Upon this new subject I shall enter next.  And I confess I shall enter upon it willingly.  First, because I know of none that is more important.  Secondly, because, though controversy may have thrown some light upon it, much remains to be added.  And, thirdly, because the assertions of the Quakers on this point are disputed by many at the present day.  With respect to the opinions of the early Quakers, which I shall notice first, it must be premised, that such of them as have written books, have not all of them entered on this subject.  Some of them have not had even occasion to mention it.  But where they have, and where they have expressed an opinion, I believe that this will be found unfavourable to the continuance of war.

Justin the Martyr, one of the earliest writers in the second century, considers war as unlawful.  He makes also the devil “the author of all war.”  No severer sentence could have been passed upon it than this, when we consider it as coming from the lips of an early Christian.  The sentiment too was contrary to the prevailing sentiments of the times, when, of all professions, that of war was most honourable, and was the only one that was considered to lead to glory.  It resulted, therefore, in all probablity, from the new views, which Justin had acquired by a perusal of such of the scriptures, as had then fallen into his hands.

Tatian, who was the disciple of Justin, in his oration to the Greeks, speaks precisely in the same terms on the same subject.

From the different expressions of Clemens of Alexandria, a contemporary of the latter, we collect his opinion to be decisive against the lawfulness of war.

Tertullian, who may be mentioned next in order of time, strongly condemned the practice of bearing arms, as it related to Christians.  I shall give one or two extracts from him on this subject.  In his dissertation on the worship of idols, he says, “Though the soldiers came to John, and received a certain form to be observed, and though the centurion believed, yet Jesus Christ, by disarming Peter, disarmed every soldier afterwards:  for custom never sanctions an illicit act.”  And in his “Soldier’s Garland,” he says, “Can a soldier’s life be lawful, when Christ has pronounced, that he who lives by the sword shall perish by the sword?  Can one, who professes the peaceable doctrines of the Gospel, be a soldier, when it is his duty not so much as to go to law? and shall he, who is not to revenge his own wrongs, be instrumental in bringing others into chains, imprisonment, torment, death?”

Cyprian, in his Epistle to Donatus, takes a view of such customs in his own times, as he conceived to be repugnant to the spirit or the letter of the Gospel.  In looking at war, which was one of them, he speaks thus:  “Suppose thyself, says he, with me on the top of some very exalted eminence, and from thence looking down upon the appearances of things beneath thee.  Let our prospect take in the whole