3. Revealed will of God the sole standard of decision
It is agreed by all sober moralists that the foundation of our duty is the will of God, and that his will is to be ascertained by the Revelation that he has made. To Christianity, therefore, we refer in determination of this great question.
We admit no other test of truth, and with him who thinks that the decisions of Christianity may be superseded by other considerations, we have no concern:
We address not our argument to him, but leave him to find some other and better standard by which to adjust his principles and regulate his conduct.
These observations apply to those objectors who loosely say that “wars are necessary”;
for if we suppose that the Christian religion prohibits war, it is preposterous and also irreverent to justify ourselves in supporting it because “it is necessary.”
To talk of a divine law that must be disobeyed, implies, indeed, such a confusion of moral principles, as well as laxity of them, that neither the philosopher nor the Christian are required to notice it.
But, perhaps, some of those who say that wars are necessary do not very accurately inquire what they mean. There are two sorts of necessity: moral and physical, and it is probable some men are accustomed to confound these.
That there is any physical necessity for war – that people cannot, if they choose, refuse to engage in it – no one will maintain. And a moral necessity to perform an action consists only in the prospect of a certain degree of evil by refraining from it.
If, then, those who say that “wars are necessary” mean that they are physically necessary, we deny it; If they mean that wars avert greater evils than they occasion, we ask for proof.
Proof has never yet been given; and even if we thought that we possessed such proof, we should still be referred to the primary question: “What is the will of God?”
It is some satisfaction to be able to give, on a question of this nature, the testimony of some great minds against the lawfulness of war, opposed as those testimonies are to the general prejudice and the general practice of the world.
It has been observed by Beccaria that,
“It is the fate of great truths to glow only like a flash of lightning amidst the dark clouds in which error has enveloped the universe; and if our testimonies are few or transient, it matters not, so that their light may be the light of truth.”
There are, indeed, many who, in describing the horrible particulars of a siege or a battle, indulge in some declamations on the horrors of war, such as has been often repeated and often applauded, and as often forgotten.
But such declamations are of little value and of little effect:
He who reads the next paragraph finds, probably, that he is invited to follow the path to glory and to victory – to share the hero’s danger and partake the hero’s praise –
and he soon discovers that the moralizing parts of his author are the impulse of feedings rather than of principles, and thinks that though it may be very well to write, yet it is better to forget them.