The security and quiet of Pennsylvania was not a transient freedom from war, such as might accidentally happen to any nation. She continued to enjoy it “for more than seventy years,”66 and subsisted in the midst of six Indian nations, “without so much as a militia for her defence.”67 “The Pennsylvanians became armed, though without arms; they became strong, though without strength; they became safe, though without the ordinary means of safety. The constable’s staff was the only instrument of authority amongst them for the greater part of a century, and never, during the administration of Penn or that of his proper successors, was there a quarrel or a war.”68
I cannot wonder that these people were not molested—extraordinary and unexampled as their security was. There is something so noble in this perfect confidence in the Supreme Protector, in this utter exclusion of “slavish fear,” in this voluntary relinquishment of the means of injury or of defence, that I do not wonder that even ferocity could be disarmed by such virtue. A people, generously living without arms, amidst nations of warriors! Who would attack a people such as this? There are few men so abandoned as not to respect such confidence. It were a peculiar and an unusual intensity of wickedness that would not even revere it.
And when was the security of Pennsylvania molested, and its peace destroyed?—When the men who had directed its counsels and who would not engage in war, were outvoted in its legislature:—when they who supposed that there was greater security in the sword than in Christianity, became the predominating body. From that hour, the Pennsylvanians transferred their confidence in Christian principles to a confidence in their arms; and from that hour to the present they have been subject to war.
Such is the evidence derived from a national example of the consequences of a pursuit of the Christian policy in relation to war. Here are a people who absolutely refused to fight, and who incapacitated themselves for resistance by refusing to possess arms, and this was the people whose land, amidst surrounding broils and slaughter, was selected as a land of security and peace. The only national opportunity which the virtue of the Christian world has afforded us of ascertaining the safety of relying upon God for defence, has determined that it is safe.
If the evidence which we possess do not satisfy us of the expediency of confiding in God, what evidence do we ask, or what can we receive? We have his promise that He will protect those who abandon their seeming interests in the performance of his will, and we have the testimony of those who have confided in Him, that He has protected them. Can the advocate of war produce one single instance in the history of man, of a person who had given an unconditional obedience to the will of heaven, and who did not find that his conduct was wise as well as virtuous, that it accorded with his interests as well as with his duty? We ask the same question in relation to the peculiar obligations to irresistance. Where is the man who regrets, that in observance of the forbearing duties of Christianity, he consigned his preservation to the superintendence of God?—And the solitary national example that is before us confirms the testimony of private life; for there is sufficient reason for believing that no nation, in modern ages, has possessed so large a portion of virtue or happiness as Pennsylvania before it had seen human blood. I would therefore repeat the question—What evidence do we ask, or can we receive?
This is the point from which we wander—we do not believe in the providence of God. When this statement is formally made to us, we think, perhaps, that it is not true; but our practice is an evidence of its truth—for if we did believe, we should also confide in it, and should be willing to stake upon it the consequences of our obedience.69 We can talk with sufficient fluency of “trusting in Providence,” but in the application of it to our conduct in life, we know wonderfully little. Who is it that confides in Providence, and for what does he trust Him? Does his confidence induce him to set aside his own views of interest and safety, and simply to obey precepts which appear inexpedient and unsafe? This is the confidence that is of value, and of which we know so little. There are many who believe that war is disallowed by Christianity, and who would rejoice that it were forever abolished; but there are few who are willing to maintain an undaunted and unyielding stand against it. They can talk of the loveliness of peace, ay, and argue against the lawfulness of war; but when difficulty or suffering would be the consequence, they will not refuse to do what they know to be unlawful, they will not practice the peacefulness which they say they admire. Those who are ready to sustain the consequences of undeviating obedience are the supporters of whom Christianity stands in need. She wants men who are willing to suffer for her principles.
It is necessary for us to know by what principles we are governed. Are we regulated by the injunctions of God, or are we not? If there be any lesson of morality which it is of importance to mankind to learn, and if there be any which they have not yet learnt, it is the necessity of simply performing the duties of Christianity without reference to consequences. If we could
