ; and what is still more desirable, beloved also by Christ, to become accepta- ble to whom, is the highest felicity of human nature. "To those Readers -who may have been taught to consider Erasmus merely as a reciuse scholar, and little known as a patriot and an active philanthropist, I have thought it proper to submit the following testi- mony of his countrymen, to be seen at this day in the midst of a celebrated city. Upon the bridge in the Grand Market Place, at Rotterdam, stands, enclosed with fron rails, a magnifi- cent statue of Erasmus in brass, much larger than the life, clad in a doctor's gown, and holding a book in his hand. It was erected in honour of him at the public expence, and the following is the inscription on the ft-ont of the base : 84 DESIDERIO ERASMO Mag-no scientiarum atque literature polhioris vindici et instaurutori viro SKCiili sui primario civi omnium prxstantissimo ae Hominis immortalitatem scriptis seviternis jure consecuto S. P Q. Roterodamus ne quod tantis apud se suosque posteros virtutibus prxmium deesset statuam hanc sere publico erigendam curaverunt. To DESIDERIU- ERASMUS, The great assertor and restorer of solid learning* and polite letters : a man among- the first of his age ; a citizen pre-eminently virtuous; a writer secure by the unperishable monuments of his genus, of an immortality of fame. The magistrates and people of Rotterdam, lest they should be wanting in gratitude to merits so great, wtiose beneficial influence is felt by themselves, and will descend to their posterity, caused this statute to be erected at the public expense. 85 POSTSCRIPT. I dismiss this Piece with the cheerfulness which arises from the consciousness of benevolent intention. It may produce remorse in the minds of a fcw,especially in those moments when stony-hearted pride is softened by affliction, brought home to itself; when sickness or the supposed approach of death, strikes the mind with the vanity of human ambition ; when the parting soul would wish, but wish in vain, for all the waters of the ocean to wash away the bloody stain which has deeply tinged the palsied hand, just going to be laid in the grave, whither it has sent many unoffending mortals prematurely. It may extinguish the torch just kindled to burn down the peaceful village. It may prevent the tears of the orphan and the widow. It may not only save life, but prevent the crime of him who would wantonly take it away. It may check the rage of des- pots, and frustrate the villainous purposes of their min- isters. The blessing of heaven may give efficacy to the weakest efforts of those who sincerely seek to pro- mote its merciful designs. I am, therefore, not with- out hope I have, indeed, long held out the olive branch, and the people may one day seek shelter in its shade. Bui though I do hope to convince some persons, at least when they are in a state of sickness or any other adversity, yet 1 despair of convincing others, especially those who are in the vortex of dissipation, pursuing false honour and delusive profit, in the fun career of wondiy vanity. A share of a loan, a few iotteiy tick- 8 86 ets, a place, a pension, even so poor an attempt at nobility as a baronetage or knighthood, a promotion, a bishoprick, a deanery, a prebend, nay, so paltry a concern as a little living with cure of souls, will utterly refute, annul, and render void in the minds of some men, all that has been said against war, either by Erasmus or by one greater than he. I have only to wish, that I had been better able to do justice to my excellent author ; and that the cause of mankind may not suffer by my inadequate report of the great advocate's pleadings in its defence. ANTIPOLEMUS ; OR THE PLEA OF REASON, RELIGION, AND HUMANITY, AGAINST WAR. PREFACE. <{ Unless either philosophers bear rule in states, or those wh© are now called king's and potentates, learn to philosophize justly and properly, and thus both civil power and philos- ophy are united in the same person, it appears to me that there can be no cessation of calamity, either to states or to the whole human race." It pleases almighty God to raise up, from time to time, men of extraordinary abilities, combined with virtues no less extraordinary, who, in the dark night of ignorance and prejudice, shine like the noc- turnal lamp of heaven, with solitary but serene lustre ; obscured, indeed, at first by the gathering clouds of envy, unseen a while through the voluntary blind- ness of self-interest ; almost extinguished by civil and ecclesiastical bigotry ; but at length, bursting through every obstacle, and reflecting a steady light on those labyrinths of error which lead to misery. Such was Erasmus, a name, at the mention of which, ail that is great and good, and learned and free, feels a sentiment of cordial respect, and rises to pay a voluntary qbei- sance. God had given him an intellect in a state of vigour rarely indulged to the sons of men. Trained in the 8* IV school of adversity, he sought and found in it the sweet solace of learning and virtue. He there cultivated his native talents by early and constant exercise, and thus accumulated, by indefatigable industry, a store of knowledge, which, by means of an eloquence scarcely exceeded in the golden ages, he lavishly disseminated over the world, at that time barren, dark, and dreary, to enlighten and to fertilize it. God had given him not only a pre-eminent intellect, but a gift still more estimable, a good and feeling heart, a love of truth, a warm philanthropy, which prompted him to exert his fine abilities, totally regard- less of mean honours or sordid profits, in diffusing most important information, in an age when human misery was greatly augmented by gross ignorance, and when man, free-born, but degraded man, was bound down in darkness with double shackles, in the chains of a two-fold despotism, usurping an absolute dominion, both in church and in state, over the body and the soul. These two gifts combined formed an Erasmus, a man justly deemed and called the Phoenix of h\? age. He it was who led the way, both to the revival of learn- ing and the restoration of religion. Taste and polite letters are no less indebted to him than rational theol- ogy. Liberty acknowledges him as one of her noblest assertors. Had he not appeared and fought on the side of humanity, with the spear of truth and the lash of ridicule, Europe, instead of enjoying or contending for freedom at this hour, might, perhaps, have been still sunk in the dead repose of servitude, or galled with the iron hand of civil tyrants ; allied, for mutual aid, in a villainous confederacy, with the despotism of ecclesiastics. Force and fraud, availing themselves of the superstitious fears of ignorance, had united against the people, conspired against the majority of men, and dealt their curses through the land without mercy or controul. Then rose Erasmus, not, indeed, furnished with the arms of the warrior, but richly adorned with the arts of peace. By the force of superior genius and virtue, he shook the pontiff's chair under him, and caused the thrones of the despots to tremble. They shrunk, like the ugly birds of the evening, from the light ; they wished to hide themselves in the smoke, that they had raised around them ; but the rays of his genius penetrated the artificial mist, and exposed them to the derision of the deluded and oppressed multitude. The fortress of the tyrant and the mask of the hypocrite, were both laid open on the combined attack of argument and ridicule. It w r as impossible, but that the penetrating mind of Erasmus should see the grave follies, and mark the sanctified villanies of his time. He saw them, and laughed them to scorn. He took the side of human nature ; serving every body, and obliging nobody. He sought no reward, but the approbation of his God and his conscience ; and left the little great ones to contend among themselves, unenvied and unrivalled by him, for coronets, mitres, croziers, and cardinals* hats, while he, undignified, untitled, unknown by any addition to the name of Erasmus, studied, and success- fully promoted the improvement and happiness of hu- man nature ; the great society of all human beings united under one King, their common Creator and Preserver. As he marked and reprobated the folly and misery of superstition, so he saw and no less clearly demon- strated the absurdity, the wretchedness, and the wick- VI edness of war. His heart felt for the misery of man, exposed by the perverseness of his rulers, in addition to the natural and moral evil he is doomed to suffer, to all the calamities of war. He found, in his intel- lectual storehouse, arms sufficient to encounter this giant-fiend in his castle. On the rock of religion he planted the artillery of solid arguments against it. There they still stand ; and when the impediments of prejudice, pride, malice, and ambition shall be remov- ed, which now retard their operation, they will beat down the ill-founded citadel, buttressed as it is by all the arts and arms of human power, endeavouring to build a fancied fabric of selfish or private felicity on the wreck and ruins of human nature. Erasmus demands attention. His learning, his abil- ities will reward attention. His disinterestedness se- cures, from all disinterested men, a most respectful attention. Poor in the world, but rich in genius ; ob- scure at his birth, and unpreferred at his death, but illustrious by his virtues, he became the self-appointed champion of man, a volunteer in the service of mise- rable mortals, an unbought advocate in the cause of those who could only repay him with their love and their prayers ; the poor outcast, the abject slave of superstition or tyranny, and all the nameless, number- less sons of want and woe, born only to suffer and to die. This great man has actually succeeded in exploding ecclesiastical tyranny ; for we are greatly indebted to him for the reformation We feel at this hour, and acknowledge with alacrity, the benefit of his theologi- cal labours in removing one cruel prejudice. It is true he has not yet succeeded in abolishing war. Suc- cess was more difficult, where arguments only were vu to be opposed to men of violence, armed with mus- kets, bayonets, and trains of artillery. The very din of arms stifles the still, small voice of reason. But the friends of man will not yet despair, Erasmus their guide ; God and nature urging their exertions, and a bleeding world imploring their merciful interference. Their's is a real crusade ; the olive, the dove, and the cross their standards ; the arts of persuasion, their arms ; mercy to man, their watch-word ; the conquest oi pride, prejudice, and passion, their victory ; peace and happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety, their trophies and reward. With such enemies as pride, prejudice, and passion, the conflict must be long and obstinate. The benefi- cent efforts of Erasmus were violently opposed while he lived, and his name aspersed with the blackest cal- umny. Where, indeed, is the great benefactor to so- ciety at large, the friend of man, not of a faction, who has not been opposed, who has not been calumniated by those who are selfishly interested in the misery of others, and personally benefitted by the continuation of abuse ? By what description of men was Erasmus opposed ? By sordid worldlings, wearing the cloak of religion, to hide the ugliness of their avarice and ambition ; by opulent dunces, whose stupidity was ex- ceeded by nothing but their malice, selfishly wallow- ing in luxury, and forgetful that any existed but them- selves, with rights to God's best gifts, life, comfort, peace, and liberty ; by wretches sunk in the dull indo- lence of unwieldly pomp, who claimed a prescriptive right to respect, and considered all the active part of mankind as mere vassals, and all that dared to suggest improvement, either civil or ecclesiastical, as dangerous and seditious innovators ; by priests who via thought, and, indeed, justly thought that, in proportion as the light of knowledge was diffused, their craft was in danger. By these, and such as these, Erasmus was opposed in his endeavours to revive learning, and to reform religion. But, great by nature, a lord by God's creation, a pontiff by the election of his own superior genius, virtue, learning, and piety, he rose above all his opposers. They feared and honoured, while they hated and calumniated him. Popes, emperors, and kings, courted his favour ; and through dread of his heaven-bestowed power, paid him a sincerer and more reverential homage than they ever extorted from their myrmidons. Though he was stigmatized as an inno- vator, menaced, slandered, harassed by literary con- troversy, they felt the weight of his superiority, bowed to him from their thrones, and would gladly have do- mesticated him in their palaces ; but he spurned their offers, and preferred to the most splendid servitude, that liberty which he loved, and whose charms he had displayed to nations pining in darkness and in dungeons. Such, to the honour of truth and goodness,of genius and learning, such was the natural dominion of real and indisputable abilities, preserved in a state of independ- ence by a virtue equally so, and a spirit truly noble. Every one has probably heard, that it has been said by Bruyere, and repeated by all true friends to per- sonal merit, that " He who cannot be an Erasmus, must content himself with being a bishop." One may go farther and say, that he who cannot be an Erasmus, must condescend to a second rank, and be satisfied with becoming a pope or an emperor. The dominion of genius and virtue like his, was, indeed, of divine right. It was the gift of God for the good of man. IX I have thus submitted my ideas, and the ideas of his own age, and of all the protestant literati, concerning the author of this fragment on war, which I now place before the English reader. In the course of my read- ing I found it accidently, and struck with its excel- lence, translated it freely, modernizing it, and using, where perspicuity seemed to require, the allowed lib- erty of occasional paraphrase. I have not, indeed, scrupled to make those slight alterations or additions, which seemed necessary to give the author's ideas more completely to the English reader, and to render the meaning fully intelligible, without a marginal com- mentary. It will occur to every one, that the purposes of philanthropy rather than of philology, the happiness of human nature rather than the amusements of verbal criticism, were intended by the author, as well as the translator in this dissertation. There will never be wanting phampleteers and journalists to defend war, in countries where prime ministers possess unlimited patronage in the church, in the law, in the army, in the navy, in all public offices, and where they can bestow honours, as well as emol- uments, on the obsequious instruments of their own ambition. It seems now to be the general wish of in- dolent luxury in high life, to throw itself on the public for maintenance ; but the strongest bridge may break when overladen. Truth will then prevail ; and venal- ity and corruption, exceeding all bounds, be driven into everlasting exile. It gives me pleasure to discover, that my own fa- vourable opinion of this pilanthropie piece is confirmed by so great a critic as Monsieur Bayle, whose words are these, in a note on the life of Erasmus : " Jamais homme n'a ete plus eloigne que lui de 1'humeur impetueuse de certains theoiogiens, qui se plairent a corner la guerre. Pour lui, il aimoit la paix et il en connoissoit l'importance. u Une des plus belles dissertations, que Ton puisse lire est celle d'Erasme sur le proverbe, Dulce bellum inexpertis. II y fait voir qu'il avoit profondement medite les plus importans principes de la raison et de l'evangile, et les causes les plus ordinaires des guerres. II fait voir que la mechancete de quelques particuiiers, et la sottise* des peuples, produirent presque toutes les guerres ; et qu'une chose, dont les causes sont si blameables, est presque toujours suivie d'une tres per- nieieux effet. II pretend que ceux que leur profes- sion devroit le plus engager a deconseiller les guerres, en sont les instigateurs.****** " Les loix, poursuit-il, les statuts, les privileges, tout cela demeure sursis, pendant le fracas des armes. Les princes trouvent alors cent moiens de parvenir a la puissance arbitraire ; et de la vient, que quelques- Uns ne sauroient suffrir la paix.t" * War is a game, which, were their subjects wise, Kings would not play at Cowper. •{•"Never was man further from the violent spirit of cer- tain divines, who love 'to sound the trumpet of war.' For his part, 'peace was his dear delight,' and he well under- stood its importance. " One of the finest dissertations which one can read, is that of Erasmus on the proverb, Dulce bellum inexpertis; or War is sweet to those that never tried it. He there lets us see, that he had profoundly studied the principles of reason and of the gospel, together with the common causes of war. He shews us, that the wickedness of certain individuals; and the foll\ of their people, produce almost all wars ; and that a thing", of which the causes are so culpabte, is almost fol- XI Near three hundred years have elapsed since the • Dm position of this Treatise.* In so long a period, the most enlightened which the history of the world can display, it might be supposed that the diffusion of Christianity, and the improvements in arts, sciences, and civilization, would either have abolished war, or have softened its rigour. It is, however, a melancholy truth, that war still rages in the world, polished as it is, and refined by the beautiful arts, by the belles let- \res, and by a most liberal philosophy. Within a few years the warriors of a mighty and a christian king- dom, were instructed to hire the savages of America to fight against a sister nation, or rather its own child ; a nation speaking the same language with its parent, worshipping the same God, and hoping to become a joint heir of immortality. The savages were furnished with hatchets, to cut and hack the flesh and bones of their fellow christians, of those who may be deemed in a political sense, their brothers, sisters, and children. The savages, cruel enough by nature, finding their cruelty encouraged by christians, used the hatchet, the tomahawk, and the scalping knife, with redoubled alacrity. The poor Indians were called, by those who lowed by an effect in a high degree pernicious. He takes upon him to assert, that those very persons whose profes- sion ought to oblige them to dissuade from war, are the instigators to it.***** " Laws," he proceeds, u statutes, the subject's privileges, all things of this kind continue superseded during the din and havoc of war. Princes then find a hundred methods of arriving at absolute power ; and thence it happens that cer- tain of them cannot endure peace." * Erasmus was born at Rotterdam, October 28, 1467. He was called Sal et Sol, in allusion to his poignant wit and luminous erudition. 9 justified the employment of them, the means which God and nature put into their hands ; and the engag- ing of them on their side was thought a master-stroke of political wisdom. They were rewarded with money, and numbered among good and faithful allies.* After efforts so execrable, the very party which put the *TheAmerican secretary,™ a letter to General Carleton,da- ted Whitehall March 26, 1777, says : "As this plan cannot be advantageously executed without the assistance of Canadians and Indians, his Majesty strongly recommends it to your care to furnish both expeditions with good and sufficient bodies of those men. And T am happy in knowing that your influence among them is so great, that there can be no room to appre- hend you will find it difficult to fulfil his Majesty's inten- tions." In the if Thoughts for conducting the War from the Side of Canada/' by General Burgoyne, that general desires a thousand or more savages. This man appears to have been clever, and could write comedies and act tragedies, cttrinque paratus, Colonel Butler was desired to distribute the king's bounty- money among such of the savages as would join the army ; and, after the delivery of the presents, he asks for 4011/. York currency, before he left Niagara. He adds, in a letter that was laid on the table in the House of Commons, " I flat- ter myself that you will not think the expense, however high, to be useless or given with too lavish a hand. I waited seven days to deliver them the presents, and give them the hatchet, which they accepted, and promised to make use of it." This tetter is dated Ontario, July 28, 1777. In another letter, Colonel Butler says, "The Indians threw in a heavy fire on the rebels, and made a shocking slaughter with their spears and hatchets. The success of this day will plainly shew the utility of your Excellency's constant support of my un- wearied endeavours to conciliate to his Majesty so servicea- ble a body of allies." This letter is from Colonel Butler to Sir Guy Cavleton, dated Camp before Fort Stanwix, August i.fj 1777.— S^e also Burgoyne's proclamation. XU1 hatchet into the hands of the savages, for the purpose of hewing their brothers in pieces, was vanquished, and piled their arms with ignominy, in sight of an in- sulted foe ; leaving posterity to contemplate the scene with the indignation ever due to savage barbarity, and at the same time, with the contempt which naturally falls on malice of intention, cruelly displayed without power of execution. Have the great and polished nations of Europe pro- fited by this detestable example, and avoided every approach to barbarity ? What must we think of the duke of Brunswick's manifesto ? What must be said of engaging Algerine pirates against inoffensive mer- chantmen, pursuing their business in the great waters ? What of instigating the Indians of America once more, against a friendly nation in perfect peace ? Rumours of such enormous cruelty and injustk^ in very recent tfrnes, have been diffused by men in high rank, and of most indisputable authority. If they are founded, never let it be said that the arguments against war, whir,h Erasmus and other philanthropists have used, are needless, in the present times of boast- ed lenity and refinement. Have the Austrians con- ducted themselves with such exemplary humanity, as to prove to the world that exhortations to it are no longer necessary ? Many of those who could answer this question most accurately, are now sleeping in the grave, where the wicked cease from troubling, and the. weary are at rest. The ferocity of native barbarians admits of some ex- cuse, from their state of ignorance unenlightened, and of passion unsofiened by culture. They profess not ii religion which teaches to forgive. But a similar fero- city, coolly, deliberately approved, recommended, and XI-V enforced by the highest authority, in a state justly pre- tending to all the polish of cultivated manners, and pro- fessing the purest Christianity, is mischievous, flagitious and detestable; without one alleviating circumstance. The blackness of the deed is not diluted with one drop of a lighter colour to soften the shade. Let the cur- tain fall upon the picture. Let no historian record such conduct in the annals of his country, lest it be deemed by posterity a libel on human nature. To eradicate from the bosom of man principles which argue not only obduracy, but malignity, is certainly the main scope of the christian religion ; and the clergy are never better employed in their grand work, the me- lioration of human nature, the improvement of general happiness, than when they are reprobating all propen- sities whatever, which tend, in any degree, to produce, to continue, or to aggravate the calamities of war ; those calamities which, as his majesty graciously expressed it, in one of his speeches from the throne,* are insepar- able from a state of war. The most ardent zeal, the most pertinacious obsti- nacy is displayed in preserving the minutest article of what is called orthodox opinion ; whether wisely or not, is not mine to determine. But, alas ! what, in a world of woe like this, what signifies our boasted ortho- doxy in matters of mere speculation, in matters totally irrelevant to human happiness or misery ? What signi- fies a jealous vigilance over thirty-nine articles, if we neglect one article, the law of charity and love ; if we overlook the weightier matters, which Christ himself enacted; is of his religion, indispensably to be subscribed by all who hope for salvation in him ; I mean forgiveness of injuries, mercy, philanthropy., hu- ■ fn the vear 1777. XV mility ? There is nothing so heterodox, I speak under the correction of the reverend prelacy, as war, and the passions that lead to it such as pride, avarice, and am- bition. The greatest heresy I know, is to shed the blood of an innocent man, to rob by authority of a chris- tian government, to lay waste by law, to destroy by privilege, that which constitutes the health, the wealth, the comfort, the happiness, the sustenance of a fellow- creature, and a fellow-christian. This is heresy and schism with a vengeance ! against which we ought most devoutly to pray, in a daily litany, or a new form of prayer. Where, after all the heart-burnings and blood-shedding, occasioned by religious wars ; where is the true church of Christ, but in the hearts of good men ; the hearts of merciful believers, who from prin- cipal, in obedience to and for the love of Christ, as well as from sympathy, labour for peace, go about doing- good, consulting, without local prejudice, the happiness of all men, and instead of confining their good offices to a small part, endeavour to pour oil into the wounds of suffering human nature ? In the hearts of such men, united in love to God and his creatures, is the church of Christ. Stone walls and steeples are not necessary to the true church ; and mitres and croziers are little better than helmets and swords, when the wearers of them countenance by their counsels, or even connive at by their silence, the unchristian passions and inhu- man practices inseparable from a state of war. The poor soldier in the field is but an instrument in the hands of others. The counsellors of war ; — they are the warriors. The ministers of state ; — they are the dis- turbers of peace ; surely it is lawful to censure them* for their heads are unanointed. 