4. ART. as to our own parts, the wrongs that are done us; yet it XXXVII. does not oblige us to throw up the order and peace of mankind, and abandon it to the injuftice and violence of wicked men. We owe to human fociety, and to the fafety and order of the world, our endeavours to put a ftop to the wickedness of men; which a good man may do with great inward tenderness to the fouls of those whom he prosecutes. It is highly probable, that as nothing befides fuch a method could ftop the progress of injuftice and wickednefs, fo nothing is fo likely a mean to bring the criminal to repent of his fins, and to fit him to die as a Chriftian, as to condemn him to die for his crimes: if any thing can awaken his confcience, and ftrike terror in him, that will do it. Therefore, as capital punishments are neceffary to human fociety, fo they are often real bleffings to thofe on whom they fall; and it may be affirmed very pofitively, that a man who can harden himfelf against the terrors of death, when they come upon him fo folemnly, fo flowly, and fo certainly, he being in full health, and well able to reflect on the confequences of it, is not like to be wrought on by a longer continuance of life, or by the methods of a natural death. It is not poffible to fix rules, to which capital punishments ought to be proportioned. It is certain, that, in a full equality, life only can be fet against life: but there may be many other crimes, that muft end in the ruin of fociety, and in the diffolution of all order, and all the commerce that ought to be among men, if they go unpunished. In this all princes and ftates muft judge according to the real exigencies and neceffities that appear to them. Nor can any general rule be made, save only this, that fince man was made after the image of God, and that the life of man is precious, and, when once extinguished, it ceases for evermore; therefore all due care and tenderness ought to be had in preferving it; and fince the end of government is the prefervation of mankind, therefore the lives of men ought not to be too lightly taken, except as it appears to be neceffary for the prefervation and fafety of the fociety. Under the Gofpel, as well as under the Law, the maRom. xiii. giftrate is the minifler of God, and has the fword put in his hand; which be beareth not in vain, for he is appointed to be a revenger, to execute wrath on him that doth evil. The natural fignification of his carrying the fword is, that he has an authority for punishing capitally; fince it is upon thofe occafions only that he can be faid to use the fword as a revenger. Nor can Christian charity oblige a man, XXXVII. man, whom the law has made to be the avenger of blood, ART. or of other crimes, to refufe to comply with that obligation, which is laid upon him by the conftitution under which he is born: he can only forgive that of which he is the mafter, but the other is a debt which he owes the fociety; and his private forgiving of the wrong done himfelf, does not reach to that other obligation, which is not in his own power to give away. The laft paragraph in this Article is concerning the lawfulness of wars. Some have thought all wars to be contrary to Chriftian charity, to be inhuman and barbaTous; and that therefore men ought, according to the rule fet us by our Saviour, not to refift evil; but when one Matth. v. injury is done, not only to bear it, but to fhew a readi- 39. nefs rather to receive new ones; turning the other cheek to him that fmites us on the one; going two miles with him that ball compel us to go one with him; and giving our cloak to 40. bim that ball take arvay our coat. It feems juft, that, by a parity of reafon, focieties fhould be under the fame obligations to bear from other focieties, that fingle persons are under to other fingle perfons. This must be acknowledged to be a very great difficulty; for as, on the one hand, the words of our Saviour feem to be very express and full; fo, on the other hand, if they are to be underftood literally, they must caft the world loose, and expose it to the injuftice and infolence of wicked perfons, who would not fail to take advantages from fuch a compliance and fubmiffion. Therefore thefe words muft be confidered, firft, as addreffed to private perfons; then, as relating to fmaller injuries, which can more easily be borne; and, finally, as phrases and forms of speech, that are not to be carried to the utmoft extent, but to be conftrued with that foftening, that is to be allowed to the use of a phrafe. So that the meaning of that fection of our Saviour's fermon is to be taken thus; that private perfons ought to be fo far from pursuing injuries, to the equal retaliation of an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth, that they ought in many cafes to bear injuries, without either refifting them, or making returns of evil for evil; fhewing a patience to bear even repeated injuries, when the matter is fmall, and the wrong tolerable. Under all this, fecret conditions are to be underfood, fuch as when by fuch our patience we may hope to overcome evil with good; or at least to fhew to the world the power that religion has over us, to check and fubdue our refentments. In this cafe certainly we ought to facrifice XXXVII. ART. our juft rights, either of defence, or of feeking reparation, to the honour of religion, and to the gaining of men by fuch an heroical inftance of virtue. But it cannot be fuppofed that our Saviour meant that good men should deliver themselves up to be a prey to be devoured by bad men; or to oblige his followers to renounce their claims to the protection and reparations of law and justice. 