DIRECTIONS FOR SOLDIERS, ABOUT THEIR DUTY IN POINT OF CONSCIENCE.
Though it is likely that few soldiers will read what I shall write for
them, yet for the sake of those few that will, I will do as John
Baptist did, and give them some few necessary directions, and not omit
them as some do, as if they were a hopeless sort of men.
_Direct._ I. Be careful to make your peace with God, and live in
a continual readiness to die. This being the great duty of every
rational man, you cannot deny it to be especially yours, whose calling
setteth you so frequently in the face of death. Though some garrison
soldiers are so seldom, if ever, put to fight, that they live more
securely than most other men, yet a soldier, as such, being by his
place engaged to fight, I must fit my directions to the ordinary
condition and expectation of men in that employment. It is a most
irrational and worse than beastly negligence, for any man to live
carelessly in an unpreparedness for death, considering how certain it
is, and how uncertain the time, and how unconceivably great is the
change which it inferreth: but for a soldier to be unready to die, who
hath such special reason to expect it, and who listeth himself into a
state which is so near it, this is to live and fight like beasts, and
to be soldiers before you understand what it is to be a christian or a
man. First, therefore, make sure that your souls are regenerate and
reconciled unto God by Christ; and that when you die, you have a part
in heaven; and that you are not yet in the state of sin and nature: an
unrenewed unsanctified soul is sure to go to hell, by what death or
in what cause soever he dieth. If such a man be a soldier, he must be
a coward or a madman; if he will run upon death, when he knoweth not
whither it will send him, yea, when hell is certainly the next step,
he is worse than mad: but if he know and consider the terribleness of
such a change, it must needs make him tremble when he thinks of dying.
He can be no good soldier that dare not die; and who can expect that
he should dare to die, who must be damned when he dieth? Reason may
command a man to venture upon death; but no reason will allow him to
venture upon hell. I never knew but two sorts of valiant soldiers: the
one was boys, and brutish, ignorant sots, who had no sense of the
concernments of their souls; and the other (who only were truly
valiant) were those that had made such preparations for eternity, as,
at least, persuaded them that it should go well with them when they
died. And many a debauched soldier I have known, whose conscience hath
made them cowards, and shift or run away when they should venture upon
death, because they knew they were unready to die, and were more
afraid of hell than of the enemy. He that is fit to be a martyr, is
the fittest man to be a soldier: he that is regenerate, and hath laid
up his treasure and his hopes in heaven, and so hath overcome the
fears of death, may be bold as a lion, and ready for any thing, and
fearless in the greatest perils. For what should he fear, who hath
escaped hell, and God's displeasure, and hath conquered the king of
terrors? But fear is the duty and most rational temper of a guilty
soul; and the more fearless such are, the more foolish and more
miserable.
_Direct._ II. Be sure you have a warrantable cause and call. In a
bad cause it is a dreadful thing to conquer, or to be conquered. If
you conquer, you are a murderer of all that you kill; if you are
conquered and die in the prosecution of your sin, I need not tell you
what you may expect. I know we are here upon a difficulty which must
be tenderly handled: if we make the sovereign power to be the absolute
and only judge, whether the soldier's cause and call be good; then it
would follow, that it is the duty of all the christian subjects of the
Turk, to fight against Christianity as such, and to destroy all
christians when the Turk commandeth it; and that all the subjects of
other lands are bound to invade this or other such christian kingdoms,
and destroy their kings, whenever their popish or malicious princes or
states shall command them; which being intolerable consequences, prove
the antecedent to be intolerable. And yet on the other side, if
subjects must be the judges of their cause and call, the prince shall
not be served, nor the common good secured, till the interest of the
subjects will allow them to discern the goodness of the cause. Between
these two intolerable consequents, it is hard to meet with a just
discovery of the mean. Most run into one of the extremes, which they
take to be the less, and think that there is no other avoiding of the
other. The grand errors in this, and a hundred like cases, come from
not distinguishing aright the case _de esse_, from the case _de
apparere_, or _cognoscere_, and not first determining the
former, as it ought, before the latter be determined. Either the cause
which subjects are commanded to fight in, is really lawful to them, or
it is not. (Say not here importunely, Who shall judge? For we are now
but upon the question _de esse_.) If it be not lawful in itself,
but be mere robbery or murder, then come to the case of evidence;
either this evil is to the subject discernible by just means, or not:
if it be, I am not able for my part to justify him from the sin, if he
do it, no more than to have justified the three witnesses, Dan. iii.