9* XVI The passions which lead to war arc diseases. Is there no medicine for them ? There is a medicine and an antidote. There is a catholicon provided by the great physician ; and it is the pious office of the clergy to administer it, aegris mortalibus, to poor mortals lying sick in the great hospital of the world. " Take physic Pomp," they may say to all princes who delight in war ; imbibe the balsamic doctrines of the gospel. Pride? avarice, and ambition, are indeed difficult to cure ; but it must be remembered that the medicine is powerful ; and the good physician, instead of despairing, redoubles his efforts, when the disease is inveterate. I hope the world has profited too much by experi- ence, to encourage any offensive war, under the name and pretext of a holy war. Whether religion has been lately made use of to justify war, let others judge. We read in a recent form, an ardent prayer for protection against "those who, in the very centre of Christendom, threaten destruction to Christianity, and desolation to every country where they can erect their bloody stan- dard 1" It is meet, right, and our bounden duty to pray for protection against such men ; but it would be alarming to those who remember the dreadful havoc of religious wars in former ages, if at this period, reli- gion were publicly and solemnly assigned as a reason for continuing war. I think the apostolical method of converting the " declared enemies to christian kings, and impious blasphemers of God's holy name," must be more desirable to bishops and archbishops than the arm of flesh, the sword of the destroyer. The prayer ends with these words : " We are devoutly sensible, that all our efforts will be ineffectual, unless thou, O God, from whom comelh our help, and from whom alone it can come, goest forth with our fleets and XV 11 armies. Our counsels, our hands, and our hearts are under ihy Almighty direction. Direct them, the hands, Sec. O Lord, to such exertions as may man- ifest us to be under thy guidance. Convince our ad- versaries that thine arm (assisted by our hands) stretch- ed out, can defeat the most during designs against our peace ; and that those who lift up their banners against thee (that is against us), shall be bumbled under thy Almighty hand." If this is not to represent a war as a holy war, what constitutes a holy war ? As the prayer comes from great authority, it is to be received with deference ; but it may be lawful to suggest, that it would have been very consistent with Christianity to have prayed in general terms, for peace without blood ; to have prayed for our " adversaries," that they might be " convinced" of their fatal errors," not by our hands, but by persuasion and by the grace of God. There follows, indeed, another very ardent prayer for our enemies, than which nothing can be more proper. It is only to be lamented, that Christianity should be represented in the former prayer, by those who are supposed best to understand it, as in any respect coun- tenancing the propagation of the faith, or the conver- sion of unbelievers by the sword, by fleets and armies, by the exertions of the hand in the field of battle. Let Mahomet mark the progress of the faith by blood. Such modes of erecting the cross are an abomination to Jesus Christ. Is it, after all, certain, that the slaughter of the unbelievers will convert the survivors to the re- ligion of the slaughterers ? Is the burning of a town, the sinking of a ship, the wounding and killing hun- dreds of thousands in the field, a proof of the lovely and beneficent Christianity to which the enemy is to be con- verted, by the philanthropic warriors ? Have not Jews^ XVlll Turks, and infidels of all descriptions, triumphed in the everlasting wars of those who profess to be the disciples of the peaceful Jesus, the teachers and preachers of the gospel of peace ? The composers of these prayers are, doubtless, pious and good men ; but, in treading in the footsteps of less enlightened predecessors, are they not, without intending it, rendering religion subservient to a secu- lar ambition ? They sometimes censure politics as the subjects of sermons ; but are politics more allowable in prayers than in sermons ? And is it right in seven million of men to pray, by order of the shepherds of their souls, for vengeance from their common Father on twenty-seven million ? To pray for mercy on them all ; to pray that wars may cease over the whole world ; to pray that those who have erred and are deceived may be persuaded to think and to do what is right ; — this is, indeed, princely, episcopal, christian, and hu- jnane. The christian religion is either true or untrue. If true, as the Church teaches, as I firmly believe, and as the law requires us all to believe, then it must be of the highest importance to men individually, and, therefore, in the aggregate. It is the first concern of the whole human race. National policy shrinks to nothing, in comparison with the happiness of the uni- versal family of all mankind. If the christian religion be true, it must supersede all the measures of worldly wisdom, which obstruct its views or interfere with its doctrines ; therefore, it must supersede war : if false, then why a national establishment of it, in the very country which pronounces it false ? Why an order of clergy publicly maintained to support it ? Why do we see churches every where rising around us ? Why XIX this hypocrisy ? Why is it not abolished, as an obstacle to military operations, and to other transactions of state necessity ? The language of deeds is more credible than the language of words ; and the language of deeds asserts, that the christian religion is untrue. They who defend war, must defend the dispositions which lead to war ; and these dispositions are absolutely for- bidden by the gospel. The very reverse of them is inculcated in almost every page. Those dispositions being extinguished, war must cease ; as the rivulet ceases to flow when the fountain is destitute of water ; or as the tree no longer buds and blossoms, when the fibres, which extract the moisture from the earth, are rescinded or withered. It is not necessary, that there should be in the gospel an absolute prohibition of war in so many express words ; it is enough, that malice and revenge are prohibited. The cause ceasing, the effect can be eo more. Therefore, I cannot think it consistent with the duty of a bishop or any other cler- gyman, either to preach or pray in such a manner as to countenance, directly or indirectly, any war, but a war literally, truly, and not jesuitically, a defensive war, firo aris etfocis ; and even then, it would be more characteristic of christian divines to pray for universal peace, for a peaceable conversion of the hearts of our enemies, rather than for bloody victory. Wars of ambition, for the extension of empire, or for the gratification of pride, envy, and malice, can never be justified; and,therefore,it is that all belligerent powers agree to call their several wars defensive in the first instance, and then, just and necessary. This is a tacit, but a very striking acknowledgment on all sides, that offensive war is unjustifiable. But the mis- fortune is, that power is never without the aid of inge- XX uious sophistry to give the name of right to wrong ; and with the eloquence which Milton attributes to the devil, to make the worse appear the better cause. But as war is confessedly fiublica mundi calamitas^ the common misfortune of all the world, it is time that good sense should interpose, even if religion were silent, to control the mad impetuosity of its cause, ambition. Ambition is a passion in itself illimitable. Macedonia's madman was bounded in his ravages by the ocean. The demigod, Hercules, was stopt in his progress by the pillars, called after his name, at Gades ; but to ambition, connected as it usually is, in modern times, with avarice, there is no ocean, no Gades, no limit, but the grave. Had Alexander, Caesar, Charles the Twelfth, or Louis the Fourteenth, been immortal in existence 4 on earth, as they are in the post- humous life of fame, they must have shared the world among them in time, and reigned in it alone, or peo- pled with their own progeny. The middle ranks, among whom chiefly resides learning, virtue, principle, truth, every thing estimable in society, would have been extinct. Despots would have let none live but slaves,and those only,that they might administer to their idleness, their luxury, their vice. But though Alex- ander and Caesar, and Charles and Louis are dead, yet ambition is still alive, and nothing but the progress of knowledge in the middle ranks, and the prevalence of Christianity in the lowest, have prevented other Alex- anders, other Caesars, other Charleses, and other Louises from rising, and like the vermin of an East wind, blasting the fairest blossoms of human felicity. Many christian grandees might, with great propriety, employ like the Heathen, a remembrancer to sound forever in their ears. Forget not that thou art a man ; XXI to tell them, that the poorest soldier under their abso- lute command, was born, like them, of woman, and that they like him shall die. The clergy, in christian countries, possess this office of remembrancers to the great as well as to the little. To execute it they probably 30 to courts. Thev do well : let them not fear to exe- cute it with fidelity. The kingdom of Christ should be maintained by them, so long as it is. tenable, by argument and the mild arts of evangelical persuasion, though all. other kingdoms fall. The christian re- ligion being confessedly true, there is a kingdom of Christ ; and the laws of that kingdom must be of the first obligation. No sophistry can elude the necessary conclusion, u Fiat voluntas dei ; adveniat regnum rjufs ;" such is our daily prayer, and such should be our daily endeavour. If it be true, that infidelity is increasing, if a great nation be, indeed, throwing aside Christianity instead oi the superstition that has disgraced it, it is time that those who believe in Christianity, and are convinced that it is beneficial to the world, shew mankind its most alluring graces, its merciful, benignant effects, its utter abhorrence of war, its favourable influence on the arts of peace, and on all that contributes to the solid comfort of human life. But, it is possible that, as it is usual to bend a crooked stick in the contrary direction in order to make it straight, so this great nation, in exploding the follies and miseries of superstition, may be using a latitude and licentiousness of expression concerning the christian religion, which it does not itself sincerely approve, merely to abolish the ancient bigotry. The measure is, I think, wrong, because it is of dangerous example ; but w r hoever thinks so, ought to endeavour to rectify the error by persuasion^ xxu rather than to extirpate the men by fire and sword, who have unhappily fallen into it. Their mistakes call upon their fellow-men for charity, but not for ven- geance. Vengeance is mine ; I will repay, saith the Lord. Our own mild and christian behaviour towards those who are in error, is the most likely means of bringing- them into the pale of Christianity, by the allurement of an example so irresistibly amiable. If the sheep have gone astray, the good shepherd uses gentle means to bring them into the fold. He does not allow the watchful dog to tear their fleeces ; he does not send the wolf to devour them ; neither does he hire the butcher to shed their blood, in revenge for their deviation. But who are we ? Not shepherds, but a part of the flock. The spiritual state of twenty-seven millions of men is not to be regulated, any more than their worldly state, by seven millions. Are the seven millions all christians, all qualified by their superior holiness to be either guardian or avenging angels ? It is, indeed, most devoutly to be wished, that religion in the present times may not be used, as it has often been in former days to sharpen the sw r ord of war, and to deluge the world with gore. Let these matters remain to be adjusted, not by bullets and bayonets, but be- tween every man's own conscience and God Almighty. It is obvious to observe, that great revolutions are taking place, I mean not political revolutions, but rev- olutions in the mind of man, revolutions of far more consequence to human nature, than revolutions in em- pire. Man is awaking from the slumber of childish superstition, and the dreams of prejudice. Man is becoming more reasonable ; assuming with more con- fidence his natural character, approaching more nearly his original excellence as a rational being, and as he XXU1 came from his Creator.* Man has been metaphorized from the noble animal God made him, to a slavish creature little removed from a brute, by base policy and tyranny. He is now emerging from his degener- ate state. He is learning to estimate things as they are clearly seen, in their own shape, size, and hue ; not as they are enlarged, distorted, discoloured by the mists of prejudice, by the fears of superstition, and by the deceitful mediums which politicians and pontiffs invented, that they might enjoy the world in state without molestation. War has certainjy been used by the great of all ages and countries except our own, as a means of sup- porting an exclusive claim to the privileges of enor- mous opulence, stately grandeur, and arbitrary power. It employs the mind of the multitude, it kindles their passions against foreign, distant, and unknown persons, and thus prevents them from adverting to their own oppressed condition, and to domestic abuses. There is something fascinating in its glory, in its ornaments, in its music, in its very noise and tumult, in its sur- prising events, and in victory. It assumes a splendour , like the harlot, the more brilliant, gaudy, and effected, in proportion as it is conscious to itself of internal de- formity. Paint and perfume are used by the wretched prostitute in profusion, to conceal the foul ulcerous sores, the rottenness and putrescence of disease. The vulgar and the thoughtless, of which there are many in the highest ranks, as well as in the lowest, are daz- zled by outward glitter. But improvement of mind is become almost universal, since the invention of print- * It is too much to be feared, that the limits for theex* tension of these observations, at the present era, are confined to few. American Editor. 10 XXIV in£; and reason, strengthened by reading, begins to discover, at first sight and with accuracy, the difference between paste and diamonds, tinsel and bullion. It begins to see, that there can be no glory in mutual destruction ; that real glory can be derived only from beneficial exertions, from contributions to the conveniences and accommodations of life ; from arts, sciences, commerce, and agriculture ; to all which war is the bane. It begins to perceive clearly the truth of the poor Heathen's observation, Ov to fjuy* iV «AA<* to sv neyx.. The great is not, therefore, good ; but the good is, therefore, great. - It is, indeed, difficult to prevent the mind of the many from admiring the splendidly destructive, and 10 teach it duly to appreciate the useful and beneficial, unattended with ostentation. There are various pre- judices easily accounted for, which from early infancy familiarize the ideas of war and slaughter, which would otherwise shock us. The books read at school were mostly written before the christian aera. They cele- brate warriors with an eloquence of diction, and a spirit of animation which cannot fail to captivate a youthful reader. The more generous his disposition, the quicker his sensibility, the livelier his genius, the warmer his imagination, the more likely he is, in that age of inexperience, to catch the flame of military ardour. The very ideas of bloody conquerors are in- stilled into his heart, and grow with his growth. He struts about his school, himself a hero in miniature, a little Achilles panting for glorious slaughter. And even the vulgar, those who are not instructed in class- ical learning by a Homer or a Caesar, have their seven champions of Christendom, learn to delight in scenes of carnage, and think their country superior to all XXV others, not for her commerce, not for her liberty, not for her civilization, but for her bloody wars. Happily for human nature, great writers have taken pains to remove those prejudices of the school and nursery, which tend to increase the natural misery of man, and consequently war and all its apparatus begin to be con- sidered among those childish things, which are to be put away in the age of maturity. It will, indeed, re- quire time to emancipate the stupid and unfeeling slaves of custom, fashion, and self-interest from their more than Egyptian bondage. Erasmus stands at the head of those writers who have attempted the emancipation. With as much wit and comprehension of mind as Voltaire and Rosseau, he has the advantage of them in two points, in sound learning and in religion. His learning was extensive and profound, and there is every reason to believe, that he was a sincere christian. His works breathe a spirit of piety to God, equalled only by his benevolence to man. The narrow-minded politicians, who look no farther than to present expedients, and cannot open their hearts wide enough to unite in their minds the general good of human nature, with the particular good of their own country, will be ready to explode his observations on the malignity of war. But, till they have proved to the suffering world, that their heads and hearts are superior to Erasmus, they will not di- minish his authority by invective or derision. Let ministers of state, who by the way, are always cried up as paragons of ability, wonders of the world, for thcrtime being ; let under-secretaries, commissioners, commissaries, contractors, clerks, and borough-jobbers, the warm patrons of all wars ; let these men prove themselves superior in intellect, learning, piety, and XXVI Uumanity to Erasmus, and I give up the cause. Let war fill their coffers, and cover them all over with stars and garters ; let them praise and glorify each other ; let them rejoice and revel in the song and the dance ; and let the stricken deer go weep, the middle ranks and the poor, who certainly constitute the ma- jority of the human race, and who have, in all ages, fallen unpitied victims to war. Multis utile bellum, or ihe emoluments of war sufficiently account for the op- position which some men make to peace and to peace- makers. But the cause is ultimately safe in the hands of Erasmus ; for he has established it on the rock of truth. It stands on the same base with the christian religion. Reason, humanity, and sound policy, are among the columns that firmly support it ; and to use the strong language of scripture, the gates of hell shall not finally prevail against it. Let it be remembered, that the reformation of religion was more unlikely in the twelfth century, than the total abolition of war in the eighteenth. I hope and believe I am serving my fellow-creatures in all climes and of all ranks, in bringing forward this fragment ; in reprobating war, and in promoting the love cf peace. That my efforts may be offensive to particular persons who are the slaves of prejudice, pride, and interest, is but too probable. I sincerely lament it. But whatever inconvenience I may suffer from their temporary displeasure, I cannot relinquish the cause. The total abolition of war, and the estab- lishment of perpetual and universal peace, appear to me to be of more consequence than any thing ever achieved or even attempted by mere mortal man, since the creation. The goodness of the cause is certain, xxvn though its success, lor a time, doubtful. Vet will I not fear. I have chosen ground, solid as the everlast- ing hills, and firm as the veiy firmament of heaven. I have planted an acorn ; the timber and the shade are reserved for posterity. It requires no apology to have placed before free- men, in their vernacular language, the sentiments of a truly good and wise man on a subject of the most momentous consequence. They accord with my own ; and I have been actuated, in bringing them forward, by no other motive than the genuine impulse of hu- manity. I have no purposes of faction to serve. I am a lover of internal order, as well as of public peace. I am duly attached to every branch of the constitution, though certainly not blind to some devia- tions from primitive and theoretical excellence, which time will ever cause in the best inventions of men. I detest and abhor atheism and anarchy, as warmly and truly as the most sanguine abettors of war can do ; but I am one who thinks, in the sincerity of his soul, that reasonable creatures ought always to be coerced when they err, by the force of reason, the motives of religion, the operation of law, and not by- engines of destruction. In a word, I utterly disapprove all war, but that which is strictly defensive.* If I am in error, pardon me, my fellow-creatures, I trust I shall obtain the pardon of my God. * We wish we were admitted to expunge the part in this sentence, which begins with the £«;,— American Editor. 10* ANTIPOLEMUS ; THE PLEA. OF REASON, RELIGION, AND HUMANITY, AGAINST WAR. If there is, in the affairs of mortal men, any one thing which it is proper uniformly to explode ; which it is incumbent on every man, by every lawful means, to avoid, to deprecate, to oppose, that one thing is doubtless war. There is nothing more unna- turally wicked, more productive of misery, more ex- tensively destructive, more obstinate in mischief, more unworthy of man as formed by nature, much more of man professing Christianity. Yet, wonderful to relate ! in these times, war is every where rashly, and on the slightest pretext, un- dertaken ; cruelly and savagely conducted, not only by unbelievers, but by Christians ; not only by lay- men, but by priests and bishops ; not only by the young and inexperienced, but even by men far advanced in life, who must have seen and felt its dreadful conse- quences ; not only by the lower order, the rude rab- ble, fickle in their nature ; but, above all, by princes, whose duty it is to compose the rash passions of the •unthinking multitude by superior wisdom and the 30 force of reason. Nor are there ever wanting men learned in the law, and even divines, who are ready to furnish firebrands for the nefarious work, and to fan the latent sparks Tnto a flame. Whence it happens, that war is now considered s« much a thing of course, that the wonder is, how any man can disapprove of it ; so much sanctioned by au- thority and custom, that it is deemed impious, I had almost said heretical, to have borne testimony against a practice in its principal most profligate, and in its effects pregnant with every kind of calamity. How much more justly might it be matter of won- der, what evil genius, what accursed fiend, what hell- born fury first suggested to the mind of man, a propen- sity so brutal, such as instigates a gentle animal, form- ed by nature for peace and good will, formed to promote the welfare of all around him, to rush with mad ferocity on the destruction of himself and his fellow creatures ! Still more wonderful will this appear, if, laying aside all vulgar prejudices, and accurately examining the real nature of things, we contemplate with the eyes of philosophy, the portrait of man on one side, and on the other, the picture of war ! In the first place then, if any one considers a mo- ment the organization and external figure of the body, will he not instantly perceive, that nature, or rather the God of nature, created the human animal not for war, but for love and friendship ; not for mutual de- struction, but for mutual service and safety ; not to commit injuries, but for acts of reciprocal beneficence. To all other animals, nature, or the God of nature, has given appropriate weapons of offence. The inborn violence of the bull is seconded by weapons of pointed horn j the rage of the lion with claws. On the wild 31 boar are fixed terrible tusks. The elephant, in addition to the toughness of his hide and his enormous size, is defended with a proboscis. The crocodile is cov- ered with scales ^as with a coat of mail. Fins serve the dolphin for arms; quills the porcupine ; prickles the thornback ; and the gallant chanticleer, in the farm-yard, crows defiance, conscious of his spur. Some are furnished with shells, some with hides, and others with external teguments, resembling in strength and thickness, the rind of a tree. Nature has consult- ed the safety of some of her creatures, as of the dove, by velocity of motion. To others she has given venom as a substitute for a weapon ; and added a hideous shape, eyes that beam terror, and a hissing noise. She has also given them antipathies and discordant dispo- sitions corresponding with this exterior, that they might wage an offensive or defensive war with ani- mals of a different species. But man sne brought into the world naked from his mother's womb, weak, tender, unarmed ; his flesh of the softest texture, his skin smooth and delicate, and susceptible of the slightest injury. There is nothing observable in his limbs adapted to fighting or to vio- lence, not to mention that other animals are no sooner brought forth, than they are sufficient of themselves to support the life they have received ; but man alone, for a long period, totally depends on extraneous assist- ance. Unable either to speak or walk, or help himself to food, he can only implore relief by tears and wailing ; so that from this circumstance alone might be collect- ed, that man i<= an animal born for that love and friend- ship, which is formed and cemented by the mutual in- terchange of benevolent offices. Moreover, nature evidently intended, that man should consider himself 32 indebted for the boon of life, not so much to herseli as to the kindness of his fellow-man; that he might per- ceive himself designed for social affections, and the attachments of friendship and love. Then she gave him a countenance, not frightful and forbidding, but mild and placid, intimating by external signs the be- nignity of his disposition. She gave him eyes full of affectionate expression, the indexes of a mind delight- ing in social sympathy. She gave him arms to em- brace his fellow-creatures. She gave him lips to ex- press an union of heart and soul. She gave him alone the power of laughing ; a mark of the joy of which he is susceptible. She gave him alone tears, the symbol of clemency and compassion. She gave him also a voice ; not a menancing and frightful yell, but bland, soothing, and friendly. Not satisfied with these marks of her peculiar favour, she bestowed on him alone the use of speech and reason, a gift which tends more than any other to conciliate and cherish benevo- lence, and a desire of rendering mutual services, so that nothing among human creatures might be done by violence. She implanted in man a hatred of soli- tude, and a love of company. She sowed in his heart the seeds of every benevolent affection, and thus ren- dered what is most salutary, at the same time most agreeable. For what is more agreeable than a friend ? What so necessary ? Indeed, if it were possible to con- duct life conveniently without mutual intercourse, yet nothing could be pleasant without a companion, unless man should have divested himself of humanity, and degenerated to the rank of a wild beast. Nature has also added a love of learning, an ardent desire of knowledge, a circumstance which at once contributes, in the highest degree, to distinguish man from the Jo ferocity of inferior animals, and to endear him cordially lo his fellow-creature ; for neither the relationship of affinity nor of consanguinity binds congenial spirits with closer or firmer bands, than an union in one com- mon pursuit of liberal knowledge and intellectual im- provement. Add to all this, that she has distributed to every mortal endowments, both of mind and body, with such admirable variety, that every man finds in every other man, something to love and to admire for its beauty and excellence, or something to seek after and embrace for its use and necessity. Lastly, kind nature has given to man a spark of the divine mind, which stimulates him, without any hope of reward, and of his own free will, to do good to all : for of God, this is the most natural and appropriate attribute, to consult the good of all by disinterested beneficence. If it were not so, how happens it that