XI. Now, as it is sometimes necessary for kings and nations to take up arms for the infliction of such public vengeance, the same reason will lead us to infer the lawfulness of wars which are undertaken for this end. For if they have been intrusted with power to preserve the tranquillity of their own territories, to suppress the seditious tumults of disturbers, to succour the victims of oppression, and to punish crimes,—can they exert this power for a better purpose, than to repel the violence of him who disturbs both the private repose of individuals and the general tranquillity of the nation; who excites insurrections, and perpetrates acts of oppression, cruelty, and every species of crime? If they ought to be the guardians and defenders of the laws, it is incumbent upon them to defeat the efforts of all by whose injustice the discipline of the laws is corrupted. And if they justly punish those robbers, whose injuries have only extended to a few persons, shall they suffer a whole district to be plundered and devastated with impunity? For there is no difference, whether he, who in a hostile manner invades, disturbs, and plunders the territory of another to which he has no right, be a king, or one of the meanest of mankind: all persons of this description are equally to be considered as robbers, and ought to be punished as such. It is the dictate both of natural equity, and of the nature of the office, therefore, that princes are armed, not only to restrain the crimes of private individuals by judicial punishments, but also to defend the territories committed to their charge by going to war against any hostile aggression; and the Holy Spirit, in many passages of Scripture, declares such wars to be lawful.
XII. If it be objected that the New Testament contains no precept or example, which proves war to be lawful to Christians, I answer, first, that the reason for waging war which existed in ancient times, is equally valid in the present age; and that, on the contrary, there is no cause to prevent princes from defending their subjects. Secondly, that no express declaration on this subject is to be expected in the writings of the apostles, whose design was, not to organize civil governments, but to describe the spiritual kingdom of Christ. Lastly, that in those very writings it is implied by the way, that no change has been made in this respect by the coming of Christ. “For,” to use the words of Augustine, “if Christian discipline condemned all wars, the soldiers who inquired respecting their salvation ought rather to have been directed to cast away their arms, and entirely to renounce the military profession; whereas the advice given them was, ‘Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with your wages.’[[1449]] An injunction to be content with their wages was certainly not a prohibition of the military life.” But here all magistrates ought to be very cautious, that they follow not in any respect the impulse of their passions. On the contrary, if punishments are to be inflicted, they ought not to be precipitated with anger, exasperated with hatred, or inflamed with implacable severity: they ought, as Augustine says, “to commiserate our common nature even in him whom they punish for his crime.” Or, if arms are to be resorted to against an enemy, that is, an armed robber, they ought not to seize a trivial occasion, nor even to take it when presented, unless they are driven to it by extreme necessity. For, if it be our duty to exceed what was required by that heathen writer who maintained that the evident object of war ought to be the restoration of peace, certainly we ought to make every other attempt before we have recourse to the decision of arms. In short, in both cases they must not suffer themselves to be carried away by any private motive, but be wholly guided by public spirit; otherwise they grossly abuse their power, which is given them, not for their own particular advantage, but for the benefit and service of others. Moreover, on this right of war depends the lawfulness of garrisons, alliances, and other civil munitions. By garrisons, I mean soldiers who are stationed in towns to defend the boundaries of a country. By alliances, I mean confederations which are made between neighbouring princes, that, if any disturbance arise in their territories, they will render each other mutual assistance, and will unite their forces together for the common resistance of the common enemies of mankind. By civil munitions, I mean all the provisions which are employed in the art of war.
XIII. In the last place, I think it necessary to add, that tributes and taxes are the legitimate revenues of princes; which, indeed, they ought principally to employ in sustaining the public expenses of their office, but which they may likewise use for the support of their domestic splendour, which is closely connected with the dignity of the government that they hold. Thus we see that David, Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah, and other pious kings, and likewise Joseph and Daniel, without any violation of piety, on account of the office which they filled, lived at the public expense; and we read in Ezekiel of a very ample portion of land being assigned to the kings;[[1450]] in which passage, though the prophet is describing the spiritual kingdom of Christ, yet he borrows the model of it from the legitimate kingdoms of men. On the other hand, princes themselves ought to remember, that their finances are not so much private incomes, as the revenues of the whole people, according to the testimony of Paul,[[1451]] and therefore cannot be lavished or dilapidated without manifest injustice; or, rather, that they are to be considered as the blood of the people, not to spare which is the most inhuman cruelty; and their various imposts and tributes ought to be regarded merely as aids of the public necessity, to burden the people with which, without cause, would be tyrannical rapacity. These things give no encouragement to princes to indulge profusion and luxury; and certainly there is no need to add fuel to their passions, which of themselves are more than sufficiently inflamed; but, as it is of very great importance, that whatever they undertake they attempt it with a pure conscience before God, it is necessary, in order to their avoiding vain confidence and contempt of God, that they be taught how far their rights extend. Nor is this doctrine useless to private persons, who learn from it not to pronounce rash and insolent censures on the expenses of princes, notwithstanding they exceed the limits of common life.
