Kirkland. 1795 Boston Sermon, Honorable Artillery Company, God Directs War

Kirkland, John Thornton. A Sermon, preached before the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, in Boston, June 1, 1795. Being the Anniversary of their Election of Officers. Boston: Joseph Belknap, at the Apollo Press, 1795. First Edition.  [3113]  Removed, new stab-sewn acid-free wrapper, 8 1/2 x 5 inches, 35 (1) pp. Good. Pamphlet. Evans 28932. The text is Psalm 76:10, "Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee..." The points are I. To show in what respect war is an evil; II. To prove...yet that it is, under the conduct of divine Providence, in known and unknown ways, made productive of good; and III. That the influence of Christianity has mitigated the horrors of war, and that with the growth of Christianity the world will someday experience a "universal and perpetual peace." Includes the praise of the invention of gunpowder, and its use in fighting "war is changed from a matter of strength to a matter of calculation," and "that fewer lives are destroyed in a modern war of years, t