Quesnel: Moral Reflections on the Gospels Vol 1

CHAPTER III. 45
and make a new heart of it. What should I do, O
Lord, if thou didst not wash me often in the laver
of thy blood, and purify me in the fire of thy charity?
" 12. Whose fan is in his hand, and he will
throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into
the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with un-
quenchable fire."
The present and visible church is the floor, where
the corn is as yet mingled with the chaff, the elect
with the reprobate. The agitation of persecution,
or the salutary suffering for the truths of the Gospel,
separate them in this life the one from the other ; the
fan of the last judgment shall remove them from the
floor, in order to be either carried into the garner,
or cast into the fire. Terrible, but inevitable separation
! We shall eternally belong either to the
one or the other; and out of the floor, we shall be
the same that we have been in it, either chaff or
wheat. Grant, O Lord, that I may have a heart,not
as of chaff, feeble, light, empty, barren, and tossed
about with every wind; but as of wheat, pure, full
of substantial virtue, firm in. goodness, fruitful in
good works, and fit to become the bread of God,
after having been bruised under the millstone of the
cross, kneaded in the water of affliction, and baked
with the fire of charity.
Sect. III. The Baptism of Christ.
" 13. % Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jor-
dan unto John, to be baptized of him."
Jesus clothes himself with us and our sins, that
he may clothe us with himself and his righteousness
in baptism. He takes, and, as it were, deifies