A Christian Directory, Part 4: Christian Politics. Richard Baxter
upon war! It is the skill and glory of a soldier, when he can kill more than other men. He studieth it; he maketh it the matter of his greatest care, and valour, and endeavour; he goeth through very great difficulties to accomplish it; this is not like a sudden or involuntary act. Thieves and robbers kill single persons; but soldiers murder thousands at a time: and because there is none at present to judge them for it, they wash their hands as if they were innocent, and sleep as quietly as if the avenger of blood would never come. Oh what devils are those counsellors and incendiaries to princes and states, who stir them up to unlawful wars!
2. Another cause and way of murder, is by the pride and tyranny of men in power; when they do it easily, because they can do it; when their will and interest is their rule, and their passion seemeth a sufficient warrant for their injustice. It is not only Neros, Tiberiuses, Domitians, &c. that are guilty of this crying crime; but oh! what man that careth for his soul, had not rather be tormented a thousand years, than have the blood-guiltiness of a famous, applauded Alexander, or Cæsar, or Tamerlane, to answer for! So dangerous a thing is it to have power to do mischief, that Uriah may fall by a David's guilt, and Crispus may be killed by his father Constantine. Oh what abundance of horrid murders do the histories of almost all empires and kingdoms of the world afford us! The maps of the affairs of Greeks and Romans, of Tartarians, Turks, Russians, Germans, of heathens and infidels, of papists and too many protestants, are drawn out with too many purple lines, and their histories written in letters of blood. What write the christians of the infidels, the orthodox of the Arians, (Romans, or Goths, or Vandals,) or the most impartial historians of the mock-catholics of Rome, but "blood, blood, blood." How proudly and loftily doth a tyrant look, when he telleth the oppressed innocent that displeaseth him, "Sirrah, I will make you know my power! Take him, imprison him, rack him, hang him!" Or as Pilate to Christ, John xix. 10, "Knowest thou not that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?" "I will make you know that your life is in my hand: heat the furnace seven times hotter," Dan. iii. Alas, poor worm! hast thou power to kill? So hath a toad, or adder, or mad dog, or pestilence, when God permitteth it. Hast thou power to kill? But hast thou power also to keep thyself alive? and to keep thy corpse from rottenness and dust? and to keep thy soul from paying for it in hell? or to keep thy conscience from worrying thee for it to all eternity? With how trembling a heart and ghastly look wilt thou at last hear of this, which now thou gloriest in! The bones and dust of the oppressed innocents, will be as great and honourable as thine; and their souls perhaps in rest and joy, when thine is tormented by infernal furies. When thou art in Nebuchadnezzar's glory, what a mercy were it to thee, if thou mightest be turned out among the beasts, to prevent thy being turned out among the devils! If killing and destroying be the glory of thy greatness, the devils are more honourable than thou; and as thou agreest with them in thy work and glory, so shalt thou in the reward.
