dressed to us as men with human constitutions | opinion as to the propriety of carrying on and as men in society. But to cherish and support my own child rather than others; to do good to my neighbours rather than to strangers; to benefit my own country rather than another nation, does not imply that we may injure other nations, or strangers, or their children, in order to do good to our own. Here is the point for discriminationa point which vulgar patriotism and vulgar philosophy have alike overlooked. 42. The proper mode in which Patriotism should be exercised is that which does not necessarily respect other nations. He is the truest patriot who benefits his own country without diminishing the welfare of another. For which reason, those who induce improvements in the administration of justice, in the maxims of governing, in the political consti tution of the state-or those who extend and rectify the education, or in any other manner amend the moral or social condition of a people, possess incomparably higher claims to the praise of patriotism than multitudes of those who receive it from the popular voice. 43. That patriotism which is manifested in political partisanship is frequently of a very questionable kind. The motives to this partisanship are often far other than the love of our country, even when the measure which a party pursues tends to the country's good; and many are called patriots, of whom both the motives and the actions are pernicious or impure. The most vulgar and unfounded talk of patriotism is that which relates to the agents of military operations. In general, the patriotism is of a kind which Christianity condemns; because it is "in opposition to general benignity." It does more harm to another country than good to our own. In truth, the merit often consists in the harm that is done to another country, with but little pretensions to benefiting our own. These agents, therefore, if they were patriotic at all, would commonly be so in an unchristian sense. And as to their being influenced by patriotism as a motive, the notion is ordinarily quite a fiction. When a Frenchman is sent with ten thousand others into Spain, or a Spaniard with an army into France, he probably is so far from acting the patriot that he does not know whether his country would not be more benefited by throwing down his arms; nor probably does he know about what the two nations are quarrelling. Men do not enter armies because they love their countries, but because they want a living, or are pleased with a military life and when they have entered, they do not fight because they love their country, but because fighting is their business. At the very moment of fighting, the nation at home is perhaps divided in the war. One party maintains that the war is beneficial, and one that it is ruining the nation. But the soldier, for whatever he fights, and whether really in promotion of his country's good, or in opposition to it, is secure of his praise. It absurd: the delusion would be ridiculous if 44. All this is sufficiently deceptive and the topic were not too grave for ridicule. which the reputation of military affairs is forms one amongst the many fictions by kept up. Why such fictions are needful to the purpose, it may be wise for the reader truth and reality would not serve the purto inquire. I suppose the cause is, that poses of military reputation, and therefore that recourse is had to pleasant fictions. This may, however, have been done without inventors, of the delusions which they spread. a distinct consciousness, on the part of the I do not wholly coincide with the writer who says, "The love of our country is one of invented by impostors in order to render those specious illusions which have been the multitude the blind instruments of their crooked designs." The love of our country illusion" consists in calling that "love of our is a virtuous motive of action. The "specious country" which ought to be called by a far other name. As to those who have thus know not whether they have often been such misnamed human motives and actions, I is, that they have frequently been duped wily impostors. The probable supposition themselves. to conquest, tried to persuade himself, and He whom ambition urged on perhaps did persuade himself, that he was actuated by the love of his country. He persuaded, also, his followers in arms; and they, no doubt, were sufficiently willing to hope that they were influenced by such a motive. But, in whatever manner the fiction originated, a fiction it assuredly is; and the circumstance that it is still industriously imposed upon the world, is no inconsiderable evidence that the system which it is employed to encourage, would shrink from the eye of virtue and the light of truth. 45. Upon the whole, we shall act both safely and wisely in lowering the relative situation of patriotism in the scale of Christian virtues. It is a virtue; but it is far from the greatest or the highest. The world has given to it an unwarranted elevationan elevation to which it has no pretensions in the view of truth; and if the friends of truth consign it to its proper station, it is probable that there will be fewer spurious pretensions to its praise. 