14. Example of men of piety
There are some persons who suppose themselves sufficiently justified in their approbation of war by the example of men of piety of our own times.
The argument, as an argument, is of little concern, but everything is important that makes us acquiescent in war:
“Here are men,” they say, “who make the knowledge of their duties the great object of their study, and yet these men engage in war without any doubt of its lawfulness.”
All this is true; and it is true also that some good men have expressly inculcated the lawfulness of war; and it is true also that the articles of the Church of England specifically assert it.
But what if it should have come to pass that “blindness in part hath happened unto Israel”?
What is the argument?
That good men have engaged in war, and therefore that Christianity allows it.
They who satisfy themselves with such reasoning should bear in mind that he who voluntarily passes over the practice of the 1-2 centuries of Christianity, and attempts to defend himself by the practice of after and darker ages,
has obviously no other motive than that he finds his religion, when vitiated and corrupt, more suitable to his purpose than it was in the days of its purity.
This state of imperfection and impurity has diffused an influence upon the good, as upon the bad.
I question not that some Christians of the present day who defend war, believe they act in accordance with their religion; just as I question not that many, who zealously bore faggots to the stake of the Christian martyrs, believed so too.
The time has been, when those who killed good men thought “they did God service.”
But let the succeeding declaration be applied by our present objectors: “These things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father or Me.”
Here, then, appears to be our error – that we do not estimate the conduct of men by the standard of the gospel, but that we reduce the standard of the gospel to the conduct of men.
That good men should fail to conform to the perfect purity of Christianity, or to perceive it, need not be wondered, for we have sufficient examples of it.
Good men in past ages allowed many things as permitted by Christianity, which we condemn, and shall forever condemn.
In the present day there are many questions of duty on which men of piety disagree:
If their authority is rejected by us on other points of practice, why is it to determine the question of war? In particular, why do we insist on their decisions, when they differ in their decisions themselves?
If good men have allowed the lawfulness of war, good men have also denied it.
We are therefore again referred to the simple evidence of religion – an evidence which it will always be found wise to admit, and dangerous to question.