even the Divine Eye might look without displeasure? And why? Because God, as it is declared, "looks not at the outward appearance, but on the heart:" because it is the motive, which gives character to the act. An outward act of violence may yet be done in love; as when a faithful parent punishes a naughty child for its good;—as when even the gentle Saviour Himself, "the Prince of Peace," did, with "a scourge of small cords," drive out the profaning money-changers from the Temple, and "overthrow their tables."[1] To punish the evil is to protect the good.
Wars, moreover, are sometimes necessary to break up institutions of civil or ecclesiastical tyranny, which can be overturned in no other way. Such wars are the ultimate effects of conflicts of opinion: they are the visible results of combats between truth and error, right and wrong. Such, for instance, were the great and terrible wars that followed the Reformation—wars between the Protestant and Catholic parties on the continent of Europe. The English civil wars in the time of Charles I.,—the war of Independence, waged between England and America,—and the wars attendant upon the French Revolution,—were in essence, combats between the principles of Liberty and Tyranny. Such wars, like storms in the atmosphere—though violent at the time—are, in their effects, purifying and beneficial.
It is doubtless true, therefore, that there may be wars that are justifiable and necessary. But, it is to be feared, that the greater part of the terrible conflicts that have desolated the earth, have sprung from the evil passions of men—especially from the lust of conquest
- ↑ John ii. 14, 15.