1 Godwin: Pol. Justice, v. 2, p. 514. CHAPTER XVIII. Slavery. Requisitions of Christianity professedly disregarded Persian law-The slave system a costly iniquity. moral features of Slavery as they are presented to others who examine it without an intervening medium, and with no other light than the light of truth. To these the best counsel that we can offer is, to simplify their reasonings to recur to first principles; and first principles are few. Look, then, at the foundation of all the relative duties of manBenevolence-Love-that love and benevolence which is the fulfilling of the Moral Law 46. At a future day it will probably become a subject of wonder how it could have happened that upon such a subject as Slavery that "charity" which prompts to actions men could have inquired, and examined, of kindness, and tenderness, and fellowand debated year after year; and that many feeling for all men. Does he who seizes a years actually passed before the minds of a person in Guinea, and drags him shrieking to nation were so fully convinced of its enor- a vessel, practise this benevolence? When mity, and of their consequent duty to abolish three or four hundreds have been thus seized, it, as to suppress it to the utmost of their does he who chains them together in a power. I say this will probably be a sub-suffocating hold practise this benevolence? ject of wonder; because the question is so simple, that he who simply applies the requisitions of the Moral Law finds no time for reasoning or for doubt. The question, as soon as it is proposed, is decided. How, then, it will be asked, in future days, could a Christian Legislature argue and contend, and contend and argue again, and allow an age to pass without deciding? 47. The cause is, that men do not agree as to the rule of decision-as to the test by which the question should be examined. One talks of the rights to property-one of the interests of merchants-one of safetyone of policy-all which are valid and proper considerations; but they are not the primary consideration. The first question is, Is Slavery right? Is it consistent with the Moral Law? This question is in practice postponed to others, even by some who theoretically acknowledge its primary claim; and when to the indistinct principles of these is added the want of principle in others, it is easy to account for the delay and opposition with which the advocate of simple rectitude is met. 48. To him who examines Slavery by the standard to which all questions of human duty should be referred, the task of deciding, we say, is short. Whether it is consistent with the Christian law for one man to keep another in bondage without his consent, and to compel him to labour for that other's advantage, admits of no more doubt than whether two and two make four. It were humiliating, then, to set about the proof that the Slave System is incompatible with Christianity; because no man questions its incompatibility who knows what Christianity is, and what it requires. Unhappily, some who can estimate, with tolerable precision, the duties of morality upon other subjects, contemplate this through a veil-a veil which habit has suspended before them, and which is dense enough to intercept the view of the | When they have reached another shore, does he who gives money to the first for his victims-keeps them as his property-and compels them to labour for his profit, practise this benevolence? Would either of these persons think, if their relative situations were exchanged with the African's, that the Africans used them kindly and justly? No. Then the question is decided. Christianity condemns the system, and no further inquiry about rectitude remains. The question is as distinctly settled as when a man commits a burglary it is distinctly certain that he has violated the law. 49. But of the flagitiousness of the system in the view of Christianity its defenders are themselves aware-for they tell us, if not with decency, at least with openness, that Christianity must be excluded from the inquiry. What does this exclusion imply? Obviously, that the advocates of slavery are conscious that Christianity condemns it. They take her away from the judgment-seat, because they know she will pronounce a verdict against them. Does the reader desire more than this? Here is the evidence, both of enemies and of friends, that the Moral Law of God condemns the slave system. If, therefore, we are Christians, the question is not merely decided, but confessedly decided: and what more do we ask? It is, to be sure, a curious thing, that they who affirm they are Christians will not have their conduct examined by the Christian law; and whilst they baptize their children and kneel at the communion table, tell us that with one of the greatest questions of practical morality our religion has no concern. 50. Two reasons induce the writer to confine himself, upon this subject, to little more than the exhibition of fundamental principles ;-first, that the details of the Slavery question are already laid, in unnumbered publications, before the public; and, secondly, 16 that he does not think it will long remain, at least in this country, a subject for discussion. That the system will, so far as the British Government is concerned, at no distant period be abolished, appears nearly certain; and he is unwilling to fill the pages of a book of general morality with discussions which, ere many years have passed, may possess no relevance to the affairs of the Christian world. 