we feel an ex- quisite delight, when we find that any man has been preserved Irom danger, injury, or destruction, by our offices of intervention ? How happens it that we love a man the better, because we have done him a ser- vice It seems as if God has placed man in this world, a representative of himself, a kind of terrestrial deity, to make provision for the general welfare. Of this the very brutes seem sensible, since we see not only tame animals, but leopards and lions, and if there be any more fierce than they, flying for refuge, in extreme danger, to man. This is the last asylum, the most inviolable sanctuary, the anchor of hope in distress to every inferior creature. Such is the true portrait of man, however faintly and imperfectly delineated. It remains that I compare if, as I proposed, witb the picture of war, and see how 34 the two tablets accord, when hung up together and contrasted. Now then view, with the eyes of your imagination, savage troops of men, horrible in their very visages and voices ; men clad in steel, drawn up on every side in battle array, armed with weapons, frightful in their crash and their very glitter ; mark the horrid murmur of the confused multitude, their threatening eye-balls, the harsh jarring din of drums and clarions, the ter- rific sound of the trumpet, the thunder of the cannon, a noise not less formidable than the real thunder of heaven, and more hurtful ; a mad shout like that of the shrieks of bedlamites, a furious onset, a cruel butchering of each other ! See the slaughtered and the slaughtering ! Heaps of dead bodies, fields flowing with blood, rivers reddened with human gore ! It sometimes happens, that a brother falls by the hand of a brother,' a kinsman upon his nearest kindred, a friend upon his friend, who, while both are actuated by this fit of insanity, plunges the sword into the heart of one by whom he was never offended, not even by a word of his mouth ! So deep is the tragedy, that the bosom shudders even at the feeble description of it, and the hand of humanity drops the pencil while it paints the scene. In the mean time I pass over, as comparatively trifling, the corn-fields trodden down, peaceful cottages and rural mansions burnt to the ground, villages and towns reduced to ashes, the cattle driven from their pasture, innocent women violated, old men dragged into captivity, churches defaced and demolished, every thing laid waste, a prey to robbery, plunder and vio- lence .' Not to mention the consequences which ensue te the people after a war, even the most fortunate in its event, and the justcst in its principle : the poor, the unoffending common people, robbed of their little hard-earned property; the great laden with taxes ; old people bereaved of their children ; more cruelly killed by the murder of their offspring than by the sword ; happier if the enemy had deprived them of the sense of their misfortune, and life itself, at the same moment ; women far advanced in age, left destitute, and more cruelly put to death, than if they had died at once by the point of the bayonet ; widowed mothers, orphan children, houses of mourning ; and families, that once knew better days, reduced to extreme penury. Why need I dwell on the evils which morals sus- tain by war, when every one knows, that from war proceeds at once every kind of evil which disturbs and destroys the happiness of human life ? Hence is derived a contempt of piety, a neglect of law, a general corruption of principle, which hesitates at no villany. From this source rushes on society a torrent of thieves, robbers, sacrilegists, murderers^ and what is the greatest misfortune 6f all, this destruc- tive pestilence confines not itself within its own boun- daries ; but originating in one corner of the world, spreads its contagious virulence, not only over the neighbouring states,but draws the most remote regions, either by subsidies, by marriages among princes, or by political alliances, into the common tumult, the general whirlpool of mischief and confusion. One war sows the seeds of another. From a pretended war, arises a real one ; from an inconsiderable skirm- ish, hostilities of most important consequence ; nor is it uncommon, in the case of war, to find the old fable of the Lernaean Lake, or the Hydra realized. For this reason, I suppose, the ancient poets who pene- 11 36 trated into the nature of things with wonderful sagacity, and shadowed them out with the aptest fictions, handed down by tradition, that war originated from hell, that it was brought thence by the assistance of furies, and that only the most furious of the furies, Alecto, was fit for the infernal office. The most pestilent of them all was selected for it, ■Cui nomina mille, Mille nocendi Artes. Virgil. As the poets describe her, she is armed with snakes without number, and blows her blast in the trumpet of hell. Pan fills all the space around her with mad up- roar. Bellona, in frantic mood, shakes her scourge. And the unnatural, impious fury, breaking every bond asunder, flies abroad all horrible to behold, with a visage besmeared with gore ! Even the grammarians, with all their trifling inge- nuity, observing the deformity of war, say, that bellum, the Latin word for war, which signifies also the beau- tiful or comely, was so called by the rhetorical figure contradiction, (kkt* ocvruppocnv,) because it has nothing in it either good or beautiful ; and that bellum is call- ed bellum, by the same figure as the furies are called Eumenides. Other etymologists, with more judgment, derive bellum from bellua, a beast, because it ought to be more characteristic of beasts than of men, to meet for no other purpose than mutual destruction. But to me, it appears to deserve a worse epithet than brutal ; it is more than brutal, when men engage in the conflict of arms ; ministers of death to men ! Most of the brutes live in concord with their own kind, move together in flocks, and defend each other by mutual assistance. Indeed, all kinds of brutes are not inclined to fight even their enemies. There are harm- 37 less ones like the hare. It is only the fiercest, such as lions, wolves, and tigers, that fight at all. A dog will not devour his own species ; lions, with all their fierceness, are quiet among themselves ; dragons are said to live in peace with dragons ; and even veno- mous creatures live with one another in perfect har- mony ; but to man, no wild beast is more destructive than his fellow man. Again, When the brutes fight, they fight with the weapons which nature gave them ; we arm ourselves for mutual slaughter, with weapons which nature never thought of, but which were invented by the contrivance of some accursed fiend, the enemy of human nature that man might become the destroyer of man. Nei- ther do the beasts break out in hostile rage for trifling causes ; but either when hunger drives them to mad- ness, or when they find themselves attacked, or when they are alarmed for the safety of their young. We, good heaven, on frivolous pretences, what trage- dies do we act on the theatre of war ! Under colour of some obsolete and disputable claim to territory ; in a childish passion for a mistress ; for causes more ridic- ulous than these, we kindle the flames of war. Among the beasts the combat is, for the most part, only one against one, and for a very short space. And though the contest should be bloody, yet when one of them has received a wound, it is all over. Whoever heard, what is common among men in one campaign, that a hundred thousand beasts had fallen in battle by mutual butchery ? Besides, as beasts have a natural hatred to some of a different kind, so are they united to others of p. different kind, in a sincere and inviolable alliance. But man with man, and any man with any man, can find an everlasting cause for contest, and become what 38 they call natural enemies ; nor is any agreement or truce found sufficiently obligatory to bind man from attempting, on the appearance of the slightest pretexts, to commence hostilities after the most solemn conven- tion. So true it is, that whatever has deviated from its own nature into evil, is apt to degenerate to a more depraved state, than if its nature had been originally formed with inbred malignity. Do you wish to form a lively idea, however imper- fect, of the ugliness and the brutality of war, for we are speaking of its brutality, and how unworthy it is of a rational creature ? Have you ever seen a battle between a lion and a bear ? What distortion, what roaring,what howling, what fierceness, what bloodshed? The spectator of a fray, in which mere brutes like these are fighting, though he stands in a place of safety, cannot help shuddering at a sight so bloody. But how much more shocking a spectacle to see man conflicting with man, armed from head to foot with a variety of artificial weapons ! Who could believe that creatures so engaged were men,] if the frequency of the sight had not blunted its effect on our feelings, and prevented surprise ? Their eyes flashing, their cheeks pale, their very gait and mien expressive of fury ; gnashing their teeth, shouting like madmen, the whole man transformed to steel ; their arms clanging horri- bly, while the cannon's mouth thunders and lightens around them. It would really be less savage, if man destroyed and devoured man for the sake of necessary food, or drank blood through lack of beverage. Some, indeed, men in form, have come to such a pitch as to do this from rancour and wanton cruelty, for which expediency or even necessity could furnish only a poor excuse. More cruel still, they fight on some occasions 39 with weapons dipt in poison, and engines invented in Tartarus, for wholesale havoc at a single stroke. You now see not a single trace of man, that social creature, whose portrait we lately delineated. Do you think Nature would recognize the work of her own hand — the image of God ? And if any one were to assure her that it was so, would she not break out into execrations at the flagitious actions of her favourite creature ? Would she not say, when she saw man thus armed against man, " What new sight do I behold ? Hell itself must have produced this portentous spec- tacle. There are, who call me a step-mother, because in the multiplicity of my works, I have produced some that are venomous, though even they are convertible to the use of man, and because I created some, among the variety of animals, wild and fierce ; though there is not one so wild and so fierce, but he may be tamed by good management and good usage. Lions have grown gentle, serpents have grown innoxious under the care of man. Who is this then, worse than a step- mother, who has brought forth a non-descript brute, the plague of the whole creation ? I, indeed, made one animal, like this, in external appearance ; but with kind propensities, all placid, friendly, beneficent. How comes it to pass, that he has degenerated to a beast, such as I now behold, still in the same human shape ? I recognize no vestige of man, as I created him. What daemon has marred the work of my hands ? What sorceress, by her enchantments, has discharged from the human figure, the human mind, and supplied its place with the heart of a brute ? What Circe has transformed the man that I made into a beast ? I would bid this wretched creature behold himself in a mirror, if his eyes were capable of seeing himself, when his 11* 40 mind is no more. Nevertheless, thou depraved ani- mal, look at thyself, if thou canst ; reflect on thyself, thou frantic warrior, if by any means thou mayst re- cover ihy lost reason, and be restored to thy pristine nature. Take the looking-glass, and inspect it. How came that threatening crest of plumes upon thy head ? Did I give thee feathers ? Whence that shining helmet ? Whence those sharp points, which appear like horns of steel ? Whence are thy hands and arms furnished with sharp prickles ? Whence those scales, like the scales of fish, upon thy body ? Whence those brazen teeth? W r hence those plates of brass all over thee ? Whence those deadly weapons of offence ? Whence that voice, uttering sounds of rage more hor- rible than the inarticulate noise of the wild beasts ? W T hence the whole form of thy countenance and per- son distorted by furious passions, more than brutal ? Whence that thunder and lightning which I perceive around thee, at once more frightful than the thunder of heaven, and more destructive to man ? I formed thee an animal a little lower than the angels, a partaker of divinity ; how earnest thou to think of transforming thyself into a beast so savage, that no beast hereafter can be deemed a beast, if it be compared with man, originally the image of God, the Lord of the creation V' Such, and much more, would, I think, be the outcry of indignant Nature, the architect of all things, view- ing man transformed to a warrior. Now, since man was so made by nature, as I have above shewn him to have been, and since war is that which we too often feel it to be, it seems matter of infinite astonishment, what dxmon of mischief, what distemperature, or what fortuitous circumstances, could put it into the heart of man to plunge the deadly 41 steel into the bosom of his fellow-creature, lie must have arrived at a degree of madness so singular by insensible gradations, since Nemo repente fait turpissimus. Juv. It has ever been found that the greatest evils have insinuated themselves among men under the shadow and the specious appearance of some good. Let us then endeavour to trace the gradual and deceitful pro- gress of that depravity which produced war. It happened then, in primeval ages, when men, uncivilized and simple, went naked, and dwelt in the woods, without walls to defend, and without houses to shelter them, that they were sometimes attacked by the beasts of the forest. Against these, man first waged war ; and he was esteemed a valiant hero and an honourable chief, who repelled the attack of the beasts from the sons of men. Just and right it was to slaugh- ter them who would otherwise have slaughtered us, especially when they aggressed with spontaneous malice, unprovoked by all previous injury. A victory over the beasts was a high honour, and Hercules was deified for it. The rising generation glowed with a desire to emulate Hercules ; to signalize themselves by the slaughter of the noxious animals ; and they dis- played the skins which they brought from the forest, as trophies of their victory. Not satisfied with having laid their enemies at their feet, they took their skins as spoils, and clad themselves in the warm fur, to defend themselves from the rigour of the seasons. Such was the blood first shed by the hand of man, such was the occasion, and such the spoils. After this first step, men advanced still farther, and ventured to do that which Pythagoras condemned as 42 wicked and unnatural, and which would appear very wonderful to us, if the practice were not familiarized by custom ; which has such universal sway, that in some nations it has been deemed a virtuous act to knock a parent on the head, and to deprive him of life, from whom we received the precious gift ; in others it has been held a duty of religion to eat the flesh even of near and dear departed friends who had been con- nected by affinity ; it has been thought a laudable act to prostitute virgins to the people in the temple of Venus ; and custom has familiarized many other prac- tices still more absurd, at the very mention of which, every one is ready to pronounce them abominable. From these instances, it appears that there is nothing so wicked, nothing so atrocious, but it may be approved, if it has received the sanction of custom, the authority of fashion. From the slaughter of wild beasts, men proceed to eat them, to tear the flesh with their teeth, to drink their blood, and, as Ovid expresses it, to entomb dead animals in their own bowels. Custom and convenience soon reconciled the practice (animal slaughter and animal food) to the mildest disposition. The choicest dainties were made of animal food by the ingenuity of the culinary art ; and men, tempted by their palate, advanced a step farther : from noxious animals, which alone they had at first slaughtered for food, they proceeded to the tame, the harmless, and the useful. The poor sheep fell a. victim to this fero- cious appetite. ANIMAL SINE FRAUDE DOLOQXJE. The hare was doomed also to die, because his flesh was a dainty viand : nor did they spare the gentle ox, who had long sustained the ungrateful family by his 43 labours at the plough. No bird of the air, or fish of the waters, was suffered to escape ; and the tyranny of the palate went such lengths, that no living creature on the face of the globe was safe from the cruelty of man. Custom so far prevailed, that no slaughter was thought cruel, while it was confined to any kind of an- imals, and so long as it abstained from shedding the blood of man. Rut though we may prevent the admission of vices, as we may prevent the entrance of the sea : yet when once either of them is admitted, it is not in every one's power to say, " thus far shalt thou go, and no farther. ,, When once they are fairly entered, they are no longer under our command, but rush on uncontrouletf in the wild career of their own impetuosity. Thus, after the human mind had been once initiated in shedding blood, anger soon suggested, that one man might attack another with the fist, a club, a stone, and destroy the life of an enemy as easily as of a wild beast. To such obvious arms of offence, they had hitherto confined themselves : but they had learned from the habit of depriving cattle of life, that the life of man could be also taken away by the same means without difficulty. The cruel experiment was long restricted to single combat : one fell, and the battle was at an end : sometimes it happened that both fell : both, perhaps, proving themselves by this act unwor- thy of life. It now seemed to have an appearance even of justice, to have taken off an enemy ; and it soon was considered as an honour, if any one had put an end to a violent or mischievous wretch, such as a Cacus or Busiris, and delivered the world from such monsters in the human shape. Exploits of this kind Ave see also among the praises of Hercules. 44 But when single combatants met, their partisans, and all those, whom kindred, neighbourhood, or friend- ship, had connected with either of them, assembled to second their favourite. What would now be called a fray or a riot, was then a battle or a warlike action. Still, however, the affair was conducted with stones, or with sharp-pointed poles. A rivulet crossing the ground, or a rock opposing their progress, put an end to hostilities, and peace ensued. In process of time, the rancour of disagreeing par- ties increased, their resentments grew warmer, ambi- tion began to catch fire, and they contrived to give executive vigour to their furious passions, by the in- ventions of their ingenuity. Armour was therefore contrived, such as it was, to defend their persons; and weapons fabri7ated, to annoy and destroy the enemy. Now at last they began to attack each other in vari- ous quarters with greater numbers, and with artificial instruments of offence. Though this was evidently madness, yet false policy contrived that honour should be paid to it. They called it war ; and voted it valour and virtue, if any one, at the hazard of his own life, should repel those whom he had now made and con- sidered as the enemy, from their children, their wives, their cattle, and their domestic retreat. And thus the art of war keeping pace with the progress of civiliza- tion, they began to declare war in form, state with state, province with province, kingdom with kingdom. In this stage of the progress they had, indeed, ad- vanced to great degrees of cruelty, yet there still re- mained vestiges of native humanity. Previously to drawing the sword, satisfaction was demanded by a herald ; heaven was called to witness the justice of the cause, and even then, before the battle began, pacifi- 45 Ration was sought by the prelude of a parley. When at last the conflict commenced, they fought with the usual weapons, mutually allowed, and contended by dSht of personal valour, scorning the subterfuges of stratagem and the artifices of treachery. It was crimi- nal to aim a stroke at the enemy before the signal was given, or to continue the fight one moment after the commander had sounded a retreat. In a word, it was rather a contest of valour than a desire of carnage ; nor yet was the sword drawn, but against the inhabi- tants of a foreign country. Hence arose despotic government, of which there was none in any country, that was not procured by the copious effusion of human blood. Then followed con- tinual successions of wars, while one tyrant drove ano- ther from his throne, and claimed it for himself by right of conquest. Afterwards, when empire devolved to the most profligate of the human race, war was wan- tonly waged against any people, in any cause, to gratify the basest of passions ; nor were those who deserved ill of the lordly despot chiefly exposed to the danger of his invasions, but those who were rich or prosperous, and capable of affording ample plunder. The object of a battle was no longer empty glory, but sordid lucre, or something still more execrably flagitious. And I have no doubt, but that the sagacious mind of Pytha- goras foresaw all these evils, when, by his philosophi- cal fiction of transmigration, he endeavoured to deter the rude multitude from shedding the blood of ani- mals ; he saw it likely to happen, that a creature who, when provoked by no injury, should accustom himself to spill the blood of a harmless sheep, would not hesi- tate, when inflamed by anger, and stimulated by real injury, to kill a man. 46 Indeed, what is war but murder and theft, commit- ted by great numbers on great numbers ? The great- ness of numbers not only not extenuating its malignity, but rendering it the more wicked, in proportion as it is thus more extended, in its effects and its influence. But all this is laughed at as the dream of men un- acquainted with the world, by the stupid, ignorant, unfeeling grandees of our time, who, though they pos- sess nothing of man but the form, yet seem to them- selves little less than earthly divinities. From such beginnings, however, as I have here de- scribed, it is certain, man has arrived at such a degree of insanity, that war seems to be the grand business of human life. We are always at war, either in prepa- ration or in action. Nation rises against nation ; and what the Heathens would have reprobated as unnat- ural, relatives against their nearest kindred, brother against brother, son against father ! More atrocious still ; a christian against a man ! And worst of all, a christian against a christian ! And such is the blindness of human nature, that nobody feels astonishment at all this, nobody expresses detestation. There are thousands and tens of thousands ready to applaud it all, to extol it to the skies, to call transactions truly hellish, a holy war. There are many who spirit up princes to war, mad enough as they usually are of themselves ; yet are there many who are always adding fuel to their fire. One man mounts the pulpit, and promises remission of sins to all who will fight under the banner of his prince. Another exclaims, "O in- vincible prince, only keep your mind favourable to the cause of religion, and God will fight his own creatures for you." A third promises certain victory, perverting the words of the prophetical psalmist to the wicked 47 and unnatural purposes of war : " Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand ; but it shall not come nigh thee." — Psalm xci. The whole of this mystical Psalm is wrested to sig- nify something in favour of the most profane of all profane things, and to second the interested views of this or that earthly potentate. Both parties find such passages in the prophets or the psalmists on their own side ; and such interpreters of the prophets fail not to find their admirers, their applauders, and their fol- lowers. Such warlike sermons have we heard from the mouths of grave divines, and even of bishops. These men are, in fact, warriors ; they help on the cause. Decrepit as they are in person, they fight from the pulpit the battles of the prince, who, perhaps, raised them to their eminence. Priests fight, in fact, when they set others on to fight ; even Monks fight, and, in a business truly diabolical, dare to use the name and authority of Jesus Christ. Thus two armies shall meet in the field, both bear- ing before them the standard of the cross, which alone anight suggest to their minds, how the followers of Christ are to carry on their warfare, and to gain their victory. From the holy sacrament itself, in which the perfec t and unspeakable union of all christians is represented , these very christians shall march with eager haste to mutual slaughter, and make Christ himself both the spectator and instigator to a wickedness, no less against Nature than against the spirit of Christianity. For where, indeed, is the kingdom of the devil, if not in a 12 48 state ol' war ? Why do we drag Christ thither, who might, much more consistently with his doctrine, be present in a brothel than in a field of battle ? St. Paul expresses his indignation, that there should be even a hostile controversy or dispute among chris- tians ; he rather disapproves even litigation before a Judge and Jury. What would he have said, if he had seen us waging war all over the world ; waging war on the most trifling causes, with more ferocity than any of the Heathens, with more cruelty than any sav- ages ; led .on, exhorted, assisted by those who repre- sent a pontiff professing to be pacific, and to cement all Christendom under his influence ; and who salute the people committed to their charge with the phrase, " Peace be unto you 1" I am well aware w r hat a clamour those persons will raise against me, who reap a harvest from public ca- lamity. " We engage in war," they always say, u with reluctance, provoked by the aggression and the inju- ries of the enemy. We are only prosecuting our own lights. Whatever evil attends war, let those be re- sponsible for it who furnished the occasion of this war, a war to us just and necessary." But if they would hold their vociferous tongues a little while, I would shew, in a proper place, the futil- ity of their pretences, and take off the varnish with which they endeavour to disguise their mischievous iniquity. As I just now drew the portrait of man and the pic- ture of war, and compared one with the other, that is, compared an animal, the mildest in his nature, with an institution of the most barbarous kind ; and as I did this, that war might appear on the contrast in its own black colours, so now it is my intention to compare 49 war with peace, to compare a state most pregnant with misery, and most wicked in its origin, with a state pro- fuse of blessings, and contributing, in the highest de- gree, to the happiness of human nature ; it will then appear to be downright insanity, to go in search of war with so much disturbance, so much labour, so great profusion of blood and treasure, and at such a hazard after all, when with little labour, less expense, no bloodshed, and no risque, peace might be preserved inviolate. Now amidst all the good this world affords, what is more delightful to the heart of man, what more bene- ficial to society, than love and amity ? Nothing, surely. Yet what is peace, but love and amity subsisting be- tween great numbers ? And on the other hand, what is war, but hatred and enmity subsisting between great numbers ? But it is the nature of all good, that the more it is extended, the greater the good becomes, the more benign its influence ; therefore, if the ami- cable union of individuals is so sweet and so salutary how much will the sum total of happiness be augment- ed, if kingdom with kingdom, and nation with nation^ coalesce in this amicable union ? On the other hand 3 it is the nature of al! evil, that its malignity increases the more it is extended ; and, therefore, if it is wretch- ed, if it is wicked for one man to meet another with a sword pointed at his vitals, how much more wretched and more wicked, that thousands and tens of thousands should meet in the same manner ? By union, little things are augmented to a respectable magnitude ; by disunion, the greatest fall to insignificence and disso- lution. Peace is, indeed, at once the mother and the nurse of all that is good for man. War on a sudden, and at one stroke, overwhelms, extinguishes, abolishes. 