SERMONS ON PUBLIC OCCASIONS
CHAPTER II.
ON UNIVERSAL PEACE
Preached in the
Tron Church, Glasgow, on "A Day of National Thnaksgiving" 1816
"Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither
shall they learn war any more." ISAIAH ii. 4.
THERE are a great
many passages in Scripture, which warrant the expectation that a time is
coming, when war shall be put an end to - when its abominations and its
cruelties shall be banished from the face of the earth - when those restless
elements of ambition and jealousy, which have so long kept the species in a
state of unceasing commotion, and are ever and anon sending another and another
wave over the field of this worlds politics, shall at length be hushed
into a placid and enduring calm; and many and delightful are the images which
the Bible employs, as guided by the light of prophecy; it carries us forward to
those millennial days, when the reign of peace shall be established, and the
wide charity of the gospel, which is confined by no limits, and owns no
distinctions, shall embosom the whole human race within the ample grasp of one
harmonious and universal family.
But before I proceed, let me attempt
to do away a delusion which exists on the subject of prophecy. Its fulfilments
are all certain, say many, and we have therefore nothing to do, but to wait for
them. In passive and indolent expectation. The truth of God stands in no
dependence on human aid to vindicate the immutability of all His announcements;
and the power of God stands in no need of the feeble exertions of man to hasten
the accomplishment of any of His purposes. Let us therefore sit down quietly in
the attitude of spectators - let us leave the Divinity to do His own work in
His own way, and mark, by the progress of a history over which we have no
control, the evolution of His designs, and the march of His wise and beneficent
administration.
Now, it is very true, that the Divinity will do His own
work in His own way, but if He choose to tell us that that way is not without
the instrumentality of men, but by their instrumentality, might not this
sitting down into the mere attitude of spectators, turn out to be a most
perverse and disobedient conclusion? It is true, that His purpose will obtain
its fulfilment, whether we shall offer or not to help it forward by our
co-operation. But if the object is to be brought about, and if, in virtue of
the same sovereignty by which He determined upon the object, He has also
determined on the way which leads to it, and that that way shall be by the
acting of human principle, and the putting forth of human exertion, then let us
keep back our co-operation as we may, God will raise up the hearts of others to
that which we abstain from; and they, admitted into the high honour of being
fellow-workers with God, may do homage to the truth of His prophecy; while we,
perhaps, may unconsciously do dreadful homage to the truth of another warning,
and another prophecy. I work a work in your days which you shall not
believe, though a man declare it unto you. Behold, ye despisers, and wonder and
perish.
Now this is the very way in which prophecies have been
actually fulfilled. The return of the people of Israel to their own land was an
event predicted by inspiration, and was brought about by the stirring up of the
spirit of Cyrus, who felt himself charged with the duty of building a house to
God at Jerusalem. The pouring out of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost was
foretold by the Saviour ere he left the world, and was accomplished upon men,
who assembled themselves together at the place to which they were commanded to
repair; and there they waited, and they prayed. The rapid propagation of
Christianity in those days was known by the human agents of this propagation,
to be made sure by the word of prophecy; but the way in which it was actually
made sure, was by the strenuous exertions, the unexampled heroism, the holy
devotedness and zeal of martyrs, and apostles, and evangelists.
And
even now, my brethren, while no professing Christians can deny that their faith
is to be one day the faith of all countries; but while many of them idly sit,
and wait the time of God putting forth some mysterious and unheard of agency,
to bring about the universal diffusion, there are men who have betaken
themselves to the obvious expedient of going abroad among the nations, and
teaching them; and though derided by an undiscerning world, they seem to be the
very men pointed out by the Bible, who are going to and fro increasing the
knowledge of its doctrines, and who will be the honoured instruments of
carrying into effect the most splendid of all its anticipations.
Now
the same holds true, I apprehend, of the prophecy in my text. The abolition of
war will be the effect not of any sudden or resistless visitation from heaven
on the character of men - not of any mystical influence working with all the
omnipotence of a charm on the passive hearts of those who are the subjects of
it - not of any blind or overruling fatality which will come upon the earth at
some distant period of its history, and about which, we, of the present day,
have nothing to do but to look silently on, without concern, and without
co-operation. The prophecy of a peace as universal as the spread of the human
race, and as enduring as the moon in the firmament, will meet its
accomplishment, and at that very time which is already fixed by Him, who seeth
the end of all things from the beginning thereof. But it will be brought about
by the activity of men. It will be done by the philanthropy of thinking and
intelligent Christians. The conversion of the Jews - the spread of gospel light
among the regions of idolatry - these are distinct subjects of prophecy, on
which the faithful of the land are now acting, and to the fulfilment of which
they are giving their zeal and their energy.