51. Yet one remark is offered as to a subordinate means of estimating the goodness or badness of a cause that which consists in referring to the principles upon which each party reasons, to the general spirit, to the tone and the temper of the disputants. Now, I am free to confess, that, if I had never heard an argument against Slavery, I should find, in the writings of its defenders, satisfactory evidence that their cause is bad. So true is this, that if at any time I needed peculiarly to impress myself with the flagitiousness of the system, I should take up the book of a determined advocate. There I find the most unequivocal of all testimony against it-that which is unwittingly furnished by its advocates. There I find, first, that the fundamental principles of morality are given to the winds;-that the proper foundation of the reasoning is rejected and ridiculed. There I find that the temper and dispositions which are wont to influence the advocate of a good cause are scarcely to be found, and that those which usually characterise a bad one continually appear; and therefore, even setting aside inaccurate statements and fallacious reasonings, I am assured, from the general character of the defence and conduct of the defenders, that the system is radically vicious and bad. queather had none himself. The sufferer has just as valid a claim to liberty at my hands as at the hands of the ruffian who first dragged him from his home.—Every hour of every day the present possessor is guilty of injustice. Nor is the case altered with respect to those who are born on ́a man's estate. The parents were never the landholder's property, and therefore the child is not. Nay, if the parents had been rightfully slaves, it would not justify me in making slaves of their children. No man has a right to make a child a slave but himself. What are our sentiments upon kindred subjects? What do we think of the justice of the Persian system, by which, when a state offender is put to death, his brothers and his children are killed or mutilated too? Or, to come nearer to the point, as well as nearer home, what should we say of a law which enacted that, of every criminal who was sentenced to labour for life, all the children should be sentenced so to labour also? And yet, if there is any comparison of reasonableness, it seems to be in one respect in favour of the culprit. He is condemned to slavery for his crimes: the African, for another man's profit. 53. That any human being, who has not forfeited his liberty by his crimes, has a right to be free, and that whosoever forcibly withholds liberty from an innocent man robs him of his right and violates the Moral Law, are truths which no man would dispute or doubt, if custom had not obscured our perceptions, or if wickedness did not prompt us to close our eyes. imagine that every slaveholder is therefore a wicked man ;-but if he be not, it is only upon the score of ignorance. If he is exempt from the guilt of violating the Moral Law, it is only because he does not perceive what it requires. Let us leave the deserts of the individual to Him who knoweth the heart; of his actions, we may speak; and we should speak in the language of reprobation, disgust, and abhorrence. 54. The whole system is essentially and radically bad :-Injustice and oppression are its fundamental principles. Whatever lenity 52. The distinctions which are made be- may be requisite in speaking of the agent, tween the original robbery in Africa, and none should be shown, none should be exthe purchase, the inheritance, or the "breed-pressed for the act. I do not affirm or ing" of slaves in the colonies, do not at all respect the kind of immorality that attaches to the whole system. They respect nothing but the degree. The man who wounds and robs another on the highway is a more atrocious offender than he who plunders a hen-roost; but he is not more truly an offender, he is not more certainly a violator of the law. And so with the slave system. He who drags a wretched man from his family in Africa is a more flagitious transgressor than he who merely compels the African to labour for his own advantage; but the transgression, the immorality, is as real and certain in one case as in the other. He who has no right to steal the African can have none to sell him. From him who is known to have no right to sell, another can have no right to buy or to possess. Sale, or gift, or legacy imparts no right to me, because the seller, or giver, or be 55. Although it could be shown that the slave system is expedient, it would not affect the question whether it ought to be maintained?