50 whatever is cheerful, whatever is happy and beautiful., and pours a foul torrent of disasters on the life of mor- tals. Peace shines upon human affairs like the vernal sun. The fields are cultivated, the gardens bloom, the cattle are fed upon a thousand hills, new buildings arise, ancient edifices are repaired, riches flow, plea- sures smile, laws retain their vigour, the discipline of the police prevails, religion glows with ardour, justice bears sway, humanity and charity increase, arts and manufactures feel the genial warmth of encourage- ment, the gains of the poor are more plentiful, the op- ulence of the rich displays itself with addition^ splen- dour, liberal studies flourish, the young are well edu- cated, the old enjoy their ease, marriages are happy, good men thrive, and the bad are kept under control. But no sooner does the storm of war begin to lower, than what a deluge of miseries and misfortunes seizes* inundates, and overwhelms all things within the sphere of its action 1 The flocks are scattered, the harvest trampled, the husbandman butchered, villas and villa- ges burnt, cities and states, that have been ages rising to their flourishing state, subverted by the fuiy of one tempest, the storm of war. So much easier is the task of doing harm than of doing good, of destroying than of building up ! The earnings of honest industry, the wealth of quiet citizens are transferred to the pockets of execrable robbers and murderers. Private houses exhibit the dismal effects of fear, sorrow, and complaint; and all places resound with the voice of lamentation. The loom stands still ; the trowel, the axe, and the hammer are silent j and the poor manu- facturers must either starve, or have recourse to wick- ed practices for daily bread. The rich either deplore the .diminution and less of their property, or lie undSr 51 terrible apprehension for what remains ; in both cir- cumstances rendered by war incapable of enjoying the common comforts of life. Marriages are few, or attended with distressful and fatal consequences. -Matrons deserted by their husbands, now forced to the wars, pine at home in childless solitude. The laws are compelled to silence, charity is laughed at, justice has no dwelling-place, and religion becomes an object of scorn, till no distinction is left between the sacred and the profane. Youth is corrupted by every species of vice ; old men lament their longevity ; and their grey hairs descend with sorrow to the grave. No honour is paid to learning, sciences, arts, the elegant pursuits of liberal and honourable minds. In a word, more misery is felt from war than the eloquence of any man, much more than mine, is able to describe j yet it might be borne patiently, if war made us miser- able only, and did not corrupt our morals, and involve us in guilt ; if peace made us only happier, and not better. But the man who engages in war by choice, when he could have avoided it, that man, whoever he is, is a wicked man ; he sins against Nature, against God, against man, and is guilty of the most aggravated and complicated impiety. Too many, alas ! are the evils by which miserable mortality is of necessity tormented, worn out, and at last overwhelmed. Two thousand years ago, no fewer than three hundred names of dangerous diseases, be- sides their various species and degrees, were discov- ered by the physicians ; and every day, even now, new diseases arise. Old age itself is a disease, an incura- ble disease. We read of whole cities buried in ruins by earthquakes, or burnt to ashes by lightning, whole countries swallowed up in chasms occasioned by suD- 12* i3 terraneous convulsions, not to mention how many men are lost by casualties, which, by the frequency of their occurrence, cease to surprise ; how many are drowned in seas and rivers ; how many destroyed by poison, by- falling, by other accidents ; how many by intemperance in food, in drink, in sleep. The most trifling thing can deprive man of life. A grape-stone in the throat, a hair, a bone of a fish, has brought many to an untimely grave. Sudden joy has been fatal ; no wonder that grief has been so. Add to all this the plague, and pestilent, contagious fevers of various kinds, which frequently commit their ravages, without mercy or distinction, throughout a whole city or province. There is no quarter from which danger does not hang, as it were, by a hair over the life of man. Life itself, even if no accident shorten it, flies away with the swiftest velocity. Such and so great are the miseries of human life,that Homer did not hesitate to pronounce man,of all creatures to whom the breath of life had been given, the most miserable. But these evils, as they cannot easily be shunned, and fall on our heads without any fault of our own, make us, indeed, wretched, but do not ren- der us guilty. Nevertheless, why should those who are obnoxious to so many calamities, go voluntarily in quest of an adscititious evil, as if the measure of misery required to be full to the very brim, and to run over in quest of an evil, not a common evil, but an evil, of all human evils, the worst and the foulest ; so destructive an evil, that alone it exceeds them all in mischief ; so abundant in misery, that it comprehends every kind of wretch- edness within itself j so pestilential in its nature, that it loads men with guilt in proportion as it galls them with woe, rendering them, at the same time, objects $3 oi the greatest pity, yet unworthy of being pitied at ail ; uniess, indeed, it be those who, while they feel the misery with the greatest acutcncss of suffering, have the least concern in causing it, and would have pre- vented it, if they had possessed power corresponding with their innocent inclination ? To these considerations add, that the advantages derived from peace diffuse themselves far and wide, and reach great numbers; while in war,if any thing turns out happily, though, O my God, what can ever deserve the appellation of happy in war ! the advantage re- dounds only to a few, and those unworthy of reaping it. One man's safety is owing to the destruction of another ; one man's prize derived from the plunder of another. The cause of rejoicings made by one side, is to the other a cause of mourning. Whatever is unfortunate in war, is severely so indeed; and whatever, on the contrary, is called good fortune, is a savage and a cruel good fortune, an ungenerous happiness deriv- ing its existence from another's woe. Indeed, at the conclusion, it commonly happens, that both sides, the victorious and the vanquished, have cause to deplore.* I know not whether any war ever succeeded so fortu- nately in all its events, but that the conqueror, if he had a heart to feel or an understanding to judge, as he ought to do, repented that he ever engaged in it at all. Therefore, since peace is confessedly of all things the best and the happiest, and war, on the contrary, appears to be attended with the greatest possible dis- tress of every kind, and the blackest villany of which human nature is capable, can we think those men of sound mind or honest hearts, who, when they might enjoy the blessings of peace with little trouble, merely * The Cadmaean victory in the original. See Appendix. 54 by negociation, go out of their way, rush headlong into every difficulty and danger, to involve a whole people in the horrors of war ? How unpleasant, in the first place, to the unoffend- ing people, is the first rumour of war ! And in the next, how unpopular does it render the prince, when he is compelled to rob his own subjects by taxes upon taxes, and tribute upon tribute ! How much trouble and anxiety in forming and preserving alliances ! How much in engaging foreign troops, who are let out by their owners to fight for hire I How much expense, and, at the same time, solicitude, in fitting out fleets, in building or repairing forts, in manufacturing all kinds of camp equipage, in fabricating and transport- ing machines, armour, weapons, baggage, carriages, provisions ! What infinite fatigue in fortifying towns> digging trenches, excavating mines, in keeping watch and ward,in exercising, reviewing,manoeuvring,march- ing, and countermarching ! I say nothing of the con- stant state of fear and alarm, in which the people live ; I say nothing of the real danger to which they are per- petually exposed. Such is the uncertainty of war, that what is there not to be feared in it ? Who can enumerate the inconveniencies and hardships which they who foolishly go to war, ( Siultissimi myites, says Erasmus,) endure in a camp ? Deserving greater, be- cause they voluntarily undergo all that they suffer. Food such as a hog would loath ; beds which even a bug would disdain ; little sleep, and that little at the will of another; a tent exposed to every bitter blast that blows, and often not even a tent to shelter their cold limbs from the wind and the weather ! They must continue all night, as well as day, in the open air ; they must lie on the ground j they must stand in their 55 arms; they must bear hunger, cold, heat, dust, raiii ; they must be in a state of abject slavery to their lead- ers, even beaten with canes ! There is, indeed, no kind of slavery on earth more unworthy man, than the slav- ery of these poor wretches in unnecessary wars ! After all these hardships, comes the dreadful signal for en- gagement ! To death they must go ! They must cither slay without mercy, or fall without pity ! Such and so great are the evils which are submitted lo, in order to accomplish an end, itself a greater evil than all that have preceded in preparation for it. We thus afflict ourselves for the noble end of enabling our- selves to afflict others. If we were to calculate the matter fairly, and form a just computation of the cost attending war, and that of procuring peace, we should find that peace might be purchased at a tenth part of the cares, labours, troubles, dangers, expenses, and blood, which it costs to carry on a war. You lead a vast multitude of men into danger of losing their lives, in order to demolish some great city ; while the same labour and fatigue of these very men would build, •without any danger, a more magnificent city than the city doomed to demolition. But the object is to do all possible injury to an enemy. A most inhuman object, let me tell you ! And consider whether you can hurt him essentially, without hurting, at the same time, and by the same means, your own people. It surely is to act like a madman, to take to yourself so large a por- tion of certain evil, when it must ever be uncertain how the die of war may fall in the ultimate issue. But grant that the Heathens might be hurried into all this madness and folly by anger, by ambition, by avarice, by cruelty, or, which I am rather inclined to believe, by the furies sent from hell for that very pur- 56 pose ; yet how could it ever enter into our hearts, that a christian should imbrue his hands in the blood of a christian ? If a brother murder his brother, the crime is called fratricide ; but a christian is more closely- allied to a christian as such, than a brother by the ties of consanguinity, unless the bonds of Nature are stronger than the bonds of Christ, which christians, consistently with their faith, cannot allow. How absurd then is it, that they should be constantly at war with each other, who form but one family, the Church of Christ ; who are members of the same body ; who boast of the same head, even Jesus Christ ; who have one Father in heaven, common to them all ; who grow- in grace by the same spirit ; who are initiated in the same mysteries, redeemed by the same blood, regen- erated at the same font, nourished by the same holy sacrament, militate under the same great Captain of salvation, eat of the same bread, partake of the same cup, have one common enemy, the devil, and are all called to the same eternal inheritance? Where are there so many and so sacred obligations to perfect concord as in the christian religion? Where so numerous exhortations to peace ? One law Jesus Christ claimed as his own peculiar law, and it was the law of love or charity. What practice among mankind vio- lates this law so grossly as war ? Christ salutes his votaries with the happy omen of peace. To his dis- ciples he gives nothing but peace ; he leaves them no other legacy but peace. In his holy prayers, the sub- ject of his devout entreaty was principally, that, as he was one with the Father, so his disciples, that is to say, all christians might be one with him. This union is something more than peace, more than friendship, more than concord ; it is an intimate communion with the divine Nature. 37 Solomon Mas a type of Christ. But the word Sole - noon, in Hebrew, signifies the pacific. Solomon, on this account, because he was pacific, was chosen to build th« temple. David, though endeared by some virtues, was rejected as the builder of a temple, be- cause he had stained his hands in blood, because he was a sanguinary prince, because, in a word, he was a warrior. He was rejected for this, though the wars he carried on were against the wicked, and at the com- mand of God ; and though he, who afterwards abrogat- ed, in great measure, the laws of Moses, had not yet taught mankind that they ought to love their enemies. At the nativity of Jesus Christ, the angels sung not the glories of war, nor a song of triumph, but a hymn of peace. " Glory to God in the highest ; on earth, peace ; good will towards men." The mystic poet and prophet foretold before his birth, "Factus est in pace locus ejus." — Psalm lxxvi. 2. " In the city of peace. (Salem,) he made his dwelling- place ; there brake hi tT»e arrows of the bow, the shield, the sword, and the battle-axe." " He shall refrain the spirit of princes ; he is terri- ble to the kings of the earth." Examine every part of his doctrine, you will find nothing that does not breathe peace, speak the lan- guage of love, and savour of charity ; and as he knew that peace could not be preserved, unless those objects for which the world contends with the sword's point, were considered as vile and contemptible, he ordered us to learn of him to be meek and lowly. He pro- nounced those happy who held riches, and the daugh- ters of riches, pomp and pride, in no esteem ; for these he calls the poor in spirit, and these he has blessed. 58 lie pronounced those happy, who despised the plea- sures of the world ; for he says, blessed are the mourners, even they who patiently suffered themselves to be extruded from their possessions, knowing that our place of residence on earth is a place of exile, and that our true country and our best riches are in heav- en. He pronounced those happy, who, while deserving well of all, should be evil spoken of, and persecuted with ill-usage. He prohibited resistance of evil. In short, as the whole of his doctrine recommended for- bearance and love, so his life taught nothing but mild- ness, gentleness, and kind affection. Such was his reign ; thus did he wage war, thus he conquered, and thus he triumphed. Nor do the apostles inculcate any other doctrine ; they who had imbibed the purest spirit of Christ, and were filled with sacred draughts from the fountain head before it was polluted. What do all the epistles of St. Paul resound with but peace, but long-suffering, but charity ? What does St. John speak of, and repeat continually, but christian love ? What else St. Peter* What else all writers in the world who are truly christian ? Whence then the tumults of war among the children of peace ? Is it a mere fable, when Christ calls himself the vine, and his disciples the branches ? Who can conceive a branch divided against a branch of the same tree ? Or is it an unmeaning assertion, which St. Paul has repeatedly made, that the Church is one body, united in its many members, and adhering to one head, Jesus Christ? Whoever beheld the eye contend- ing with the hand, or the belly fighting against the foot? In the whole universe, consisting of pans so dis ant, there still continues a general harmony. In the animal body there is peace among all the members ; and with whatever excellence one member is endowed, it confines not the benefit to itself, but communicates it to all. If any evil happen to one member, the whole body affords its assistance. Can then the mere animal connexion of nature in a material body, formed soon to perish, effect more in preserving harmony, than the union of the spirit in a mystical and immortal body ? Is it without meaning, that we pray according to the command of Christ, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven ? In the kingdom of heaven there is perfect concord. But Christ intended, that his Church should be nothing less than a celestial community, a heaven upon earth ; men who belong to it living, as much as possible, according to the model of the heavenly king- dom, hastening thither, and feeling and acknowledging their whole dependence upon it for present and future felicity. Come then, and let us picture in imagination some stranger, either from those nations in the moon which Empcdocles inhabits, or those worlds which Democri- tus fabricated ; let us suppose him just arrived at this world of ours, and desirous of knowing what is going on here ; and when he has been informed of the vari- ous living creatures upon its surface, let him be told that there is one animal wonderfully composed of two distinct parts, of a body which he possesses in common with the brutes, of a mind which bears a semblance of the divine mind, and is the image of the Creator ; that he is so noble in his nature, that though here in a state of exile, yet has he dominion over all other animals ; that feeling his celestial origin, he is always aspiring 13 60 tit heaven and immortality ; that he is so dear to the eternal Deity, that since he was unable, either by the powers of Nature or the deductions of philosophy, to reach the excellence at which he aspired, the eternal Deity delegated his own Son to bring to him from heaven a new doctrine. Then, after the stranger should have heard the whole life of Christ, and become perfectly acquainted with his laws and precepts, let us suppose him to ascend some lofty pinnacle, whence he might see with his own eyes the things which he had heard by report concerning this noble animal, rational, christian, immortal man. When he should have seen all other animals living at peace with their own kind, guided by the laws of nature, and desiring nothing but what nature taught them to desire ; but at the same time observed, that there was one animal, and one alone, trafficking dis- honestly, intriguing treacherously, quarrelling and waging war with its own kind, would he not be apt t© suspect any of the other animals to be man, of whom he had heard so much, rather than that two-legged creature which is really man, thus perverted, as he would appear, from the state in which God made, and to which Christ came to restore him ? But suppose the stranger informed by some guide, that this animal is really man, he would next look about to find in what place these christian animals have fixed their abode, and where, following their divine Teacher, they are now exhibiting the model of an angelic community. Would he not imagine, that christians must choose their residence any where, rather than in countries where he sees so much superfluous opulence, luxury, lust, pride, indolence, tyranny, ambition, fraud, envy, angei', discord, quarrels, fightings, battles, wars, tii- mults, in a word) a more abominable sink of all that Christ condemns, than is to be found among the Turks and the Saracens ? The question then naturally arises, how this pesti- lence of war first insinuated itself among a christian people ? This evil, like most other evils, made its way by little and little among those who were off their guard. All evil, indeed, either gradually and invisibly creeps into the life of man, or forces its way under the disguise of seeming good. In the church militant, learning was the first auxil- iary engaged to fight for religion. It was a desirable ally, in a contest with heretics, who came to the combat armed with the literature of philosophers, poets, and orators. Indeed, in the earliest ages of Christianity, the professors of it did not arm themselves for defence even with learning, but relied on those converts, who brought the profane knowledge which they had acquir- ed before they had gained a knowledge of Christ, to the aid of piety and the christian cause. Next elo- quence, which had rather been concealed at first than despised, came openly forward, and was approved as an auxiliary. In process of time, under the pretence of defeating heretics, the vain ambition of ostentatious disputation crept into the Church, and became its bane. The matter proceeded so far, that Aristotle was admitted into the midst of the christian sanctuary, and admitted so implicitly, that bis authority carried with it a sanction paramount to the authority of Christ ; for if Christ had said any thing, that did not perfectly square with the received modes of conducting life, it was lawful to turn it a little, aside by an ingenious comment ; but the man did not dare to shew his head, who had presumed to oppose, in the slightest mamter, 62 the oracular edicts of the Stagirite. From him we learned, that the happiness of man could not be com- plete without the goods of the body and of fortune. From him we learned, that a state could not flourish in which was a christian equality. Every one of his dogmas we endeavoured to incorporate with the doc- trine of Christ, which is much the same as to attempt the commixture of water and fire. We admitted something also from the Roman laws, on account of the apparent equity which they displayed ; and that they might agree the better, we forced by violence, as far as we could, the doctrine of the gospel into a con- formity with these laws. But these laws permit us to repel force by force ; they allow every one to litigate ; they approve of all traffic ; they admit of usury, pro- vided it is moderate ; they extol war as glorious, pro- vided it is just ; and they define that war to be a just war which is declared so by any prince, though the prince be either a child or a fool. Lastly, The whole doctrine of Christ was by this time so adulterated by the learning of Heathen logicians, sophists, mathema- ticians, orators, poets, philosophers, and lawyers, that the greatest portion of life was necessarily consumed before time could be found to examine the mysterious learning of the gospel, to which, though men came at last, they could not but come tinged or prejudiced with so many worldly opinions, that the laws and pre- cepts of Christ eitker gave offence, or were made to bend to the dogmas preconceived in the schools of heathenism ; and this was so far from being disap- proved, that it was a crime for a man to speak of evan- gelical knowledge who had not plunged, as the phrase is, over head and ears in the nugatory and sophistical nonsense of Aristotle : as if the doctrine of Christ were of that kind which could not he adapted to the . degrees of intellect or attainments, or could by am means coalesce with the vain wisdom of mere human philosophy. After this, christians admitted among them some- thing of honourable distinctions, offered, indeed, at first as a voluntary tribute, but soon demanded as a debt to merit. So far there appeared nothing unrea- sonable. The next step was to admit riches, first to be distributed for the relief of the poor, and then for their own private use ; and why not, since that method- ical arrangement of duties was so on learnt, which sug- gested that charity begins at home, and that every man is to himself the nearest and dearest neighbour ? Nor was a pretext wanting for this deviation from christian disinterestedness. It was but natural to provide for children, and no more than right to look forward to approaching old age Why, indeed, should any man, said they, refuse riches if they fall to him honestly ? By these gradations, things came to such a pass, that he at last was thought the best man who was the richest man ; nor at any period was greater respect paid to riches among the Heathens than at this day among christians. For what is there, either sacred or profane, which is not governed among them by the despotism of money ? To all these extraneous embellishments or fancied improvements of original Christianity, it was now con- ceived, that it might not be amiss to add a little power. This also was admitted, but with an apparent modera- tion. In short, it was admitted upon these terms, that christians satisfied with the title and claim to power, should leave the thing itself to others' administration. At length, and by insensible degrees, the matter pro- 13* 64 i.ceded so far, that a bishop could not believe himself a bishop in earnest, unless he possessed a little particle of worldly power. And the inferior clergy, if beneficed, thought themselves dishonoured, if, with all their ho- liness, they could not possess at least as much weight and influence as the profane grandees, who lorded it over the earth with ungodly rule. In the ultimate stage of the progress, christians put ?, bold face upon the matter, banished every childish blush, and broke down every bar of modesty and mod- eration. Whatever, at any time, there has been of avarice, whatever of ambition, whatever of luxury, whatever of pomp and pride, whatever of despotism among the poor Heathens, the whole of it, however enormous, the christians now imitated, equalled, and surpassed. But to wave more trifling articles, did the Heathens, at any period of their history, carry on war either so continually or more cruelly, than it has been carried on, in all ages, among christians ? How many pitiless storms of war, how many treaties broken, how much slaughter and devastation have we seen only within the few years just elapsed ? What nation in ail Chris- tendom which has not drawn the sword on its neigh- bour ? Christians, after all, revile unbelievers, as if there could be a more pleasing and diverting spectacle to unbelievers, than that which we christians every day exhibit to them by our mutual slaughter. Xerxes was stark mad when he led on that immense multitude to invade Greece. Could he be otherwise than mad, who sent letters menacing Mount Athos with ven- geance, if it should not give way and yield him a pas- sage ; who ordered the Hellespont to be whipped with scourges, because it did not smooth its waters to facil- £5 itate the transportation of his vessels ? Alexander the Great was stark mad ; no man ever denied it ; ho thought himself a demigod, and wished for more worlds to conquer ; so ardently did he burn with a feverish thirst for glory. And yet these two persons, whom Seneca does not hesitate to call robbers as well as madmen, conducted war with more humanity than we ; conducted war with more good faith ; they fought not with weapons so unnaturally, so ingeniously cruel, nor with similar contrivances for mischief, nor on so frivolous pretences, as w r e, the followers of Jesus Christ. If you review r the history of the Heathen na- tions, how many chieftains will you find who declined engaging in war, by every studied means of reconcila- tion, who chose rather to win over an enemy by kind- ness, than to subdue him by arms ? Some even pre- ferred the cession of a principality to running the haz- ard of war. We, pseudo-christians or christians only in name, eagerly seize every trifle, that can possibly serve as an occasion of war, The Heathen warriors, before they came to blows, had recourse to conference. Among the Romans, after every expedient had been tried in vain to preserve peace, a herald was dispatch- ed with many formalities ; certain preliminary cere- monies were gone through, and delays thus industri- ously contrived, to temper the fury of the first onset. And even after this prelude was finished, no soldier durst begin the battle till the signal was given ; and the signal was contrived to be given in such a manner, that no one could know the exact time of it, but all waited for it patiently ; nor, after the signal was once heard, was it lawful for any man to attack or strike the enemy, who had not taken the military oath. The elder Cato actually sent orders to his own son, wlTo 66 was loitering in the camp, but had not taken the oati;* to return to Rome ; or if he chose rather to remain with the army, to ask permission of the general to engage the enemy. As the signal for engagement did not give liberty to fight to any but those who had taken the oath, so the signal once sounded for retreat imme- diately deprived every soldier of the liberty to kill a single individual in the enemy's army. The great Cyrus publicly honoured with his praise, a private soldier, who, though he had lifted updiis sword to cut down one of the enemy, instantly withdrew it, and spared the foe, on hearing the signal for cessation of battle. This was so ordered by the Heathens in their wars, that no man might imagine himself at liberty to slay a fellow-creature, unless compelled by una- voidable necessity. Now, among christians, the man is esteemed a brave fellow, who, meeting one of the nation with whom he is at war in a wood, unarmed, but laden with money ; not intending to fight, but endeavouring to make his escape, lest he should be forced to fight; slays him, robs him when slain, and buries him when robbed. Those also are called soldiers, who, incited with the hope of a little paltry gain, eagerly hasten as volun- teers 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 be only puts to death those who are found guilty, and condemned by the laws of his coun- try, while, at the same time, men who, forsaking their hi parents, their wives, and their children, rush as volun- teers or privateers into the war, not hired, but ambi- tious 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 civilization ; 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 68 keen conquered. How many things are handed down to us by tradition, which they said wisely, or acted hu- manely 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 imi- tate, in that alone we exceed them. It may now be worth while to observe in what man- ner 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 ©f their hearts. 