Quesnel: Moral Reflections on the Gospels Vol 1

434 ^ ST. MATTHEW.
and stir up others, all which are common to those
who would oppress truth hy cabal and without proof.
By crying out heresy, blasphemy, and faction, though
contrary to all appearance, men fail not to stir up
those in power, to gain the simple, to give some
shadow of authority to the ill-disposed, to cast de-
vout but ignorant people into diffidence and scruples,
and thereby to advance the mystery of iniquity,
which is the mystery of all ages.
" 66. What think ye? They answered and
said, He is guilty of death."
The Author of life, and Life eternal itself, is then
judged worthy of death; and can we complain after
this of the injustice of human judgments as to our-
selves ? All the forms of justice are violated in
order to oppress this innocent person : the judge be-
comes a party and accuser, and proceeds to the ver-
dict without examining whether all the prophecies
concerning the Messias, and the miracles wliich he
wrought without number and without example, did
not justify him. Examination and proof are the ruin
of calumnies, and of the authors of them ;
and there-
fore they take care to keep off from those two things.
*' 67. Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted
him ; and others smote him with the palms of their
hands,"
See here those affronts and indignities which the
world thinks it has a right never to pardon, and
which the Son of God endures with a divine meek-
ness. Let us cast at the feet of Christ, so un-
worthily treated by his creatures, that false honour,
that quick sense of affronts, that unreasonable nice-
ness which cavils at every trifle, exaggerates every