Quesnel: Moral Reflections on the Gospels Vol 1

190 ST. MATTHEW.
reason to fear these vices. To require miracles in
this age is to affront and injure God, and, like the
persons before us, to make no account of all those
which he has wrought for the establishment of the
gospel. The proofs of religion are not in the choice of
men : God only knows those which are most proper.
" 39. But he answered and said unto them, An evil
and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign ; and
there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of
the prophet Jonas :"
Christ complies with the weakness of men, but
never with their extravagant desires. He takes no-
tice of the corruption of heart in these wretches, to
show the cause of their incredulity and of his refusal.
That man wrongs the truth, who submits to the ca-
price of its enemies in the manner of proving it. It
is natural for unbelievers to imagine, that a miracle
wrought on purpose for them would change their
heart. But it is presumption, blindness, and delu-
sion, to expect extraordinary signs in order to conversion.
What miracle can convert him, to whom
even the resurrection of Christ is not sufficient ?
The general resurrection and last judgment will in-
deed do it—but that will be too late.
" 40. For as Jonas was three days and three nights
in the whale's belly, so shall the Son of man be three
days and three nights in the heart of the earth."
Our blessed Saviour's resurrection is his grand
miracle, the confirmation of all the rest, the seal of
his mission, &c. Jonas is the most eminent type of
Christ, as preacher of repentance, as voluntary victim
of his people, as returning alive from the grave and
hell three days after his burial, and as abandoning