61) 13 nt since the time that Jesus Christ said, Put Op thy sword into its scabbard, christians ought not 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 nei- ther 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, 70 very soon after denied and renounced that Master. If Peter is to be our model, and if we are so much pleas- ed with the example of Peter fighting for Christ, we may probably approve also the example of Peter deny- ing Christ. Peter, in using his sword, only made a slip in con- sequence 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 tenor of his whoie life and doctrine teaches nothing else but forbearance ? Why, when he commissioned his disci- ples, 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 sol- dier to fight, just as it is for a butcher to practise his trade for a livelihood, since the one has served an ap- prenticeship 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 char- acter 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 n gvcr, and superintend by their counsels, all its ©peti- tions. They would rot, 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 sw r ord ; a scrip to provide against hunger, and a sword :o guard against enemies. These precepts, nevertheless, §uch 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 admoni- tions about defence and provision, it must be remem- bered, 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 them- selves, that their conduct is justifiable and reconcilable 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 Christ ; and as if we were afraid the avarice of mortals should relax a little of its labours in heaping up riches, we make Christ the adviser and abettor of covetousness, misinterpreting the other part of his words, the scrip, as if he perpetually prescribed, and did not only and merely permit for a particular occa- sion, what he had before most peremtorily interdicted, 14 72 •when he said, Do good to them that hate you, und take no thought for the morrow. The world had its own laws and its own established practices before the gospel appeared ; it punished with death, it waged war, it heaped up pelf, both into the public treasury and into the private coffer ; it wanted not to be taught what it already knew and practised. Our Lord did not come to tell the world what enormity was permitted, how far we might deviate from the Taws of rectitude, but to shew us the point of perfec- tion at which we were to aim with the utmost of our ability. They, however, who warmly dissuade mankind from war, are suspected of heresy, while they who by artful salvoes and quibbles contrive to dilute the strength of the gospel,and who find out plausible pretexts by which princes may gratify their lust for war and plunder, without appearing to act too openly against gospel principles, are deemed orthodox divines, and teachers of true evangelical religion ; whereas, a true christian teacher or preacher, never can give his approbation to war ; he may, perhaps, on some occasions, connive at it, but not without grief and reluctance. But they urge, that the laws of nature, the laws of society, and the laws of custom and usage, conspire in dictating the propriety of repelling force by force, and defending life — and money too, which, as Hesiod says, is to some persons as dear as life. So much I allow. But gospel grace, of more force than all these laws, declares, in decisive words, that those who revile us, we must not revile again ; that we must do good to them who use us ill ; that to those who take a part of our possessions, we should give up the whole ; and that we should also pray for them who design to take away our lives. All this, they tell us, had a particular reference to the apostles; but I contend, that it also refers to all christian people, to the whole body which should be entire and perfect, though one member may have been formerly distinguished by some particular pre-eminence. The doctrine of Christ can, indeed, have no reference to them, who do not expect theiv' reward with Christ. Let those draw swords for money, for land, and for power, who laugh at Christ's saying, that the poor in spirit were the happy men ; that is, that those were the truly rich, who desired none of this world's riches or honours. They who place the chief good in things like these, fight for their lives ; but then they are of that description of persons, who are not sensible that this life is a kind of death, and that to the godly there is provided a treasure in heaven, a happy immortality. They object to us, that there have been Roman pontiffs who authorized war, and took an active part in it. They farther object those opinions or decrees of the fathers, in which war seems to be approved. Of this sort there are some, but they are only among the later writers, who appeared when the true spirit of Christianity began to languish ; and they are very few ; while, on the other hand, there are innumerable ones among writers of acknowledged sanctity, which absolutely forbid war. Why do the few rather thai' the many obtrude themselves into our minds ? Why do we turn our eyes from Christ to men, and choose rather to follow examples of doubtful authority, than an infallible guide, the Author and Finisher of ol\r faith ? The Roman pontiffs were but men ; and it ma;. have happened, that they were ill-advised, that they were inattentive, and lastly, that they were not over 74 laden either with wisdom or piety ; though, indeed, you will not find, even among such as these, that those kinds of war in which we are continually engaged were countenanced ; a point which I could evince by the /clearest arguments, if I did not wish to dwell no longer on this part of the debate. Bernard, indeed, has praised warriors ; but praised them in such a manner as to condemn, at the same time, the whole of our war system. But why should } care about the writings of Bernard, or the disputa- tions of Thomas, when I have before my eyes the ab- solute prohibition of Christ, who in plain terms has told us, we must not resist evil ; that is to say, not in the manner in which the generality of mankind do resist it, by violence and murder. But they proceed to argue, that as it is lawful to inflict punishment on an individual delinquent, it must also be lawful to take vengeance on an offending state. The full answer to be given to this argument would involve me in greater prolixity than is now requisite. I will only say, that the two cases differ widely in this respect. He who is convicted judicially suffers the punishment which the laws impose ; but in war, each side treats the other side as guilty, and proceeds to inflict punishment, regardless of law, judge, or jury. In the former case, the evil one falls on him who com- mitted the wrong ; the benefit of the example redounds to ail. In the latter case, the greatest part of the very numerous evils falls on those who deserve no evil at all ; on husbandmen, on old people, on mothers of families, on orphans, and on defenceless young females. But if any good at all can be gathered from a thing, Which is itself the worst of all things, the whole of that good devolves to the share of a few most profligate 75 robbers, to the mercenary pillager, to the piratical privateer, perhaps to a very few generals or statesmen, by whose intrigues the war was excited for this very purpose, and who never thrive so well as in the wreck of the republic. In the former case, one man suffers for the sake of all ; in the latter case, in order to re- venge or serve the cause of a few, and, perhaps, of one man only, we cruelly afflict many thousand per- sons, who gave no offence and did no injury. It would be better to let the crime of a few go unpunished!, than while we endeavour to chastise one or two by war, in which, perhaps, we may not succeed to involve our own people, the neighbouring people, and the in- nocent part of the enemies, for so I may call the mul- titude, in certain calamity. It is better to let a wound alone, which cannot be healed without injury to the whole body. But if any one should exclaim, " That it would be unjust, that he who has offended should not suffer condign punishment," I answer, that it is much more unjust, that so many thousand innocent persons should be called to share the utmost extremity of misfortune which they could not possibly have de- served. In these times, indeed, we see almost every war which breaks out, deriving its origin from some nuga- tory and absolete pretence, or from the ambitious con- federacies of princes, who, in order to bring some con- tested petty town under their jurisdiction,lead the whole empire into extreme jeopardy. After- all, this petty town or inconsiderable object, whatever it may be, claimed at the expense of much blood and treasure, is sold or ceded at the return of peace. Some one will say, would you not have princes prosecute their just rights ? I am sensible, that it is not the business of !4* persons like me to dispute too freely upon the rights of princes, which, were it safe, would involve me in a longer discourse than would suit the present occasion. I will only say, that if every claim or disputable title be a sufficient cause for undertaking a Avar, that it is likely, in the multitudinous changes and chances of human affairs, a claim or disputable title will never be wanting for the purpose. What nation is there, that has not been driven from some part of its territories, and which has not in its turn driven others ? How often have men emigrated from one quarter to another ? How often has the seat of empire been transferred hither and thither, either by chance or by general con- sent ? Now let the people of modern Padua, for in- stance, go and claim the territory of Troy, because Antenor, their founder, was a Trojan. Let the mod- ern Romans put in their claim to Africa and Spain, because some of their provinces formerly belonged to the Romans of antiquity, their forefathers. Add to this, that we are apt to call that dominion, or absolute property, which is only administration, or executive government on trust. There cannot be the same absolute right over men, all free by nature, as there is over cattle. This very right which you pos- sess, limited as it is, was given you by the consent of the people. They who gave, unless I am mistaken, ^;an take away. Now see how trifling a matter to the people is the subject in dispute. The point of contest 5s, not that this or that state may become subject to a ^ood prince rather than to a bad one ; but whether it .should be given up as property to the claim of Fer- dinand, or to the claim of Sigismund ; whether it should^ ^>ay tribute to Philip, or to Louis. This is that great and mighty right, for the establishment of which, the 77 whole world is to be involved in one scene of war, cor fusion, and bloodshed. But be it so ; let this right be estimated as highly as you please ; let there be no difference between the right to a man's private farm and to the public state ; no difference between cattle bought with your own money, and men, not only born free, but become christians ; yet it would be # the part of a wise man to weigh well in his mind, whether this right is of so much value as that he ought to prosecute it, at the expense of that immensity of calamities, which must be brought by the prosecution of it, on his own people, on those who are placed under his tutelary care, and for whose good he wears the crown. If, in forming this estimate, you cannot display the generosity of a truly princely character, yet, at least., shew us the shrewdness of a cunning tradesman, that knows and pursues his own interest. The tradesman despises a loss, if he sees it cannot be avoided without a greater loss ; and sets it down as clear gain, if he can escape a dangerous risk at a trifling expense. There is a trite little story, that exhibits an example in private life, which it might not be amiss to follow, when the State is in danger of involving itself in war. There were two near relations, who could not agree on the division of some property which devolved to them ; neither of them would yield to the other, and there seemed to be no possibility of avoiding a suit at law, and leaving the matter to be decided by the ver- dict of a jury. Counsel were retained, the process commenced, and the whole affair was in the hands of the lawyers. The cause was just on the point of being brought on, or in other words, war was declared. At re this period, one of the parties sent for his opponent? and addressed him to the following purpose : " In the first place," said he, " it is certainly unbe- coming, to speak in the most tender terms of it, that two persons, united like us by nature, should be dis- severed by interest. In the second place, the event of a law-suit is no less uncertain than the event of war. To engage in it, indeed, is in our own power ; to put an end to it, is not so. Now the whole matter in dis- pute is one hundred pieces of gold. Twice that sum must be expended on notaries, on attornies, on coun- sellors, on the judges and their friends, if we go to law about it. We must court, flatter, and fee them ; no£ to mention the trouble of dancing attendance, and paying our most obsequious respects to them. In a •word, there is more cost than worship in the business, more harm than good, and, therefore, I hope this con- sideration will weigh with you to give up all thoughts of a law-suit. Let us be wise for ourselves, rather than those plunderers ; and the money that would be ill-bestowed on them, let us divide between ourselves. Do you give me one moiety from your share, and I will give you the same from mine. Thus we shall be clear gainers in point of love and friendship, which we should otherwise lose; and we shall escape all the trouble. But if you do not choose to yield any thing to me, wh; then, and in that case, I cheerfully resign the whole to you, and you shall do just as you please with it. I had rather the money should be in the bands of a friend, than in the clutches of those insatia- ble robbers. I shall have made profit enough by the bargain, if I shall have saved my character, kept my friend, and avoided the plague of a law-suit," 79 The justice of these remarks, and the good humour with Which they were made, overcame the adversary. They, therefore, settled the business among themselves, and left the poor lawyers in a rage, gaping like so many rooks for the prey that had just escaped their hungry maws. In the infinitely more hazardous concerns of war, let statesmen condescend to imitate this instance of discretion. Let them not view merely the object which they wish to obtain, but how great a loss of good things, how many and great dangers, and what dread- ful calamities they are sure of incurring, in trying to obtain it ; and if they find, upon holding the scales with an even hand, and carefully weighing the advan- tages with the disadvantages, that peace, even with some circumstances of injustice, is better than a just war, why should they choose to risk the die of battle ? Who but a madman, would angle for a vile fish with a hook of gold ? If they see much more loss than gain in balancing the account, even on the supposition that every thing happens fortunately, would it not be better to recede a little from their strict and rigorous right, than to purchase a little advantage at the high price of eviis at once undefined and innumerable ? Let the possessors keep their obsolete claims and titles unmo- lested, if I cannot dispute them without so great a loss of christian blood 1 The reigning prince has, probably, possessed his doubtful right many years ; he has ac- customed his people to his reins ; he is known and acknowledged by them ; he is executing the princely functions ; and shall some pretender start up, and having found an old title in antiquated chronicles or musty parchments, go and disturb the state that is quietly settled, and turn every thing, as the phrase is, so topsy-turvy, especially when we see, that there is no- thing among mortals which remains fixed and stable? but every thing, in its turn, becomes the sport of for- tunes, and ebbs and flows like the tide ? What end ean it answer to claim, with such mischievous and tumultuary proceedings, what, after it is claimed and obtained, will soon change hands, and find its way to another claimant, and to some unborn proprietor ? But supposing christians unable to despise, as they certainly ought, such trifles, yet why, on the breaking out of a dispute, must they rush instantly to arms ? The world has so many grave and learned bishops, so many venerable churchmen of all ranks, so many grey-headed grandees, whom long experience has rendered sage, so many councils, so many senates, certainly instituted by our ancestors for some useful purpose ; why is not recourse had to their authority* and the childish quarrels of princes settled by their wise and decisive arbitration ? But more respect is paid to the specious language of the princes themselves, who cry out, " religion is in danger," and that they go to war to defend the Church, as if the people at large were not the prince's church, or as if the whole dignity or value of the church consisted in the revenues of the priesthood, or as if the church rose, flourished, and became firmly established in the world by war and slaughter, and not rather by the blood of the martyrs, by bearing and forbearing, and by a contempt for life, in competition with duty and conscience. I, for one, do not approve the frequent holy wars which we make upon the Turks. Ill would it fare with the christian religion, if its preservation in the world depended on such support ; nor is it reasonable 81 to believe, that good christians will ever be made b) such initiation into their religion as force and slaughter. What is gained to the cause by the sword, may in its turn be lost by the sword. Would you convert the Turks to Christianity, shew them not your riches, your troops of soldiers, your power to conquer, your pre- tended title to their dominions, but shew them the in- fallible credentials of a christian, an innocent life, a desire to do good even to enemies, an invincible pa- tience under all kinds of injuries, a contempt for money, a disregard of glory, a life itself little valued, and then point out to them the heaven-taught doctrine which leads to such a conduct, and requires such a life ; these are the arms by which unbelievers are best subdued. As we now go on, we engage in the field of battle on equal terms, the wicked with the wicked, and our religion is no better than their own. I will say more, and I wish I said it with greater boldness than truth : if we drop the name of christians and the banner of the cross, we are no better than Turks fighting against our brother Turks. If our religion was instituted by troops of soldiers, established by the sword, and disseminated by war, then, indeed, let us go on to defend it by the same means by which it was introduced and propagated. But if, on the con- trary, it was begun, established, and disseminated by methods totally different, why do we have recourse, as if we were afraid to rely on the aid of Christ, to the practices of the poor Heathens, for succour and defence of the christian cause ? But the objector repeats, " Why may I not go and cut the throats of those who would cut our throats if they could ?" Do you then consider it as a disgrace, that any should be wickeder than you ? Why do you 82 not go and rob thieves ? They would rob you if they could. Why do you not revile them that revile you? Why do you not hate them that hate you ? Do you consider it as a noble exploit for a christian, having killed in war those whom he thinks wicked, but who still are men for whom Christ died, thus to offer up victims most acceptable to the devil, and to delight that grand enemy in two instances : first, that a man is slain at all ; and secondly, that the man who slew him is a christian ? There are many people, who, while they set up for better christians than their neighbours, and wish t© appear men of extraordinary zeal and piety, endeavour to do as -much evil as they possibly can to an unbe- lieving nation ; and what evil they forbear to inflict, solely because they want tljie power, they make up for by hearty curses and imprecations ; whereas, this con- duct alone is sufficient to prove any man to be no christian at all. Others again, desirous of seeming outrageously orthodox, call down the most dreadful curses on the heads of those whom we name heretics, though they themselves prove by this very conduct, that they are worthier of that appellation. He that would pass for a truly orthodox christian, must en- deavour,by mild methods and mild methods aloncto re- claim those who err, from the error of their ways, and bring them into the paths of peace. We spit our spite against infidels, and think, by so doing, that we are perfectly good christians ; perhaps, at the same time, more abominable for the very act, in the sight of God, than the infidels themselves, the objects of our rancour. If the ancient and primitive preachers of the gospel, had felt sentiments as bitterly hostile against us before our conversion as we do 85 against the infidels of our time, where should we have been, who, in consequence of their patience and for- bearance, are now existing christians ? Assist the poor infidels in their misfortune of infidelity; make them, by instruction and example, pious, wherever they are now the contrary, and I will acknowledge your chris- tian disposition, your benevolent views, and your sound orthodoxy. There are a great many orders of mendicant Monks in the world, who wish to be thought the pillars of the Church. How few, among so many thousands, who would risk their lives to propagate the christian re- ligion ! But, say they, they have no hope of success, if they were to attempt it. But I say, there would be the best grounded hopes of it, if they would bring into action the manners of their founders and ancestors, Dominic and Francis, who, I believe, had an unfeigned contempt for this world, not to dwell upon their truly apostolical lives and conversations. We should not want even miracles, if the cause of Christ now required them. But, after all, those who boast themselves to be the vicars and successors of St. Peter, the great institutor of the Church, and of the other apostle6, place their whole trust in the arm of flesh, in sup- ports merely human, in fleets and in armies alone. These rigid professors of the true religion, live in cities flowing with riches and abandoned to luxury, where they stand a chance of becoming corrupt them- selves, rather than of correcting the manners of others ; and where there is plenty of pastors to instruct the people, and of priests to sing praises to God. They live in the courts of princes, where they behave in a 15 84 manner which I shall not at present minutely relate.