A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 3 | Page 8

"From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence even of your lusts that war in your members?" But if wars come from the lusts of men, then the Quakers say, that those who have subdued their lusts, can no longer engage in them, or, in other words, that true Christians, being persons of this description, or being such, according to St. Paul, as are redeemed out of what St. James calls the very grounds and occasions of wars, can no longer fight. And as this proposition is true in itself, so the Quakers conceive the converse of it to be true also: For if there are persons, on the other hand, who deliberately engage in the wars and fightings of the world, it is a proof, that their lusts are not yet subjugated, or that, though they may be nominal, they are not yet arrived at the stature of true or of full-grown Christians.
[Footnote 7: 2 Cor. x. 3, 4, 5.]
[Footnote 8: James iv. I.]
A third quotation, made by the Quakers, is taken from St. Paul exclusively.[9] "Now if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his." That is, if men have not the same disposition which Jesus Christ manifested in the different situations of his life, the same spirit of humility and of forbearance, and of love, and of forgiveness of injuries, or if they do not follow him as a pattern, or if they do not act as he would have done on any similar occasion, they are not Christians. Now they conceive, knowing what the spirit of Jesus was by those things which have been recorded of him, that he could never have been induced or compelled, by any earthly consideration or power, to have engaged in the wars of the world. They are aware that his mission, which it became him to fulfil, and which engrossed all his time, would not have allowed him the opportunity of a military life. But they believe, independently of this, that the spirit which he manifested upon earth, would have been of itself a sufficient bar to such an employment. This they judge from his opinions and his precepts. For how could he have taken up arms to fight, who enjoined in the new dispensation, that men were not to resist evil; that they were to love their enemies; that they were to bless those who cursed them, and to do good to those who hated them? This they judge also from his practice. For how could he have lifted up his arm against another, who, "when he was reviled, reviled not again;" and who, in his very agony upon the Cross, prayed for his persecutors, saying, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." But if Jesus Christ could not have been induced or compelled to have engaged in a profession, which would have subjected him to take away the life of another, so neither can any Christian; "for if a man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his."
[Footnote 9: Rom. viii. 9.]
Three arguments are usually brought against the Quakers on this subject.
The first is, that John the Baptist,[10] when the soldiers demanded of him what they should do, did not desire them to leave the service in which they were engaged, but, on the other hand, to be content with their wages. To this the Quakers reply, that John told them also, "to do violence to no man." But even if he had not said this, they apprehend that nothing could be deduced from his expressions, which could become binding upon Christians. For John was the last prophet of the old dispensation, but was never admitted into the new. He belonged to the system which required an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, but not to that which required no resistance to evil, and which insisted upon the love of enemies as well as of friends. Hence Jesus Christ said of him, that "he who was least in the kingdom of heaven, was greater than he."
[Footnote 10: Luke iii. 14.]
The second argument brought against the Quakers on this occasion, is of a similar nature with the former. It is said that, if war had been unlawful, our Saviour, when the centurion[11] came to him at Capernaum, would have found fault with his profession; but he did not do this, but on the other hand he highly commended him for his religion. In answer to this the Quakers observe, first, that no solid argument can be drawn from silence on any occasion. Secondly, that Jesus Christ seems, for wise purposes, to have abstained from meddling with many of the civil institutions of his time, though in themselves wicked, thinking probably,