[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.