164

FRIENDS’

REVIEW.

 

and their spears into pruning hooks: Nation
shall not lift up a sword against nation, neith-
er shall they learn war any more.” This is to
come to pass under the new covenant, of which
Christ the Son of God is Mediator; whose doe-
trine tends to the fulfilling of it, in all who be-
lieve and obey the Gospel. For he saith, “Ye
have heard that it has been said, Thou shalt
loye thy neighbor and hate thine enemy ; but I
say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that
curse you, and do good to them that hate you;
and pray for them who despitefully use you, and
persecute you;” and that we should not be
angry without a cause, nor lust: and so preach-
ing perfection, which being accomplished in
the heart, by the holy and powerful Spirit of
him who preached this doctrine, all lust is
taken away and destroyed; whether it be the
lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, of vain
glory, power, domination, self-exaltation, covet-
ousness ; the lust of envy, revenge, pre-emin-
nence, and the like; which are the ground and
cause of wars and fighting among carnal men,
as saith the Apostle James, ‘From whence
come wars and fightings among you? Come
they not from hence, even from your lusts that
war in your members? Ye lust and have not;
ye kill and desire to have, and cannot obtain ;
ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye
ask not ; ye ask and receive not, because ye ask
amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts :
ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that
the friendship of the world is enmity with
God?” Now, though the kings and kingdoms
of this world may be at war, and do and will
make war one against another for a time, until
the kingdom of Christ shall prevail over all, yet
the kingdom of Christ is not of this world, as he
said unto piste, “Tf my kingdom were of this
world, then would my servants fight, that I
. should not be delivered to the Jews; but now is
my kingdom not from hence.”

To this he answered, ‘‘ That was only at that
time that they would not fight ; for if they had
fought, he had not been delivered to the Jews
to be crucified ; and so his death, and all the ad-
vantages of it to mankind, hindered ; but upon
any other just occasion they might, and still
may fight.”

To this I replied, that this interpretation, or
rather perversion, would destroy the kingdom
of Christ in the nature, infancy, and end of
it; denying Christ to have a kingdom on earth,
but only during his bodily presence with his
disciples, and would obstruct the way for the
accomplishing the prophecies of the prophets
beforementioned, and oppose the whole tenor
and end of the Gospel. For the proclamation
of the celestial harbingers of the Prince of
Peace, in notifying the birth of the first-born
into the world, for the salvation, not destruc-
tion of the lives of mankind, was after this
manner, “ Glory to God in the highest, and on

 

earth peace, good will toward men.” And as
he was sent into the world in the love of the
Father, so the whole tenor of his doctrine and
example of life, was for peace and love; and in
that love, and the power and divine virtue of it,
he yielded up his life and body on the cross, an
adequate propitiation for the sins of the whole
world, and to declare the mercy of God to all
mankind. And it is evident that the Jews cru-
cified Christ, in defence and support of this
same political principle and doctrine, of self-de-
fence by war and fighting, for the preservation
of their state against the Romans ; though their
policy proved their utter ruin in the sequel : for,
said they, after Christ had raised Lazarus from
the dead, “What do we? For this man doeth
many miracles; if we let him thus alone, all
men will believe on him, and the Romans shall
come, and take away both our place and nation ;”
which plainly demonstrates, that the disciples
and followers of Christ were not of fighting
principles, but otherwise taught by him to love
even their enemies, and his whole doctrine
tended to merey, peace, truth and love. And
the apostle saith concerning the members and
subjects of the kingdom of Christ in this world,
“ For though we walk in the flesh, we do not
war after the flesh ; for the weapons of our war-
fare are not carnal, but mighty through God, to
the pulling down of strongholds, casting down
imaginations (or reasonings), and every high
thing which exalteth itself against the knowl-
edge of God, and bringing into captivity every
thought to the obedience of Christ.”
(To be*concluded. )

 

For Friends’ Review.
NOTICES OF DAVID COOPER.

NO. XXXIV.

Daniel Offley to David Cooper.
Philadelphia, 1st mo. 2d, 1789.

The affection I feel for my dear friend, more
than anything I have to communicate, is the
motive to my present attempt to write. thee,
although I do not know that I am in epistolary
arrears.

I was last week in the Jersey, but did not get
there without great difficulty, owing to the ice.
I went on Seventh-day to Bristol, and did not
get over till Second-day, when I was obliged to
cross at Newbold’s Island,* and on reaching the
main, went into A. Donaldson’s, on the river
shore, where I met Thomas Seattergood, who
had been in that neighborhood more than a
week without seeing his way to leave it. Our
meeting, though unexpected, was truly pleasing. |
We went that night together to M. N.’s, spent
the evening pleasantly, and next day attended

 

*This is four or five miles above Bristol : at the
latter place the Delaware is more than a mile wide,
— the winter crossing sometimes almost impracti-
cable. F : Br.

,