Quesnel: Moral Reflections on the Gospels Vol 1

PREFACE. 3
birth in Jesus Christ; that therein they discover
the rights and prerogatives of this heavenly birth,
and learn the holiness and the duties of it; and that
therein they ought to study those laws and maxims,
by which they are obliged to frame their manners,
and to regulate their lives, that they may not be
altogether unworthy of that august dignity, to which
nothing on earth can be compared.
One may proceed yet farther, and say, that it is
the original title, which contains the promise and
gift of the inheritance in heaven; that it is the con-
tract of the new covenant betwixt God and man,
the divine code, as it were, in which the funda-
mental laws of the kingdom of God are recorded
or otherwise that it is, as St. Paul expresses it,
" The gospel of salvation," which informs us how
God predestinated us in Jesus Christ to an immortal
life, how he gave us his Son in the incarnation, and
how his Son wrought out our salvation upon earth
by the mysteries of his life and death ; and lastly,
how he has anointed, marked, and sealed us with his
Holy Spirit, whom he has put into our hearts, in
order to imprint his law upon them, by causing us
to love and to fulfil it, and that he may continue in
them as an earnest and sacred pledge of the glory
which is reserved for us in the heavens.
Hence it is easy to infer, that one of the most
just and reasonable inclinations of a Christian, who
is a child of God and a member of Christ, is that
which makes him desirous to read the Gospel. One
may venture to say, that this is an instinct which is
impressed upon him by the Spirit of God, and which
would certainly cause him to place his chief delight
A 2