8. Arguments that the precepts are figurative only
It is, however, objected that the prohibitions “resist not evil” and the like are figurative, and that they do not mean that no injury is to be punished and that no outrage to be repelled.
It has been asked, with complacent exultation, what would these advocates of peace say to him who struck them on the right cheek? Would they turn to him the other?
What would these patient moralists say to him who robbed them of a coat? Would they give him a cloak also? What would these philanthropists say to him who asked them to lend a hundred pounds? Would they not turn away?
This is argumentum ad hominem, one example among the many of that lowest and most dishonest of all modes of intellectual warfare, which consists in exciting the feelings instead of convincing the understanding.
It is, however, of some satisfaction that the motive to the adoption of this mode of warfare is itself an evidence of a bad cause, for what honest reasoner would produce only a laugh if he were able to produce conviction?
But I must ask, in my turn, what do these objectors say is the meaning of the precepts? What is the meaning of “resist not evil”? Does it mean to allow bombardment, devastation, and murder? If it does not mean to allow all this, it does not mean to allow war.
What again do the objectors say is the meaning of “love your enemies,” or of “do good to them that hate you”?
Does it mean, “ruin their commerce, sink their fleets, plunder their cities, and shoot through their hearts”? If the precept does not mean all this, it does not mean war.
We are, then, not required to define what exceptions Christianity may admit to the application of some of the precepts from the Mount, since whatever exceptions she may allow, it is manifest what she does not allow.
If we give to our objectors whatever license of interpretation they may desire, they cannot, either by honesty or dishonesty, so interpret the precepts as to make them allow war.
I would, however, be far from insinuating that we are left without any means of determining the degree and kind of resistance that is lawful in some cases,
although I believe no specification of it can be previously laid down,
for if the precepts of Christianity had been multiplied a thousand-fold, there would still have arisen many cases of daily occurrence to which none of them would precisely have applied.
Our business, then, in so far as written rules are concerned, is in all cases to which these rules do not apply, to regulate our conduct by those general principles and dispositions that our religion enjoins.
I say, in so far as written rules are concerned, for “if any man lack wisdom” and these rules do not impart it, “let him ask of God.”
Of the injunctions that are contrasted with “an eye for eye and a tooth for tooth,” the entire scope and purpose is the suppression of the violent passions, the inculcation of forbearance, forgiveness, benevolence, and love.
They forbid, not specifically the act, but the spirit of war, and this method of prohibition Christ ordinarily employed:
He did not often condemn the individual doctrines or customs of the age, however false or however vicious, but he condemned the passions by which only vice could exist and inculcated the truth that dismissed every error.
And this method was undoubtedly wise. In the gradual alterations of human wickedness, many new species of profligacy might arise which the world had not yet practiced.
In the gradual vicissitudes of human error, many new fallacies might be revealed which the world had not yet held, and how were these errors and these crimes to be opposed,
but by the inculcation of principles that were applicable to every crime and to every error, principles which tell us not always what is wrong, but which tell us what always is right?
There are two modes of censure or condemnation:
the one is to reprobate evil and the other to enforce the opposite good, and both these modes were adopted by Christ in relation to war:
He not only censured the passions that are necessary to war, but also inculcated the affections that are most opposed to them.
The conduct and dispositions upon which he pronounced his solemn benediction are exceedingly remarkable. They are these, and in this order:
poverty of spirit, mourning, meekness, desire of righteousness, mercy, purity of heart, peace-making, and sufferance of persecution.
Now let the reader try whether he can propose eight other qualities, to be retained as the general habit of the mind, which shall be more incongruous with war.
Of these benedictions, I think the most emphatic is that pronounced upon the peacemakers: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.” Higher praise or a higher title, no man can receive.
Now I do not say that these benedictions contain an absolute proof that Christ prohibited war, but I say they make it clear that he did not approve it.
He selected a number of subjects for his solemn approbation, not one of them possesses any congruity with war, and some of them cannot possibly exist in conjunction with it.
Can anyone believe that he who made this selection, and who distinguished the peacemakers with peculiar approbation, could have sanctioned his followers in murdering one another?
Or does anyone believe that those who were mourners, meek, merciful, and peace-making could at the same time perpetrate such murder?
If I were told that a temporary suspension of Christian dispositions, although necessary to the prosecution of war, does not imply the extinction of Christian principles,
or that these dispositions may be the general habit of the mind and may both precede and follow the acts of war,
I would answer that this is to grant all that I require,
since it grants that when we engage in war, we abandon Christianity.
When the betrayers and murderers of Jesus Christ approached him, his followers asked, “Shall we smite with the sword?” And without waiting for an answer, one of them “drew his sword, and smote the servant of the high-priest, and cut off his right ear.”
“Put up thy sword again into its place,” said his Divine Master, “for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.”
There is the greater importance in the circumstances of this command, because it prohibited the destruction of human life in a cause in which there were the best of possible reasons for destroying it.
The question, “shall we smite with the sword,” obviously refers to the defence of the Redeemer from his assailants by force of arms.
His followers were ready to fight for him; and if any reason for fighting could be a good one, they certainly had it.
But if, in defence of himself from the hands of bloody ruffians, his religion did not allow the sword to be drawn, for what reason can it be lawful to draw it?
The advocates of war are at least bound to show a better reason for destroying mankind than is contained in this instance in which it was forbidden.
It will, perhaps, be said that the reason why Christ did not suffer himself to be defended by arms was that such a defence would have defeated the purpose for which he came into the world, namely, to offer up his life, and that he himself assigns this reason in the context.
He does indeed assign it, but the primary reason, the immediate context, is “for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.”
The reference to the destined sacrifice of his life is an after-reference:
This destined sacrifice might, perhaps, have formed a reason why his followers should not fight then, but the first, the principal reason that he assigned was a reason why they should not fight at all.
Nor is it necessary to define the precise import of the words “for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword,” since it is sufficient for us all that they imply reprobation.
To the declaration that was made by Jesus Christ, in the conversation that took place between himself and Pilate, after he had been seized by the Jews,
I would particularly invite the attention of the reader: The declaration refers specifically to an armed conflict, and to a conflict between numbers.
In allusion to the capability of his followers to have defended his person, he says:
“My kingdom is not of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews, but now is my kingdom not from hence.”
He had before forbidden his “servants” to fight in his defence, and now, before Pilate, he assigns the reason for it: “my kingdom is not of this world.”
This is the very reason why we are urging against war: We say that it is incompatible with his kingdom – with the state that he came into the world to introduce.
The incompatibility of war with Christianity is yet more forcibly evinced by the contrast that Christ makes between his kingdom and others.
It is the ordinary practice in the world for subjects to fight, and his subjects would have fought if his kingdom had been of this world, but since it was not of this world – since its nature was purer and its obligations more pacific – therefore they might not fight.
His declaration referred, not to the act of a single individual who might draw his sword in individual passion,
but to an armed engagement between hostile parties, to a conflict for an important object, which one party had previously resolved on attaining, and which the other was ready to have prevented with the sword.
It refers, therefore, strictly to a conflict between armed numbers, and to a conflict that, it should be remembered, was in a much better cause than any to which we can now pretend.