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Policy," that the conclusion to which the study of the classics conducts us, is, that the leading feature of ancient policy was the strong and uniform preference of the warlike to the peaceful arts. Cicero, who, in many respects, was to Rome what your lordship is to England-I ought to say, the world-strongly resembled you in early, and, as I have already said, inborn, intuitive perception of the immeasurable superiority of moral to military glory. He tells us in his OFFICES, that, when a boy, he considered MARCUS SCAURUS, the great social type of his age, by no means inferior to CAIUS MARIUS, the Wellington of his day. The opinion of the child was maintained by the man; for, in after life, he proclaimed to mankind, that war, with its arms, must give place to peace with its arts; and that the glory of the conqueror was eclipsed by that of the philanthropic statesman. Cicero received but little support from the literature of his times, which lagged at an immeasurable distance behind him; and it is in vain that the friends of universal peace look to the orators, historians, and moralists of Rome, whether contemporary with Cicero or not, for passages either to illustrate or to adorn their speeches and disquisitions. Your lordship is as far as your great prototype in advance of the merely philosophic literature of your own day, and as faintly supported by it. The famous verses of Cicero,

Cedant arma togæ, concedat laurea linguæ ;

O fortunatam natam, me consule, Romam!

were as much the subject of raillery and ridicule to the frivolous and ignorant, as your own electric expression

"The schoolmaster is abroad."

Now, my Lord, let me call your attention to a re

markable fact. There is a book, which existed many, many ages before the birth of Cicero-a book by far the oldest in our world, which is as much in advance of both Cicero and your lordship, as you and he of your respective contemporaries. This is certainly a very extraordinary fact, and one cannot but wonder that it has not attracted your attention. You will scarcely

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credit the extent to which the subject of war with its curses, and of peace with its blessings, occupied the thoughts of the men who wrote the books which we designate the BIBLE. They express themselves with a copiousness, a force, and a fervour, which far exceed your own most splendid passages. The fact that wars prevailed among the Jews, is nothing to the purpose. peculiarity attended those wars, of which it is not pertinent to my purpose to attempt an explanation. That purpose is to show that war was held in abhorrence by the prophets of God; that they uniformly represent it as a judgment or a crime, and always as a source of calamity; that they foretold its entire cessation; and, as the result, an amount and variety of happiness hitherto unknown in our world. By the Hebrew poet David alone, more is said in express or implied reprobation of war than in all the literature of the heathen world, although he himself, as a sovereign, had been deeply engaged in the wars of the Jews;-wars which, to a considerable extent, were expressly brought upon him in the course of Divine Providence, as a punishment for personal delinquencies.

The views of the Jewish writers respecting peace, always centre in a particular person, to whom they all point, and respecting whose character and government they all most harmoniously agree. They represent him

as, in every thing, wholly different from all the kings who had appeared in our world, inasmuch as WAR had been the uniform type of their times, while that of his would be PEACE. They foretell that his name shall be "THE PRINCE OF PEACE," and that of "the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end:"* that he shall be a man of extraordinary and unparalleled attainments, piety, and humanity: "The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord: and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears; but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity, for the meek of the earth: and he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked."† Your lordship will not fail to contrast the character here drawn with the exhibitions of the vulgar royalty of the earth. The fact, as it relates to the character of the mass of rulers, is but too truly set forth in the awful words of the prophet Daniel to the despot of Babylon :-"The Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will, and setteth up over it the basest of men." The Scriptures of the prophets, in reference to the coming King, teem with attestations to his truth, purity, fidelity, justice, benevolence, and compassion.

Let us now inquire into the manner, in which, according to the Hebrew authors, this sovereign was to come to his kingdom. The facts of its anticipated

* Isa. ix. 7.

+ Ib. xi. 2-4.

Dan. iv. 17.

history are set forth with a sublimity of conception, and a splendour of expression, which throw every thing merely human into obscurity. The prophet, adverting to the rising of the Persian, Grecian, and Roman monarchies, and their fall, thus brings forward the subject of the last monarchy, with its celestial King:"I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the ANCIENT OF DAYS did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire. A fiery stream issued and came forth from before him: thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him: the judgment was set, and the books were opened. -I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the SON OF MAN came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the ANCIENT OF DAYS, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, and nations, and languages, should serve him his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed."*

How does this passage strike your lordship? To what shall it be likened? What expectations those sentences excite! Was there ever kingdom like this kingdom? How worthy is the Sovereign whose character has just been sketched of such a throne! It is meet that his reign should be at once universal and perpetual. In these two features how unlike it is to every thing of the kind that has existed amongst men! Let us next consider the international results of the

* Dan. vii. 9-14.

government of this wise, and righteous, and pacific King. In what state does he find the nations when he ascends the throne? Their study is war! Their chief employment is mutual destruction! What is the first act of the new Sovereign? On this point, the prophet is full and explicit :-" He shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people." Why? for what shall he rebuke them? For their bloodshed! How will the nations receive his rebuke? "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."* The entire current of the feelings of nations will be at once and for ever reversed. How immense the power which will suffice to work such a revolution! Mankind will reflect with wonder on the change, and will ascribe it to its proper cause ;-not to mere secular education ;— not to infidel philosophy;-not to wise legislation ;— not to any thing but its true source. It will be the theme of intense and delightful discussion to the historians and philosophers of future times. "Come," they will say, come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire." In those days there will be wide-spread havoc among the munitions of war. Walls, bulwarks, forts, fleets, all the instruments of defence and murder-all, all will be destroyed!

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Let us now, my Lord, look at the social aspect of the nations under this altered economy. The state of

* Isa. xi. 4, &c.

+ Psa. xlvi. 8, 9.

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