futile that the notion of our Lord's having been himself sworn in a court of justice appears to be erroneous-that, if it be true that Paul swore in his epistles, his example cannot be safely followed in opposition to the law of his divine Master; but that, on examination, he in no case appears to have employed expressions which really amount to an oath-that true Christians are far from being justified in breaking the law of Christ because oaths may be deemed expedient among persons who are accustomed to an inferiour standard of morals and that even this expediency is exceedingly doubtful.

Since the moral principles on which we object to oaths are of so much practical weight; and since the authority under which we act, in refusing to swear, is at once so high and so clear-we may well be encouraged to a persevering faithfulness in such a line of conduct. The steady sufferings of our forefathers have indeed been the means of earning for us, in reference to this particular, a great degree of ease and freedom.

I cannot but indulge the hope that, as such a faithfulness is maintained among Friends, and as their light is thus made to shine before other men, religious persons of every denomination will gradually perceive the obligation which so plainly rests upon them, to abstain from all swearing. Certainly it must, on all hands, be allowed, that the standard to which the professors of Christianity are at present accustomed, with regard to this subject, is miserably low. Not only are oaths, in our own enlightened country, introduced in connexion with matters of solemn import, and in promotion of the ends of justice; but they are multiplied in every direction; are required by the law, and taken by the subject, on a thousand occasions of comparatively trifling consequence; and are very generally administered

in a loose, technical, and irreverent, manner. Such provisions are utterly disgraceful to the Christian character of Great Britain; and demand the speedy interference of those members of our legislature who are blessed with a deep sense of the importance of the principles of the Gospel, and who know that the real prosperity of every nation depends on the consistency of its counsels with the will of God."

7 Having already quoted Paley, as a defender of the use of oaths, I have the more pleasure in calling to the recollection of my reader the following excellent passage in his work on Moral Philosophy. "The obscure and elliptical form (of the English oath), together with the levity and frequency with which it is administered, has brought about a general inadvertency to the obligation of oaths, which, both in a religious and political view, is much to be lamented; and it merits publick consideration, whether the requiring of oaths on so many frivolous occasions, especially in the customs, and in the qualification for petty offices, has any other effect than to make them cheap in the minds of the people. A pound of tea cannot travel regularly from the ship to the consumer, without costing half a dozen oaths at least; and the same security for the due discharge of their office, namely, that of an oath, is required from a churchwarden and an archbishop, from a petty constable and the chief justice of England. Let the law continue its own sanctions, but let it spare the solemnity of an oath. And where it is necessary, for the want of something better to depend upon, to accept men's own word or own account, let it annex to prevarication penalties proportioned to the publick consequences of the offence;" vol. I, ch. xvi, p. 193.

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CHAPTER XI.

ON WAR.

OF all the practices which disturb the tranquillity and lay waste the welfare of men, there is none which operates to so great an extent, or with so prodigious an efficacy, as war. Not only is this tremendous and dreadfully-prevalent scourge productive of an incalculable amount of bodily and mental suffering,—so that, in that point of view alone, it may be considered one of the most terrible enemies of the happiness of the human race-but it must, also, be regarded as a moral evil of the very deepest dye. "From whence come wars and fightings among you?" said the apostle James; come they not hence, even of your lusts which war in your members? Ye lust and have not; ye kill and desire to have, and cannot obtain; ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not;" chap. iv, 1, 2. War, therefore, has its origin in the inordinate desires and corrupt passions of men; and as is its origin, so is its result. Arising out of an evil root, this tree of bitterness seldom fails to produce, in vast abundance, the fruits of malice, wrath, cruelty, fraud, rapine, lasciviousness, confusion, and murder.

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Although there are few persons who will dispute the accuracy of this picture of war-although every one knows that such a custom is evil in itself and

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

cause.

The main argument, of a scriptural character, by which the propriety and rectitude of warfare in a just cause (as it is termed) is defended and maintained, is the divinely-sanctioned example of the ancient Israelites. That the Israelites were engaged in many contests with other nations; that those contests were often of a very destructive character; and that they were carried forward, on the part of the Israelites, under the direct sanction, and often in consequence of the clear command, of the Almighty, are points which no one, who is accustomed to peruse the history of the Old Testament, can pretend to deny. But we are not to forget that the wars of the Israelites differed from wars in general (even from those of the least exceptionable character in point of justice) in certain very important and striking particulars. That very divine sanction, which is pleaded as giving to the example of

that people an authority of which other nations may still avail themselves in the maintenance of a similar practice, did, in fact, distinguish their wars from all those in which any other nation is known to have been ever engaged. They were undertaken in pursuance of the express command of the Almighty Governour of mankind; and they were directed to the accomplishment of certain revealed designs of his especial providence. These designs had a twofold object: the temporal preservation and prosperity of God's peculiar people, on the one hand; and the punishment and destruction of idolatrous nations, on the other. The Israelites and their kings were, indeed, sometimes engaged in combating their neighbours, without any direction from their divine Governour, and even against his declared will; and these instances will not, of course, be pleaded as an authority for the practice of war: but such of their military operations as were sanctioned and ordered of the Lord (and these only are adduced in the argument in favour of war) assumed the character of a work of obedience and faith. They went forth to battle, from time to time, in compliance with the divine command, and in dependence upon that Being who condescended to regulate their movements, and to direct their efforts, in the furtherance of his own providence. These characteristicks in the divinely-sanctioned warfare of the Hebrews were attended with two consequences, of the most marked and distinguishing character. In the first place, the conflicts in which this people were thus engaged, and which so conspicuously called into exercise their obedience and faith, were far from being attended by that destruction of moral and pious feeling which is so generally the effect of war; but, on the contrary, were often accompanied by a condition of high religious excellence in those who were thus