if they had bowed down to the golden calf, or Dan. vi. if he had
forborne prayer, or the apostles, if they had forborne preaching, or
the soldiers for apprehending and crucifying Christ, when their
superiors commanded them. For God is first to be obeyed and feared.
But if the evil of the cause be such, as the subject cannot by just
and ordinary means discern, then must he come next to examine his
call; and a volunteer unnecessarily he may not be in a doubtful cause:
it is so heinous a sin to murder men, that no man should unnecessarily
venture upon that which may prove to be murder for aught he knoweth.
But if you ask what call may make such a doubtful action necessary, I
answer, It must be such as warranteth it, either from the end of the
action, or from the authority of the commander, or both. And from the
end of the action, the case may be made clear, That if a king should
do wrong to a foreign enemy, and should have the worse cause, yet if
the revenge which that enemy seeketh would be the destruction of the
king and country, or religion, it is lawful and a duty to fight in the
defence of them. And if the king should be the assailant, or beginner,
that which is an offensive war in him (for which he himself must
answer) may be but a defensive war in the commanded subjects, and they
be innocent: even on the highway, if I see a stranger provoke another
by giving him the first blow, yet I may be bound to save his life from
the fury of the avenging party. But whether, or how far, the bare
command of a sovereign may warrant the subjects to venture in a
doubtful cause, (supposing the thing lawful in itself, though they are
doubtful,) requireth so much to be said to it, which civil governors
may possibly think me too bold to meddle with, that I think it safest
to pass it by; only saying, that there are some cases in which the
ruler is the only competent judge, and the doubts of the subject are
so unreasonable, that they will not excuse the sin of his
disobedience; and also, that the degree of the doubt is oft very
considerable in the case. But suppose the cause of the war be really
lawful in itself, and yet the subject is in doubt of it, yea, or
thinketh otherwise; then is he in the case, as other erroneous
consciences are, that is, entangled in a necessity of sinning, till he
be undeceived, in case his rulers command his service. But which would
be the greater sin, to do it or not, the ends and circumstances may do
much to determine; but doubtless in true necessity to save the king
and state, subjects may be compelled to fight in a just cause,
notwithstanding that they mistake it for unjust; and if the subject
have a private discerning judgment, so far as he is a voluntary agent,
yet the sovereign hath a public determining judgment, when a neglecter
is to be forced to his duty. Even as a man that thinketh it unlawful
to maintain his wife and children, may be compelled lawfully to do it.
So that it is apparent, that sometimes the sovereign's cause may be
good, and yet an erroneous conscience may make the soldiers' cause
bad, if they are volunteers, who run unnecessarily upon that which
they take for robbery and murder; and yet that the higher powers may
force even such mistakers to defend their country, and their
governors, in a case of true necessity. And it is manifest that
sometimes the cause of the ruler may be bad, and yet the cause of the
soldier good; and that sometimes the cause may be bad and sinful to
them both, and sometimes good and lawful unto both.
_Direct._ III. When you are doubtful whether your cause and call
be good, it is (ordinarily) safest to sit still, and not to venture in
so dangerous a case, without great deliberation and sufficient
evidence to satisfy your consciences. Neander might well say of
Solon's law, which punished them that took not one part or other in a
civil war or sedition, _Admirabilis autem illa atque plane
incredibilis, quæ honoribus abdicat eum, qui orta seditione nullam
factionem secutus sit_.[123] No doubt, he is a culpable neuter that
will not defend his governors and his country, when he hath a call;
but it is so dreadful a thing to be guilty of the blood and calamities
of an unjust war, that a wise man will rather be abused as a neuter,
than run himself into the danger of such a case.
