Quesnel: Moral Reflections on the Gospels Vol 1

PREFACE.
by this God-man, nothing was ever at one and the
same time so credible and incredible. The destruc-
tion of that temple, that city, and that people, which
God had established by so many wonders, and by
the subversion of so many nations : the raising up
of another people who were to fill the whole earth,
after they had been formed into a body by twelve
fishermen, in the midst of persecutions, and of a de-
luge of blood, and in opposition to all the powers of
the earth. These wonders already come to pass
were so visible, that they afford us a full security as
to that which remains still to be fulfilled, namely,
the universal judgment which a crucified God shall
pass upon all mankind, at the end of the world, in
the sight of heaven and earth, and the consumma-
tion of the church of the saints in the glory of eter-
nity, where all the magnificent promises made to the
elect, throughout the whole Scripture, shall be fully
and perfectly accomplished.
In fine, the means which we there plainly see
were chosen by Christ, to the forming of these great
designs, the manner of life, and the laws he pre-
scribes to those who are to compose this new people,
and the rules of the Christian morality which he
there teaches, are so worthy of admiration, that, at
the same time that human wisdom is confounded and
pride humbled, we cannot but adore the treasures of
the wisdom and knowledge of God which lie hid
therein, and are constrained to cry out, that the
finger of God is there, that the Gospel is truly
" the power of God unto salvation to every one
that believeth."
But it is not " the power of God unto salvation,'*
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