Page:Conciones ad populum. Or, Addresses to the people (IA concionesadpopul00cole).pdf/75

65 military spirit with all its virtues and all its vices seized at once a whole nation. In the truly prophetic words of Isaiah—"They have trode the wine-press alone, and of the nations there was none with them. They looked and there was none to help; they that there was none to uphold. Therefore their own arm brought salvation unto them, and their, it upheld them."

Secondly, on their Leaders. They and their country were in the case of "extreme necessity,"—which, according to Archdeacon Paley, dissolves the ordinary ties of morality. I mean not to imply approbation of such systems of morals: but doubtless the Terrorists at the commencement of their power knew that the general consequences of their actions would be evil, but they thought the occasion so vast and pressing, as to make the particular good consequences over-balance the general evil ones—especially as those actions could never be imitated in after times with any shew of reason, unless in the rage and tempest of some future Revolution.