APPLICATION.
It is in vain for individuals to contend against an overwhelming power, and an ineffectual resistance to violence only tends to double our sufferings. When life is pursued, and in danger, whoever values it should give up every thing but his honour to preserve it; and there can be no disgrace in yielding voluntarily to our persecutors, when we are certain that resistance is in vain: but this doctrine can seldom be applied to the case of a whole nation, for when tyranny and rapine are making their wicked strides over a country (as has sometimes happened even in Europe) the people would seldom fail to rid themselves of their oppressors, if they resolved to rise as one man, and bravely oppose them.
