That these words were meant to extend to public as well as to private ware, the Quakers believe again from the views which they entertain relative to the completion of prophecy.  They believe that a time will come, in one or other of the succeeding ages, “when men shall bent their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks, and when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, and they shall not learn war any more.”  Now other Christians, who differ from them in the interpretation of the words in question, believe equally with them, that the times thus predicted will come to pass.  The question then is, whether the more enlarged interpretation of these words, as insisted upon by the Quakers, or of the less enlarged as insisted upon by others, be the most consistent with the belief of the future accomplishment of the prophecy just mentioned.  And in this case the Quakers are of opinion, that if wars were ever to cease, one ought to expect that some foundation would have been previously laid in Christianity for this great and important end.  The subjugation of the passions, which it is the direct tendency of Christianity to effect, would produce this end.  And so far such a foundation has already been laid in this system.  But as the admission of moral precepts into the education of man, so as to form habits of moral opinion, is another, way of influencing conduct in life, the Quakers think it likely that some such maxim as “that Christians should not fight,” would have been introduced also, because the adoption of such a maxim would have had a similar tendency with the subjugation of the passions in producing the same end.  For it seems absurd, they conceive, to suppose that wars should cease, and that no precept should have been held out that they were wrong.  But the more enlarged interpretation of the words in question furnishes such a precept, and therefore another foundation seems to have been laid in Christianity for the same end.  They admit, therefore, the larger interpretation as included in the less, because it comports more with the design of Providence, who, by the mouth of his prophets wills universal peace, that the prohibition of public as well as of private wars should be understood as a Christian doctrine, than that the words in question should be confined to private injuries alone.

The last reason, which the Quakers give for adopting the larger interpretation of the words in the sermon upon the Mount, as well as the less, is the following.  They are of opinion, that, as Christians, they ought not to lessen the number of the moral obligations of the Gospel.  They ought not to abridge its dignity, nor to put limits to its benevolence.  If it was the desire of Jesus Christ, that men should love their enemies, it is their duty to believe, that his wish could not have been otherwise than universal.  If it was an object with him to cure moral evil, it is their duty to suppose, that it was his desire to