Quesnel: Moral Reflections on the Gospels Vol 1

CHAPTER XXVII. 455
not proceed from the decay of his strength, but from
the excess of his love ; that his life is not taken from
him by violence, but that he gives it up by his power.
It is, on the part of the Jews, a Deicide and a sacri-
lege; but on his own, it is a most holy and voluntary
sacrifice. O cry of Jesus ! penetrate to the very
bottom of my heart, cure its deafness, and wake it
from its drowsiness, that it may be entirely employed
in adoring, loving, and praising a God dying for its
salvation, and in humbling itself before his cross.
This last moment of Christ's life is, to dying persons,
the object of their confidence. Let my spirit, O
Jesus, be received with thine, and let thy death sanc-
tify mine.
Sect. VI.— The Miracles after Christ's Death.
The Centurion,
" 51. And, behold, the veil of the temple was
rent in twain from the top to the bottom ; and the
earth did quake, and the rocks rent;"
God delays not long to manifest and exalt the
glory of his Son. He takes care to honour the hu-
miliations and sufferings of his elect, and of their
Head. The veil of sin, which separated us from the
sanctuary, and obstructed our sight and entrance into
it, is rent by the sacrifice of Christ; and the figur-
ative sanctuary is exposed to the view of the whole
world, as having lost every thing which made it holy
and venerable. Let thy death, O Jesus, work in
my heart the same miracles ; let it have always before
its eyes that heavenly sanctuary, where all its hopes
are placed ; let it quake through a holy dread of thy
mysteries and judgments; and let it be rent by the
sorrow of a true contrition*