at admit of no cure, but are resolved upon a revolt,
it will still be in their power to retain the same sentiments after my
exhortation is over; but still my discourse will fall to the ground,
even with a relation to those that have a mind to hear me, unless
you will all keep silence. I am well aware that many make a tragical
exclamation concerning the injuries that have been offered you by your
procurators, and concerning the glorious advantages of liberty; but
before I begin the inquiry, who you are that must go to war, and who
they are against whom you must fight, I shall first separate those
pretenses that are by some connected together; for if you aim at
avenging yourselves on those that have done you injury, why do you
pretend this to be a war for recovering your liberty? but if you think
all servitude intolerable, to what purpose serve your complaint against
your particular governors? for if they treated you with moderation, it
would still be equally an unworthy thing to be in servitude. Consider
now the several cases that may be supposed, how little occasion there is
for your going to war. Your first occasion is the accusations you have
to make against your procurators; now here you ought to be submissive
to those in authority, and not give them any provocation; but when
you reproach men greatly for small offenses, you excite those whom you
reproach to be your adversaries; for this will only make them leave off
hurting you privately, and with some degree of modesty, and to lay what
you have waste openly. Now nothing so much damps the force of strokes as
bearing them with patience; and the quietness of those who are injured
diverts the injurious persons from afflicting. But let us take it for
granted that the Roman ministers are injurious to you, and are incurably
severe; yet are they not all the Romans who thus injure you; nor hath
Caesar, against whom you are going to make war, injured you: it is not
by their command that any wicked governor is sent to you; for they who
are in the west cannot see those that are in the east; nor indeed is it
easy for them there even to hear what is done in these parts. Now it is
absurd to make war with a great many for the sake of one, to do so with
such mighty people for a small cause; and this when these people are not
able to know of what you complain: nay, such crimes as we complain of
may soon be corrected, for the same procurator will not continue
for ever; and probable it i