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    dispensation of the gospel ; and , therefore , while they are in that condition , we shall not say thai war , undertaken upon a just occasion , is altogether unlawful to them . For even as circumcision , and the other ceremonies , were , for a season , permitted

    to the Jews , not because they were either necessary of themselves , or lawful at that time , but because that spirit was not yet raised up in them , whereby they could be delivered from such rudiments ; so th& present confessors of the Christian namey who are yet in the mixture , and not in the

    patient suffering spirit , are not yet fitted for this form of Christianity ; and , therefore , cannot be undefending themselves until they attain that perfection . But for such , whom Christ has brought hither , it is . not , lawful to defend themselves by arms , but they ought ,, over all , to trust to the Lord . "

    Now I appeal to public candour whether the writer has not either totally misunderstood , or misrepresented the subject ? As far as I am capable of understanding Robert

    Barclay , there is a state supposed the Society of Friends have so totally mistaken the meaning of their great Apologist , and thus they have , both by example and precept , inculcated the unlawfulness of war under the

    Christian dispensation , whether undertaken from principles of aggression or of defence .

    SAMUEL FENNELL . [ We have in vain endeavoured to make sense of the above letter ; but we have , perhaps , rendered the quotation , which is the naaiii thing , intelligible . En . ]

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    Harclay ' s Judgment on Defensive War . 303

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    Namptwich , Sir , April IS , 181 Q . SEVERAL articles on the subject of the Marriage Ceremony appearing in your last Number , I am tempted to make a few remarks on the principle of protest \ n this case ; and this 1 am the more desirous of

    doing , as 1 think a very grievous mistake exists respecting it . From the first I have had only one opinion concerning it , and the more I consider the more am I confirmed in that opinion ; namely , its complete unjustifiableness . What should we think of a

    noble lord ' s protesting against a measure , and yet at the same time voting for it ? What should we have thought if Shadrach , Meshach &nd Abed ^ nego , had protested against the decree 6 f Nebuchadnezzar , and yet worshiped his golden idoH What shanlchwe

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    Hurt / St . Edmunds , 4 th Mo . CALLING accidentally upon a friend , he put into my hand the Monthly Repository fW March , containing an article on the Lawfulness of Defensive War among Christians , [ p .

    149 , ] observing , that it proves " that Barclay thought it was lawful , " an opinion I was by no means inclined to admit- Let me state what Win . ' Christie is pleased to call the candid confession of the venerable Apologist , extracted from his celebrated work on

    Christian divinity : " But lastly , as to what relates to this thing " , since nothing seems more contrary to man ' s nature , and seeing * of all things the defence of one ' s self seems most tolerable , as it is most hard to , men , so it is the most perfect part of the Christian

    religion as that wherein the denial of self , and entire confidence in God , doth most appear , and , therefore , Christ and his apostles left us hereof a most perfect example . As to what relates to the present magistrates of the Christian ivorld , albeit we deny them not altogether the name of Christians , because of the public profesf

    sion they make of Chris f s name ; yet we may boldly affirm , that they are far from the perfection of the Christian , of Christian perfection or state of . grace in the soul ; and that though we may be Christians in name , and are relatively so according * as we approach our great exemplar and perfect pattern , yet no man who has attained to true holiness of heart can feel

    himself at liberty , under the Christian dispensation , to engage in war . ** [ I cannot believe that the advocates of defensive war have attained to that state of self-denial and entire confidence in God , which Barclay describes to be the most perfect part of the Christian religionand of which

    , Christ and his apostles were such eminent examples . It would not be difficult , I tliink , to shew , that though we have many excellent magistrates , whose discharge of their high judicial offices do them honour , vet they may not be in the perfection of

    the Christian relig -ion , and may be in that state of mixture which is far from fitting " em for this form of Christianity , and therefore the alleged lawfulness of defend-) J > g " themselves in cases of aggression to k « ich as are in the rudiments of the

    Christian race , who have not yet a commission j& the pacific kingdom of the Messiah : ut as our worthy predecessor observes , ] . for such as Christ has brought hither it js not lawful to defend themselves by arftis

    , Jut they ought over all to trust in the rd Now it cannot be religion ; beca use , iri the state in which they aTe , ( as "i many places before I have laVgely obed >) they hme pot cbnoie to tlte pure

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1819, page 303, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1772/page/23/