destroy it, not partially, but to the utmost possible extent.  If it was his design to give happiness to man, it is their duty to determine, that he intended to give it not in a limited proportion, but in the largest measure.  But when they consider the nature of wars, that they militate against the law of preservation, that they include the commission of a multitude of crimes, that they produce a complication of misery and suffering to man, they conceive they would not be doing their duty as Christians, or giving to Christianity its due honour, if they were not to admit the larger meaning of the words in question as well as the less.  Reason too, pleads for the one as well as for the other.  Consistency of moral doctrine again demands both.  But if we admit the restricted interpretation, and exclude the larger, we offend reason.  All consistency is at an end.  Individual responsibility for moral turpitude will be taken from man.  Crimes, clearly marked and defined in the page of Christianity, will cease to be crimes at the will of princes.  One contradiction will rush in after another; and men will have two different standards of morality, as they adhere to the commands of the Gospel, or to the customs of governments or of the world.

SECT.  II.

Meaning of the scriptural passages advanced by the Quakers, supported by the opinions and practice of the early Christians—­Early Christian writers held it unlawful for Christians to fight, as appears from Justin—­Tatian—­Clemens—­and others—­Christians would not enter into the armies for more than two centuries, as appears from Ireneus—­Tertullian —­Celsus—­Origen and others—­and generally left the military service, if they happened to be converted in it.

It may be presumed to be difficult for Christians, who have been in the habit of seeing wars entered into and carried on by their own and other Christian governments, and without any other censure than that they might be politically wrong, to see the scriptural passages of “non-resistance to evil and love of enemies,” but through a vitiated medium.  The prejudices of some, the interests of others, and custom with all, will induce a belief among them, that these have no relation to public wars.  At least they will be glad to screen themselves under such a notion.  But the question is, what a Heathen would have said to these passages, who, on his conversion to Christianity, believed that the New Testament was of divine origin, that it was the book of life, and that the precepts, which it contained, were not to be dispensed with, to suit particular cases, without the imputation of evil.  Now such a trial, the Quakers say, has been made.  It was made by the first Christians, and they affirm, that these interpreted the passages, which have been mentioned, differently from those of most of the Christians of the present age; for that both their opinions and their practice spoke loudly against the lawfulness of war.