Quesnel: Moral Reflections on the Gospels Vol 1

CHAPTER XII. 181
charity on a sabbath-day is a crime,—to labour on
the same day to destroy one's neighbour is a good
work !—thus reasons a corrupt heart before it is
aware. Such a one gives himself up to all sorts of
wickedness on days the most holy, who will condemn
without mercy a poor man whom necessity forces to
work on any such day: to that degree may a man's
heart, not devoted to God, be blinded as to himself,
and hardened toward his neighbour.
Sect. III.— The meekness of the Messiah. The
bruised Reed and s?noki?ig Flax.
" 15. But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew him-
self from thence : and great multitudes followed him,
and he healed them all;"
It is the part of prudence and charity not to pro-
voke the blind and the hardened, and to take from
them the occasion of sin. The man of God gives
place to persecution. He appears amidst the world,
only to do good in it; he retires from it when he is
no longer useful in it, or when the obstacles to good
are, humanly speaking, invincible. Men still find
much good by following Christ; but it is he himself
who draws those after him, whom he intends to heal.
Let us follow the Physician of our souls, and never
leave him.
" 16. And charged them that they should not
make him known :"
Let us love to be hid with Christ, either out of
humility or necessity ; there is always some advan-
tage in it. To secure himself from being discovered,
he uses no other than human means, for which he
had no occasion ;
to teach us not to neglect them in