they who are the cause and authors of any war that can justly and safely be avoided, have great reason to fear that they shall be accountable before the supreme Judge for all the rapine and devastation, all the ruin and damage, as well as the blood, that is the consequence of that war. War is a licence to kill and slay all those who inhabit that land, which is therefore called the enemy's, because he who makes the war hath a mind to possess it; and must there not many of the laws of God, as well as of man, be cancelled and abolished, before a man can honestly execute or take such a licence? What have the poor inhabitants of that land done that they must be destroyed for cultivating their own land, in the country where they were born? and can any king believe that the names of those are left out of the records of God's creation, and that the injuries done to them shall not be considered? War is a depopulation, defaces all that art and industry hath produced, destroys all plantations, burns churches and palaces, and mingles them in the same ashes with the cottages of the peasant and the labourer; it distinguishes not of age, or sex, or dignity, but exposes all things and persons, sacred and profane, to the same contempt and confusion; and reduces all that blessed order and harmony, which hath been the product of peace and religion, into the chaos it was first in; as if it would

contend with the Almighty in uncreating what he so wonderfully created, and since polished. And is it not a most detestable thing to open a gap to let this wild boar enter into the garden of Christians, and to make all this havock and devastation in countries planted and watered by the equal Redeemer of mankind, and whose ears are open to the complaints of the meanest person who is oppressed? It is no answer to say that this universal suffering, and even the desolation that attends it, are the inevitable consequences and events of war, how warrantably soever entered into, but rather an argument, that no war can be warrantably entered into, that may produce such intolerable mischiefs; at least if the ground be not notoriously just and necessary, and like to introduce as much benefit to the world as damage and inconvenience to a part of it; and as much care taken as is possible, to suppress that and licence, which is the wanton cause of half the destruction.

rage

It may be, upon a strict survey and disquisition into the elements and injunctions of Christian religion, no war will be found justifiable, but as it is the process that the law of nature allows and prescribes for justice sake, to compel those to abstain from doing wrong, or to repair the wrong they have done, who can by no other way be induced to do either; as when one sovereign prince doth an in

jury to another, or suffers his subjects to do it without controul or punishment; in either of which cases, the injured prince in his own right, or the rights of his subjects, is to demand justice from the other, and to endeavour to obtain it by all the peaceable means that can be used; and then if there be an absolute refusal to give satisfaction, or such a delay, as in the inconvenience amounts to a refusal, there is no remedy left, but the last process, which is force; since nothing can be in itself more odious, or more against the nature and institution of sovereign power, than to do wrong, and to refuse to administer justice; and, therefore, the mischiefs which attend, and which cannot but fall upon the persons and fortunes of those who are least guilty of the injury and injustice, because the damage can very hardly reach the prince, but in his subjects, will be by the supreme Judge cast upon his account who is the original cause and author of the first transgression. And if it be very difficult to find any other just cause to warrant so savage a proceeding as all war produces, what can we think of most of that war which for some hundred of years has infested the Christian world, so much to the dishonour of Christianity, and in which the lives of more men have been lost than might have served to have driven infidelity out of the world, and to have peopled all those parts which yet remain with

out inhabitants? Can we believe that all those lives are forgotten, and that no account shall be rendered of them? If the saving the life of any single person who is in danger to perish, hath much of merit in it, though it be a duty incumbent to humanity, with what detestation and horror must we look upon those, who upon deliberation are solicitous to bring millions of men together to no other purpose than to kill and destroy; and they who survive are conducted as soon as may be to another butchery, to another opportunity to kill more men, whom they know not, and with whom they are not so much as angry. The grammarians have too much reason to derive bellum, a belluis; all war hath much of the beast in it; immane quiddam et belluarum simile; very much of the man must be put off that there may be enough of the beast: princes must be obeyed, and because they may have just cause of war, their subjects must obey and serve them in it, without taking upon them to examine whether it be just or no, Servi tua est conditio, ratio ad te nihil; they have no liberty to doubt when their duty is clear to obey; but where there is none of that obligation, it is wonderful, and an unnatural appetite that disposes men to be soldiers, that they may know how to live, as if the understanding the advantage how to kill most men together were a commendable science to raise their

fortune; and what reputation soever it may have in politics, it can have none in religion, to say, that the art and conduct of a soldier is not infused by nature, but by study, experience, and observation; and therefore that men are to learn it, in order to serve their own prince and country, which may be assaulted and invaded by a skilful enemy, and hardly defended by ignorant and unskilful officers; when, in truth, the man who conscientiously weighs this common argument, will find that it is made by appetite to excuse, and not by reason to support, an ill custom; since the guilt contracted by shedding the blood of one single innocent man, is too dear a price to pay for all the skill that is to be learned in that devouring profession; and that all the science that is necessary for a just defence may be attained without contracting a guilt, which is like to make the defence the more difficult. And we have instances enough of the most brave and effectual defences made upon the advantage of innocence, against the boldest, skilful, and injurious aggressor, whose guilt often makes his understanding too weak to go through an unjust attempt, against a resolute though less experienced defender.

It must seem strange to any one, who considers that Christian religion, that is founded upon love, and charity, and humility, should not only not extinguish this unruly appetite to war, but make the