Quesnel: Moral Reflections on the Gospels Vol 1

PREFACE.
those vain and presumptuous persons, who think
they can of themselves understand every tiling, and
who flatter themselves that they have always the
spirit of understanding so as to penetrate into the
sense of the most difficult places; nothing, I say, is
more capable of covering them with shame and con-
fusion, than that account which this great saint gives
us afterwards of his own disposition. For this sub-
lime and penetrating genius ranks himself with chil-
dren and disciples, and is not in the least ashamed
to confess his own ignorance, and the need he has
to have recourse to the light of heaven, in order to
attain to a true understanding of the Scriptures.
" Consider a little, my brethren," says he to his
people, " vvho 1 am that 1 should undertake to dis-
course to you upon the Gospel, and of what nature
the truths are which I have taken upon me to explain
: the truths are altogether divine, and I am
only a man—they are spiritual mysteries, and I am
carnal— they are the secrets of eternity, and I live
in a body subject to mortality. Far be from me,
my dear brethren, all vain presumption, if I desire
to preserve tiie health of my soul in the house of
God, which is the church of the living God, the
pillar and ground of the truth. I myself receive
according to my small capacity that which 1 set be-
fore you : when truth vouchsafes to open to me, I
feed upon it together with you; when it shuts itself
up from me, I knock with you at the gate thereof."
Another disposition in order to read the Gospel
with profit, as we may also infer from the words of
of St. Paul, is a great esteem and reverence even for
things which appear mean and little to the eyes of
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