Quesnel: Moral Reflections on the Gospels Vol 1

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fathers have written upon the New Testament, and made an extract
out of them, full of spiritual unction and light ! The difficulties
which occur are here explained with clearness, and the
sublime truths of religion treated of with such force, and yet such
gentleness of the Holy Spirit, as make them relished by the most
hard and insensible hearts. Here you will find enough to in-
struct and edify yourselves. Here you will learn how to instruct
the people committed to your charge. Here you will see the
bread of the word, with which you are to feed them, broken to
your hand, and ready to be distributed to them, and so exactly
proportioned to their dispositions, that it will be no less the milk
of weak and feeble souls, than substantial food for the most strong.
So that this one book will serve instead of a whole library to you.
It will fill you with that excellent knowledge of Jesus Christ, for
which St. Paul counted all things but loss, and will put you into
a capacity of communicating it to others, provided you bring along
with you, to this holy study, a sincere humility, a pure heart, a
good conscience, and a faith unfeigned, as the same apostle expresses
it. This is what we earnestly exhort and conjure you to
do, assuring you, upon the word of this apostle, that, in doing this,
you will both save yourselves and them that hear you. Given
at Chalons, in our episcopal palace, the 23d day of June, 1695.
(Signed) LOUIS ANT.
Bishop and Count of Chalons.
By Monseigneur, Lemaire.
THE MANDATE OF MONSEIGNEUR FELIX,
The most illustrious Bishop and Count of Chalons, Peer of
France.
Felix, by the divine permission, bishop and count of Chalons,
peer of France, to all pastors and vicars of our diocese, greeting
and benediction.—If it be true, as St. Augustine expresses it,
that the gospel is to us in respect of Jesus Christ, what his sacred
humanity was in respect of the eternal Word; and that it is
as impossible for us to know him without the assistance of this
precious depositum, as it would have been for men, after the fall,
to know the eternal Word, if he had not vouchsafed to take upon
him human nature ; there is then no doubt, but'that one of the
principal obligations of the Christian life consists in having this holy
book continually before our eyes, that we may take from thence
the food of our souls, and the rules of our life and conversation.
But this necessity, which regards all the faithful in general, who
are capable of informing themselves of tlie truths of salvation, according
to the spirit of the church, does much more peculiarly
oblige those who are appointed and settled in the church, as you