XIV. From the magistracy, we next proceed to the laws, which are the strong nerves of civil polity, or, according to an appellation which Cicero has borrowed from Plato, the souls of states, without which magistracy cannot subsist, as, on the other hand, without magistrates laws are of no force. No observation, therefore, can be more correct than this, that the law is a silent magistrate, and a magistrate a speaking law. Though I have promised to show by what laws a Christian state ought to be regulated, it will not be reasonable for any person to expect a long discussion respecting the best kind of laws; which is a subject of immense extent, and foreign from our present object. I will briefly remark, however, by the way, what laws it may piously use before God, and be rightly governed by among men. And even this I would have preferred passing over in silence, if I did not know that it is a point on which many persons run into dangerous errors. For some deny that a state is well constituted, which neglects the polity of Moses, and is governed by the common laws of nations. The dangerous and seditious nature of this opinion I leave to the examination of others; it will be sufficient for me to have evinced it to be false and foolish. Now, it is necessary to observe that common distinction, which distributes all the laws of God promulgated by Moses into moral, ceremonial, and judicial; and these different kinds of laws are to be distinctly examined, that we may ascertain what belongs to us, and what does not. Nor let any one be embarrassed by this scruple, that even the ceremonial and judicial precepts are included in the moral. For the ancients, who first made this distinction, were not ignorant that these two kinds of precepts related to the conduct of moral agents; yet, as they might be changed and abrogated without affecting the morality of actions, therefore they did not call them moral precepts. They particularly applied this appellation to those precepts without which there can be no real purity of morals, nor any permanent rule of a holy life.
XV. The moral law, therefore, with which I shall begin, being comprised in two leading articles, of which one simply commands us to worship God with pure faith and piety, and the other enjoins us to embrace men with sincere love,—this law, I say, is the true and eternal rule of righteousness, prescribed to men of all ages and nations, who wish to conform their lives to the will of God. For this is his eternal and immutable will, that he himself be worshipped by us all, and that we mutually love one another. The ceremonial law was the pupilage of the Jews, with which it pleased the Lord to exercise that people during a state resembling childhood, till that “fulness of the time” should come,[[1452]] when he would fully manifest his wisdom to the world, and would exhibit the reality of those things which were then adumbrated in figures. The judicial law, given to them as a political constitution, taught them certain rules of equity and justice, by which they might conduct themselves in a harmless and peaceable manner towards each other. And as that exercise of ceremonies properly related to the doctrine of piety, inasmuch as it kept the Jewish Church in the worship and service of God, which is the first article of the moral law, and yet was distinct from piety itself, so these judicial regulations, though they had no other end than the preservation of that love, which is enjoined in the eternal law of God, yet had something which distinguished them from that precept itself. As the ceremonies, therefore, might be abrogated without any violation or injury of piety, so the precepts and duties of love remain of perpetual obligation, notwithstanding the abolition of all these judicial ordinances. If this be true, certainly all nations are left at liberty to enact such laws as they shall find to be respectively expedient for them; provided they be framed according to that perpetual rule of love, so that, though they vary in form, they may have the same end. For those barbarous and savage laws which rewarded theft and permitted promiscuous concubinage, with others still more vile, execrable, and absurd, I am very far from thinking ought to be considered as laws; since they are not only violations of all righteousness, but outrages against humanity itself.
