The former, in his[7] second epistle to the Corinthians, says, "For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds, to the casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." From hence the Quakers argue, that the warfare of Christianity, or that which Christianity recognises, is not carnal, but spiritual, and that it consists in the destruction of the evil imaginations, or of the evil lusts and passions of men. That is, no man can be a true soldier of Christ, unless his lusts are subdued, or unless the carnal be done away by the spiritual mind. Now this position having been laid down by St. Paul, or the position having been established in Christian morals, that a state of subjugated passions is one of the great characteristic marks of a true Christian, the Quakers draw a conclusion from it by the help of the words of St. James. This apostle, in his letter to the dispersed tribes, which were often at war with each other, as well as with the Romans, says,[8] "From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence even of your lusts that war in your members?" But if wars come from the lusts of men, then the Quakers say, that those who have subdued their lusts, can no longer engage in them, or, in other words, that true Christians, being persons of this description, or being such, according to St. Paul, as are redeemed out of what St. James calls the very grounds and occasions of wars, can no longer fight. And as this proposition is true in itself, so the Quakers conceive the converse of it to be true also: For if there are persons, on the other hand, who deliberately engage in the wars and fightings of the world, it is a proof, that their lusts are not yet subjugated, or that, though they may be nominal, they are not yet arrived at the stature of true or of full-grown Christians. [Footnote 7: 2 Cor. x. 3, 4, 5.] [Footnote 8: James iv. I.]