_Direct._ IV. When necessity forceth you to go forth in a just
war, do it with such humiliation and unwillingness as beseemeth one
that is a patient, a spectator, and an actor, in one of the sorest of
God's temporal judgments. Go not to kill men, as if you went to a
cock-fight, or a bear-baiting. Make not a sport of a common calamity;
be not insensible of the displeasure of God, expressed in so great a
judgment. What a sad condition is it to yourselves, to be employed in
destroying others! If they be good, how sad a thought is it, that you
must kill them! If they are wicked, how sad is it that by killing them
you cut off all their hopes of mercy, and send them suddenly to hell!
How sad an employment is it, to spoil and undo the poor inhabitants
where you come! to cast them into terrors, to deprive them of that
which they have long been labouring for! to prepare for famine, and be
like a consuming pestilence where you come! Were it but to see such
desolations, it should melt you into compassion; much more to be the
executioners yourselves. How unsuitable a work is it to the grace of
love! Though I doubt not but it is a service which the love of God,
our country, and our rulers, may sometimes justify and command, yet
(as to the rulers and masters of the business) it must be a very clear
and great necessity that can warrant a war. And, as to the soldiers,
they must needs go with great regret, to kill men by thousands, whom
they love as themselves. He that loveth his neighbour as himself, and
blesseth, and doth good to his persecuting enemy, will take it heavily
to be employed in killing him, even when necessity maketh it his duty.
But the greatest calamity of war is the perniciousness of it to men's
souls. Armies are commonly that to the soul, as a city infected with
the plague is to the body; the very nurseries and academies of pride,
and cruelty, and drunkenness, and whoredom, and robbery, and
licentiousness; and the bane of piety, and common civility, and
humanity. Not that every soldier cometh to this pass; the hottest
pestilence killeth not all; but oh how hard is it to keep up a life of
faith and godliness in an army! The greatness of their business, and
of their fears and cares, doth so wholly take up their minds and talk,
that there is scarce any room found for the matters of their souls,
though unspeakably greater. They have seldom leisure to hear a sermon,
and less to pray. The Lord's day is usually taken up in matters that
concern their lives, and therefore can pretend necessity; so that it
must be a very resolute, confirmed, vigilant person, that is not
alienated from God. And then it is a course of life, which giveth
great opportunity to the tempter, and advantage to temptations, both
to errors in judgment, and viciousness of heart and life; he that
never tried it can hardly conceive how difficult it is to keep up
piety and innocency in an army. If you will suppose that there is no
difference in the cause, or the ends and accidents, I take it to be
much more desirable to serve God in a prison, than in an army; and
that the condition of a prisoner hath far less in it to tempt the
foolish, or to afflict the wise, than a military. (Excepting those
whose life in garrisons and lingering wars, doth little differ from a
state of peace.) I am not simply against the lawfulness of war; (nor
as I conceive, Erasmus himself, though he saw the sinfulness of that
sort of men; and use to speak truly of the horrid wickedness and
misery of them that thirst for blood, or rush on wars without
necessity;) but it must be a very extraordinary army, that is not
constituted of wolves and tigers, and is not unto common honesty and
piety the same that a stews or whorehouse is to chastity. And oh how
much sweeter is the work of an honest physician that saveth men's
lives, than of a soldier, whose virtue is shown in destroying them! or
a carpenter's, or mason's, that adorneth cities with comely buildings,
than a soldier's that consumeth them by fire![124]
_Direct._ V. Be sure first that your cause be better than your
lives, and then resolve to venture your lives for them. It is the
hazarding of your lives, which in your calling you undertake; and
therefore be not unprepared for it; but reckon upon the worst, and be
