Quesnel: Moral Reflections on the Gospels Vol 1

serious conversion ?
CHAPTER XXIV.
371
" Wars and rumours of wars,"
as to the generality of mankind, serve only to excite
the trouble and disorder o£ their passions, their am-
bition, revenge, hope, curiosity, avarice, and desire
of new events. The true Christian adores God
bewails both those sins which are the causes, and
those which are the effects of war; beholds with a
holy dread the justice of God, executed by the rage of
men ;
laments the loss of so great a number of souls ;
casts his eyes on God's eternal vengeance, of which
this is only the shadow; and beseeches him to make
all these things subservient to his glory, and to his
designs concerning the elect.
" 7. For nation shall rise against nation, and
kingdom against kingdom : and there shall be fa-
mines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers
places. 8. All these are the beginning of sorrows."
The third means of being seduced, is the attributing
that to man which comes from God, Thus
the heathens ascribed all the misfortunes of the em-
pire, and all the plagues which God inflicted, to the
contempt which the Christians showed towards their
idols; whereas these evils were only the punishment
of the wicked, and the trial of the good. Men gen-
erally turn every thing to the disadvantage of piety.
If a man, from the time of devoting himself to God,
suffer in his estate, his health, or otherwise, it is,
say they, because he is imprudent in his conduct,
indiscreet in his mortifications, excessive in bis de-
votions, &c. Revolts, famines, pestilences, earth-
quakes, and all the other evils of this life, are
emblems of those of the other, which they warn us
to prevent by repentance; and of the vices and dis-
orders of our hearts, which they solicit us to correct.