4. Declarations of great men that Christianity prohibits war
There are, however, testimonies, delivered in the calm of reflection by acute and enlightened men, which may reasonably be allowed at least so much weight as to free the present inquiry from the charge of being wild or visionary.
Christianity indeed needs no such auxiliaries; but if they induce an examination of her duties, a wise man will not wish them to be disregarded.
“They who defend war,” says Erasmus, “must defend the dispositions which lead to war; and these dispositions are absolutely forbidden by the gospel. Since the time that Jesus Christ said, “Put up thy sword into its scabbard,” Christians ought not to go to war.
Christ suffered Peter to fall into an error in this matter on purpose that, when he had put up Peter’s sword, it might remain no longer a doubt that war was prohibited, which, before that order, had been considered as allowable.”
“I am persuaded,” says the Bishop of Llandaff, “that when the spirit of Christianity shall exert its proper influence over the minds of individuals,
and especially over the minds of public men in their public capacities, over the minds of men constituting the councils of princes, from whence are the issues of peace and war –
when this happy period shall arrive, war will cease throughout the whole Christian world.”
“War,” says the same acute prelate, “has practices and principles peculiar to itself, which but ill quadrate with the rule of moral rectitude, and are quite abhorrent from the benignity of Christianity.”
The emphatic declaration that I have already quoted for another purpose is yet more distinct: “The prohibition of war by our Divine Master is plain, literal, and undeniable.”
Dr. Vicesimus Knox speaks in language equally specific: “Morality and religion forbid war in its motives, conduct, and consequences.”