A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 3 | Page 9

that it was sufficient to have left behind him such general precepts, as, when applied properly, would be subversive of them all. And, thirdly, that he never commended the centurion on account of his military situation, but on account of his profession of his faith.
[Footnote 11: Matt. viii. 5.]
They say farther, that they can bring an argument of a much more positive nature than that just mentioned, from an incident which took place, and where Jesus was again concerned. When Peter cut off the ear of one of the servants of the high priest, who was concerned in the apprehension of his Lord, he was not applauded, but reprimanded for the part which he thus took in his defence in the following words:[12] "Put up again thy sword in its place, for all they that take the sword, shall perish by the sword." Now the Quakers conceive, that much more is to be inferred against the use of the sword from this instance, than from the former in favour of it.
[Footnote 12: Matt. xxvi, 52.]
The last argument, which is usually adduced against the Quakers on this subject, is, that they have mistaken the meaning of the words of the famous sermon upon the Mount. These words teach us the noble lesson, that it is more consistent with the character of a Christian to forgive, than to resist an injury. They are, it is said, wholly of private import, and relate solely to private occurrences in life. But the Quakers have extended the meaning of them beyond private to public injuries or wars.
The Quakers, in answer to this observe, that they dare not give to the words in question a less extensive meaning. They relate to every one who reads them. They relate to the poor. They relate to the rich. They relate to, every potentate who may be the ruler of a land. They relate to every individual of his council. There is no exception, or dispensation to any one, in favour of any case.
That they relate to public as well as private wars, or that they extend themselves naturally to those which are public, the Quakers conceive it reasonable to suppose from the following consideration. No man, they apprehend, can possess practically the divine principle of loving an individual enemy at home, or of doing good to the man who hates him, but he must of necessity love his enemy in any and every other place. He must have gone so for forward on the road to Christian perfection, as to be unable to bear arms against any other person whatsoever, and particularly when, according to the doctrines of the New Testament, no geographical boundaries fix the limits of love and enmity between man and man, but the whole human race are considered as the children of the same parent, and therefore as brothers to one another. But who can truly love an enemy and kill him? And where is the difference, under the Gospel dispensation, between Jew and Gentile, Greek and Barbarian, bond and free?
That these words were meant to extend to public as well as to private ware, the Quakers believe again from the views which they entertain relative to the completion of prophecy. They believe that a time will come, in one or other of the succeeding ages, "when men shall bent their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks, and when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, and they shall not learn war any more." Now other Christians, who differ from them in the interpretation of the words in question, believe equally with them, that the times thus predicted will come to pass. The question then is, whether the more enlarged interpretation of these words, as insisted upon by the Quakers, or of the less enlarged as insisted upon by others, be the most consistent with the belief of the future accomplishment of the prophecy just mentioned. And in this case the Quakers are of opinion, that if wars were ever to cease, one ought to expect that some foundation would have been previously laid in Christianity for this great and important end. The subjugation of the passions, which it is the direct tendency of Christianity to effect, would produce this end. And so far such a foundation has already been laid in this system. But as the admission of moral precepts into the education of man, so as to form habits of moral opinion, is another, way of influencing conduct in life, the Quakers think it likely that some such maxim as "that Christians should not fight," would have been introduced also, because the adoption of such a maxim would have had a similar tendency with the subjugation of the passions in producing the same end. For it seems absurd, they