Quesnel: Moral Reflections on the Gospels Vol 1

54
trial, and the most meritorious, as being that which gives a man
a greater conformity to Jesus Christ. Luke xxii. 37.
99. Stiffness in opinion, prepossession, and obstinacy in refusing
either to examine things, or to own we have been mistaken,
do continually, in respect of abundance of persons, change that
into a savour of death, which God has placed in Jiis church, that
it might be therein a savour of life ; namely, good books, instruc-
tions, holy examples, &c. 2 Cor. ii. 15, 16.
100. That is a deplorable time, when God is thought to be
honoured by persecuting the truth, and the disciples thereof.
This time is come.—To be accounted and treated by the ministers
of religion as an impious wretch, unworthy of all commerce
with God, as a rotten member, capable of spreading a general corruption
in the society of the saints, is to pious persons a death
more terrible than that of the body. In vain does any man flatter
himself w'ith the purity of his intentions, and with a certain zeal
for religion, in persecuting good men with fire and sword, if he is
either blinded with his own passion, or hurried on by that of
others, because he will examine nothing. We often think we
sacrifice to God a wicked person, and we sacrifice to the devil a
servant of God. John xvi. 2.
101. Nothing is more opposite to the Spirit of God, and to the
doctrine of Jesus Christ, than to make oaths common in the
church ; because to do this is to multiply the occasions of perjury,
to lay snares for the weak and the ignorant, and to make the
name and the truth of God subservient sometimes to the designs
of the wicked. Matt. v. 37.
Wherefore, having heard the judgment of the aforesaid cardinals
and other divines, exhibited to us both by word and in writing,
and having, in the first place, implored the assistance of the
Divine light, by appointing public as well as private prayers to
that end; we do, by this our constitution, which shall be of perpetual
force and obligation, declare, condemn, and reject, respec-
tively, all and every one of the propositions before recited, as
false, captious, shocking, offensive to pious ears, scandalous, pernicious,
rash, injurious to the church and her practice, contumelious
not only against the church, but likewise against the secular
powers, seditious, impious, blasphemous, suspected of heresy,
and plainly savouring thereof, and likewise favouring heretics,
heresies, and schism, erroneous, bordering very near upon heresy,
often condemned, and, in fine, even heretical, and manifestly reviving
several heresies, and chiefly those which are contained in
the infamous propositions of Janscnius, even in the very sense in
which those propositions were condemned.
Commanding all the faithful in Christ of both sexes, not to presume
to hold, teach, or preach otherwise concerning the propositions
aforesaid, than is contained in this our constitution : insomuch,
that whosoever shall teacl), defend, or publish them, or