On war as a providential cure for degeneracy (Stephen Charnock)

[Reformed Covenanter]

This observation is sad but probably true: "Penal evils in a nation often end in a public advantage; troubles and wars among a people are many times not destroying, but medicinal, and cure them of that degeneracy, luxury, and effeminateness they contracted by a long peace." Stephen Charnock (Works, 2: 48)

 

[Pergamum]

War leads to its own kind of degeneracy.