ready to undergo whatever you undertake. A soldier's life is unfit for
one that dare not die. A coward is one of the most pernicious
murderers; he verifieth Christ's saying in another sense, "he that
saveth his life shall lose it." While men stand to it, it is usually
but few that die; because they quickly daunt the enemy, and keep him
on the defensive part; but when once they rout, and run away, they are
slain on heaps, and fall like leaves in a windy autumn. Every coward
that pursueth them is imboldened by their fear, and dare run them
through, or shoot them behind, that durst not so near have looked them
in the face; and maketh it his sport to kill a fugitive, or one that
layeth down his weapons, that would fly himself from a daring
presence. Your cowardly fear betrayeth the cause of your king and
country; it betrayeth the lives of your fellow-soldiers, while the
running of a few affrighted dastards, lets in ruin upon all the rest;
and it casteth away your own lives, which you think to save. If you
will be soldiers, resolve to conquer or to die. It is not so much
skill or strength that conquereth, as boldness. It is fear that loseth
the day, and fearlessness that winneth it. The army that standeth to
it, getteth the victory, though they fight never so weakly; for if you
will not run the enemy will. And if the lives of a few be lost by
courage, it usually saveth the lives of many (though wisdom still is
needful in the conduct). And if the cause be not worth your lives, you
should not meddle with it.
_Direct._ VI. Resolve upon an absolute obedience to your
commanders, in all things consistent with your obedience to God, and
the sovereign power. Disobedience is no where more intolerable than in
an army; where it is often unfit for a soldier to know the reason of
his commands; and where self-conceitedness and wilfulness are
inconsistent with their common safety, and the lives of many may pay
for the disobedience of a few. If you cannot obey, undertake not to be
soldiers.
_Direct._ VII. Especially detest all murmurings, mutinies,
sidings, and rebellions. For these are to an army like violent fevers
to the body, or like a fire in a city, and would make an army the
greatest plague to their king and country. How many emperors, kings,
and commanders have lost their dignities and lives, by the fury of
mutinous, enraged soldiers! And how many kingdoms and other
commonwealths have been thus overthrown, and betrayed into the enemy's
hands! And how many thousands and millions of soldiers have thereby
lost their lives! In your discontents and murmuring passions, you may
quickly set the house on fire over your heads, and when you feel your
misery repent too late. Passion may begin that which fruitless
penitence must end. The leaders of mutinies may easily have many fair
pretences to inflame an army into discontents: they may aggravate many
seeming injuries; they may represent their commanders as odious and
unworthy, by putting an ill appearance on their actions: but in the
end it will appear, that it was their own advancement which they
secretly aimed at, and the destruction of the present government, or
the soldiers' ruin, which is like to be the effect. A mutinous army is
likest hell of any thing I know among God's creatures, and next hell,
there is scarce a worse place for their commanders to be in.
_Direct._ VIII. Use not your power or liberty to the robbing, or
oppressing, or injury of any. Though military thieves and oppressors
may escape the gallows more than others, they shall come as soon to
hell as any. If you plunder, and spoil, and tyrannize over the poor
people, under pretence of supplying your own wants, there is a God in
heaven that will hear their cries, and will avenge them speedily,
though you seem to go scot-free for a time. You may take a pride in
domineering over others, and making yourselves lords by violence of
other men's estates, and when you see none that will question you for
it, you may take that which you have most mind to. But the poor and
oppressed have a just Defender, who hath a severer punishment for you
than the sword or gallows! And though he take you not in the very
fact, and his sentence is not presently executed, yet be certain of
it, that your day is coming.
