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LECTURES.

LECTURE XXXVII.

THE CESSATION OF WAR, AN EFFECT OF THE

PREVALENCE OF CHRISTIANITY.

(PART I.)

ISAIAH ii. 4. MICAH iv. 3. ́

46 They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.”

NOTWITHSTANDING any accompanying references, we cannot hesitate to take this for a prediction of times yet to come. For, most evidently, it has never yet been fulfilled; there has been nothing at all approaching or resembling a fulfilment. It is true that, when the religion of Christ came to the world, it came with the spirit and principles of an all-pacific dispensation, ("On earth peace, good will towards men;") and true, that, in the degree of its actual prevalence, this has been the effect. But, how far is this from anything adequate to the terms of the prediction, which exhibit a bright and ample idea of this spirit and tendency of Christianity realized, reduced to fact, on the great scale! Other prophecies also are given in as large

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and absolute terms, of the same purport, and have been, hitherto, as little accomplished. And that ultimate efficacious prevalence of our Lord's religion, which all his disciples regard as certainly predicted, must necessarily include the cessation of War, include the fulfilment, on the grand scale, of the predictions that it shall cease. Thus far, we all know too well how little they have been accomplished. This flagrant stain of our history, (the history of our whole race,) has come down to the yet last page, and the greatest parts of its records have been written in blood.

We may contemplate, a few moments, this prominent character of all ages. Yes, it is as conjoined with very nearly the beginning of our race, that we have to look upon this direful phenomenon. But how strange, for a creature, come fresh, living, and pure, from the beneficent Creator's hands! The least that we can think of that original state of Man, is, that there must have been in his soul the principle of all kind affections,-all benevolent sympathies; a disposition to be happier for the happiness of a kindred being; a complacent delight in promoting it; an exquisite sense of reciprocal right,-of benevolent justice; no tincture of a wrongful selfishness; a state of feeling that would have been struck with horror at the thought of inflicting suffering. And from the creature thus originally constituted, all the race was to descend. Can such a nature ever rage with malignity and revenge, and riot in suffering and destruction? Yet, in this original family, in the very first degree of the descent,—war and slaughter began. Men may argue and quibble as long as it will amuse them, against our notion of "the Fall.”—Here was Fall enough!-and demonstration enough-how deep!

We have to contemplate the primeval family spreading out in all directions. And we may be sure, that the

dreadful spirit disclosed in the first slaughter, was not extinguished in that crime. Revelation gives us very little more of the antediluvian history than a brief deduction of genealogy. But, the character of that period is manifest from what is said at the end of it. ("God saw that the wickedness of man was great, and every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually," Gen. vi. 5. "The earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence," Gen. vi. 12.) And in the account we are told of some that "became mighty men, men of renown." How, is it most likely that this might was displayed—this renown acquired? Partly, perhaps, in a war against savage beasts, but far more in another way-in the exploits of that "violence which filled the earth," and doomed it to be overwhelmed. Assuredly, that universal "violence" would in no spot be limited to raging passions and fierce language; the corresponding deeds would be there! There was immeasurable room for men on the earth, but they would keep close enough for mutual aggression. We may venture to surmise that it was partly owing to the destruction by war, that the race did not spread more extensively over the earth. In so long a lapse of ages, with so strong a natural life in the individuals, and with probably much fewer diseases than now,-with all this in their favour, it would seem they did not spread to this part of the globe-to Europe, as there is great and accumulating evidence to show; for there have never been found any human bones in the deposits attributable to the Deluge, in these countries; while it has lately been proved in a most singular and striking manner, that in this country there lived at that period the elephant, hippopotamus, rhinoceros, hyæna, &c., and some of the kinds of animals we now have here.

While we think of the deadly conflicts of those early

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