XVI. What I have said will be more clearly understood, if in all laws we properly consider these two things—the constitution of the law and its equity, on the reason of which the constitution itself is founded and rests. Equity, being natural, is the same to all mankind; and consequently all laws, on every subject, ought to have the same equity for their end. Particular enactments and regulations, being connected with circumstances, and partly dependent upon them, may be different in different cases without any impropriety, provided they are all equally directed to the same object of equity. Now, as it is certain that the law of God, which we call the moral law, is no other than a declaration of natural law, and of that conscience which has been engraven by God on the minds of men, the whole rule of this equity, of which we now speak, is prescribed in it. This equity, therefore, must alone be the scope, and rule, and end, of all laws. Whatever laws shall be framed according to that rule, directed to that object, and limited to that end, there is no reason why we should censure them, however they may differ from the Jewish law or from each other. The law of God forbids theft. What punishment was enacted for thieves, among the Jews, may be seen in the book of Exodus.[[1453]] The most ancient laws of other nations punished theft by requiring a compensation of double the value. Subsequent laws made a distinction between open and secret theft. Some proceeded to banishment, some to flagellation, and some to the punishment of death. False witness was punished, among the Jews, with the same punishment as such testimony would have caused to be inflicted on the person against whom it was given;[[1454]] in some countries it was punished with infamy, in others with hanging, in others with crucifixion. All laws agree in punishing murder with death, though in several different forms. The punishments of adulterers in different countries have been attended with different degrees of severity. Yet we see how, amidst this diversity, they are all directed to the same end. For they all agree in denouncing punishment against those crimes which are condemned by the eternal law of God; such as murders, thefts, adulteries, false testimonies, though there is not a uniformity in the mode of punishment; and, indeed, this is neither necessary, nor even expedient. One country, if it did not inflict the most exemplary vengeance upon murderers, would soon be ruined by murders and robberies. One age requires the severity of punishments to be increased. If a country be disturbed by any civil commotion, the evils which generally arise from it must be corrected by new edicts. In time of war all humanity would be forgotten amidst the din of arms, if men were not awed by more than a common dread of punishment. During famine and pestilence, unless greater severity be employed, every thing will fall into ruin. One nation is more prone than others to some particular vice, unless it be most rigidly restrained. What malignity and envy against the public good will be betrayed by him who shall take offence at such diversity, which is best adapted to secure the observance of the law of God? For the objection made by some, that it is an insult to the law of God given by Moses, when it is abrogated, and other laws are preferred to it, is without any foundation; for neither are other laws preferred to it, when they are more approved, not on a simple comparison, but on account of the circumstances of time, place, and nation; nor do we abrogate that which was never given to us. For the Lord gave not that law by the hand of Moses to be promulgated among all nations, and to be universally binding; but after having taken the Jewish nation into his special charge, patronage, and protection, he was pleased to become, in a peculiar manner, their legislator, and, as became a wise legislator, in all the laws which he gave them, he had a special regard to their peculiar circumstances.
XVII. It now remains for us, as we proposed, in the last place, to examine what advantage the common society of Christians derives from laws, judgments, and magistrates; with which is connected another question—what honour private persons ought to render to magistrates, and how far their obedience ought to extend. Many persons suppose the office of magistracy to be of no use among Christians, for that they cannot, consistently with piety, apply for their assistance, because they are forbidden to have recourse to revenge or litigation. But as Paul, on the contrary, clearly testifies that the magistrate is “the minister of God to us for good,”[[1455]] we understand from this that he is divinely appointed, in order that we may be defended by his power and protection against the malice and injuries of wicked men, and may lead peaceable and secure lives. But if it be in vain that he is given to us by the Lord for our protection, unless it be lawful for us to avail ourselves of such an advantage, it clearly follows that we may appeal to him, and apply for his aid, without any violation of piety. But here I have to do with two sorts of persons; for there are multitudes inflamed with such a rage for litigation, that they never have peace in themselves, unless they are in contention with others; and they commence their lawsuits with a mortal bitterness of animosities, and with an infuriated cupidity of revenge and injury, and pursue them with an implacable obstinacy, even to the ruin of their adversary. At the same time, that they may not be thought to do any thing wrong, they defend this perverseness under the pretext of seeking justice. But, though it is allowable for a man to endeavour to obtain justice from his neighbour by a judicial process, he is not therefore at liberty to hate him, or to cherish a desire to hurt him, or to persecute him without mercy.