I conceive the prophecy
which relates to the final abolition of war will be taken up in the same
manner; and the subject will be brought to the test of Christian principle; and
many will unite to spread a growing sense of its follies and its enormities,
over the countries of the world and the public will be enlightened not by the
factious and turbulent declamations of a party, but by the mild dissemination
of gospel sentiment through the land - and the prophecy contained in this book
will pass into effect and accomplishment, by no other influence than the
influence of its ordinary lessons on the hearts and consciences of individuals
- and the treasure will first be carried in one country, not by the unhallowed
violence of discontent, but by the control of general opinion, expressed on the
part of a people, who, if Christian, in their repugnance to war, will be
equally Christian in all the loyalties and subjections, and meek unresisting
virtues of the New Testament - and the sacred fire of good-will to the children
of men will spread itself through all climes, and through all latitudes - and
thus by scriptural truth conveyed with power from one people to another, and
taking its ample round among all the tribes and families of the earth, shall we
arrive at the magnificent result of peace throughout all its provinces, and
security in all its dwelling-places.
In the further prosecution of this
discourse, I shall, First, epiatiate a little on the evils of war.
In
the Second place, I shall direct your attention to the obstacles which stand in
the way of its extinction, and which threaten to retard for a time the
accomplishment if the prophecy I have now selected for your consideration.
And, in the Third place, I shall endeavour to point out, what, can only
be done at present in a hurried and superficial manner, some of the expedients
by which these obstacles maybe done away.
I. I shall expatiate a little on the evils of war.
The mere existence of the prophecy in my text, is a sentence of condemnation
upon war, and stamps a criminality on its very forehead. So soon as
Christianity shall gain a full ascendancy in the world, from that moment war is
to disappear. We have heard that there is something noble in the art of war;
that there is something generous in the ardour of that fine chivalric spirit
which kindles in the hour of alarm, and rushes with delight among the thickest
scenes of danger and of enterprise ; - that man is never more proudly arrayed,
than when, elevated by a contempt for death, he puts on his intrepid front, and
looks serene, while the arrows of destruction are flying on every side of him ;
- that expunge war, and you expunge some of the brightest names in the
catalogue of human virtue, and demolish that theatre on which have been
displayed some of the sublimest energies of the human character. It is thus
that war has been invested with a most pernicious splendour, and men have
offered to justify it as a blessing, and an ornament to society, and attempts
have been made to throw a kind of imposing morality around it; and one might
almost be reconciled to the whole train of its calamities and its horrors, did
he not believe his Bible, and learn from its information, that in the days of
perfect righteousness, there will be no war; - that so soon as the character of
man has had the last finish of Christian principle thrown over it, from that
moment all the instruments of war will be thrown aside, and all its lessons
will be forgotten; that, therefore, what are called the virtues of war are no
virtues at all, or that a better and a worthier scene will be provided for
their exercise; but in short, that at the commencement of that blissful era,
when the reign of heaven shall be established, war will take its departure from
the world with all the other plagues and atrocities of the species.
But
apart altogether from this testimony to the evil of war, let us just take a
direct look of it, and see whether we can find its character engraven on the
aspect it bears to the eye of an attentive observer. The stoutest heart of this
assembly would recoil, were he who owns it, to behold the destruction of a
single individual by some deed of violence. Were the man who at this moment
stands before you in the full play and energy of health, to be in another
moment laid by some deadly aim a lifeless corpse at your feet, there is not one
of you who would not prove how strong are the relentings of nature at a
spectacle so hideous as death. There are some of you who would be haunted for
whole days by the image of horror you had witnessed - who would feel the weight
of a most oppressive sensation upon you heart, which nothing but time could
wear away who would be so pursued by it as to be unfit for business or for
enjoyment - who would think of it through the day, and it would spread a gloomy
disquietude over your waking momentswho would dream of it at night, and it
would turn that bed which you courted as a retreat from the torments of an
ever-meddling memory, into a scene of restlessness.
