Quesnel: Moral Reflections on the Gospels Vol 1

XXIU
was a mercy peculiar to thee, O Lord, to purchase
at so dear a rate such barren and accursed ground,
full of thorns and briers, and fit only to be burned,
that thou mightest make it a rich and blessed soil,
fertile in every kind of good fruit. Blind and miser-
able is that man who attributes this work to himself,
and gives not thee the glory of it, O my Saviour."
The ejaculations in these and similar sentences are
also observable—the pious mind is thus led up to
Christ in brief prayers—the heart is touched at once
—controversy and dispute give way to devotion;
and the deepest practical ends of Christianity are
promoted. We know of few writers who attain
this in the degree which <strong>Quesnel</strong> does : he lives by
prayer.
4. The detection of the corruptions of the
WORLD, of the HUMAN HEART, and of the FALSE
PROFESSOR of Christianity, is what you would expect
from a writer so qualified by natural talent for acute
observation, and so sanctified by divine mercy to make
the best use of it. He is truly, what most Roman
Catholics are only in profession, devoted to God and
abstracted from earthly things. His mind is dead to
the world. He detects its snares, condemns its vani-
ties, exposes its deceits, shuns its maxims. Hear
what he says on the occasion of the daughter of
Herodias : Matt. xiv. 6. " The diversions of the
world, feasting and dancing, are but too commonly
the occasions of sin. After so fatal an example as
this, can we in the least doubt whether balls are
not snares for souls, destructive of chastity and mo-
desty, and a pernicious invention to awaken and ex-
cite the passions."