6, 7. In this St. Paul gives us a clear commentary on our 1 Cor. vi. Saviour's words: he reproves the Corinthians for going to law with one another, and that before unbelievers; when it was fo great a fcandal to the Chriftian religion in its first infancy. He fays, Why do not ye take wrong? Why do not ye fuffer yourselves to be defrauded? Yet he does not deny, but that they might claim their rights, and feek for redress; therefore he propofes their doing it by arbitration among themfelves, and only urges the fcandal of fuing before Heathen magiftrates; fo that his reproof did not fall on their fuing one another, but on the fcandalous manner of doing it. Therefore men are not bound up by the Gofpel from feeking relief before a Chriftian judge, and, by confequence, thofe words of our Saviour's are not to be urged in the utmoft extent of which they are capable. If private perfons may feek reparation of one another, they may also feek reparations of the wrongs that are done by those who are under another obedience; and every prince owes a protection to his people in fuch cafes; for he beareth not the fword in vain; he is their avenger. He may demand reparation by fuch forms as are agreed on among nations; and, when that is not granted, he may take fuch reparation from any that are under that obedience, as may oblige the whole body to repair the injury. Much more may he ufe the fword to protect his fubjects, if any other comes to invade them. For this end chiefly he has both the fword given him, and thofe taxes paid him, that may enable him to support the charge, to which the use of it may put him. And as a private man owes, by the ties of humanity, affiftance to a man whom he fees in the hands of thieves and murderers; fo princes may affift fuch other princes as are unjuftly fallen upon, both out of humanity to him who is fo ill ufed, and to reprefs the infolence of an unjust aggreffor, and alfo to fecure the whole neighbourhood from the effects of fuccefs in fuch unlawful conquefts. Upon all these accounts we do not doubt but that wars, which are thus originally, as to the first occafion of them, defen five, though in the progrefs of them they must be often ART. offenfive, may be lawful. XXXVIL. God allowed of wars in that policy which he himfelf conftituted; in which we are to make a great difference between those things that were permitted by reason of the hardness of their hearts, and thofe things which were exprefsly commanded of God. These laft can never be fuppofed to be immoral, fince commanded by God, whose precepts and judgments are altogether righteous. When the foldiers came to be baptized of St. John, he did not charge them to relinquish that course of life, but only to do violence to no man, to accufe no man falfely, and to be Luke iii. 14, content with their wages. Nor did St. Peter charge Cor- Acts x. nelius to forfake his poft when he baptized him. The primitive Chriftians thought they might continue in military employments, in which they preferved the purity of their religion entire; as appears both from Tertullian's works, and from the hiftory of Julian's fhort reign. But though wars, that are in their own nature only defenfive, are lawful, and a part of the protection that princes owe their people; yet unjust wars, defigned for making conquefts, for the enlargement of empire, and the raifing the glory of princes, are certainly public robberies, and the highest acts of injustice and violence poffible; in which men facrifice, to their pride or humour, the peace of the world, and the lives of all thofe that die in the quarrel, whofe blood God will require at their hands. Such princes become accountable to God, in the highest degree imaginable, for all the rapine and bloodshed that is occafioned by their pride and injuftice. When it is vifible that a war is unjuft, certainly no man of confcience can ferve in it, unless it be in the defenfive part: for though no man can owe that to his prince, to go and murder other perfons at his command, yet he may owe it to his country to affift towards its prefervation, from being overrun even by thofe, whom his prince has provoked by making war on them unjustly. For even in fuch a war, though it is unlawful to ferve in the attacks that are made on others, it is ftill lawful for the people of every nation to defend themselves against foreigners. There is no caufe of war more unjuft, than the propagating the true religion, or the deftroying a falfe one. That is to be left to the providence of God, who can change the hearts of men, and bring them to the knowledge of the truth, when he will. Ambition, and the M m3 defire |