An Inquiry Into the Accordancy of War with the Principles of Christianity

Jonathan Dymond, a young English Quaker, set out in this 1823 essay to test a plain question: can waging war ever be squared with the teachings of Christ? His answer is an uncompromising no. Marshaling scripture, moral reasoning, and a cool examination of the arguments used to justify armed conflict, Dymond contends that Christianity’s principles forbid war outright, and that the custom of nations has simply dressed up a great evil in respectable clothing. He also weighs the practical objections, asking what a people committed to peace should do when threatened. The work became a foundational text of the modern peace movement and shaped later pacifist thought on both sides of the Atlantic. A free PDF and EPUB edition is available.