Quesnel: Moral Reflections on the Gospels Vol 1

'78 ST. MATTHEW.
joins us to love, are either those who hate us, or
those whom we do not love. A man certainly bears
a hostile mind, when he therein cherishes aversion
and hatred, either with or without cause. This
one precept alone is a sufficient proof of the holiness
of the gospel, and of the truth of the Christian reli-
gion. None but God could have imposed a yoke
so contrary to self-love; and nothing but the su-
preme and infinite charity could have made men love
and practise a law so insupportable to corrupt nature.
In vain do men flatter themselves with lovincj their
enemies, if their works do not give, testimony thereof.
*' 45. That ye may be the children of your Fa-
ther which is in heaven : for he maketh his sun to
rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain
on the just and on the unjust."
There is nothing greater than to imitate God in
doing good to our enemies. All the creatures pro-
nounce on the revengeful the sentence of their con-
demnation, wrote with the rays of the sun, the drops
of rain, and all the other natural good things, the
use whereof God gives even to his enemies. If God
had not loved us while we were his enemies, we
could never have become his children ;
and we shall
cease to be so, if we cease to imitate him.
" 46. For if ye love them which love you, what
reward have ye ? do not even the publicans the
same ?"
He who loves only his friends does nothing for
God's sake. This is the virtue of a publican and a
heathen, which will have no other reward but theirs.
God is the reward of that virtue only, of which he
himself is the principle and the end. He who loves