Quesnel: Moral Reflections on the Gospels Vol 1

10 PREFACE.
gion, and an affected exactness in observing some
certain customs of the law, and all the false traditions
they had superadded to it. But while we abhor
the manners of the Pharisees, let us take great care,
that we do not unreasonably flatter ourselves, as if
we did not at all resemble them, at least in some res-
pect. We have all within us the principle from
which all these vices proceed. And if they do not
appear in our outward actions, it is perhaps because
we have other vices, from which the Pharisees were
altogether free. In short, if we have not their in-
clinations in the very same degree of malice and cor-
ruption, we have at least enough of them to endan-
ger our salvation : and perhaps there is scarce any
4 person in the world, who is not a Pharisee in some
respect, and who has not reason to apprehend, that
some degree of the leaven of those hypocrites lies
latent in his heart. " Woe, woe to us," says
St. Jerome, " who inherit the vices of the Pharisees !"
How hideous therefore soever the representation
which the Gospel gives us of them may appear, yet
all persons may reap some advantage from it, and
every one ought to take that admonition of our
blecssed Saviour as directed to himself, " Take heed
and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees."
Now, as to the portraiture of the second man
Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world, the head and
pattern of Christians, it is tliat, which all who are
honoured with this glorious title ought to study with
that care and application which are worthy of him,
whose name they actually do, and whose image and
resemblance tiiey ought to bear. And in what place
of the Gospel will they not find him delineated;