But generally the
death of violence is not instantaneous, and there is often a sad and dreary
interval between its final consummation, and the infliction of the blow which
causes it. The winged messenger of destruction has not found its direct avenue
to that spot, where the principle of life is situated - and the soul, finding
obstacles to its immediate egress, has to struggle for hours, ere it can make
its way way through the winding avenues of that tenement, which has been torn
open by a brothers hand. 0! my brethren, if there he something appalling
in the suddenness of death, think not that when gradual in its advances, you
will alleviate the horrors of this sickening contemplation, by viewing it in a
milder form. 0! tell me, if there be any relentings of pity in your bosom, how
could you endure it, to behold the agonies of the dying man - as goaded by
pain, he grasps the cold ground in convulsive energy, or faint with the loss of
blood, his pulse ebbs low, and the gathering paleness spreads itself over his
countenance - or wrapping himself round in despair, he can only mark by a few
feeble quiverings, that life still lurks and lingers in his lacerated body or
lifting up a faded eye, he casts on rou a look of imploring helplessness, for
that succour which no sympathy can yield him.
It may be painful to dwell on
such a representation but this is the way in which the cause of humanity is
served. The eye of the sentimentalist turns away from its sufferings; and he
passes by on the other side, lest he hear that pleading voice, which is armed
with a tone of remonstrance so vigorous as to disturb him. He cannot bear thus
to pause, in imagination, on the distressing picture of one individual; but
multiply it ten thousand times say, how much of all this distress has
been heaped together upon a single field - give us the arithmetic of this
accumulated wretchedness, and lay it before us with all the accuracy of an
official computation and, strange to tell, not one sigh is lifted up among the
crowd of eager listeners, as they stand on tiptoe, and catch every syllable of
utterance, which is read to them out of the registers of death. 0! say, what
mystic spell is that, which so blinds us to the sufferings of our brethren -
.which deafens to our ear the voice of bleeding hmnanity, when it is aggravated
by the shriek of dying thousands - which makes the very magnitude of the
slaughter, throw a softening -disguise oer its cruelties, and its horrors
- which causes us to eye with indifference, the field that is crowded with the
most revolting abominations, and arrests that sigh, which each individual would
singly have drawn from us, by the report of the many who have fallen, -and
breathed their last in agoney along wih him?
I am not saying the burden of
all this criminality rests upnn the head of the immediate combatants. It lies
somewhere; but who can deny that a soldier may be a Christian, and that from
bloody field on which his body is laid, his soul may wing its ascending way to
the shores of a peaceful eternity? But when I think that the Christian even of
the great world, form but a very little flock, and that an army is not a
propitious soil for the growth of Christian principle - when think on the
character of one such army, that had been led on for years by a ruffian
amnbition and been enured to scenes of barbarity and had gathered a most
ferocious hardihood of soul, from the many enterprises of violence to which an
principled commander had carried them - when I follow them to the field of
battle, and further think that on both sides of an exasperated contest the
gentleness of Christianity can have no place in almost any bosom; but that
nearly every heart lighted up with fury, and breathes a vindictive purpose
against a brother of the species, I cannot but reckon it among the most fearful
of the calamities of war - that while the work of death is thickening along its
ranks, so many disembodied spirits should pass into the presence of Him who
sitteth upon the throne, in such a posture, and with such a preparation.
I have no time, and assuredly as little taste, for expatiating on a
topic so melancholy, nor can afford at present to set before you a vivid
picture of the other miseries which war carries in its train - how it desolates
every country through which it rolls, and spreads violation and alarm among the
villages how, at its approach, every home pours forth its trembling fugitives -
how all the rights of property, and all the provisions of justice, must give
way before its devouring exactions - how, when Sabbath comes, no Sabbath charm
comes along with it - and for the sound of the church bell, which wont to
spread its music over some fine landscape of nature, and summon rustic
worshippers to the house of prayer nothing is heard but the deathful vollies of
the battle, and the maddening outcry of infuriated men - how, as the fruit of
victory, an unprincipled licentiousness which no discipline can restrain, is
suffered to walk at large among the people - and all that is pure, and
reverend, and holy in the virtue of families, is cruelly trampled on, and held
in the bitterest derision. Oh! my brethren, were we to pursue those details,
which no pen ever attempts, and no chronicle perpetuates, we should be tempted
to ask, what that is which civilization has done for the character -of the
species? It has thrown a few paltry embellishments over the surface of human
affairs; and for the order of society, it has reared the defences of law around
the rights and the property of the individuals who compose it. But let war,
legalized as you may, and ushered into the field with all the parade of forms
and manifestoes - let this war only have its season, and be suffered to
overleap these artificial defences, and you will soon see how much of the
security of the commonwealth is due to positive restrictions, and how little of
it is due to a natural sense of justice among men.
I know well, that
the plausibilities of human character, which abound in every modern and
enlightened society, have been mustered up to oppose the doctrine of the Bible
on the woful depravity of our race. But out of the history of war, I can gather
for this doctrine the evidence of experiment. It tells me, that man, when left
to himself and let loose among his fellows, to walk after the counsel of his
own heart, and in the sight of his dwn eyes, will soon discover how thin that
tinsel is, which the boasted baud of civilization has thrown over him. And we
have only to blow the trumpet of war, and proclaim to man the hour of his
opportunity, that his character may show itself in its essential elements - and
that we may see how many, in this our moral and enlightened day, would spring
forward as to a jubilee of delight, and prowl like the wild men of the woods,
amidst scenes of rapacity, and cruelty, and violence.
II. But let me hasten away from this part of the
subject; and, in the Second place, direct your attention to those obstacles
which stand in the way of the extinction of war, and which threaten to retard,
for a time, the accomplishment of the prophecy I have now selected for your
consideration. But is this the time, it may be asked, to complain of obstacles
to the extinction of war, when peace has been given to the nations, and we are
assembled to celebrate its triumphs? Is this day of high and solemn
gratulation, to be turned to such forebodings as these? The whole of Europe is
now at rest from the tempest which convulsed it - and a solemn treaty, with all
its adjustments and all its guarantees, promises a firm perpetuity to the
repose of the world. We have long fought for a happier order of things, and at
length we have established it - and the hard-earned bequest we hand down to
posterity as a rich inheritance, won by the labours and the sufferings of the
present generation. That gigantic ambition which stalked in triumph over the
firmest and the oldest of our monarchies, is now laid - and can never again
burst forth from the confinement of its prison-hold to waken a new uproar, and
send forth new troubles over the face of a desolated world.
Now, in
reply to this, let it be observed, that every interval of repose is precious -
every breathing time from the work of violence is to be rejoiced in by the
friends of humanity - every agreement among the powers of the earth, by which a
temporary respite can be gotten from the calamities of war, is so much
reclaimed from the amount of those miseries that afflict the world, and of
those crimes, the cry of which ascendeth unto heaven, and bringeth down the
judgments of God on this dark and rebellious province of His creation. I trust,
that on this day, gratitude to Him who alone can still the tumults of the
people, will be the sentiment of every heart - and I trust that none who now
hear me, will refuse to evince his gratitude to the Author of the New
Testament, by their obedience to one of the most distinct and undoubted of its
lessons - I mean the lesion of a reverential and submissive loyalty. I cannot
pass an impartial eye over this record of Gods will, - without perceiving
the utter repugnance that there is between the spirit of Christianity, and the
factious, turbulent, unquenchable, and evermeddling spirit of political
disaffection. I will not compromise, by the surrender of a single jot or
tittle, the integrity of that preceptive code which the Saviour hath left
behind Him for the, obedience of His disciples. I will not detach the very
minutest of its features, from the fine picture of morality that Christ hath
bequeathed, both by commandment and example, to adorn the nature He
condescended to wear - and sure I am that the man who has drunk in the entire
spirit of the gospel - who, reposing himself on the faith of its promised
immortality, can maintain an elevated calm amid all the fluctuations of this
worlds interest - whose exclusive ambition it is to be the unexcepted
pupil of pure, and spiritual, and self-denying Christianity - sure I am that
such a man will honour the king and all who are in authority - and be subject
unto them for the sake of conscience - and render unto them all their dues -
and not withhold a single fraction of the tribute they impose upon him - and be
the best of subjects, just because he is the best of Christians- resisting none
of the ordinances of God, and living a quiet and a peaceable life, in all
godliness and honesty.
