Quesnel: Moral Reflections on the Gospels Vol 1

63
souls some time humbly to bear the state of sin, to be thoroughly
sensible of that state, and to begin at least to make satisfaction to
the justice of God, before they be reconciled. Acts. ix. 9.
88. We are ignorant of the nature of sin, and of true repentance,
when we would fain be re-instated immediately in the possession
of those good things of which sin has stripped us, and
refuse to bear the shame of that separation. Luke xvii. 11, 12.
89. The fourteenth degree of the conversion of a sinner is,
That being now reconciled, he has a right to be present at the
sacrifice of the church. Luke xv. 23.
90. The church has authority to excommunicate, so as that she
exercise her power by the chief pastors, with the presumed consent
at least of the \vhole body. Matt, xviii, 17.
91. The fear of an unjust excommunication ought never to
hinder us from performing our duty. We never go without the
pale of the church, even when we seem to be driven out of it by
the wickedness of men, so long as we continue united to God, to
Jesus Christ, and to the church itself by charity. John ix. 22, 23.
92. To suffer peaceably an unjust excommunication and anathema,
rather than betray the truth, is to imitate St. Paul; so far
is it from rising up against authority, or breaking unity. Rom.
ix. 3.
93. Jesus sometimes heals the wounds which the precipitate
conduct of the chief pastors makes without his order. He re-
stores to its former state what they cut off by an inconsiderate
zeal. John xviii. 11.
94. Nothing gives the enemies of the church a worse opinion
concerning the church, than to see therein an absolute dominion
exercised over the faith of believers, and divisions fomented on
the account of such things as are prejudicial neither to the faith
nor to manners. Rom. xiv. 16.
95. Truths are come to that pass as to be a sort of foreign language
to the generality of Christians; and the manner of preaching
them is like an unknown tongue: so remote is it from the
plain method of the apostles, and so much above the common ca-
pacity of the faithful. Nor is it sufficiently observed, that this
defect is one of the most evident signs of the old age of the
church, and of the wrath of God against his children. 1 Cor.
xiv. 21.
96. God permits all the powers of the earth to oppose the
preachers of the truth, that the victory it gains may not be attributed
to any thing but to divine grace. Acts xvii. 8.
97. It happens but too often, that those members which are
united to the church in a more holy and strict manner, are looked
upon and treated as unworthy to continue in the church, or as already
separated from it. But the just person lives by faith, and
not by the opinion of men. Acts iv. 1 1.
98. A state of persecution and penalties which a man endures,
as a heretic, as a wicked and impious person, is generally the last
c3
•