Quesnel: Moral Reflections on the Gospels Vol 1

12 PREFACE.
plishmeiit of the prophecies and the promises, by the
faith of all nations, and by the blood of all the
martyrs, who in all parts of the world joyfully laid
down their lives for the truth of this divine book
let us, I say, to whom the Gospel has been given
with all these advantageous circumstances, instead of
vainly and unjustly repining at our not having heard
it from the mouth of our blessed Saviour, offer up
our praises unto him, for that through his favour we
were born in an age, wherein it is as great and real
a folly not to receive this Gospel as the word of
God, as it seemed to the eyes of the Gentiles and
iiifidels to be folly, to receive it as something divine
and as the instrument of salvation.
Let us receive it then with reverence and grati-
tude, let us read it with aflPection and devotion, let
us place our delight in it, and make all that pious
use of it which we ought to make of a book written
by Jesus Christ. For he it is, let us not make the
least doubt of it, who is the true Author thereof:
and, therefore, let us be very far from entertaining
the dangerous and visionary conceits of some certain
writers, who have dared to advance this notion,
That it is not necessary that an historical book, such
as the Gospel is, should have been inspired by the
Holy Ghost, in order to make it divine and canonical.
But let us rather say with St. Augustine, That
" when the apostles and disciples of our blessed Sa-
viour committed to writing what he did and taught,
we rnust by no means say, that it was not he who
wrote it; since they were his members who com-
posed the whole, without inserting any thing but
what their head himself revealed and dictated to