is this charity exalted in the gospel, that in the process of the last judgment our Saviour represents men as being justified or condemned according as they possess, or are destitute of that spirit. See Mat. 25: 34-46. The gospel not only brands the murderer with infamy, but declares that he who speaks disrespectfully to a fellow man commits a heinous sin. Yea, he who is angry with his brother without a cause, exposes himself by that means to the severest divine judgments.

4. But suppose all these laws have been violated, what is to be done to the injurious? We shall here take it for granted that self-defence is a natural law; and if so, the gospel cannot abolish it. We shall also assume that government is a divine institution. Society, as well as the individuals of which it is composed, has a right to protect itself. But neither individuals nor societies have a right to take vengeance. That, the Deity has expressly reserved for himself. We are charged to endure injuries with patience, to do good to those who injure us and persecute us, to heap coals of fire on their heads-if they hunger, to feed them, to give them drink in their thirst, and to clothe their nakedness-never to return evil for evil, but to do what in us lies to restore good feelings, to make the wicked penitent, and to forgive them. So wrong is it to cherish the remembrance of injuries and to seek for retaliation, that the peace-makers are exalted to the unspeakable honor of being called the sons of God.

5. The practical effect of the gospel on the human character is utterly opposed to war. Those who have drunk most deeply of the spirit of Christianity, condemn war as exceedingly irrational, wasteful, subversive of good order, awfully destructive to human life, the armed and irreconcilable foe of liberty, righteousness and virtue. And having done all this mischief, it can of itself accomplish no conceivable good. It can decide no principle. In war, might or accident triumphs, and not right.

Were the gospel universally prevalent, an army of soldiers would be an impossibility. According to the New Testament, every man is deeply responsible. The most tremendous consequences will follow this life. But an army is an irresponsible, brutal force. The individuals. can have no judgment and conscience of their own. The

soldier, for obeying God, may incur the severest penalties of the law of war.

II. The character of the Canaanitish wars.

The Bible relates that Moses and Joshua waged wars with the Canaanites. Their transactions are distinctly called wars. And they have, we believe, been always so regarded. Assuming that they were wars, it must be admitted that they were as atrocious and bloody as any on record. As far as we know, the Canaanites had given the Hebrews no manner of provocation. Indeed, it is impossible that they should have done them any injury. For during four hundred years a wide desert had separated them; and in the meantime the Israelites were the slaves of the most powerful nation on earth; and they would, of course, with the whole power of the state, be defended from all foreign injury. While the Hebrews sojourned in the wilderness, the Canaanites gave them no cause of war.

They have, therefore, all the characteristics of injustice and cruelty. Those against whom they were waged had given their assailants no cause. They were wars of invasion, of extermination, induced by the most degraded motive, the desire of wholesale plunder. They were waged with the greatest savageness. Men armed and unarmed, yielding and fleeing, women and children were killed indiscriminately. Kings, whose armies had been slain or scattered, and whose dominions had been seized by their foes, were dragged out of their hiding places, and hanged like the vilest thieves or murderers. All these things are said to have been done according to the command of God given by the hand of Moses.

III. It must be admitted that, apparently, the spirit of Christianity and the spirit of these wars are diametrically opposed to each other. Indeed, we cannot easily conceive of any two things more absolutely at variance than these two. That which in the one is condemned as the greatest wickedness, is in the other commanded and obedience enforced both by a threat of the severest penalties, and by a promise of the richest booty. The Israelites, on the pain of forfeiting the divine favor, were commanded to kill with the sword. Christians are forbidden to injure a hair of their enemy's head; yea, they are commanded to cherish towards him the most benevolent affections. The He

brews were commanded to do that from which he whose spirit has been pervaded by Christianity recoils with instinctive horror. Is it possible that economies so diverse have proceeded from the same unchangeable God?

There is a difficulty here, and it has been felt by many. Sone have believed that the two so evidently contradict each other, that they cannot possibly have a common origia. The Jehovah of the Hebrews, say they, is not the Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. One delights in the slaughter of men and animals, the other abhors all cruelty. Thus Spurzheim discoursed. Many others now, who profess to believe in Christianity deny the inspiration of the Old Testament. The wars of which we now speak, constitute one of the reasons, if not the chief reason for such a denial.