But it gives me pleasure to advance a further
testimony in behalf of that government with which it has pleased God, who
appointeth to all men the bounds of their habitation, to bless that portion of
the globe which we occupy. I count it such a government that I not only owe it
the loyalty of my principles but I also owe it the loyalty of my affections. I
could not lightly part with my devotion to that government which the other year
opened the door to the Christianization of India - I shall never withhold the
tribute of my reverence from that government which put an end to the atrocities
of the Slave Trade - I shall never forget the triumph which, in that proudest
day of Britains story, the cause of humanity gained within the walls of
our enlightened Parliament. Let my right hand forget her cunning, ere I forget
that country of my birth, where, in defiance to all the clarnours of mercantile
alarm, every calculation of interest was given to the wind, and braving every
hazard, she nobly resolved to shake off the whole burden of the infamy which
lay upon her. I shall never forget, that how to complete the object in behalf
of which she has so honourably led the way, she has walked the whole round of
civilized society, and knocked at the door of every government in Europe, and
lifted her imploring voice for injured Africa, and pled with the mightiest
monarchs of the world, the cause of her outraged shores, and her distracted
families. I can neither shut my heart nor my eyes to the fact, that at this
moment she is stretching forth the protection of her naval arm, and shielding
to the uttermost of her vigour, that coast where an inhuman avarice, is still
plying its guilty devices, and aiming to perpetuate among an unoffending
people, a trade of cruelty, with all the horrid train of its terrors and
abominations. Were such a government as this to be swept from its base, either
by the violence of foreign hostility, or by the hands of her own misled and
infatuated children, - I should never cease to deplore it as the deadliest
interruption which ever had been given to the interests of human virtue, and to
the march of human improvement. O! how it should swell every heart, not with
pride, but with gratitude, to think that the land of our fathers, with all the
iniquities which abound in it, with all the profligacy which spreads along our
streets, and all the profaneness that is heard among our companies to think
that this our land, overspread as it is with the appalling characters of guilt,
is still the securest asylum of worth and of liberty - that this is the land
from which the most copious emanations of Christianity are going forth to all
the quarters of the world - that this is the land which teems from one end to
the other of it with the most splendid designs and enterprises for the good of
the species - that this is the land where public principle is most felt, and
public objects are most prosecuted, and the fine impulse of a public spirit is
most ready to carry its generous people beyond the limits ofa selfish and
contracted patzotisrn.
Yes, and when the heart of the plilanthropist is
sinking within him at the gloomy spectacle of those crimes and atrocities which
still deform the history of man, I know not a single earthly expedient more
fitted to brighten and sustain him, than to turn his eye to the country in
which he lives- and there see the most enlightened government in the world
acting as the organ of its most moral and intelligent population.
It is
not against the government of my country, therefore, that I direct my
observations - but against that nature of man in the infirmities of which we
all share, and the evil of which no government can extinguish. We have carried
a new political arrangement,. and we experence as the result of it, a temporary
calm - but we have not yet carried our way to the citadel of humnan passions.
The elements of war are hushed for a season - but these are not destroyed. They
still rankle in many unsubdued heart and I am too well taught by history of the
past, and the experience of its restless variations, not to believe that they
will burst forth again in thunder over the face of society. No, my brethren, it
will only be when diffused and vital Christianity comes upon the earth, that an
enduring peace will come along with it. The prophecy of my text will obtain its
fulfilment - but not till the fulfilment of the verses which go before it ; -
not till the influence of the gospel has found its way to the human bosom, and
plucked out of it the elementary principles of war; - not till the law of love
shall spread its melting and all-subduing efficacy, among the children of one
common nature; not till ambition be dethroned from its mastery over the
affections of the inner man; - not till the guilty splendours of war shall
cease to captivate its admirers, and spread the blaze of a deceitful heroism,
over the wholesale butchery of the species; - not till national pride he
humbled, and man shall learn, that if it be individually the duty of each of us
in honour to prefer one another; then let these individuals combine as they
may, and form societies as numerous and extensive a they may, and each of these
be swelled out to the dimensions of an empire, still, that mutual condescension
and forbearance remain the unalterable Christian duties of these empires to
each other; - not till man learns to revere his brother as man, whatever
portion of the globe he occupies, and all the jealousies and preferences of a
contracted patriotism be given to the wind; - not till war shall cease to be
prosecuted as a trade, and the charm of all that interest which is linked with
its continuance, shall cease to beguile men in the peaceful walks of
merchandise, into a barbarous longing after war in one word, till pride, and
jealousy, and interest, and all that is opposite to the law of God and the
charity of the gospel, shall be for ever eradicated from the character of those
who possess an effectual control over the public and political movements of the
species; - Not till all this be brought about; and there is not another agent
in the whole compass of nature that can bring it about but the gospel of
Christ, carried home by the all-subduing power of the Spirit to the consciences
of men; then, and not till then, my brethren, will peace come to take up its
perennial abode with us, and its blessed advent on earth be hailed by one shout
of joyful acclamation throughout all its families; - then, and not till then,
will the sacred principle of good-will to men circulate as free as the air of
heaven among all countries - and the sun looking out from the firmament, will
behold one fine aspect of harmony throughout the wide extent of a regenerated
world.
It will only be in the last days, when it shall come to pass,
that the mountain of the Lords house shall be established in the top of
the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow
into it: And many people shall go, and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the
mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of
his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the
law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem; and he shall judge among the
nations, and shall rebuke many people;" - then, and not till then, they
shall beat their swords into plough-shares, and their spears into pruning
hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn
war any more.
The above rapid sketch glances at the chief
obstacles to the extinction of war; and, in what remains of this discourse, I
shall dwell a little more particularly on as many of them as my time will allow
me, finding it impossible to exhaust so wide a topic, within the limits of the
public services of one day.
The first great obstacle then to the
extinction of war, is the way in which the heart of man is carried off from its
barbarities and its horrors, by the splendour of its deceitful accompaniments.
There is a feeling of the sublime in contemplating the shock of armies, just as
there is in contemplating the devouring energy of a tempest; and this so
elevates and engrosses the whole man, that his eye is blind to the tears of
bereaved parents, and his ear is deaf to the piteous moan of the dying, and the
shriek of their desolated families. There is a gracefulness in the picture of a
youthful warrior burning for distinction on the field, and lured by this
generous aspiration to the deepest of the animated throng, where, in the fell
work of death, the Opposing sons of valour struggle for a remembrance and a
name; - and this side of the picture is so much the exclusive object of our
regard, as to disguise from our view the mangled carcasses of the fallen, and
the writhing agonies of the hundreds and the hundreds more who have been laid
on the cold ground, where they are left to languish and to die. There no one
pities them. No sister is there to weep over them. There no gentle hand is
present to ease the dying posture, or bind up the wounds, which, in the
maddening fury of the combat, have been given and received by the children of
one common Father. There death spreads its pale ensigns over every countenance;
and when night comes on, and darkens around them, how many a despairing wretch
must take up with the bloody field as the untended bed of his last sufferings,
without one friend to bear the message of tenderness to his distant home,
without one companion to close his eyes.
I avow it. On every side of me
I see causes at work which go to spread a most delusive colouring over war, and
to remove its shocking barbarities to the back-ground of our contemplations
altogether. I see it in the history which tells me of the superb appearance of
the troops, and the brilliancy of their successive charges. I see it in the
poetry which lends the magic of its numbers to the narrative of blood, and
transports its many admirers, as by its images, and its figures, and its
nodding plumes of chivalry, it throws its treacherous embellishments over a
scene of legalized slaughter. I see it in the music which represents the
progress of the battle; and where, after being inspired by the trumpet notes of
preparation, the whole beauty and tenderness of a drawing room are seen to bend
over the sentimental entertaininent; nor do I hear the utterance of a single
sigh to interrupt the death-tones of the thickening contest, and the moans of
the wounded men as they fade away upon the ear, and sink into lifeless silence.
All, all goes to prove what strange and half-sighted creatures we are.
Were it not so, war could nevet have been seen in any other aspect than that of
unmingled hatefulness; and I can look to nothing but to the progress of
Christian sentiment upon earth, to arrest the strong current of its popular and
prevailing partiality for war. Then only will an imperious sense of duty lay
the check of severe principle, on all the subordinate tastes and faculties of
our nature. Then will glory be reduced to its right estimate - and the wakeful
benevolence of the gospel chasing away every spell, will be turned by the
treachery of no delusion whatever, from its simple, but sublime enterprises for
the good of the species. Then the reign of truth and quietness will be ushered
into the world, and war, cruel, atrocious, unrelenting war, will be stript of
its many and its bewildering fascinations.
But again, another obstacle
to the extinction of war, is a sentiment which seems to be universally gone
into, that the rules and promises of the gospel which apply to a single
individual, do not apply to a nation of individuals. Just think of the mighty
effect it would have on the politics of the world, were this sentiment to be
practically deposed from its wonted authority over the counsels and the doings
of nations, in their transactions with each other. If forbearance be the virtue
of an individual, forbearance is also the virtue of a nation. If it be
encumbent on men in honour to prefer each other, it is incumbent on the very
largest societies of men, through the constituted organ of their government, to
do the same. If it be the glory of a man to defer his anger, and to pass over a
transgression, that nation mistakes its glory which is so feelingly alive to
the slightest insult, and musters up its threats and its armaments upon the
faintest shadow of a provocation. If it be the magnanimity of an injured man to
abstain from vengeance, and if by so doing, he heap coals of fire upon the head
of his enemy, then that is the magnanimous nation, which, recoiling from
violence and from blood, will do no more than send its Christian embassy, and
prefer its mild and impressive remonstrance; and that is the disgraced nation
which will refuse the impressiveness of the moral appeal that has been made to
it.
O! my brethren, there must be the breathing of a different spirit
to circulate round the globe, ere its Christianized nations resign the
jealousies which now front them to each other in the scowling attitude of
defiance - and much is to do with the people of every land, ere the prophesied
influence of the gospel shall bring its virtuous and its pacifying control to
bear with effect on the counsels and governments of the world.
