We shall not be at a loss to ascertain what are national judgments, if we bear in mind that in Scripture they are represented as identical with national calamities. Anything that affects the honour, the influence, the lives, the resources of our people is a judgment, of mercy or wrath—of mercy it will prove, if we heed it; of wrath if we heed it not. When, then, a famine starves our people, or a pestilence cuts them off, or an enemy assails them, or they are involved in an aggressive war, or perplexed by civil commotions and intestine broils, we may be sure that GOD’S judgment is upon the earth, that He is requiring us to learn righteousness, or to eat the fruits of iniquity. War in all its forms, aggressive, defensive, or intestine, is assuredly a Divine judgment. It may be, often is, that the sword is put into a people’s hand for them to use as the soldiers of GOD: but that sword is always two-edged, wounding those who wield it as well as those on whom it falls. To be thus enlisted in the service of GOD should never be the source of self-gratulation or be regarded as a proof of Divine favour. It is a calamity (that is, a Divine judgment), even when we maintain the righteous cause of a weak ally, or defend ourselves from a wanton aggressor, or put down our wickedly rebellious subjects. Assyria’s hosts in fighting GOD’S battles were made to punish themselves. Israel had no warfare to wage when GOD was well pleased with it, but only when it required correction. And we, my brethren, in our last two righteous wars, had surely proofs enough in the loss of our best blood, the drain upon our resources, the griefs, the anxieties, the perplexities, that to be GOD’S agents of vengeance is no privilege to be coveted; that is a scourge, a fearful scourge, which a GOD who never afflicts willingly—that is, in mere caprice—would not have laid upon us, had we not needed chastisement, had we not provoked Him to displeasure.