Quesnel: Moral Reflections on the Gospels Vol 1

CHAPTER XIII.
209
my God, has found out, to render man altogether
spiritual, to raise him to the love of heavenly things,
and to make him bear some resemblance of thyself.
How can a heart, so often filled with the wholesome
leaven of thy body, O Jesus, still retain its heavi-
ness and in.clination towards the earth? Let thy
Holy Spirit, I beseech thee, cause mine to rise, to
be united, and to cleave inseparably to thee.
" 34. All these things spake Jesus unto the mul-
titude in parables; and without a parable spake he
not unto them :"
Let us learn from these parables to discover the
Christian world in the natural, the former being
represented in the latter. Christ descends from
invisible mysteries to these visible descriptions and
parables, to excite us to raise our minds from these
sensible objects, to the invisible wonders which are
in God and his church.
" 35. That it might be fulfilled which was spoken
by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in
parables ; I will utter things which have been kept
secret from the foundation of the world."
The mysteries, which lay hid in God from all
eternity, and in types and prophecies from the foun^
dation of the world, are at length disclosed and ful-
filled in and by Jesus Christ. How happy are
Christians in being born in the times of manifesta-
tion, if they make a good use of this blessing by
their faith ! Let
us leave the covetous wretch to
dig to the centre after treasures of no duration, and
the naturalist to lose himself in searching into the
secrets of nature ; the treasures and study of a Chris-
tian are Jesus Christ and his mysteries, which he