they justify
themselves on this principle.

I shall observe in reply to this, that it is frequently difficult to
determine, where actual aggression begins. Even old aggressions, of long
standing, have their bearings in these disputes. Not shall we find often
any clue to a solution of the difficulty in the manifestoes of either
party, for each makes his own case good in these; and if we were to
decide on the merits of the question by the contents of these, we should
often come to the conclusion, that both the parties were wrong. Thus,
for instance, a notion may have been guilty of an offence to another. So
far the cause of the other is a just one. But if the other should arm
first, and this during an attempt at accommodation, it will be a
question, whether it does not forfeit its pretensions to a just case,
and whether both are not then to be considered as aggressors on the
occasion?

When a nation avows its object in a war, and changes its object in the
course of it, the presumption is, that such a nation has been the
aggressor. And where any nation goes to war upon no other avowed
principle, than that of the balance of power, such a nation, however
right according to the policy of the world, is an aggressor according to
the policy of the Gospel, because it proceeds upon the principle, that
it is lawful to do evil, that good may come.

If a nation hires or employs the troops of another to fight for it,
though it is not the aggressor in any war, yet it has the crime upon its
head of making those aggressors, whom it employs.

But, generally speaking, few modern wars can be called defensive. A war,
purely defensive, is that in which the inhabitants of a nation remain
wholly at home to repel the attacks of another, and content themselves
with sending protection to the settlements which belong to it. But few
instance are recorded of such wars.

But if there be often a difficulty in discerning between aggressive and
defensive wars, and if, moreover, there is reason to suppose, that most
of the modern wars are aggressive, or that both patties become
aggressors in the course of the dispute, it becomes the rulers of
nations to pause, and to examine their own consciences with fear and
trembling, before they allow the Sword to bedrawn, lest a dreadful
responsibility should fall upon their heads for all the destruction of
happiness, all the havoc of life, and all the slaughter of morals that
may ensue.

It is said, secondl