Quesnel: Moral Reflections on the Gospels Vol 1

18 PREFACE.
except only when the finger of God, that is, his
Spirit, vouchsafes to write in our hearts the faith or
beUef of the eternal truths and mysteries of Christ,
the hope of the accomplishment of the promises, and
of the good things to come, and charity, or the love
of his law, his precepts, and his evangelical maxims.
For without this quickening Spirit, the letter, even
of the Gospel, is a letter which killeth ; and this
savour of life is, by our abuse of it, changed into a
savour of death. From whence it is easy to infer,
that in order to read it with advantage, it is necessary
to join to this holy exercise, such fervent prayer as
may draw down upon us his Spirit, and his benedic-
tion. Our own sanctification, as well as the sanctity
of his word, requires that our reading should have
more in it of adoration than of study. And since
even the food of our body ought to be received with
prayer and thanksgiving; how much more ought
this spiritual food to be so, which is not at all bene-
ficial to the soul, but only so far as the heart is open
to receive it, and the eternal truth speaks to the
heart ? .
But the best preparation for the reading of the
Gospel as we ought, is to love it ; and we cannot
possibly love and relish it, unless the love of eternal
treasures reign in our heart, or, at least, begin to
gain ground therein, by a desire to devote ourselves
to the service of God, and a purpose and resolution
to seek his kingdom and the righteousness thereof.
The understandiug of the truths of the Gospel is
the fruit of the purity of our manners. Our lives
roust be conformable to the Gospel, if we desire to
attain to the knowledge of the secrets, of the rays-