3. Another most heinous cause of murder is, a malignant enmity against the godly, and a persecuting, destructive zeal. What a multitude of innocents hath this consumed! And what innumerable companies of holy souls are still crying for vengeance on these persecutors! The enmity began immediately upon the fall, between the woman's and the serpent's seed. It showed itself presently in the two first men that were born into the world. A malignant envy against the accepted sacrifice of Abel, was able to make his brother to be his murderer. And it is usual with the devil, to cast some bone of carnal interest also between them, to heighten the malignant enmity. Wicked men are all covetous, voluptuous, and proud; and the doctrine and practice of the godly, doth contradict them and condemn them: and they usually espouse some wicked interest, or engage themselves in some service of the devil, which the servants of Christ are bound in their several places and callings to resist. And then not only this resistance, though it be but by the humblest words or actions, yea, the very conceit that they are not for their interest and way, doth instigate the befooled world to persecution. And thus an Ishmael and an Isaac, an Esau and a Jacob, a Saul and a David, cannot live together in peace; Gal. iv. 29, "But as then he that was born after the flesh, persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now." Saul's interest maketh him think it just to persecute David; and religiously he blesseth those that furthered him; 1 Sam. xxiii. 21, "Blessed be ye of the Lord, for ye have compassion on me." He justifieth himself in murdering the priests, because he thought that they helped David against him; and Doeg seemeth but a dutiful subject, in executing his bloody command, 1 Sam. xxii. And Shimei thought he might boldly curse him, 2 Sam. xvi. 7, 8. And he could scarce have charged him with more odious sin, than to be "A bloody man, and a man of Belial." If the prophet speak against Jeroboam's political religion, he will say, "Lay hold on him," 1 Kings xiii. 4. Even Asa will be raging wrathful, and imprison the prophet that reprehendeth his sin, 2 Chron. xvi. 10. Ahab will feed Micaiah in a prison with the bread and water of affliction, if he contradict him, 1 Kings xxii. 27. And even Jerusalem killed the prophets, and stoned them which were sent to gather them under the gracious wing of Christ, Matt. xxiii. 37. "Which of the prophets did they not persecute?" Acts vii. 52. And if you consider but what streams of blood since the death of Christ and his apostles, have been shed for the sake of Christ and righteousness, it will make you wonder, that so much cruelty can consist with humanity, and men and devils should be so like. The same man, as Paul, as soon as he ceaseth to shed the blood of others, must look in the same way to lose his own. How many thousands were murdered by heathen Rome in the ten persecutions! and how many by the Arian emperors and kings! and how many by more orthodox princes in their particular distastes! And yet how far hath the pretended vicar of Christ outdone them all! How many hundred thousands of the Albigenses, Waldenses, and Bohemians, hath the papal rage consumed! Two hundred thousand the Irish murdered in a little space, to outgo the thirty or forty thousand which the French massacre made an end of! The sacrifices offered by their fury in the flames, in the Marian persecution here in England, were nothing to what one day hath done in other parts. What volumes can contain the particular histories of them? What a shambles was their inquisition in the Low Countries! And what is the employment of it still? So that a doubting man would be inclined to think, that papal Rome is the murderous Babylon, that doth but consider, "How drunken she is with the blood of the saints, and the martyrs of Jesus; and that the blood of saints will be found in her, in her day of trial," Rev. xvii. 6; xviii. 24. If we should look over all the rest of the world, and reckon up the torments and murders of the innocent, (in Japan, and most parts of the world, wherever Christianity came,) it may increase your wonder, that devils and men are still so like. Yea, though there be as loud a testimony in human nature against this bloodiness, as almost any sin whatsoever; and though the names of persecutors always stink to following generations, how proudly soever they carried it for a time; and though one would think a persecutor should need no cure but his own pride, that his name may not be left as Pilate's in the creed, to be odious in the mouths of the ages that come after him; yet for all this, so deep is the enmity, so potent is the devil, so blinding a thing is sin, and interest, and passion, that still one generation of persecutors doth succeed the others; and they kill the present saints, while they honour the dead ones, and build them monuments, and say, "If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the prophets' blood." Read well Matt. xxiii. 29, to the end. What a sea of righteous blood hath malignity and persecuting zeal drawn out!
4. Another cause of murder is, rash and unrighteous judgment; when judges are ignorant, or partial, or perverted by passion, or prejudice, or respect of persons: but though many an innocent hath suffered this way, I hope among christians, this is one of the rarest causes.
5. Another way of murder is by oppression and uncharitableness; when the poor are kept destitute of necessaries to preserve their lives: though few of them die directly of famine, yet thousands of them die of those sicknesses which they contract by unwholesome food. And all those are guilty of their death, either that cause it by oppression, or that relieve them not when they are able and obliged to it, James v. 1-5.
6. Another way and cause of murder is, by thieves and robbers, that do it to possess themselves of that which is another man's: when riotousness or idleness hath consumed what they had themselves, and sloth and pride will not suffer them to labour, nor sensuality suffer them to endure want, then they will have it by right or wrong, whatever it cost them. God's laws or man's, the gallows or hell, shall not deter them; but have it they will, though they rob and murder, and are hanged and damned for it. Alas! how dear a purchase do they make! How much easier are their greatest wants, than the wrath of God, and the pains of hell!
7. Another