A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 3: Taken from a View of the Education and Discipline, Social Manners, Civil and Political Economy, Religious Principles and Character, of the Society of FriendsClarkson, Thomas
Religion
A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 3: Taken from a View of the Education and Discipline, Social Manners, Civil and Political Economy, Religious Principles and Character, of the Society of Friends
Clarkson, Thomas
Society of Friends
But here the superior being would interrupt.--What, he would say! Are
they not to resent injuries, and yet do they go to war? And are they not
afraid of fighting in this manner, when they are to give an account of
their conduct in a future state? It would be replied, No: they have
their philosophers among them, and most of these have determined, that,
in this particular case, responsibility lies at the door of those who
employ them. But, notwithstanding this, there are others living among
them, who think otherwise. These are of opinion, that those who employ
them cannot take the responsibility upon themselves without taking it
from those whom they thus employ. But the religion of the Great Spirit
no where says, that any constituted authorities among them can take away
the responsibility of individual creatures, but, on the other hand, in
the most positive terms, that every individual creature is responsible
wholly for himself. And this religion does not give any creature an
exemption on account of any force which may be used against him; because
no one, according to its precepts, is to do evil, not even that good may
come. But if he be persecuted, he is to adhere to that which is right,
and to expect his reward in the other state. The impossibility,
therefore, of breaking or dissolving individual responsibility, in the
case of immoral action, is an argument to many, of the unlawfulness of
these wars. And those who reason in this manner, think they have
reasoned right, when they consider besides, that, if any of the beings
in question were to kill one of his usually reputed enemies in the time
of peace, he would suffer death for it, and be considered as accountable
also for his crime in a future state. They cannot see, therefore, how
any constituted authorities among them can alter the nature of things,
or how these beings can kill others in time of war, without the
imputation of a crime, whom they could not kill without such an
imputation in time of peace. They see in the book of the Great Spirit no
dispensation given to societies to after the nature of actions, which
are pronounced to be crimes.
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