Quesnel: Moral Reflections on the Gospels Vol 1

262 ST. MATTHEW.
came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not
afraid. 8. And when they had Hfted up their eyes,
they saw no man, save Jesus only,"
Great and extraordinary truths fill the mind at
first with fear. Jesus Ciirist dispels it, by touching
us with the internal hand of his grace, giving us the
love and practice of these truths, and removing every
thing but himself from before our eyes. Earth is
not the place for large communications from God
man, encumbered with flesh, is incapable either of
seeing or understanding the wonders of eternity.
Let us be content to adore them by the light of
faith, and in the eternal Word, veiled and over-
shadowed with the cloud of our flesh.
" 9. And as they came down from the mountain,
Jesus charged them, saying, Tell the vision to no
man, until the Son of man be risen again from the
dead."
Thus God frequently casts into the heart, truths
which, like seeds sown late, produce only backward
fruits. We must not neglect to sow the heart of
sinners, though it seem as if it were dead, and like
ground in the winter season; the spring of grace, and
time of resurrection, may possibly come even for
such. There is a time to live retired, and a time
to appear in the world ; a time to make known the
greatest truths, and a time to conceal them : a pru-
dent pastor knows how to adapt himself to the capa-
city of the weak.
*' 10. ^ And his disciples asked him, saying^yV'^hy
then say the scribes that Elias must first come?"
The wit of man still discovers "some contradiction
in the mysteries of religion ; a tractable disciple hum-