Quesnel: Moral Reflections on the Gospels Vol 1

436 ST. MATTHEW.
weakness, confusion, and infidelity in the will ? Sup-
port us. Lord, with thy own hand ; for there is no-
thing on which we can depend but thy grace.
" 71. And when he was gone out into the porch,
another maid saw him, and said unto them that were
there. This fellow was also with Jesus of Nazareth.
72. And again he denied with an oath, I do not
know the man."
When we have once forgotten God, and are left
by him to ourselves, to be tempted, and to be overcome,
are almost one and the same thing. One
temptation unresisted, seldoms fails of being suc-
ceeded by another: a second and greater infidelity is
the punishment of the first, and very often the occa-
sion of a third. Peter joins perjury to infidelity.
Let the example of an apostle make us tremble.
" 73. And after a while came unto him they that
stood by, and said to Peter, Surely thou also art one
of them ; for thy speech bewrayeth thee. 74. Then
began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not
the man. And immediately the cock crew."
How far does the weakness of man proceed ?
We could not have an instance of it in the Prince
of pastors; but he chose to give it us in the person
of one of the prime apostles, to oblige all to bear
with the infirmities of the greatest sinners. De-
plorable progress of infidelity and blindness in an
apostle in so short a time, occasioned only by his
fear of some mean servants, and in reference to a
Master whom he had acknowledged to be truly God.
He might possibly have proceeded even as far as
Judas, had God left him any longer to himself.
** 75. And Peter remembered the words of Jesus,