ABSTRACT
In the Golden Age the knowledge of the Lord, overflowing the world like a beneficent, health-giving sea, is to bring in the reign of Love. Violence and cruelty can have no place in the ideal human society; they are incompatible with the knowledge of God, a defiance of His will. Nay, to make War is elevated into a positive command. If the Israelites beseige a city which makes no response to their offer of peace, then they are to fight against it and destroy it. To “hurt and destroy,” as the indispensable means of national aggrandisement, is, for them, as literally a command of God, as indisputably a fulfilment of His Purpose, as it is represented to be in Deuteronomy. The only difference is that while the ancient Israelites may possibly have regarded the Deuteronomic command as temporary, the modern militarist regards it as permanent.