* They hunt legacies ; they go in quest of filthy lucre ; they make themselves subservient to the purposes of despots ; and lest they should appear not to labour in their vocation,they stigmatize erroneous articles of faith, they mark persons who are suspected, who give offence, who are guilty of want of respect to themselves, of heresy and of schism. For they had rather bear rule and possess power, though to the injury of Christ's people, than at any the least risk of their own ease or safety, extend the rule, the power, and the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Now those whom we call Turks, are, in some respects, half christians, and, perhaps, approach nearer to genuine Christianity than most of ourselves. For how many among us are there, who neither believe the resurrection of the body, nor that the soul survives the body's dissolution ? And yet, with what vindictive rage do these men, when in authority, rise up to pun- ish some little heretical wretch, who has had the au- dacity to doubt whether the Roman pontiff has any jurisdiction over the souls, that lie in torment in pur- gatory. Let us first cast the beam out of our own eye, then shall we see to cast the mote out of our brother's eye. The end of the gospel is, to produce morals worthy of the gospel. Why do we urge those points * The original adds, " Where they are like cams in balneo> x dog in a bath." This was a proverbial expression, applied to persons who intrude where they are not welcome, or where they stand in the way and are troublesome. It is an ancient Greek proverb, ti koivov jcum h*i fi.*h*\>ua> > quid cani et balneo 5 Quadrabitin eos qui ad rem quampiain prorsus sunt inutile* ; ut in balneo mulus est omnino canum usus. We .:><' \ dog in a church. Calefin- If which have no reference to melioration ot morale, while, if you take away morals, the pillars of the faith, the whole fabric falls to the ground at once ? In fine, who will hclieve us, while we hold up the cross, and use the name of the gospel, and at the same time, our whole life and conversation exhihits nothing but a love of the world ? Besides, Christ, in whom there was no failing or defect, did not quench the smoaking flax, nor break the bruised reed, as the prophecy ex- presses it, but particularly bears with and cherishes whatever is imperfect, till it improves and makes gradual advances towards perfection. We are ready to extirpate all Asia and Africa with the sword, though there are many there either almost or altogether christians, such as we profess ourselves to be : why do we not rather acknowledge the latter, and kindly encourage and improve the former? But if our real intention is only to extend dominion, if we are only opening our voracious jaws to swallow up their riches, why do we add the name of Christ to a purpose so vile, so wicked, and so profane ? Is there not a possi- bility) that while we christians are attacking these un- believers by human force alone, the territory allotted to us, in the partition of the globe, may be in danger I How narrow a corner of the world do we possess ? What a multitude of foreign enemies do we, so few in number, rashly provoke? But some man will say, * If God be with us, who shall be against us ?"• And that man may very properly say so, who relies on such succours and on such alone, as God affords and ap- proves. But to those who rely on other succours, what will our great Captain Jesus Christ say ? He has already said, he who takes the sword, shall perish by the sword. 86 If we are willing to conquer for Christ, let us buckle on the sword of the gospel ; let us put on the helmet of salvation, grasp the shield of faith, and be com- pletely clad in apostolical armour, the panoply of heaven. Then will it come to pass, that we shall tri- umph even in defeat, and when routed in the field, still bear away the palm of a most glorious victory. But suppose the hazardous chance of war to turn out favourably to us, who ever found, that men were made true christians by fire and sword, bloodshed and plunder ? And there is less harm in being openly and honestly a Turk or a Jew, than in being an hypocriti- cal, a pretended, a nominal christian. Still we must, you say, endeavour to ward off the violence of aggressors from our own heads. But why do we provoke their violence, by fomenting feuds and animosities among ourselves, and widening the breach with them ? They will not be very fond of invading us, if we are united at home ; and they will sooner be converted to the faith by our kind offices, if their lives are sure of being saved, than if they are harshly treated and threatened with extermination. I prefer an unbe- liever in his native colours, to a false christian painted and varnished over with hypocrisy. It is our business to sow the seed of Christianity, and Christ himself will give the increase. The harvest is plentiful, if the labourers are not few. And yet, in order to make a few pretended christians of unbelievers, how many good christians shall we render bad ones, and how many bad ones worse ? For what else can be the con- sequence of wars and tumults ? I would not suspect for a moment, which has, however, often been the case, that a war against an unbelieving nation is made a mere pretext for picking the pockets of christian 87 people ; that thus oppressed by every means, and quite broken down, they may, with more servility, submit their necks to the yoke of despotical rulers* both civil and ecclesiastical. I do not say this with an intent to condemn entirely an expedition against unbelievers, it they attack us unprovoked ; but that we may carry on a war, to which we pretend Christ incites us, with such arms as Christ has furnished and approved, to overcome evil with good. Let the unbelievers be made sensible, that they are invited by us to safety and salvation, and not attacked for the purpose of plunder. Let us carry to them morals worthy of the gospel ; and if we are not qualifi- ed, or have no opportunity to address them with our tongues, let us remember, that our lives and our be- haviour speak the most forcible language, and the most persuasive eloquence. Let us carry to them a creed or profession of faith, simple, truly apostolical, and not overladen with so many articles superadded by human contrivance. Let us require of them prin- cipally those things which are clearly and openly handed down by the sacred volumes, and in the writ- ings of the apostles. The fewer the articles the easier the consent ; and union will still more effectually be promoted, if on most of the articles, every one shall be allowed to put what construction he pleases, pro- vided he does not enter into a controversy that breaks the public peace. It is a truth to be lamented rather than denied, that if any one examines the matter carefully and faithfully, he will find almost all the wars of christians to have originated either in folly or in wickedness. First, in folly ; as for instance, young men born to rule, totally unacquainted with themselves and the world about 15* 88 ..hem, have been inflamed with the love ot martial glory, by the bad examples of their forefathers, and the silly stories of heroes, as they arc called, in which foolish writers have trumpetted the fame of foolish princes. Raw striplings like these upon thrones, thus inflamed with false glory in the first instance, and in the next, instigated by surrounding flatterers, stimu- lated by lawyers and divines ; bishops themselves either assenting or conniving, perhaps, even requiring them to go and take the sword as a duty incumbent ; such as these, engage in war with all the rashness of folly, rather than the malignity of intentional guilt They at last buy experience, which costs the world very dear, and find that war is a thing which, above all things, they ought to have avoided. A secret grudge urges one fool, ambition another, native cruelty and ferocity of disposition a third, to the horrid work of war. Our Iliad, or history of war, like Homer's Iliad, contains, as Horace says, nothing but a history of the wrath of silly kings, and of people as silly as they. Next, as I said, our wars arise from wicked- ness. There are kings who go to war for no other reason,* than that they may with greater ease establish despotic authority over their own subjects at home. For in time of peace, the power of parliaments, the dignity of magistrates, the vigor of the laws, are great imped- iments to a prince who wishes to exercise arbitrary- power. But when once a war is undertaken, the chief management devolves to a few, who call them- selves the ministers of executive government, and who, for the general safety, assume the privilege" of conducting every thing according to their own humour, demanding unlimited confidence from the people, and 89 the profoundest secresy. Thf.sc persons, in such a conjuncture, who arc the prince's favourites, are all exulted to places of honour and profit ; and thos< whom the prince dislikes are turned off and neglected, as forming; a dangerous opposition. Now is the time for raising as much money as their hearts can wish. In short, now is the time when they feel that they are monarchs not in name only, but in very deed and truth, monarchs with a vengeance ! In the mean time, the leaders play into one another's hands, till they have eaten up the poor people root and branch. Do you think, that men of such dispositions would be back ward to seize any, the slightest occasion of war, so lucrative, so flattering to avarice and ambition ? In the mean time we give cur evil disposition r. plausible name. For instance, I long for some of the Turk's riches, and I cloak my real motive by calling it a zeal for the defence of religion. I burn with hatred and malice, and I cloak them with a pretended regard for the rights of the Church. I mean only to gratify my ambition and anger, or I am hurried on by the impetuosity of my own temper; but I take cure to allege as a cause for taking up arms, that some treaty has been broken, some of my allies injured or insulted, some contract not performed, or any other paltry, yet colourable pretence for a rupture. * After all, it is surprising to think how these persons are disappointed in the real objects of their hearts ; and while they are striving by wrong methods to shun this or that evil, fall into another, or even the same evil rendered still worse. For if they are led on by the love of glory, is it not much more glorious to save than to destroy, to build than to demolish ? Then, though every thing should succeed most prosperously 90 in war, yet how small a pittance of glory falls to the prince's share ! The people, whose money pays for it all, certainly claim a just part of the glory ; the foreign soldier, hired for the business of the battles, demands a still greater ; the generals some of it, and fortune the largest portion of all ; for as she has great influence in all human affairs, so more particularly does she domineer in all the events of war. Now if greatness of mind, as you pretend, stimu- lates to war, consider how little consistent is the con- duct you pursue, with so noble a quality. For while this greatness of mind forbids you to yield to some in- dividual, perhaps, a neighbouring prince, perhaps, re- lated to you by marriage, perhaps, one who has deserv- ed well of you formerly ; how abject a suppliant you make yourself, while you condescend to solicit the auxiliary aid of barbarians against him, and what is baser still, the co-operation of men polluted with every kind of flagitiousness ; if brutes like them, deserve to retain the appellation of men, while you condescend to promise, to flatter, and conjole a set of abandoned wretches, murderers, and thieves, by whom the meas- ures of war are principally carried into execution ? While you wish to bully your equal, you are obliged to fawn and cringe to the lowest wretches, the offscour- ing and dregs of the human race. While you are endeavouring to extrude a neighbour from his proper dominions, you are obliged to admit into your own realm the basest tribe ot knaves and varlets. You will not trust yourself to a relation by marriage ; but yon hesitate not to resign your cause into the hands of armed banditti. As to your safety, how much safer would you be, by establishing and preserving concord ! If gain is 91 your object, take your pen and ink and make the cal- culation. I give you leave to adopt Avar, if it shall not appear on a fair calculation, that you are in pur- suit of an uncertain profit, at a certain loss not to be estimated ; in pursuit of a profit not only less in amount than the certain loss, but also doubtful whether it will ever be obtained at all. But you are consulting the welfare of the State, not your own ; let me tell you, that States are ruined in no way so expeditiously, and so much without remedy, as by war. Before you have struck a stroke, you have hurt your country njlood spilt in war ; we have given pleasure enough 94 to the enemy of the christian name ; but if the people, the rude and uninstructed people, are still disposed to riot and tumult, to disorder and war, let them be re- strained by their own respective princes, who ought to be, in the State, what the eye is in the body and reason in the soul. Again, If princes themselves breed confusion, and violate peace, undoubtedly it is the duty of pontiffs and bishops, by their wisdom and authority, to tranquilize the commotion. Satiated with everlasting wars, let us indulge, at length, a longing after peace. APPENDIX No. I. EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS OF ERASMUS. W hen one considers with what freedom an indigent scholar, as Erasmus was, addressed the most powerful kings of his time, on subjects of the greatest delicacy, on the Church and on war, and that he was not only suffered to proceed with impunity, but honoured and caressed by those very monarchs ; and when one also considers how very severely, in more recent times, writers have been persecuted, who certainly were not at all personal, and who seemed to mean nothing but the general good, one can hardly believe, that the liberty of the press and liberality of mind have been so much augmented of late, as un- thinking people are apt to affirm, in the fond language of self-congratulation. The following Letters are at least curiosities, and they have an intimate connexion with the subject of Antipolemus. 16 96 To the most christian king, Francis the First of Franc e, Desiderius Eras?nns Roterodarnus sendeth health. FRANCIS, MOST CHRISTIAN KING, I have hopes, that I shall shortly have it in my power to evince my good disposition to you, by more indisputable proofs than this ; but, in the mean time, I have thought proper to present you with my paraphrase of the gospel of Saint Mark, as an earnest of my wish to fulfil my intention in future. Inclined as I was of myself to offer you this proof .of my respect, the peculiar propriety of the present -stiii farther incited me; for, as I had dedicated St. Matthew to my own sovereign, Charles ; St. John, to Ferdinand ; and St. Luke, to the king of England, St. Mark seemed to fall to your share ; that thus the four gospels might be consecrated to the four principal monarchs of the universe. And I wish that, as the evangelical volume so aptly unites your names, the evangelical spirit may cement your hearts. Some persons attribute to the pope, a jurisdiction over departed spirits in the regions below ; others think lie has power over the angels of heaven : the Jatter, I am so far from desiring to diminish, that I wish it were enlarged ; but I cannot help wishing, at the same time, that the world may feel the salutary effect of this power, in conciliating and preserving the unanimity of kings, who, for a long time, have been contending among one another, to the greatest injury of Christianity, in wars no less disgraceful to them- selves than destructive to the people. In the mean time, we are execrating the Turks, and devoting them to damnation. But what sight can 9f ; be more agreeable to the Turks, or to any other ene- mies of the christian cause, than three of the most flourishing kings of all Europe, engaged in contests mutually murderous ? I do not believe there is a sin- gle Turk, among them all, so outrageously inimical, as to imprecate greater evils on the christians, thaw they are inflicting on themselves. Nor, in the midst of the mischief, does any man step forward as a peace- maker, to compose these unnatural disturbances by his authority, though there are always enough em- ployed in fomenting them, and adding fuel to the fire. It is not my business decisively to blame or excuse the pretexts urged by either contending party. I know, that every one's own cause appears to himself the most righteous ; and that in forming opinions on these matters, more favour is shewn to those who repel an injury, than to those who offer one ; yet I anxiously wish, that all christian kings would consider duly and impartially, how great a gainer, upon the whole, that prince would be who should prefer peace, attended with some unjust conditions, to the most righteous war that could possibly be waged. What can be frailer, more transitory, more exposed to misery than human life ? I dwell not on the great variety of diseases, disasters, accidents, fatal calamities, pestilent sicknesses, lightning, earthquakes, conflagra- tions, inundations, and other evils which overwhelm it, without limit and without number. Yet, among all the miseries by which man is infested, there is not one more malignant, more mischievous than war ; not one that, like war, does more harm to the morals ef men, than even to their property and persons. It is, indeed, a less injury to deprive me of my life, than •f my innocence. Nor is war at all the less detestable, because the greatest portion of its evils falls on the poor and the low, on the farmer, the manufacturer, or the wayfaring man. Our Lord Jesus Christ shed his blood for the redemption of these men, despised as they are, no less than for the redemption of kings. And when we shall stand before the judgment seat of Christ, where the most powerful .lords of this world must shortly stand, that impartial Judge will require a no less strict account to be given of those poor and despised ones, than of despots and grandees. Therefore, they who deem it a trifling loss and injury, when the poor and the low are robbed, afflicted, banished, burnt out, op- pressed or put to death, do in truth accuse Jesus Christ, the wisdom of the Father, of folly, for shedding his blood to save such wretches as these. Accordingly, I think no description of men more pernicious, than those who inspire kings with a love of war ; kings, who, in proportion as they are the more exalted, are the more liable to be duped by the inter- ested delusions of artful counsellors. Greatness of mind or loftiness of spirit, is reckoned among the first of royal virtues. This was formerly the subject of universal panegyric in Julius Caesar, as it is at present, by general consent of all nations, in Francis, king of France. But there is no proof so certain of true greatness of mind, as an ability to neg- lect or pass by injuries without retaliation. It is true, that ancient heroes were celebrated who went to war for the extension of empire, and not merely in self- defence ; but it must be remembered, that they were Heathens, and that the authors who celebrate them, were Heathens, as well as their heroes. To a chris- tian prince, it is more glorious to preserve the peace 99 and tranquillity of the community, over which he pre- sides, even with the loss of some part of his dominions, than to bring home the richest spoils, and be honoured with the most splendid triumphs, purchased at the ex pence of misery to the human race. Indeed, they who instil into the minds of princes an eager desire to extend empire, seem to have opened a never-failing source of wars. And they also are the authors of as much mischief to mankind, who suggest to the minds of princes, causes of anger or provocation, and per- suade them, that it becomes them as kings of spirii to revenge, with fire and sword, some word of offence which, perhaps, was never spoken at all, or has been exaggerated by a mischief-making tale-bearer. How much more becoming a brave king to overlook an affront of this sort, for the sake of preserving the pub- lic tranquillity ? Though it really hurt him, yet the hurt is done to him as an individual, and the public is not injured by it; but it cannot hurt him even as an individual, if it is treated with neglect, and held un- worthy of notice. In some other particulars kings may, perhaps, be careless without injury, if, indeed, they who have to watch over the welfare of so many, can ever indulge themselves so far, as to be careless at ail ; but in un- dertaking wars, they ought to be extremely vigilant not to resolve on any thing rashly, because they are on the point of bringing on the world an inundation of the greatest calamities that it can possibly experience. Believe me, most christian king, I do not mean to force the sword out of the hands of wise and good princes. Perhaps, even a wise and good prince may wage war ; but it will be only, when, after trying every expedient to avoid it, he is driven to it by obsc- 16* 100 lute and extreme necessity. Our Lord Jesus took the sword from St. Peter ; but he did not take it from princes. St. Paul even approves of their lawful juris- diction, directing the converts to Christianity, who re- sided at Rome, not to despise their authority, though they were Heathens, nor to refuse them, as they were instruments in the hands of Providence, either taxes, tribute, or the deference due to their office. If he meant to take away the sword from them, he would not have said, " He beareth not the sword in vain." St. Peter, the chief of the apostles, inculcates a similar doctrine when he says, " Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king, as supreme, or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them that do well."* Christ did not chuse, that St. Peter should have any other arms than the sword of the gospel, which is the word of God, and which, as St. Paul to the Hebrews says, " Is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit."! Now he who orders the sword to be put into its scabbard, without taking it away, does more, in fact, to prevent war, than if he had taken it away. For why does he order it to be put up ? Evidently, that the evangelical shepherd should never use it. But why does he neither expressly order it to be entirely laid aside, nor forbid it to be iaid aside r Evidently, to teach us, that we are not to think of revenge, even when we have revenge in our power. Christians have, therefore, a figurative sword given them by Christ, to put to death sin, and to cut off ex- * 1 Peter ii. 13- f Hebrews iv. 12. 101 orbit;\nt lusts and appetites ; and kings and magistrateb arc permitted to bear a real sword by the same Jesus Christ, that they may be a terror to evil-doers, and protect those who do well. The sword is, therefore, not taken away, but its use is defined and limited; it is solely for the defence of public tranquillity, and not to be made an instrument of ambition. There are two kinds of swords, and two kinds of dominions. Priests have a sword peculiar to them- selves, and a dominion no less peculiar. Instead of crowns and helmets, they have mitres ; instead of a sceptre, a shepherd's crook ; instead of a breast-plate, a cassock and scarf; in a word, they have that panoply or complete suit of armour, which the valiant soldier of Christ, St. Paul, so well describes in more places than one. Spiritual rulers are called pastors or shepherds. Temporal rulers were also called pastors by Homer, or shepherds of the people. They both act the part of shepherds, and are aiming at the same object, the happiness of mankind, though they are differently employed on the grand stage of human life. Now if both these personages had their own appropriate sword ready drawn, that is, if both used the power committed to them, as they ought to do, I am of opin- ion, that we christians, as we are called without much right to the name, should not so often be plunging our unnatural dagger into one another's bowels. But while both these personages, kings and priests, neglect their own business to interfere with each other's, nei- ther of them maintain their own dignity, the general tranquillity, or the good of the people. 1G2 When has a king more royal dignity about him., than when he either sits on the judgment seat, ex- pounds the law, restrains injustice, decides differences, relieves the oppressed, or deliberates in the midst of his counsellors, for the good of his country ? When has a bishop more of his proper dignity about him, than when he is teaching from the pulpit the philosophy of the gospel ? Then, and then only, the spiritual king is truly on his throne. But as it was indecorous in Nero to contend in the theatre with (idlers and singers, and in the circus with charioteers, so it is equally indecorous in a king to descend to low and sordid cares, such as concern the gratification of his own favourite passions, and by gratifying them, to endanger the safety and tranquillity of the State. And as it was indecorous in a Heathen philosopher, with all the gravity of a beard and a cloak, to act on the stage, or descend to the contests of gladiators, so it is equally indecorous for a spiritual ruler to engage in war. Why, in these times, is such a sight to be seen as a bishop, taking a greater pride in heading three or four hundred dragoons, with their swords, and their guns, and their field pieces, than in being ac- companied with pious deacons, and learned students, with their books and their papers of divinity ? Why should bishops think themselves great men by an os- tentatious display of that wevy pomp and parade, the contempt of which constituted their predecessors great men ? Why dees the sound of the trumpet or fife sound more sweetly in their ears, than the singing of psalms or the reading the holy Bible ? Suppose a king, instead of his crown and robes, should put on a mitre and lawn sleeves ; and a bishop, instead of a mitre and 10J lawn sleeves, should put on a crown and robes, would not the sight be looked upon as very extraordinary and absurd ? But, if mere change of their outward habiliments has such an effect, ought we not to be much more disgusted on observing a change in their respective functions and employments ? Whatever a king or a bishop may do from private resentment, or for their own gratification, it ought to have a reference to the welfare of the people com- mitted to their charge. They are bound to reform those that are in error, to raise them that are fallen, to comfort the dejected, to check the insolent, to stimulate the slothful, or to reconcile those who disa- gree. This is the duty of all rulers, especially of spiritual rulers, who ought by no means to seek after worldly power and dominion. But since Christ united both characters iii himself, those of a temporal and a spiritual ruler, though he only assumed the spiritual part of his jurisdiction while on earth, it is incumbent both on temporal and spiritual rulers, to imitate him, their common Lord and Master, in their several de- partments of spiritual and temporal dominion. Now r , he devoted himself whelly and solely to the good and happiness of his people. Therefore, with what face can any man live for himself, for selfish purposes only, who, wearing either a crown or a mitre, proclaims himself a vicar or delegated representative of Christ. Christ, throughout his whole life, displayed the char- acter of a Saviour, a Comforter, an universal Benefac- tor. Whether in the temple or the synagogue, whether in public or in private, whether in a ship or in the wilderness, he taught the multitude, he healed the sick, he cleansed the lepers, he restored the paralytic, the lame, the blind, he expelled evil spirits, he raised 104 the dead, he delivered those that were in jeopardy, he fed the hungry, he refuted the Pharisees, he took the part of the disciples, of the poor sinful creature who so lavishly poured out her ointment, he even comforted the guilty and unhappy woman of Canaan, who was detected in the commission of her crime. Review the whole life of Jesus ; he never did evil to any mor- tal, though he was himself used so ill, and, if he had chosen it, might have revenged himself so amply. Ho was uniformly the Saviour and the Benefactor. To Malchus he restored the ear which Peter had cut off. He would not suffer his own personal safety to be secur- ed, even by so trifling an injury as that which was done to Malchus. He reconciled Herod and Pilate. Sus- pended on the cross, he saved one of the thieves, that were crucified with him. After his death, he brought over the centurion to the christian faith. This was supporting the character of a king, truly so called—- to do good to all, and injury to none. As for you, king Francis, the circumstance of being distinguished by the epithet, most christian, ought to stimulate you to resemble Christ, your Lord and Mas- ter, as closely as possible. But what effrontery must they possess, who, while they delight in being called the vicars of Christ, are anxious to defend, not theiT lives, not their true dignity, but their pelf, their pomp, and their pride, by the effusion of human blood with- out measure ? And I say not this, most mighty king, to brand and stigmatize with infamy any particular bishop, though I wish none may appear to deserve it ; but that I may shew in what consists the true dignity both of kings and bishops, and that they may them- selves live happily, while they see and preserve their proper character in their public functions. 