Others, including the great body of professed Christians, have taken another course, not less injurious and daring than the preceding. They so far modify the gospel as to make the two economies reconcilable with each other. The true relation of Christianity to war is of quite modern discovery. It is yet known but to a very limited extent, and is not as yet recognized by any nation as binding on their conduct. Christians have been so engrossed with the pomp and circumstance of war as seen in the Old Testament, that they have overlooked the teachings of the gospel on this subject. They have taken it for granted, that since the Old Testament is so full and clear on this subject, a new economy cannot be expected to add any thing to what was already known. The Deity, it is thought, has shown himself to be fully in favor of war under certain circumstances; and therefore it cannot be for a moment admitted that in the gospel he should reveal himself as opposed to all war.

Indeed, the conduct of God toward the Israelites and the Canaanites has been supposed to illustrate a principle, viz. that the earth and the fullness thereof belong to those who know and worship the Creator. All the nations of Christendom, since the commencement of maritime discovery in the fifteenth century, have practised on this law. The puritan fathers who came to these shores, with a very few exceptions, were practical believers in this principle.

And even now, the Christian church as a body do not

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distinctly perceive that the gospel is an antagonist to all war. The veil which is over their eyes when they read Moses, is not taken away when they study the New Testament. They look at Calvary through the Old Testament; and to their eyes the brightness of the new dispensation is dimmed by gazing at it through such a medium. Some have openly avowed that they cannot go against all war, because by so doing they would condemn the Deity himself.

Professed infidels in their opposition to the Scriptures have charged the Bible with teaching immorality. And one strong argument by which they endeavor to substantiate such a charge, is the wars now under consideration. As far as we have seen, this objection of theirs has been treated by Christian writers very cavalierly. They do not admit that it has any force, nor that those who urge it are worthy of any consideration.

We are far from believing that all objections of this nature have their origin in malignity of disposition. We think that the most sincere lovers of truth and righteousness may find this subject encompassed with the most painful difficulties. No question in theology has caused us so much embarrassment as this. We have seemed as if hemmed in by an impassable wall. We have attempted in a great variety of ways to untie the knot. what success will soon be seen.

With

Before we attempt any explanation of the difficulty, we shall state two circumstances which may in some measure modify the question.

In the first place we must impress ourselves with a sense of the difficulties in the way of our arriving at just and satisfactory conclusions in regard to a subject of this nature. When an event, or a series of events has transpired even under our own immediate notice, we cannot pronounce an exact judgment as to its true moral character. We cannot see the whole of any thing. We perceive only a small portion of the middle of things. Plans which appear to us the wisest, noblest, and most benevolent, frequently end in nothing, or in disaster, while the counsels which we deemed rash are attended with the most amazing and beneficial results.

But how greatly is the difficulty of judging increased, if the event in question be but very partially known-if

many circumstances, and we know not how many, nor how material, are altogether suppressed! We well know that, without uttering one word of falsehood, we may represent some truly patriotic and Christian actions as highly criminal. Some actions derive their entire moral character from the circumstances under which they were performed. If, in regard to an action of this kind, we know only the fact, or only a few of the circumstances, how is it possible for us to understand its true character?

The difficulties are mightily enhanced, if it be impossible for us to conceive ourselves in the place of the actors-if we cannot see with their eyes, and hear with their ears. Now we cannot imagine ourselves in the situation either of the Canaanites, or of the Israelites. We cannot tell how those transactions in which they were interested appeared to them. If we had always lived under the splendor of noon, we could as easily imagine the appearance of the sky at midnight, as we can now, having been born and brought up under the light of the gospel, realize the situation of men at that very remote and primitive age. If, after all we can do, the Canaanitish wars appear inexplicable on gospel principles, we may fall back upon these considerations. First, Moses was undoubtedly by nature most highly endowed, both intellectually and morally. Although at the present time the theory of morals is better understood than in his day, he had far better means of judging of the morality of the great enterprise in which he was engaged, than we have. But he no where betrays the slightest suspicion that it was not perfectly right to destroy the Canaanites and to take possession of their territory. If it were really as wrong, as, when viewed superficially it appears to us, it would seem that his nature would revolt from such an undertaking.

The other consideration is this. If it can be proved that the wars were waged in obedience to the express command of God, then, so far as the command was followed, all must be right. We are not going to sit in judgment on the character of the Deity. Though in the case under consideration, as in a multitude of other instances, his footsteps may be in the great deep, and his paths are past finding out, yet righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne.