92 Taylor, Whole Works, xii. 164.
93 ‘The Sword and Christianity,’ in Boston Review devoted to Theology and Literature, iii. 261.
94 Ibid. iii. 259, 257.
95 Holland, Time of War, p. 14.
96 Boston Review, iii. 257.
97 ‘Christianity and War,’ in Christian Review, xxvi. 604.
98 Proudhon, La guerre et la paix, ii. 420.
99 Ibid.i.62; ii. 435.
100 Ibid. i. 45.
101 Ibid. i. 43.
In order to prove the consistency of war with Christianity appeals are still, as in former days, made to the Bible; to the divinely-sanctioned example of the ancient Israelites, to the fact that Jesus never prohibited those around Him from bearing arms, to the instances of the centurions mentioned in the Gospel, to St. Paul’s predilection for taking his spiritual metaphors from the profession of the soldier, and so on.102 According to Canon Mozley, the Christian recognition of the right of war was contained in Christianity’s original recognition of nations.103 “By a fortunate necessity,” a universal empire is impossible.104 Each nation is a centre by itself, and when questions of right and justice arise between these independent centres, they cannot be decided except by mutual agreement or force. The aim of the nation going to war is exactly the same as that of the individual in entering a court, and the Church, which has no authority to decide which is the right side, cannot but stand neutral and contemplate war forensically, as a mode of settling national questions, which is justified by the want of any other mode.105 A natural justice, Canon Mozley adds, is inherent not only in wars of self-defence; there is an instinctive reaching in nations and masses of people after alteration and readjustment, which has justice in it, and which arises from real needs. The arrangement does not suit as it stands, there is want of adaptation, there is confinement and pressure; there are people kept away from each other that are made to be together, and parts separated that were made to join. All this uneasiness in States naturally leads to war. Moreover, there are wars of progress which, so far as they are really necessary for the due advantage of mankind and growth of society, are approved of by Christianity, though they do not strictly belong to the head of wars undertaken in self-defence.106 A doctrine which thus, in the name of religion, allows the waging of wars for rectifying the political distribution of nationalities and races, and forwarding the so-called progress of the world, naturally lends itself to the justification of almost any war entered upon by a Christian State.107 As a matter of fact, it would be impossible to find a single instance of a war waged by a Protestant country, from any motive, to which the bulk of its clergy have not given their sanction and support. The opposition against war has generally come from other quarters.
102 See e.g., Browne, Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles, p. 827 sq.; Christian Review, xxvi. 603 sq.; Eclectic Magazine, xiii. 372.
103 Mozley, ‘On War,’ in Sermons preached before the University of Oxford, p. 119.
104 Ibid. p. 112.
105 Ibid. p. 100 sqq.
106 Ibid. 104 sq.
107 On the principle of progress, Canon Mozley himself justifies (ibid. p. 110 sq.) not only the wars undertaken against two Eastern empires which have shut themselves up and excluded themselves from the society of mankind, but “two of the three great European wars of the last dozen years.” This was said in 1871.
There have been, and still are, Christian sects which, on religious grounds, condemn war of any kind. In the fourteenth century the Lollards taught that homicide in war is expressly contrary to the New Testament; they were persecuted partly on that account.108 Of the same opinion were the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century; and they could claim on their side the words of men like Colet and Erasmus. From the pulpit of St. Paul’s Colet thundered that “an unjust peace is better than the justest war,” and that, “when men out of hatred and ambition fight with and destroy one another, they fight under the banner, not of Christ, but of the Devil.”109 According to Erasmus “nothing is more impious, more calamitous, more widely pernicious, more inveterate, more base, or in sum more unworthy of a man, not to say of a Christian,” than war. It is worse than brutal; to man no wild beast is more destructive than his fellow-man. When brutes fight, they fight with weapons which nature has given them, whereas we arm ourselves for mutual slaughter with weapons which nature never thought of. Neither do beasts break out in hostile rage for trifling causes, but either when hunger drives them to madness, or when they find themselves attacked, or when they are alarmed for the safety of their young. But we, on frivolous pretences, what tragedies do we act on the theatre of war! Under colour of some obsolete and disputable claim to territory; in a childish passion for a mistress; for causes even more ridiculous than these, we kindle the flame of war. Transactions truly hellish, are called holy wars. Bishops and grave divines, decrepit as they are in person, fight from the pulpit the battles of the princes, promising remission of sins to all who will take part in the war of the prince, and exclaiming to the latter that God will fight for him, if he only keeps his mind favourable to the cause of religion. And yet, how could it ever enter into our hearts, that a Christian should imbrue his hands in the blood of a Christian! What is war but murder and theft committed by great numbers on great numbers! Does not the Gospel declare, in decisive words, that we must not revile again those who revile us, that we should do good to those who use us ill, that we should give up the whole of our possessions to those who take a part, that we should pray for those who design to take away our lives? The world has so many learned bishops, so many grey-headed grandees, so many councils and senates, why is not recourse had to their authority, and the childish quarrels of princes settled by their wise and decisive arbitration? “The man who engages in war by choice, that man, whoever he is, is a wicked man; he sins against nature, against God, against man, and is guilty of the most aggravated and complicated impiety.”110 These were the main arguments of reason, humanity, and religion, which Erasmus adduced against war. They could not leave the reformers entirely unaffected. Sir Thomas More charged Luther