105 The spiritual rulers, it must be confessed, recede farthest from their duty and character, who, while they ought to pacify christian kings, quarrelling for trifles, are wicked enough to supply fuel, and to kindle and feed the flames of war. If ever there was an op- portunity for good shepherds to consult the good of their flocks at the hazard or loss of their lives, if ever there was an occasion for treading in the steps of that great Shepherd, whose successors they pretend to be, it is now, at this moment, when such an inundation of crimes and calamities, the consequences of war, is deluging the globe. Out of such a multitude of ai;bots, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, why does not a single individual stand forward, even at the risk of his life, to tranquillize the tumult of war ? How happily and honourably would he die, who should forfeit his life in the endeavour to preserve so many thousand lives as must perish by war? Nothing can be more cruel and savage than single combats, and the butchery of gladiatorial spectacles ; and yet our forefathers were so delighted with the sight, that an example, the basest of all others, left us by the Heathens, took such firm hold of the christians, especially in the city of Rome, that they have not been able at this day to divest themselves entirely of this relique of Paganism. The abolition of that species of combat, which they distinguish by the name of tripar- tite, we owe to one Telemachus, a person of that order, who formerly, on account of the simplicity of a truly christian life, a love of solitude, and an aversion to the pollutions of the world, were commonly called Monks or hermits. This good man left the east and came to Rome, where ? entering the Theatre, and see- ing armed men rushing violently, with an intent to kill 106 each other, he leaped into the midst of them, exclaim- ing, u What are you doing, brothers ? Why do you run headlong, like two wild beasts, to each other's destruction ?" In short, while the good-natured man was humanely endeavouring to save the lives ol the combatants, he lost his own, for the people stoned him to death ; so highly did the unthinking rabble value this cruel diversion, which afforded an object to stare at. What was the consequence ? The emperor Hon- orius, as soon as he heard of the transaction, issued orders to abolish the exhibition of gladiatorial com- bats. Now reflect a moment with me, how base an amusement this was, how many thousand lives were lost by it, and you will immediately see how much the world is indebted to the death of an individual. For a deed like this, Telemachus was very deservedly canonized. But how much more richly would that man deserve this honour, who should put an end to the conflicts of the great potentates who lord it over the suffering world ? It was comparatively no great crime if a gla- diator killed a gladiator, if a wicked wretch became the executioner of a wretch as wicked as himself; but kings engage in wars with one another, to the in- finite detriment of all the world ; yet they may, per- haps, be separated and pacified at a less hazard than that with which Telemachus parted the gladiators ; for they are confessedly christians ; and, in proportion as their natures are more noble, they are the more manageable, if any bishop, or any one else invested with the authority of the gospel, would deal with them with sound arguments, and speak to their consciences by sincere remonstrances; and if a good man, daring to attempt so noble an enterprize, should happen to 107 i'all into the hands of some merciless and cruel prince, the worst he could suffer from the most savage of the whole herd would be death. And on what occasion will those persons exhibit a pattern of the apostolical spirit, who pretend that they have succeeded to the apostolical authority, if they do not exhibit it on such an occasion ? Somebody will say, " What good will accrue, if I 121 putes without a war ; and it is sometimes better to connive at a real injury, than to resent it with the sword. Clemency displays itself in conducting a war, if after all endeavours it cannot possibly be prevented, in such a manner, as that there may be the least pos- sible loss of human blood, and that it may be termin- ated with the utmost expedition." It is difficult not to be struck with the truly gra- cious manner in which the bold letters of Erasmus were received and answered by the greatest monarchs of his time. Such letters, in days of boasted liberty, would be either despised and unnoticed, or their wri- ters informed against by associators, prosecuted, found guilty by members of associations, put in irons, locked up in prison, or sent to Botany Bay with thieves, for fourteen years. But had Erasmus and his reforming contemporaries been so treated, Englishmen would now have been papists and slaves. Erasmus to Christopher a Schydlovietz, Chancellor or Prime Minister, to Sigrsviund the First, king of Poland, greeting: WORTHY SIR, 1 hough the event should not correspond with your efforts, yet so good and benevolent an in- tention, as that of recommending peace, will not be without its reward with Christ. I know not what I can effect by my writings on the subject, for I have been many years sounding in the ears of those who will not hear. It is not my province to pronounce decisively on the peculiar views or the riffhts of kinffs ; 122 but as to the present state of the christian world, what man can help lamenting it, who is himself a christian ? How shameful an example, that two of the most pow- erful kings in the world should disagree with a hatred and animosity so implacable, that the united wishes of their own people, the wisdom of ancient counsellors, the authority of abbots, bishops, cardinals, and the great pontiff himself, have no weight with them ! The pope is named Clement ; and his very name implies a love of peace. Nothing, indeed, is less for the interest of bad popes, than that the greatest kings around them should be united in friendship ; for by the enmity of kings, the popes find themselves not only pontiffs, but kings of kings. As this has been the case for ages, I am surprised that kings have not discerned it ; and if they have discerned it, I am surprised that they have not recollected or attended to it duly. But I am apprehensive, that there are some kings whose eyes are dazzled by ambition, whose judgment is perverted by the angry passions, and whose minds, more intent on their own private pleasures than the good of the country over which they preside, have neither time nor inclin- ation left for sober sense and philosophy. But kings, if they are men of sense, have no time to trifle ; and a conduct, which in private persons is only luxury and profligacy, becomes wickedness of the most heinous nature, unnatural cruelty and downright impiety in a prince. Nothing ought to afford a prince more pleas- ure than the tranquillity of the State, the good morals of the subjects, and the efficacy of good laws ; to meditate on these objects, to attend to them, to defend and maintain them, these should be the amusements t>f princes, and serve them instead of dice, sporting, hunting, and debauchery. But if even a prince had 123 leisure to indulge in the latter, yet the true spirit of a prince will be too high to submit to the flavery of pleasures so vulgar and so sordid in their nature. Stands not that man in the place of a God among men, at whose beck and call, many thousand human crea- tures are ready to draw the sword and rush upon cer- tain death ; and on whose prudence and foresight en- tirely depend the safety and welfare of whole cities and nations ? Is it possible, that a man with such a trust, can find time to play at cards and dice all night long, to divert himself with laughing at buffoons, to indulge in licentious amours, and to take the lead in nocturnal revels ?****** In the mean time, the world is crowded with herds of soldiers who spare neither friend nor foe.**** Whatever mischief this terrible tempest may do, he cannot be overset who has once fixed his foot on the solid rock, religious confidence^ Farewell. Friburg, 5 Id. Jun. Anno 1529. To Ferdinand, king oj Hungary and Bohemia, Erasmus sendeth health. *****lTgave me great pleasure to hear, that yon had achieved your conquests without much slaughter. I, for my part, admire not the triumphs of the Romans, which were thought to be so much the more splendid, the greater the numbers slain, the more cities and vil- lages burnt, parents rendered childless, children de- prived of parents, and wives bereaved of their hus- bands. Their triumphs were deemed grand and glo- rious in proportion to the greater crowd of prisoners 18* 124 and wounded that made up the cavalcade, as it' ic was not sufficient, that the poor creatures were subdued and humbled to the dust, unless insult were added to misfortune. No victory can be more honourable, than that which is attended with the destruction of as few men as pos- sible, which is perfectly unlike what the Greeks call a Cadmaean victory, and in which the conqueror plumes himself more on his prudence and mildness, than on his valor or good fortune. I cannot approve of that sort of happiness which is purchased by caus- ing unhappiness to great numbers of our fellow- creatures. How many of the besiegers as well as the besieged are commonly murdered on the taking of some little, paltry town or citadel, so that after all the triumphs and rejoicings, the victor has as much cause to weep as the vanquished ! How many lives did the taking of Troy cost the Grecians ; and even more were destroyed by sickness than by the sword !****** While kings go to war, in the manner they do, bishops doze on their cushions, priests only concern themselves to hold fast what they have got, Monks trouble themselves merely to retain their own power, grave divines are busy in nothing but in dull disquisi- tions about articles, and the people are left at liberty to believe and do just as they like; I see no end to our evils. All that we can do is, to pray God, that pardoning those sins by which we have deserved our sufferings, he may inspire both kings and bishops with such wise counsels as may restore true piety, to- gether with peace and unanimity.******** Basil, Sexto Cat. Feb. 1529. 12 J Erasmus Rotcrodamus to Anthony A JBergis, Abbot of St. Berlin, sendeth health. MOST ACCOMPLISHED FATHER, X* rom the conversation of the bishop of Durham, and from my friend Andrew Ammonius the king's secretary, I have learned that you profess a warmth of affection for me which I may cail paternal. It is this circumstance which makes me rejoice the more at the idea of returning to my country. I wish I possessed there an independent income, just enough to support me in an humble state of literary leisure. Not that I dislike England, or have any reason to be dissatisfied with the patronage of the M3ecenas's,whom I have found in it. I have a great many intimate friends, and experience uncommon instances of kind- ness from many of the bishops. The archbishop of Canterbury fosters me with such peculiar affection, and embraces me with such cordiality, that he could not shew a greater love towards me if he were my brother or my father. I enjoy a little pension issuing from a living which he gave me, and allowed me to resign with an annuity out of it. My other Maecenas adds an equal sum out of his own purse ; and many of the nobility contribute no inconsiderable addition to my income. I might have a great deal more, if I chose servilely to solicit or pay my court to great men, which I can by no means prevail upon myself to do. But the war which is preparing, has altered the very temper and genius of this island. The price of every necessary of life increases every day, and the generos- ity of the people of course decreases. Indeed how 126 can it be otherwise ? People that are so often fleeced, must retrench in the liberality of their bounty. I as - sure you, I lately contracted a severe fit of the gravel, by being under the necessity of drinking bad beverage through the scarcity of good. Add to this, that as the whole island may be said, from the circumstance of its being surrounded by the sea, to be a place of con- finement ; so we are likely to be shut up still more closely by the wars. I see great commotions arising ; whither they will tend, or how they will terminate, it is impossible to say. I only wish, God in his mercy would vouchsafe to still the raging sea which is agi- tating all Christendom. I am often struck with astonishment and at a loss to account for the cause which can impel, I do not say christians, but human creatures to such an extremity of madness and folly, as that they should rush head- long, with such ardour, at so great an expense of treasure, and with such dangers of every kind, to mutual destruction. For what is the business and chief concern of our whole lives, but to wage war with one another ? In the irrational part of the creation it is observable, that only those among the beasts who are called wild ever engage in war ; and those not with one another, but with brutes of a different species ; and they fight only with their own arms, the instruments of offence and defence supplied by nature. They do not attack with engines of destruction, invented by diabolical contrivance, nor on trifling causes and occasions, but either in defence of their young or for food. Our wars, for the most part, proceed either from ambition, from anger and malice, from the mere wantonness of unbridled power, or from some other mental distenv m per. The beasts of % the forest meet not in battle array, with thousands assembled together and disci- plined for murder. To us, glorying as we do in the name of Christ, who taught nothing by his precept, and exhibited nothing in his example, but mildness and gentleness ; who are members of one body, all of us one flesh, who grow in grace by one and the same spirit ; who are fed by the same sacrament ; who adhere to the same head j who are called to the same immortality ; who hope for a sublime communion with God, that as Christ and the Father are one, so also we may be one With him ; can anything in this world be of such value as to provoke us to war ? A state so destructive, so hideous, and so base, that even when it is founded on a just cause, it can never be pleasing to a good man. Do consider a moment, by what sort of persons it is actually carried into execution ; by a herd of cut-throats, de- bauchees, gamesters, profligate wretches from the stews, the meanest and most sordid of mankind, hire- ling mankillers, to whom a little paltry pay is dearer than life. These are your fine fellows in war, who commit the very same villanies, with reward and with glory :-n the field of battle, which in society they for- merly perpetrated at the peril of the gallows. This filthy rabble of wretches must be admitted into your fields and your towns, in order that you maybe enabled to carry on war : to these you must yourselves be in a state of subjection, that you may have it in your power to take vengeance of others in war. Besides all this, consider what crimes are committed under the pretence of war, while the voice of salutary law is compelled to be silent amidst the din of arms ; what plunder, what sacrilege, what ravages, what othei' 128 indecent transactions, which cannot for shame be enu- merated. Such a taint of men's morals cannot but continue its influence long after the war is terminated. Compute also the expense, which is so enormous, that even if you come off conqueror, you sit down with more loss than gain : though indeed, by what standard can you appreciate the lives and the blood of so many thousand human creatures? But the greatest share of the calamities inseparable from a state of war, falls to those persons who have no interest, no concern whatever, either in the cause, or the conduct, or the success of the war : whereas the advantages of peace reach all men of every rank and degree. In war, he who conquers, weeps over his triumphs. War draws such a troop of evils in its train, that the poets find reason for the fiction which relates, that war was brought from hell to earth by a deputation of devils. I will not now dwell upon the picking of the people's pockets, the intreagues and collusion of the leading men, the vicissitudes of public affairs, which never can undergo violent revolutions without consequences of a most calamitous nature. But if it is a desire of glory which drags us to war, be assured that the glory which is eagerly sought after, is no glory j that it is impossible to derive real honour from doing mischief; and that, if we must point out something glorious, it is infinitely more glorious to build and establish, than to ruin and lay waste a flour- ishing community. Now what will you say, when you reflect, that it is the people, yes, the lowest of the peo- ple, who build and establish by industry and wisdom, that which kings claim a privilege to subvert and de- stroy by their folly. If gain rather than glory is the 129 object in view, be it remembered, tbat no war whatever did, at any time, succeed so fortunately as not to produce more loss than gain, more evil than good : and that no man ever injured his enemy in war, but previously he did many and great injuries to his own people. In ^hort, when I see all human affairs rapidly ebbing and flowing, like the tide of the Euripus, what avails it to establish or extend empire with such vast exertions, when it must very soon, and on very slight occasions, devolve to some other possessor ? With how much blood was the Roman empire raised to its exalted pitch of grandeur, and how soon did it decline and fall ? But you will say, the rights of kings must of neces- sity be prosecuted at all events. It is not for me to speak rashly of the rights of kings ; but one thing I know, the strictest right is often the greatest wrong, and that some kings first determine upon a measure, because it accords with their inclination, and then go in quest of some colourable pretence, under which they may cloak their unjustifiable conduct : and amidst so many changes and chances in human affairs, amidst so many treaties made and unmade, what man alive can ever be long at a loss for a colourable pretence ? But if it were a nice point in dispute, to whom the right of dominion belonged, what need, in settling a question which requires reason and argument only, what need can there be of spilling human blood ? The welfare and happiness of the people have nothing at all to do in the dispute ; it is merely a question whether they shall have the privilege of calling this man or that man their king, "and paying taxes to Thomas instead of John, or to John instead of Thomas." There are pontiffs and bishops, there are wise and honest men, who could settle such a trifling and con- 130 temptible business as this, without going to war about it, and confounding all things divine as well as human. The pope, the bishops, the cardinals, the abbots, could not employ themselves in any way more consistently with their characters and stations, than in composing the differences of kings ; here they ought to exert their authority, and to shew how much the sanctity of their characters and their religion can actually avail. Pope Julius, a pontiff not of the very best repute in the world, was able to excite the storm of war ; and shall Leo, a man of real learning, integrity, and piety, be unable to appease it ? The pretext for undertaking the war was, that Pope Julius was in imminent danger. The cause is confessedly removed, but the war does not yet cease. We ought also to remember that all men are free, especially all christian men. New, when they have been flourishing a long time under any prince, and by this time acknowledge him as their lawful sovereign, what justifiable occasion can there be for disturbing the world, in attempting a revolution ? Long consent of the people constituted a lawful sovereign among the Hea- thens, and much more amongst christians, with whom the kingly office is a ministerial trust, a chief magis- tracy, an administration of delegated power, and not a property or absolute dominion ; so that if some part of the territory subject to a christian king were taken away, he is relieved from an onus, a burthensome task, rather than robbed or injured. But suppose one of the litigent parties will not agree to abide by the arbitration of good men chosen as re- ferees ? In this case how would you wish me to act ? In the first place, if you are verily and truly a christian, I would have you bear the injury patiently, sit down 131 with your heart at case, and give up your tight) be it what it will. — Such would be the conduct of a christian hero. In the next place, if, waving your pretensions to Christianity, you arc only a prudent, sensible man of the "world; weigh well how much the prosecution of your right will cost you. If it will cost you too dearly, and it certainly will cost you too dearly, if you prosecute it by the sword ; then never consent to assert a claim, which perhaps after all is agroundlers one, by bringing so much certain mischief to the human race, by so many murders, by making so many childless parents and fatherless children, and by causing the sighs and tears of your own people who have no concern in your right. What do you suppose the Turks think, when they hear of christian kings raging against each other, with all the madness of so many devils let loose ? And raging for what ? merely on accouut of a claim set up lor power, for empire, and dominion. Italy is now rescued from the French. And what is the great matier gained by so much blood spilt ? what but that, where a Frenchman lately administered the powers of government, there some other man now ad- ministers the same powers? And to say the truth, the country flourished more before, than it flouiishesnow. But I will not enter farther into this part of the subject. Now, if there are any systems which admit of war, I must maintain that they are founded on a gross princi- ple, and savour of a Christianity degenerating, and likely to be overlaid by worldly influence. I do rot know whether these systems, such as they are, justify war in the eyes of some men ; but I observe, that wheneyer, through a zeal for defending the faith, the Christian 19 132 peace is to be defended against the attack of barbarians, war is not at all opposed by men of acknowledged piety. But why, on these occasions, do a few maxims handed down from one to another by mere men, suggest themselves to our minds, rather than many positive precepts uttered by Christ himself, by the apostles, by- orthodox and approved fathers, concerning peace, and patience under all evil ? As to the usual arguments and means of justifying war, what is there that may not admit of defence in some mode or other ; especially when they who have the management of the thing to be defended, are these, "Whose very villanies are always be-praised by the ad- ulation of great numbers, and whose errors no man dares openly to reprehend ? But in the mean time, it is very clear what all good-hearted men pray for, wish for, sigh for. If you look narrowly into the case, you will find that they are chiefly the private, sinister, and selfish motives of princes, which operate as the real causes of all war. But, pray do you think it a conduct worthy of a ra- tional creature, and not fitter for brutes or devils, to put the world in confusion, whenever one prince takes it into his head to be angry with another prince, or to pretend to be angry ? Yen and I may wish every thing that would be best) and most conducive to the happiness of the human race, but we can do no more than wish it. For my own part, all the little property I have in the world, I have among the English ; and I will resign the whole of it with the greatest pleasure, on condition, that among christian princes there may be established a^ christian peace. Your influence may have considera- ble weight in accomplishing this end, since you have 133 great interest with one potentate, Charles; a great deal with Maximilian 5 and stand very well with all the nobility and aristocracy of England. I do not doubt but by this time you have experienced what losses one's own friends may procure one in war ; and must be sensible, that it will be doing your own business and serving your own interest, if you endeavour to, prevail with the great ones to put an end to the pres- ent war. I mention this, to hint to you that yo"ur labour wiil not be without its reward. I shall make all the haste I can to shake hands with you, as soon as I shall have it in my power to take my flight from this coun- try. In the mean time, most respectable father, fare- well. My best wishes attend Ghisbcrt the physician, and Anthony Lutzenburgh. London. Pridie Id. Mart. 1513. No. II. TO give a specimen, to nations professing the Christian religion, of the philanthropy and liberality of the Heathens, I have selected, from great numbers, the following few passages ; which I leave to the con- sideration of all thinking, feeling, and generous men, who are serious in their professions of Christianity, and who do not view it as an engine of state, to he accommodated to the occasional purposes of such in- terested ministers and statesmen. as,in promoting what they deem the particular welfare of their own coun- try, forget that both themselves and the nations over which they preside are allied to all people, whom God has created in his own image. 134 Ogui rev vipov-rov ciTetpov uid-zsa,, Kxt yqv fep\\ s%ov¥ tygctt$ a ocyKc&Xotiq j Ovrot t;;s Trurpta'oq 5jjtts ?'.