116 Jewish
Wars as Precedents for Modern Wars. [April,
demning offensive war, and declaring
the innocence of defensive
war, they go to the divinely sanctioned wars of the Jews
for an
example in proof, when lo, they find their exemplars
engaged in
the very warfare which they condemn, while the enemies of
the
Jews are waging the wars which they justify. No people on
earth ever waged more strictly defensive wars than did
the Ca-
naanites. They fought in defense of their country, their
property,
and the lives of their women and children, against an
enemy to
whom they had given no cause for offense. No Christian
advo-
cate of defensive war, had he then lived in Canaan, could
have re-
fused to enlist, like the prophet Balaam, in the ranks of
the invad-
ed nations. He might have objected that they were a very
wicked
people, who, if they had their deserts at the hand of
God, would
be severely punished; but then it would have been
demanded:
"What right have these refugees from Egypt, whom
neither we
nor our fathers have offended, to pronounce judgment on
us, and
undertake our extermination? Have we not a right, so far
as
they are concerned, to worship what gods we please, and
to regu-
late our own domestic institutions? And when they come to
de-
prive us of this right, and not only so, but to consign
us without
conditions and without mercy to utter extermination, who
will
deny to us the right of self-defense?" I confess,
that as an advo-
cate of war, I could not have answered these questions,
except by
granting that right and justice between the partics was
all on the
side of the Canaanites. Such must be the judgment of the
world,
when the parties are considered only in their relations
to one an-
other, the only way in which parties to any war can now
be con-
sidered, and therefore the only way in which these facts
can fur-
nish precedents for the present day. How wild and
reckless, then,
the logic by which the Jews, whom to imitate now would
expose
any nation to the execration of mankind, and held up as
furnish-
ing an example, in the matter of war, for the imitation
of Chris-
tians! The advocate of defensive war should pause here,
and de-
liberate, before he reads further. If he is capable of
thinking
consistently, he will find himself involved in some
confusion.
There is still another unlooked for conclusion
to which our
argument necessarily leads us. If God can not sanction
that
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