providence. Reflect upon it, how impossible it is for your
zealous observations of your religious customs to be here
preserved, which are hard to be observed even when you fight with
those whom you are able to conquer; and how can you then most of
all hope for God's assistance, when, by being forced to
transgress his law, you will make him turn his face from you? and
if you do observe the custom of the sabbath days, and will not be
revealed on to do any thing thereon, you will easily be taken, as
were your forefathers by Pompey, who was the busiest in his siege
on those days on which the besieged rested. But if in time of war
you transgress the law of your country, I cannot tell on whose
account you will afterward go to war; for your concern is but
one, that you do nothing against any of your forefathers; and how
will you call upon God to assist you, when you are voluntarily
transgressing against his religion? Now all men that go to war do
it either as depending on Divine or on human assistance; but
since your going to war will cut off both those assistances,
those that are for going to war choose evident destruction. What
hinders you from slaying your children and wives with your own
hands, and burning this most excellent native city of yours? for
by this mad prank you will, however, escape the reproach of being
beaten. But it were best, O my friends, it were best, while the
vessel is still in the haven, to foresee the impending storm, and
not to set sail out of the port into the middle of the
hurricanes; for we justly pity those who fall into great
misfortunes without fore-seeing them; but for him who rushes into
manifest ruin, he gains reproaches [instead of commiseration].
But certainly no one can imagine that you can enter into a war as
by agreement, or that when the Romans have got you under their
power, they will use you with moderation, or will not rather, for