I find
that I must be drawing to a close, and that I must forbear entering into
several topics on which I meant at one time to expatiate. I wished, in
particular, to have laid it fully before you, how the extinction of war, though
it should withdraw one of those scenes on which man earns the glory of
intrepidity - yet it would leave other, and better, and nobler scenes, for the
display and the exercise of this respectable attribute. I wished also to
explain to you, that however much I admired the general spirit of Quakerism, on
the subject of war; yet that I was not prepared to go all the length of its
principles, when that war was strictly defensive. It strikes me, that war is to
be abolished by the abolition of its aggressive spirit among the different
nations of the world. The text seems to tell me, that this is the order of
prophecy upon the subject; - and that it is when nation shall cease to lift up
its sword against nation - or, in other words, when one nation shall cease to
move, for the purpose of attacking another, that military science will be no
longer in demand, and that the people of the earth will learn the art of war no
more. I should also have stated, that on this ground, I refrained from
pronouncing on the justice or necessity of any one war in which this country
has ever been involved. I have no doubt, that many of those who supported our
former wars, looked on several of them as wars for existence - but on this
matter I carefully abstain from the utterance of a single sentiment - for in so
doing, I should feel myself to be descending from the generalities of Christian
principle, and employing that pulpit as the vehicle of a questionable policy,
which ought never to be prostituted either to the unworthy object of sending
forth the incense of human flattery to any one administration, or of regaling
the factious, and turbulent, and disloyal passions of any party. I should next,
if I had had time, offer such observations as were suggested by my own views of
political science, on the multitude of vulnerable points by which this country
is surrounded, in the shape of numerous and distant dependencies, and which,
however much they may tend to foster the warlike politics of our government,
are, in truth, so little worth the expense of a war, that should all of them be
wrested away from us, they would leave the people of our empire as great and as
wealthy, and as competent to every purpose of home security as ever.
Lastly, I might have whispered my inclination, for a little more of the
Chinese policy being imported into Europe, not for the purpose of restraining a
liberal intercourse between its different countries, but for the purpose of
quieting in each its restless spirit of alarm, about every foreign movement in
the politics and designs of other nations; because, sure I am, that were each
great empire of the world to lay it down as the maxim of its most scrupulous
observance, not to meddle till it was meddled with, each would feel in such a
maxim both its safety and its triumph ; - for such are the mighty resources of
defensive war, that though the whole transportable force of Europe were to land
upon our borders, the result of the experiment would be such, that it should
never be repeated - the rallying population of Britian could sweep them all
from the face of its territory, and a whole myriad of invaders would melt away
under the power of such a government as ours, trenched behind the loyalty of
her defenders, and strong, as she deserves to be, in the love and in the
confidence of all her children.
I would not have touched on any of the
lessons of political economy, did they not lead me, by a single step, to a
Christian lesson, which I count it my encumbent duty to press upon the
attention of you all. Any sudden change in the state of the demand, must throw
the commercial world into a temporary derangement. And whether the change be
from war to peace, or from peace to war, this effect is sure to accompany it.
Now for upwards of twenty years, the direction of our trade has been
accommodated to a war system; and when this system is put an end to, I do not
say what amount of the distress will light upon this neighbourhood, hut we may
be sure that all the alarm of falling markets, and ruined speculation, will
spread an oppressive gloom over many of the manufacturing districts of the
land.
Now, let my title to address you on other grounds be as
questionable as it may, I feel no hesitation whatever in announcing it, as your
most imperative duty, that no outcry of impatience or discontent from you,
shall embarrass the pacific policy of his Majestys government. They have
conferred a great blessing on the country, in conferring on it peace; and it is
your part resignedly to weather the languid or disastrous months which may come
along with it. The interest of trade is an old argument that has been set up,
in resistance to the dearest and most substantial interests of humanity. When
Paul wanted to bring Christianity into Ephesus, he raised a storm of opposition
around him, from a quarter which, 1 dare say, he was not counting on. There
happened to be some shrine manufactories in that place, and as the success of
the Apostle would infallibly have reduced the demand for that article, forth
came the decisive argument of, "Sirs, by this craft we have our wealth, and
should this Paul turn away the people from the worship of gods made with hands,
thereby much damage would accrue to our trade". Why, my brethren, if this
argument is to be admitted, there is not one conceivable benefit that can he
offered for the acceptance of the species. Would it not be well, if all the men
of reading in the country were to be diverted from the poison which lurks in
many a mischievous publication - and should this blessed reformation be
effected, are there none to be found who would feel that much damage had
accrued to their trade? Would it not be well if those wretched sons of
pleasure, before whom, if they repent not, there lieth all the dreariness of an
uuprovided eternity would it not be well, that they were reclaimed from the
maddening intoxication which speeds them on in the career of disobedience - and
on this event too, would there be none to complain that much damage had accrued
to their trade?