—yet it is remarkable that it is shown to be impolitic as well as bad. We are not violating the Moral Law because it fills our pockets. We injure ourselves by our own transgressions. The slave system is a costly iniquity both to the nation and to individual men. It is matter of great satisfaction that this is known and proved; and yet it is just | different to their fame? Who would now what, antecedently to inquiry, we should be willing that biography should record of have reason to expect. The truth furnishes him-This man defended the slave trade? one addition to the many evidences that, The time will come when the record-This even with respect to temporal affairs, that man opposed the abolition of slavery-will which is right is commonly politic; and it occasion a great deduction from the public ought, therefore, to furnish additional in- estimate of worth of character. When both ducements to a fearless conformity of con- these atrocities are abolished, and but for duct, private and public, to the Moral Law. the page of history forgotten, that page will make a wide difference between those who aided the abolition, and those who obstructed it. The one will be ranked amongst the Howards that are departed, and the other amongst those who, in ignorance or in guilt, have employed their little day in inflicting misery upon mankind. 56. It is quite evident that our slave system will be abolished, and that its supporters will hereafter be regarded with the same public feelings as he who was an advocate of the slave trade is now. How is it that legislators or that public men are so in CHAPTER XIX. War. CAUSES OF WAR.-Want of inquiry-Indifference | War is not compatible with Christianity, few to human misery-National irritability-Interest serious attempts are made to show that it is. ---Secret motives of Cabinets Ideas of glory- Whether this results from the circumstance Foundation of military glory. CONSEQUENCES OF WAR.-Destruction of human life-Taxation - Moral depravity-Familiarity with plunder-Implicit submission to superiorsResignation of moral agency - Bondage and degradation-Loan of armies-Effects on the community. LAWFULNESS OF WAR 52 - --- Influence of habit-Of appealing to antiquity-The Christian Scriptures -Subjects of Christ's benediction-Matt. xxvii. -The Apostles and Evangelists-The Centurion-Cornelius-Silence not a proof of approbation-Luke xxii. 36—John the Baptist-Negative evidence-Prophecies of the Old Testament -The requisitions of Christianity of present obligation - Primitive Christians - Example and testimony of early Christians-Christian soldiers -Wars of the Jews-Duties of individuals and nations-Offensive and defensive war-Wars always aggressive-Paley-War wholly forbidden. OF THE PROBABLE AND PRACTICAL EFFECTS OF ADHERING TO THE MORAL LAW IN RESPECT TO WAR.-Quakers in America and IrelandColonisation of Pennsylvania-Unconditional reliance on Providence-Recapitulation-General Observations. 1. It is one amongst the numerous moral phenomena of the present times that the inquiry is silently yet not slowly spreading in the world-Is War compatible with the Christian religion? There was a period when the question was seldom asked, and when War was regarded almost by every man both as inevitable and right. That period has certainly passed away; and not only individuals, but public societies, and societies in distant nations, are urging the question upon the attention of mankind. The simple circumstance that it is thus urged contains no irrational motive to investigation for why should men ask the question if they did not doubt; and how, after these long ages of prescription, could they begin to doubt without a reason? 2. It is not unworthy of remark, that whilst disquisitions are frequently issuing from the press, of which the tendency is to show that that no individual peculiarly is interested in the proof-or that there is a secret consciousness that proof cannot be brought— or that those who may be desirous of defending the custom rest in security that the impotence of its assailants will be of no avail against a custom so established and so supported—I do not know: yet the fact is remarkable, that scarcely a defender is to be found. It cannot be doubted that the question is one of the utmost interest and importance to man. Whether the custom be defensible or not, every man should inquire into its consistency with the Moral Law. If it is defensible, he may, by inquiry, dismiss the scruples which it is certain subsist in the minds of multitudes, and thus exempt himself from the offence of participating in that which, though pure, he "esteemeth to be unclean." If it is not defensible, the propriety of investigation is increased in a tenfold degree. 3. It may be a subject therefore of reasonable regret to the friends and the lovers of truth, that the question of the Moral Lawfulness of War is not brought fairly before the public. I say fairly because though many of the publications which impugn its lawfulness advert to the ordinary arguments in its favour, yet it is not to be assumed that they give to those arguments all that vigour and force which would be imparted by a stated and an able advocate. Few books, it is probable, would tend more powerfully to promote the discovery and dissemination of truth than one which should frankly and fully and ably advocate, upon sound moral principles, the practice of War. The public would then see the whole of what can be urged in its favour without being obliged to seek for arguments, as they now must, in incidental or imperfect or scattered disquisitions: and possessing in a distinct form the evidence of both |