All wars are contrary to the revealed will of God." It is said in reply, that if the Christian religion condemns all wars, no matter how just the cause, or how necessary for self-defence, we must expect to find in the Bible some direct prohibition of war, or at least a prohibition fairly implied in other direct commandments.

But the Bible nowhere prohibits war: in the Old Testament we find war and even conquest positively commanded, and although war was raging in the world in the time of Christ and his apostles, still they said not a word of its unlawfulness and immorality.

Moreover, the fathers of the church amply acknowledge the right of war, and directly assert, that when war is justly declared, the Christian may engage in it either by stratagem or open force.

If it be of that highly wicked and immoral character which some have recently attributed to it, most assuredly it would be condemned in the Bible in terms the most positive and unequivocal.
But it has been said that the use of the sword is either directly or typically forbidden to the Christian, by such passages as "Thou shalt not kill," (Deut.v.

17,) "I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also," (Matt.v.