Is it not well, that the infamy of the Slave Trade has
been swept from the page of British history? and yet do not many of you
remember how long the measure lay suspended, and that about twenty annual
flotillas, burdened with the load of human wretchedness, were wafted across the
Atlantic, while Parliament was deafened and overborne by unceasing clamours
about the much damage that would accrue to the trade? And now, is it not well
that peace has once more been given to the nations? and are you to follow up
this goodly train of examples, by a single whisper of discontent about the much
damage that will accrue to your trade? No, my brethren, I will not let down a
single inch of the Christian requirement that lies upon you. Should a sweeping
tide of bankruptcy set in upon the land, and reduce every individual who now
hears me, to the very humblest condition in society, God stands pledged to give
food and raiment to all who depend upon Him; and it is not fair to make others
bleed, that you may roll in affluence; - it is not fair to desolate thousands
of families, that yours may be upheld in luxury and splendour - and your best,
and noblest, and kindest part is, to throw yourself on the promises of God, and
he will hide you and your little ones in the secret of his pavilion, till these
calamities be over - past.
III. I
trust it is evident from all that has been said, how it is only by the
extension of Christian principle among the people of the earth, that the
atrocities of war will at length be swept away from it; and that each of us is
hastening the commencement of that blissful period, who, in his own sphere, is
doing all that in him lies to bring his own heart, and the hearts of others,
under the supreme influence of this principle. It is public opinion, which, in
the long run, governs the world; and while I look with confidence to a gradual
revolution in the state of public opinion, from the omnipotence of gospel truth
working its silent, but effectual, way through the families of mankind - yet I
will not deny, that much may be done to accelerate the advent of perpetual and
universal peace, by a distinct body of men embarking their every talent, and
their every acquirement, in the prosecution of this, as a distinct object. This
was the way in which, a few years ago, the British public were gained over to
the cause of Africa. This is the way in which some of the other prophecies of
the Bible are at this moment hastening to their accomplishment; and it is in
this way, I apprehend, that the prophecy of my text may be indebted for its
speedier fulfilment to the agencyof men, selecting this as the assigned field
on which their philanthropy shall expatiate. Were each individual member of
such a scheme to prosecute his own walk, and come forward with his own peculiar
contribution, the fruit of the united labours of all would be one of the finest
collections of Christian eloquence, and of enlightened morals, and of sound
political philosophy, that ever was presented to the world. I could not fasten
on another cause more fitted to call forth such a variety of talent, and to
rally around it so many of the generous and accomplished Sons of humanity, and
to give each of them a devotedness and a power far beyond whatever could be
sent into the hearts of enthusiasts, by the mere impulse of literary ambition.
Let one take up the question of war in its principle, and make the
full weight of his moral severity rest upon it, and upon all its abominations.
Let another take up the question of war in its consequences and bring his every
power of graphical description to the task of presenting an awakened public
with an impressive detail of its cruelties, and its horrors. Let another
neutralize the poetry of war, and dismantle it of all those bewitching
splendours, which the hand of misguided genius has tbrown over it. Let another
teach the world, a truer and more magnanimous path to national glory, than any
country of the world has yet walked in. Let another tell, with irresistible
argument, how the Christian ethics of a nation is at one with the Christian
ethics of its humblest individnal. Let another bring all the resources of his
political science to unfold the vast energies of defensive war, and show, that,
instead of that ceaseless jealousy and disquietude which are ever keeping alive
the flame of hostility among the nations, each may wait in prepared security,
till the first footstep of an invader shall be the signal for mustering around
the standard of its outraged rights, all the steel, and spirit, and patriotism
of the country. Let another pour the light of modern speculation into the
mysteries of trade, and prove that not a single war has been undertaken for any
of its objects, where the millions and the millions more which were lavished on
the cause, have not all been cheated away from us by the phantom of an
imaginary interest. This may look to many like the Utopianism of a romantic
anticipationist. I shall never despair of the cause of truth addressed to a
Christian public, when the clear light of principle can be brought to every one
of its positions, and when its practical and conclusive establishment forms one
of the most distinct of Heavens prophecies - "that men shall heat their
swords into plough-shares, and their Spears into pruning-hooks and that nation
shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn the art of war
any more.
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