XVIII. Let such persons, therefore, understand, that judicial processes are lawful to those who use them rightly; and that the right use, both for the plaintiff and for the defendant, is this: First, if the plaintiff, being injured either in his person or in his property, has recourse to the protection of the magistrate, states his complaint, makes a just and equitable claim, but without any desire of injury or revenge, without any asperity or hatred, without any ardour for contention, but rather prepared to waive his right, and to sustain some disadvantage, than to cherish enmity against his adversary. Secondly, if the defendant, being summoned, appears on the day appointed, and defends his cause by the best arguments in his power, without any bitterness, but with the simple desire of maintaining his just right. On the contrary, when their minds are filled with malevolence, corrupted with envy, incensed with wrath, stimulated with revenge, or inflamed with the fervour of contention, so as to diminish their charity, all the proceedings of the justest cause are inevitably wicked. For it ought to be an established maxim with all Christians, that however just a cause may be, no lawsuit can ever be carried on in a proper manner by any man, who does not feel as much benevolence and affection towards his adversary, as if the business in dispute had already been settled and terminated by an amicable adjustment. Some, perhaps, will object, that such moderation in lawsuits is far from being ever practised, and that if one instance of it were to be found, it would be regarded as a prodigy. I confess, indeed, that, in the corruption of these times, the example of an upright litigator is very rare; but the thing itself ceases not to be good and pure, if it be not defiled by an adventitious evil. But when we hear that the assistance of the magistrate is a holy gift of God, it behoves us to use the more assiduous caution that it be not contaminated by our guilt.
XIX. Those who positively condemn all controversies at law, ought to understand that they thereby reject a holy ordinance of God, and a gift of the number of those which may be “pure to the pure;” unless they mean to charge Paul with a crime, who repelled the calumnies of his accusers, exposing their subtlety and malice; who, before his judges, asserted his right to the privileges of a Roman citizen; and who, when he found it necessary, appealed from an unjust governor to the tribunal of Cæsar. It is no objection to this that all Christians are forbidden the desire of revenge, which we also wish to banish to the greatest distance from all Christian judicatures. For, in a civil cause, no man proceeds in the right way, who does not, with innocent simplicity, commit his cause to the judge as to a public guardian, without the least thought of a mutual retaliation of evil, which is the passion of revenge. And in any more important or criminal action we require the accuser to be one who goes into the court, influenced by no desire of revenge, affected by no resentment of private injury, and having no other motive than to resist the attempts of a mischievous man, that he may not injure the public. But if a vindictive spirit be excluded, no offence is committed against that precept by which revenge is forbidden to Christians. It may probably be objected, that they are not only forbidden to desire revenge, but are also commanded to wait for the hand of the Lord, who promises that he will assist and revenge the afflicted and oppressed, and therefore that those who seek the interference of the magistrate on behalf of themselves or others, anticipate all that vengeance of the celestial protector. But this is very far from the truth. For the vengeance of the magistrate is to be considered, not as the vengeance of man, but of God, which, according to the testimony of Paul, he exercises by the ministry of men for our good.
XX. Nor do we any more oppose the prohibition and injunction of Christ, “Resist not evil; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also; and if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away, thy coat, let him have thy cloak also.”[[1456]] In this passage, indeed, he requires the minds of his servants to be so far from cherishing a desire of retaliation, as rather to suffer the repetition of an injury against themselves than to wish to revenge it; nor do we dissuade them from this patience. For it truly behoves Christians to be a people, as it were, formed to bear injuries and reproaches, exposed to the iniquity, impostures, and ridicule of the worst of mankind; and not only so, but they ought to be patient under all these evils; that is to say, so calm and composed in their minds, that, after having suffered one affliction, they may prepare themselves for another, expecting nothing all their lifetime but to bear a perpetual cross. At the same time, they are required to bless and pray for them from whom they receive curses, to do good to them from whom they experience injuries,[[1457]] and to aim at that which constitutes their only victory, to “overcome evil with good.”[[1458]] With this disposition they will not demand “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” as the Pharisees taught their disciples to desire revenge; but, as we are instructed by Christ, they will suffer injuries in their persons and property in such a manner as to be ready to forgive them as soon as they are committed.[[1459]] Yet this equanimity and moderation will be no obstacle, but that, without any breach of friendship towards their enemies, they may avail themselves of the assistance of the magistrate for the preservation of their property; or, from zeal for the public good, may bring a pestilent offender to justice, though they know he can only be punished with death. For it is very correctly explained by Augustine, that the end of all these precepts is, “that a just and pious man should be ready to bear with patience the wickedness of those whom he desires to become good; rather in order that the number of the good may increase, not that with similar wickedness he may himself join the number of the evil; and in the next place, that they relate to the internal affection of the heart more than to the external actions; in order that in the secrecy of our minds we may feel patience and benevolence, but in our outward conduct may do that which we see tends to the advantage of those to whom we ought to feel benevolent affections.”