_Direct._ IX. Take heed lest custom, and the frequency of God's
judgments, do harden your hearts into a reprobate stupidity. Many a
man that formerly by the sight of a corpse, or the groanings of the
sick, was awakened to serious thoughts of his latter end, when he
cometh into an army, and hath often seen the dead lie scattered on the
earth, and hath often escaped death himself, groweth utterly
senseless, and taketh blockishness to be valour, and custom maketh
such warnings to be of no effect. You can scarce name a more strange
and lamentable proof of the maddening and hardening nature of sin!
that men should be most senseless, when they are in the greatest
danger! and least fear God, when they are among his dreadful
judgments! and least hear his voice, when his calls are loudest! and
live as if they should not die, when they look death so often in the
face, and see so many dead before them! That they should be most
regardless of their endless life, when they are nearest it; and sense
itself hath such notable advantage to tell them of all this! What a
monstrous kind of sottish stupidity is this! Think whither the soul
is gone, when you see the carcass on the earth; and think where your
own must be for ever.
_Direct._ X. Take heed of falling into drunkenness and sensuality,
though temptations and liberty be never so great. It is too common
with soldiers, because they are oft put to thirst and wants, to think
they may lawfully pour it in, when they come at it, without moderation
or restraint: even as many poor men take a gluttonous meal for no sin,
because they have so many days of hunger; so is it with such soldiers
in their drink: till drunkenness first have wounded their consciences,
and afterwards grow common, till it have debauched and seared them;
and then they have drowned religion and reason, and are turned
sottish, miserable brutes.
_Direct._ XI. If necessity deprive you of the benefits of God's
public or stated worship, see that you labour to repair that loss, by
double diligence in those spiritual duties, which yet you have
opportunity for. If you must march or watch on the Lord's days, redeem
your other time the more. If you cannot hear sermons, be not without
some profitable book, and often read it; and let your meditations be
holy, and your discourses edifying. For these you have opportunities,
if you have hearts.
_Direct._ XII. Take heed that command or successes do not puff
you up and make you overvalue yourselves, and incline you to rebel
against your governors. What lamentable effects hath England lately
seen of this! A silly, half-witted soldier, if he be but made a
captain, doth carry it as if he were wiser than the preachers, or the
judge! as if his dignity had added to his wit! When victories have
laid the power at men's feet, and they think now that none is able to
control them, how few are they that abuse not such success to their
undoing, and are not conquered by the pride of their own hearts, when
they have conquered others! How ordinarily do they mis-expound the
providence of God, and think he hath put the government into their
hands, because they have the strength; and from the histories of
former successful rebels, and the fairness of their opportunity,
encourage themselves to rebel, and think they do but what is their
duty! How easily do they justify themselves in those unlawful deeds,
which impartial by-standers see the evil of! And how easily do they
quiet their consciences, when they have but power enough to raise up
flatterers, and to stop the mouth of wholesome reprehension! How
lamentably doth prosperity make them drunk, and sudden advancement
overturn their brains! And their greatness, together with their pride
and fury, preserveth them from the accesses of wisdom, and of sober
men, that so their malady may have no remedy: and there, like a
drunken man, they rave awhile, and speak big words, and lay about
them, and glory in the honour of a pestilence, that they can kill men;
and we must not speak to them, till their heads are settled, and they
come to themselves, and that is not usually till the hand of God have
laid them lower than it found them, and then perhaps they will again
hear reason; unless pride hath left their souls as desperate as at
last it doth their bodies or estates. The experience of this age may
stand on record, as a teacher to future generations, what power there
is in great successes, to conquer both reason, religion, righteousness,
professions, vows, and all obligations to God and man, by puffing up
the heart with pride, and thereby making the understanding drunken.
[123] Neander in Chron. p. 104.
[124] And though I ignore not that it is a much more fashionable and
celebrated practice in young gentlemen to kill men, than to cure
them; and that mistaken mortals think it to be the noblest exercise
of virtue, to destroy the noblest workmanship of nature, (and indeed
in some few cases, the requisiteness and danger of destructive
valour, may make its actions become a virtuous patriot,) yet when I
consider the character given of our great Master and Exemplar, that
he went about doing good, and healing all manner of sicknesses--I
cannot but think such an employment worthy of the very noblest of his
disciples. Mr. Boyle's Experiment. Philos. p. 303, 304.