% yeyxX-^ km t%s iukoh, of the great city and the little one ; meaning the general commonwealth of mankind, and the sub- division of it which constitutes a separate state. 135 Ci Duas respublicas animo coutemplaniur ; alteram magnam e< ver£ publ Learn, qua dii atque homines continent m* ; in qua, noli ad banc unguium respici- mus, ant ad ilium; Bed terminos eivitatis nostra com sole metimur; alteram, eui nos adscripsit conditio nascendi ; hfec, ant Atheniensium erit, Carthaginien- sium, ant alterius alicujus urbis, quae non ad omnes pertineat homines. <; Quidam eodem tempore utrique reipubjicse daut operant, majori minorique ; quidam tantum minori ; quidam tantum majori. * There are two kinds of commonwealth which we contemplate with the mind's eye ; the one most ex- tensive, and justly to be called the common country of us all ; and it is that, in which both gods and men are comprehended ; that, in which we do not look for our own nation, to one corner of the world or to an- other, but measure the boundaries of the state to which we belong, by the sun's course : the other is that particular spot on which we happened to be horn ; this, peradventure, may be the Athenian's country, or the Carthaginian's country, or may belong to some other particular state, but not to ail men. " Some persons are liberal enough to devote them- selves, at the same time, to the service of both these kinds of commonwealth, the greater and the smaller; others only to the smaller, and a third sort exclusive- ly to the greater." Seneca de Otlo Sap. c. 31. The first sort are the ^^e^>t philosophers and most useful philanthropists ; but the middle sort are nar- row-minded men, who become statesmen to serve them- selves aud their families, with little real regard to- the happiness and improvement of human nature. 19* 136 * Socrates did not stile himself an Athenian or a Grecian, but a Cosmian, that is, a citizen of the world ; just as another might stile himself a Rho- dian or a Corinthian, so he called himself a Cosmi- an: neither would he confine himself within the limits of Sunium, Tsenarus, or the Ceraunian Mountains." Plutarch. " There is but one King and Governor, God ; who holds in his hands the beginning, the middle, and the end of the universe.— -There follows in his suite Justice, the avenger of all delinquencies against the divine law ; to whose jurisdiction all of us men naturally have recourse, in our transactions with all men, as fellow citizens ; and your living at Sardis; or in any other particular town or country, is nothing to the purpose :" i. e. the world is your home. Plutarch, 7rtpt ) ti vcfM(JLoi ecl van? tyjopco'i r? cyt v,Tti- vti'j ctv3-pa7rov 9 it kcii oixciuoq x.ai Uf&vvo/u.svo$ km fitctrB-eis 9 vTrc&t- r/05 etvoci £ok£1 ha. r-/,v cm cor aura xeu koiv/.v o-vyfsvBtccv* ov %%piv xxQugnav i^v/.Tc T6i$ xTElvewt 7rgo$ :i7rxAXy,yiiv rov vo^itB-s/Jo^ ctyovs ysyevvrS-ctt. "For if the slaughter of enemies be at all lawful, yet whoever kills a man, though justly, though in self-defence, though forced to it, yet he seems to be guilty of blood, on account of the common relation which we have, through the medium of God above, to all men ; therefore such manslayers had occasion for certain purifications to cleanse them from the blood- guiltiness which was imputable to them.*' Philo de vita Mosis. " Tn, genitor, cape sacra Mann, patriosque penates, '• Me, bello e tanto egressum et ceede recenti M Attrectare nefas, donee me flumine vivo *'• Abluero. * Do you, my father, officiate in the sacred riwlf, 30 144 and undertake to pay the devotion due our country's Gods : for as for me, just come from the war, and reeking with fresh slaughter, it would he criminal in me to touch them, till I shall have washed away the pollution in the running stream." Virg. JEneid. 2. 717. ■" evee ny e.e((?Tx 7r6tOVVTX.t 77'AV n iSq 5 «AA ? Of/.S-J$ KCit TOVTO CC7IToXvtVTt hx %pr,U.U,TU\ iw&vfLieet, '' Parum vero quod snam vendunt neeem, nisi et a- liorum scepe iunocentium vendereiit, tanto carnifiee detestabiliores, quanto pejus est sine causa, quain ex causa oceidere : tlvut Antisthenes dieehat, carnifices iyranuis es-.e sanetiores, quod iili nocentes, hi iuno- rentes interfieerent. w A« I have pronounced all belligerent confedera- cies entered into, with an intention to furnish auxilia- ry forces for any war, without discrimination of the cause : so I affirm, that there is no mode or profession of life more villainous, than that of those individuals who go to war, hired and paid so much per man, without tlie least regard to the justice or injustice of The cause; but determining that to be the most right- eous war where there is the best pay. " This is the very reproach which is thrown in the teeth of the JEtolians by Philip, as we read in Livy ; and of the Arcadians by Dionysius, the Mile- sian, in these words : " The Arcadians, says he., have set up a fair or market for war, a man-carcase shop ; and thus the misfortunes of Greece at large, turn to the profit of the Arcadians in particular, while war and its calamities are diffused all over Greece, without any just cause. * ? " It is a lamentable thing, as Antiphaues the poet says, •• that for the sake of getting his living, a man should expose himself to death, in the way of trade "or occupation.** Dio Pmspeensis aJso say*. M what i* m 147 Mere accessary to us than life, or what do all men value at a higher rate : yet even (his. men will throw away through their desire after money !'' •• Jt is hut a trifling matter that such wretches sell their own death for money, if they did not by the ve- ry act, and at the same time, sell the death of inno- cent men ; and they are the more detectable than the common hangman, in proportion, as it is worse to kill a man without any reason -at all, than to execute a condemned malefactor. Thus Autisthenes has said, that common executioners are more respectable characters than despots, inasmuch a? executioners put the guilty to death, while the despots shed inno- cent blood.-' Grotius's note upon this passage is the following quotation from Seneca : " Hoc vero quid aliud qui.s dixerit quam insaniam ? circumfere pericula, et ruere in ignotos,iratum sine injuria, occurentia devastantem, ae ferarum more occidere quern non oderis. * ; What can one call this but madness ? to carry mischief ubout us wherever we go, to fall violently upon people, whom we know nothing of, to be in a great rage without the least provocation, to destroy every thing that comes in our way ; and like so many wild beasts, to murder a man that we have no sort of dislike to." Seneca, the foov Heathen- The following observations of Solinus in natural history, has been transferred, with just satire.to polr- lical and ecclesiastical characters : " lnvalidum ursis caput, vis maxima in biaehii> et in lumbi*. "Bears lave but weak heads: their chief streng(h lies in their fore paws and in their loins." 50* This may be applied to most of those modem des- pots, who delight in war : " Men will compel others (not to think with the m, for that is impossible, but) to say they do; upon which they obtain full leave not to think or reason at all, and this is called unity ; which is somewhat like the behaviour of the Romans, as described by a brave countryman of ours, in '^flffc^? "ubi solitudinem fa- ciunt,pacem appellant,'!-! hen ftiey have made a eouu- try a desart by an unm B^ghter, they call the stillness of desolation, pellff?^ Jortirii Gordon says, " that the clergy*' (in popish countries he must mean,) M have been the great promoters of Cruelty and the sword 5 they have been the constant patrons of arbitrary power, that mighty engine for rendering mankind few and miserable 5 they have been the continual authors of war, famine and massacres ; and in fine, they have been the great instruments of driving virtue, truth, peace, mercy, plenty and peo- ple out of the world.'* " Kill all," said the Abbot Arnold, a monk-mili- tant to the army, which being employed by the church to slaughter the poor pious Albigenses, had taken the city of Bezeir — "Kill all," cried the bloody priest, " God knows his own, and will reward them hereaf- ter :" accordingly two hundred thousand of these con- scientious Christians, and Catholics mixed with them, were instantly butchered for the church. Cavendum a cane muto — Governments have more ib apprehend from silent malecontents, or even servile addressers and associators, than from warm, open, honest citizens, who speak what they think, but have no secret machinations. The first sort will turn like the sun-flower to the sun, to the powers that be. 149 Cuncta priu* Unlanda, should be tlie maxim of i -v erv minister before he goes to war. He should treat for peace with any parties that are able to wage war : punctilios and diplomatic formalities are not to be re- garded, when the blood, the liberty, the treasure, the. political existence of his own nation are in danger. Officio nee te certasse priorem Pceniteat • — ■ Virg. If what Erasmus says ^ war is not always appli- cable to modern Europe. \f-\ us turn our eyes to the East Indies, and see if it will not quadrate with transactions of Christians in that quarter. King James said, " that whilst he had the power of making judges and bishops, he would make that te be law and gospel which best pleased him." No. IV; ••' I CANNOT believe that force is a fit argument to produce faith. No man shall ever persuade me* no, not even the bishop of Meaux with all his elo- quence, that prisons and tortures, dragoons and the galleys, are proper means to convince the understand- ing, and either Christian or human methods of con- verting men to the true religion." •Archbishop Tillotson, page 176, vol. Hi. octavo. " If in the revolution of things, the persecuted should get above the persecutors, what can be expect- ed, but that to preserve themselves they will destroy those from whom they can expect nothing but des- 150 traction, should another revolution mount them up- permost again ? and so Christendom will be made a cockpit of cruelties 5 and as often as men's under- standing are deceived or abused, so often there will he new executions and massacres 5 which will be the more cruel and unmerciful, because they are conse- crated with a pretence of religion. For when reli- gion, which should be the antidote of our cruelty, proves its greatest incentive, it must needs run on the faster into mischief, by how much that which stopped its course before drives it on with greater violence ; so that by persecuting men upon the score of opinion* we do what in us lies to banish charity out of the world ; and in the roam of that love and union which our religion enjoins, to introduce nothing but rage., revenge, and cruelty, and to make Christendom more barbarous than the wilds of America." John Scott, D. I). All war is certainly against the analogy of our re- ligion, and against many express precepts of it. But whatever Christians may deduce from the New Testament, it seems to be a settled point among the orthodox, that war is lawful to Christians ; for the articles of our religion, the framers of which had a most devout regard for the kingdoms of this world, tell us, " that it is lawful for Christian men, at the commandment of the magistrates, to wear weapons and serve in the wars." Article 37. Tn Latin it runs thws : " Christianis licet ex man- dato m agist rat lis, anna portare, et fusta bella adinin- istrare." How t happened that in the translation the word, just, tie epithet to wars, was left nut, let others determine. Was it the effect of ecclesiastical knavery., cringing to the powers that be ? 151 St. Paul say-*, " The servants of the Lord must ntt strive, but be gentle unto all men; in meekness in- struettug those that oppose themselves; it* God per* adventure will give them repentance to the acknorwl- edging the truth.*' But a nation of Atheists or un- believers in Christ, notwithstanding St. Paul, are t© be convinced (vide Form of Prayer) by cannons, muskets, bayonets, and dragoons. This is gentleness to all men ; this is instructing them in meekness who oppose themselves, and leaving it to God to give them repentance to the acknowledging the truth. "Unless we can meekly instruct men by cutting their throats, says Dr. Scott, it is evident by this text, we must either persecute them, or quit the title of be- ing " Servants of God." To destroy a man's life, is as strange a way to cure him of his errors, as cutting off the head is to cure him of the toothache. The on- ly way to reduce him is to persuade his understand- ing, which we can hardly do by beating out his brains. Corporal punishment has no more virtue in rectify- ing a man's judgment, than syllogisms to cure him of the stone or strangury. Such premises can infer no conclusion, except it be that of his life. — By perse- cuting error we canonize it." "The Christian religion hath made no particular provisions for the conduct of war, under a proper ti- tle ; because it hath so commanded all the actions of men, hath so ordered the religion, so taken care that men shall be just, and do no wrong, hath given laws so perfect, rules so excellent, threatening^ so severe, promises so glorious, that there can he nothing want- ing towards the peace and felicity of mankind, b«t 152 ike wills of men. If men be subjects of Christ's law. they can never go to war with each other." Bishop Taylor. The bishop of Llandaff (Dr. Watson) is of opinion, that " no princes who wage offensive war are Christ- ians." \_See a passage of his Sermon, in Knox's Nar* rative, 3d Edition.'] " iVnd says Bishop Taylor, " with respect to the examples of great apparent cruelty in war, exhibited in the Old Testament, they are certainly not to be im- itated." " Nothing," adds the same aeute prelate, " is imita- able but what is good ; but in these there was nothing good, but the obedience ; and therefore nothing can legitimate it, but a commandment." The good of such proceedings might be visible to God, but is not to us ; and therefore cannot be safely imitated. Their obedience is both visible and good 5 and may be imitated. But whatever appears to us wrong requires, before we venture upon it, an extra- ordinary legitimation ; such as an express indubitable command : and then when we are convinced of the superior wisdom and goodness of him who gave the command, we must conclude, our own ideas were at first erronious, and prepare to obey implicitly. It has been a common artifice to call a war, I5el- lum Domini, the war of God. " Nobody fights hear- tily, who believes himself to be in the wrong, and that God is against him: whereas a firm persuasion of the contrary inspires men with courage and intrepidity ; it furnishes them with arguments to justify the malice of their hearts, and the implacable hatred they bear" 153 their enemies; it confirms them hi the ill opinion they have of them, and makes them confident of victory. Si Dens pro nobis quia contra nos ? In all wars it is an everlasting maxim in politics, That wherever religion can be brought into the quarrel, it ought never to be ueclected ; and that how small soever the difference may be between the contending parties, the divines on each side ought to magnify and make the most of it ; for nothing is more comfortable to men, than the thought, that their enemies are likewise the enemies of God." Dialogues on Honor, page 159. " Those well-meaning people who can pray and fight, sing psalms, and do mischief, with a good con- science, may in many respects be morally good, yet want most of the virtues that are peculiar to Chris- tianity, and, if the Gospel speaks truth, necessary to salvation." Ibid page 178. " The most sacred institutions of Christianity may, by the assistance of pliable divines, be made servicea- ble to the most antichristian purposes of tyrants and usurpers." Page 258. " Preachers, 1>y a small deviation from the doc- trine of peace, may insensibly seduce their hearers, and perverting the end of their function, set them on to enmity, hatred and all manner of mischief." Page 208. c; But no discovery of the craft or insincerity of men, can ever bring any dishonor upon the Christian religion itself, I mean the doctrine of CJirist, which can only be learned from the New Testament,where it will ever remain in its purity and lustre." Ibid page 240. 154, The Following passage from Milton must afford the reader pleasure. The Angel Michael addresses Adam : But now prepare thee for another scene. He look'cl, and saw wide territory spread Before him, towns, and rural works between ; Cities of men, with lofty gates ami tow'rs, Concourse in arms, fierce faces threat'ning war, Giants of mighty bone, and bold emprise ; Part wield their arms, part curb the foaming steed. Single, or in array of battle rang'd, Both horse and foot, nor idle must'ring stood; One way a band select from forage drives A herd of beeves, fair oxen and fair kine From a fat meadow ground ; or fleecy flock, Ewes and their bleating lambs over the plain, Their booty ; scarce with life the shepherds fly, But call in aid, which makes a bloody fray ; With cruel torneament the squadrons join ; Where cattle pastur'd late, now scatter'd lies With carcasses and arms th' ensanguin'd field Deserted : others to a city strong Lay siege, encamp'd ; by batt'ry, scale, and mine, Assaulting ; others from the wall defend With dart and javelin, stones and sulph'rous fire ; On each hand slaughter and gigantic deeds. In other part the scepter'd heralds call To counsel in the city gates : anon Grey-headed men and grave, with warriors mix'dj Assemble, and harangues are heard, but soon In factious opposition, till at last Of middle age one rising, eminent In wise deport, spake much of right and wrong, Of justice, of religion, truth and peace, 155 And judgment from above : him old and young Exploded, and had seized with violent hands, Had not a cloud descending snateh'd him thence Unseen amidst the throng : so violence Proceeded, and oppression, and sword-law Through all the plain, and refuge none was found. Adam was all in tears, and to his guide Lamenting turn'd full sad ; O what are these, Death's ministers, not men, who thus deal death Inh -manly to men, and multiply Ten thousand fold the sin of him who slew His brother : for of whom such massacre Make they but of their brethren, men of men r But who was that just man, whom had not heav'n Rescued, had in his righteousness been lost ? To whom thus Michael. These are the product Of those ill-mated marriages thou saw'st; Where good with bad were match'd, who of themselves Abhor to join ; and by imprudence mix'd, Produce prodigious births of body 'or mind. Such were these giants, men of high renown; For in those days might only shall be 'admir'd, And valour and heroic virtue call'd ; To overcome in battle, and subdue Nations, and bring home spoils with infinite Man-slaughter, shall be held the highest pitch Of human glory, and for glory clone Of triumph, to be stii'd great conquerors, Patrons of mankind, gods, and sons of gods ; Destroyers rightlier call'd and plagues of men. Thus fame shall be achieved, renown on earth, And what most merits fame in silence hid. But he, the sev'nth from thee, whom thou beheldst The only righteous in si world perverse, 21 156 And therefore hated, therefore so beset With foes for daring single to be just, And utter odious truth, that God would come To judge them with his saints : him the Most High Rapt in a balmy cloud with winged steeds Did, as thou saw'st receive, to walk with God High in salvation and the climes of bliss, Exempt from death ; to shew thee what reward Awaits the good, the rest what punishment ; Which now direct thine eyes and soon behold, No. V. AMONG the reasons why the Jews do not at - knowledge Jesus Christ to be the Messiah are the wars of Christians. Episcopius enumerates, among the causes of the Jewish rejection of Christ, the following : " Schismata et sectas, exacerbationis animorur. ; in- dices, quibus fit ut Christianus a Christiano tanquam a leproso et maledicto abhorreat : " Bella non necessaria, cruenta et diuturna, quae hie princeps adversus ilium gerit, cum horrenda. et lam- entabili agrorum et urbium vastatione morum, corrup- tione, et multorum millenorum hominum, qui in suis' peccatis et sanguine pereunt internecione, &c. " Their schisms and sects, the proofs of their bitter- ness against each other ; whence it happens, that a Christian loaths and abominates a Christian as he would a leper, or one that lies under a curse : " Unnecessary wars, bloody and of long duration, attended with a horrible and lamentable devastation of 157 country and cities, a corruption of morals, and the slaughter of many thousand human creatures, who die in their sins, &c." Though the Jewish prophets, and Isaiah in particu- lar, predicted universal peace under the Messiah's reign, and named him the Prince of Peace ; yet there have certainly been more wars since the birth of Christ than before. Vide E/iisco/rii, ft. 438, torn. it. et p. 207. Christians go to war with more alacrity than to church. " Hodie adhuc totus pene Christianus orbis a caede et sanguine suorum rubet ; funestissimumque drama Judaeis profanisque omnibus spectandum praebet. " Haec sane tarn sunt faeda, tarn turpia, tarn detest- anda, ut quis color iis obduci possit non videam : " Certe alterutrum fatendum ingenue nobis est, am eos quibus ista crudelia consilia, studia bellaque pla- cent, iisque aut immiscent, aut, qua possunt, non in- ercedunt, consiliis, precibus, votis studiisque pacs iegeneres Christianos et religionis Christi proba ae maculas ; aut Judaeos causam justissimam habere, cur a religione Christiana abhorreant. Istud si fateamur, ;ldes prsdictionum constat, et religionis Christiana? gloria in tuto est. Cur autem istud non fateamur i Pauci enim oppido sunt, isti bellorum tarn immanium lam auctores, tarn fautores, prae turba. Christianorum, quibus ista displicent. " Regum fere principumque et quibus res angusta est domi, istae factiones sunt, non populorum. Et faex ac sentina plebis sequitur non flos populi. Ilia turbis gaudet et motibus ; prona in tumultus et aura mobilior ad seditiones ; hie pacem atque idcirco vom- cres &. falces amet, non gladios aut sicas. Atque hunc 15£ ego verum Christi populum esse habendum censeo, ad qi>em praedictiones pertinent ; caeteros non nisi defor- mes strumas ac verrucas populo Christi adnatas. " So that to this very day almost the whole of Chris- tendom is red with the blood and massacre of Christ- ians, and exhibits a most woful tragedy for the con- templation of the Jews, and all who are not believers in Christianity. " These proceedings are so foul, so base, so detest- able, that I can find no colours to lay upon them suffi- ciently strong to hide their deformity. " We must undoubtedly confess ingenuously one of these two things, either that those who approve of such bloody counsels, such cruel purposes, such un- natural wars, or take a part in them, or do not oppose them to the utmost of their power by their advice, their prayers, their ardent wishes, and their zealous endeavours for peace, are degenerate christians, the disgrace, the spots and stains of Christ's religion ; or, that the Jews have very substantial reasons for reject- ing Christianity. " If we confess the former, then the credit of the prophecies will be maintained, and the honour of the christian religion remains unsullied. And why should we not confess the former ? " For they are very few, indeed, who engage in or approve these cruel wars, in comparison with the mul- titude of christians who reprobate them. " Those who engage in, or approve of these wars, consist of a confederacy of kings and nobles, and of needy adventurers in their train, not of the people in any country. " It is only the dregs and offscourings of the lowest- rabble that follow them, not the flower of the people — the better sort. 159 ' { The mere rabble love commotion, are prone to riot, and veer about like the wind to favour any dis- turbance. ■ But the better sort of the people (flos populi) de- lights in peace ; and therefore prefers the plough and the sickle to the sword and the bayonet. " And these latter, I think, are to be esteemed the true people of Christ, to whom the prophecies respect- ing christians refer : the rest," (he means the warring kings and nobles of his time, and the rabble in their train, " are no more than ugly warts and wens, mere fungous excrescences growing on the body of the christian people." Episcopius. Whoever has a real regard for the improvement of human nature, the prevalence of genuine christianity> the flourishing state of sound learning, philosophy, the fine arts, commerce, liberty, all that raises the dignity of man and accommodates life, must see, with deep regret, a military spirit likely to prevail through all the most polished countries of Europe. To arm a whole people, in addition to vast standing armies and a numerous militia ; to arm them under the direction and in the pay of a proud aristocracy, the aristocracy of enormous weaith united with the aristo- cracy of hereditary rank, to arm them without consult- ing the representatives of their own choice, may, in- deed, increase an influence which has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished ; but seems to forbodc no good to the general liberty and happiness of the people, the majority of rational and immortal beings on the face of the whole globe. Against such influence, seconded by the eloquence t>f the cannon's mouth, argument, it is to be feared- 160 will avail but little. What remains then, but that in. the retirement of a private station, all true patriots lovers of their fellow-creatures as well as of their own country, while they deplore what they cannot prevent, pray to almighty God, that when every man has, by authority, an instrument of destruction in his hand, the consequence may not be " confusion and every evil work." Let it be remembered, that " silent leges inter arraa," the voice of the law and constitution will not be heard amidst the din of arms. At a time when the minds of men are heated, to arm their hands and blow the trumpet of war in the vale of peace, is an experiment pregnant with danger. SED BENE VORTAT DETTS. NOTES. Of the title Antijiolemus, (the ofi/ioser of war,) firt*> fixed to this Treatise. Erasmus gave it no Title; but introduced it into hi:: adagia, under a proverb, I suppose, from the benevolent de- sign of increasing its circulation, and putting it into the hands of those who, from party spirit, might be averse to a treatise professedly written against war. But he says, in this very Treatise, he once wrote a piece which he called Antipolemus, which, however, does not appear in his works. I thought, therefore, that he himself would approve this title, which, besides that it is proper in itself, was also chosen by this great man for a treatise against war, which, he says, he meditated, and of which this is probably a frag • ment. Note referred to in fiage 53, concerning a Cadmcean victory, which is again mentioned in one of the letters of Erasmus. A Cadmsean victory is a victory gained to the destruction or great loss of the victors, or of both the contending parties Many modern victories have been truly Cadmxan victories. The story of Cadmus's soldiers, from whom is derived this proverbial expression, cannot require repetition in this place. They who wish for a fuller explanation of the proverb, will find it in Suidas, under the article, K*Jy.y* mm. W-*:2*!?] DATE DUE J 'HINTIBINU.S.J r m