Quesnel: Moral Reflections on the Gospels Vol 1

CHAPTER IX.
137
God has resolved to awaken the sinner, and to re-
store to him the Hfe of his grace. The world laughs
at the truths which it neither comprehends nor loves,
and at those who pubUsh them. A faithful minister
keeps on his pace, and ceases not to work the work
of God.
" 25. But when the people were put forth, he
went in, and took her by the hand, and the maid
arose."
Christ and the world are incompatible in the same
heart: the world must go out tlience, if one would
have Christ enter therein. The world is unworthy
to be present at the works of God, and to know the
operations of his grace. He who desires to rise
from sin, ought to distrust the world, and not to
discover himself to any but to Christ, or to his true
disciples. If the helpful hand of Christ do not take
hold of the sinner's, he will never rise. The living
hand of our blessed Saviour, and the dead hand of
the maid joined together, are an emblem of grace
and of the will, which unite and concur inseparably
to justification and good works, by the consent
which grace works in the will, and which the will
gives through grace, which revives it, sanctifies it,
moves it, and makes it act.
" 26. And the fame hereof went abroad into all
that land."
The fame of the conversion of a soul diffuses it-
self in the church like a sweet odour. It is the duty
of a minister to conceal himself; and that of a thank-
ful soul to publish the mercy of God.