again, of all the quantity (if we may express it so,) of passion, of feeling, of strong emotion, that has gone towards, and gone into, war, directed to the promotion of public and private good. The stream of sentiment,-of strong interest, —of ardent feeling, in other words, the passion, the affection, which, during the last half century, has flowed into that river of blood!-think, if it had, instead, flowed through all the channels and streams of peaceful benevolence! Will there, in the better age, be less sentiment and passion so to flow? And then, over all, through all, and as the cause of all,— the vital religion of Jesus Christ; his kingdom shall be, "from shore to shore, and from the river to the ends of the earth." And be it always remembered, that it is in the progressive prevalence of his religion, as the supreme cause, that, alone, we can look for the advancement toward the state of universal and inviolable peace. It will, in going on, assume into its service and co-operation increasing knowledge, and all improvements in political science and institutions; but it is itself alone, the security that these shall be fully efficient for good. The enlarged promotion of this, therefore, we have to desire and implore above all things. And while we see its advancement but slow as yet, and behold the world under a sky menacing storms and thunders, let our faith maintain a firm assurance that the Almighty will, at length, fulfil all his promises in universal Christianity and universal Peace. November 5, 1823. LECTURE XXXVIII. THE CESSATION OF WAR, AN EFFECT OF THE (PART II.) ISAIAH ii. 4. "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." WE had no intention, last time, of resuming this text and subject. But, that discourse having been occupied wholly with images of War, it has been remarked that, to close there the considerations arising from such a text, appeared like a determination to dwell on nothing but the most gloomy side of a subject. We may, therefore, be excused in returning to it, for the purpose of directing the attention toward a more pleasing prospect. But, it is obvious, in such a case, what an advantage history has over prophecy. The history is an immense, but crowded, exhibition of solid and prominent facts; while the prophecy is only one general, bright idea, not distinguished into particulars, not shaped into features. The state of War is spread out to our view, the width of the world, and the length of all time, filled with certain and unchangeable realities. We can just as much, in looking over a tract of country, avoid perceiving the hills, woods, towers, and villages, as, in surveying the world's wide history, we can fail to see the portentous forms of destruction. We behold mighty desolating irruptions, battles, sieges, massacres, murders, and bloody persecutions on account of religion. And if some tracts of history have been overspread with an obscurity, till more recent, laborious researches have 'rendered them visible,-as the mist clears off, you are certain of what you shall see there first and foremost. We do not here forget, how much there has been that was not hostility; nor, that there is a prominence—a magnitude and glare, in martial transactions, by which they have obtained a disproportionate space in history; while peaceful periods and scenes, with their agriculture, arts, commerce, civilization, and domestic quiet and kind affec tions, are contracted, in the historical view, to a diminutive compass, or wholly sunk out of sight. No:-but consider, that mankind could not be always fighting; the utmost disposition for it, must, sometimes, yield to suspend the operation. Consider, how easily, by what slight causes, notwithstanding and amidst all those better things, men could be roused and fired for war; that those very seasons of peace, with their improvements and growing wealth, have generally been regarded, expressly, as but a repose and reparation of strength for new war; and that the favourite literature and amusements of such times have had very much a relation to war. And consider, too, what a collectiveness and concentration there is in war, of all human forces and means; so that a given measure (so to speak) of war is tantamount to a vastly greater apparent measure of peaceful life and action. All proportion is distanced and lost; set its quantity of ardent exertion and of danger in proportion against, what quantity of action and hazard in peaceful life? or its expenditure of wealth,-its number of deaths. So that war, as a part of the state of mankind, is equal to a prodigiously greater nominal proportion of the peaceful state. Therefore, though history has given an undue distinction and proportion to war, yet, it would be no rightly proportioned history that did not give a great prominence to this portion of what has been done by men. It is right, therefore, that a very large portion of the great field of history should be seen overspread with this direful appearance. Such is the History. The delightful Prophecy presents a scene of which no part is so occupied. But it is difficult to realize the fact to our imagination. No fighting on the face of the whole earth! no armies, nor military profession, nor garrisons, nor arms, nor banners, nor proclamations! No leagues, offensive or defensive ;-no guarding of frontiers ;no fortresses;—no military prisons! No celebrating of victories, in gaudy pomps and revelries for the vulgar, or in prostituted poetry for the more refined! A wondering what kind of times those could be, in which mankind accounted it the highest glory to kill one another! Truly this is a state of things we are ill prepared even to conceive. And, again, is it not difficult to conceive the practicability of its attainment ? For, it is something intrinsic in man, in the soul and nature of man, throughout the whole race, that war has sprung from. There is the brimstone,-the gunpowder, the forge; there is the hot and terrible element, that has burst abroad in so many thunders,—that has attracted infernal spirits to combine in its fires. And yet it is Man that is to be universally at peace! How can it be? We feel somewhat like the unbelieving lord,—" if the Lord would make windows in heaven, might this thing be." Take mankind, collectively, such as it has been, in any age, or is now; with all the dispositions, existing as they were, and are. Now, with all these dispositions in full prevalence, conceive, notwithstanding, the whole world kept actually in perfect peace for a century, in nations and every minor community. Would not this be the most astonishing of all VOL. II. miracles? Would not this be a direct, immediate coercion of almighty Power, permanently suspending or reversing a grand law of moral nature? But a time is to come, when, without any such miraculous coercion, Man will be in universal peace! For no one can suppose that this universal peace will be effected and maintained by such direct coercion. But then, think what there must not be in men, when there shall "no more" be war amongst them! Vicious selfishness, ambition, envy, rivalry, rapacity, revenge, these are the things in men that cause wars between them, on the small scale and on the great. And how can these ever be so repressed, subdued, extirpated, that all war shall cease? Religion have been or There may indeed have have even asserted that Men indifferent or hostile to different opinions on the subject. been some wicked theorizers, who religion itself must be extirpated before war can be; alleging how very often something which they choose to call Religion, has been itself the cause of wars, and has exasperated their cruelty,-meaning that execrable compound of superstition and state policy which really has been such a cause. This they have chosen to name Religion; either, if that be possible, in stupid ignorance, knowing no better; or, in spite of their own better knowledge, and presuming on the ignorance of others. Some irreligious speculators, indeed, have avowed a disbelief that war will or can from any cause ever cease in the world; alleging all experience and the radical dispositions of Man, which dispositions they ridicule the notion and hope that anything can ever effectually alter. But there have been other irreligious speculatists (self-called philosophers), very sanguine in their predictions of the abolition of war, ultimately. "It cannot be (they have said), that mankind will always continue so mad as to seek and expect their pleasure, |