historical and political thought in the seventeenth - RePub - Erasmus ...

Chapter 4. Times of success. Defending the fatherland
But the newly won peace not only filled Boxhorn with joy. He laments the
deplorable condition of the south, devasted and ruined by years of continuous
warfare on its soil. He thereby also points the finger at the Dutch from the
north, finding them equally guilty to the fact that a great part of Europe now
laid to waste. 102
Furthermore, the recent peace also carried some dangers with it. ‘Because
it also often happens that that sweetness of tranquility or peace weakens and
deprives people of vigor, who have never been conquered or weakened by
war’, Boxhorn prays to God ‘that the spirit and judgement of our ancestors,
who have given us the most pleasant of times with the greatest perseverance,
foresight, and loyalty, shall stay and remain with us, and shall pass to our
children and grandchildren’. 103 Vigilance is needed ‘in these times, that are
full of religions and barren of piety’, an abundance and infertility that cause
men to ‘run eagerly to the opinions and madness or fabrications of men, as if
to new battle standards and new legions, even with arms, that already destroy
the most prosperous and powerful people’. Times, in which people, who have
immense ambition and who only act out of self-interest, pretend to defend
God’s cause. Therefore, Boxhorn hopes that the Dutch shall keep visiting ‘our
churches and altars’, for it is upon them that ‘the eternity of her peace’ rests. 104
Another danger that Boxhorn detects is the possibility of the eruption of
civil discord. Here Boxhorn agrees with the Roman historian Sallust (86-34
BC), who had blamed the loss of an external threat for the disintegration of
Rome into warring factions. ‘Because often, when an external war, or the
dread of an external war is taken away … a completely bad lust, greed, ambition,
contests over the power to command between powerful men, the discretion
of men, and men rather than the laws can assume power’, leading to
‘a discord between citizens, that is more harmful than any war whatsoever,
and which those vices drag with them’. 105 As can be deduced from the above,
102 Ibidem, p. 111. ‘Debebamus quoque, &, ut tanto augustior esset hujus belli finis, Europae, in qua
provinciae omnes, regna, maria, terraeque aspera aut fessa bellis jam sunt, primi, quo nullum magis
nunc necessarium est, exemplum, posse gravissima etiam & diu tracta gentium odia aut bella pacis, si
quidem ejus desiderium sit & amor, dulcedine ac opulentia mutari.’
103 Ibidem, p. 123. ‘Vt, cum plerumque etiam invictas neque fractas bello gentes exuat atque enervet
sive otii sive pacis illa dulcedo, maneat nobis, ac duret, & in posteros nostros nepotesque transeat animus
ac judicium majorum, qui constantia summa, providentia ac fide, laetissima haec nobis tempora
dedere …’
104 Ibidem, pp. 123-24. ‘Vt hac tempestate, quae faecunda religionum est & sterilis pietatis, qua
opiniones hominum & deliria aut commenta, tanquam ad nova signa novasque aquilas certatim, armis
etiam, quibus florentissimae validissimaeque jam exscinduntur gentes, concurritur; qua caussam Dei
agere videri volunt, qui agunt immensae ambitionis & suam; aris nostris & altaribus, quae pro hoc datae
pacis beneficio grati quotidie obsidebimus, pax sua immota, aeterna consistat.’
105 Ibidem, p. 124. ‘Ut, cum plerumque amoto externo bello, aut externi metu, (tamquam vitia facilius
aut scelera pax ferat, quam bellum, cum tamen minus ferat) mala omnis libido, avaritia, ambitio,
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