object to ascertain what the Bible teaches, and then submit to it with the confidence of a little child.  You cannot expect fully to comprehend the ways of an infinite Being.  You can see but a very small part of the system of his moral government.  It cannot be strange, then, if you are unable to discover the reasonableness of every truth which he has revealed.  Do not try to carry out difficult points beyond what is plainly taught in the Scriptures.  God has revealed all that is necessary for us to know in this life.  He knows best where to leave these subjects.  If there were no difficulties in the truths revealed, there would be no trial of our faith.  It is necessary that we should take some things upon trust.  There are also some truths taught which we find it difficult to reconcile with others as plainly revealed.  Be content to believe both, on the authority of God’s word.  He will reconcile them hereafter.  “What I do, thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter.”  Let this consideration always satisfy you:  “Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.”  I am the more particular on this point, as it is the place where error always begins.  The setting up of feeble reason in opposition to the word of God, has been the foundation of all mistakes in religion.  And, if we determine to be satisfied of the reasonableness of the truth before we believe it, and carry out the principle, we shall land in downright atheism.  By this, I do not mean that any truth is unreasonable.  It is not so.  Divine truth is the perfection of reason.  But there are some truths which may appear unreasonable, because we cannot see the whole of them.  Thus, a fly, on the corner of a splendid edifice, cannot see the beauty and symmetry of the building.  So far as his eye extends, it may appear to be sadly lacking in its proportions.  Yet this is but a faint representation of the narrow views we have of God’s moral government.  There is, however, no truth which he has revealed, in relation to that government, that is more difficult to understand, than many things that philosophy has discovered in the natural world.  Yet, even infidels do not think of disputing facts conclusively proved by philosophy, because they cannot understand them.  It becomes us, then, with the deepest humility and self-abasement, to submit our reason to the word of God.

2. Avoid a controversial spirit. Do not study for the sake of finding arguments to support your own opinions.  Take the place of a sincere inquirer after truth, with a determination to embrace whatever you find supported by the word of God, however contrary it may be to your favorite notions.  But when objections arise in your mind against any doctrine, do not suppose you have made some new discovery, and therefore reject it without farther inquiry.  The same objections have perhaps occurred to the mind of every inquirer, on the same subject; and very probably they have often been satisfactorily answered by able writers.  This is a common error of young inquirers.  They are apt to think others take things upon trust, and that they are the only persons who have thought of the difficulties which start up in their minds.  But, when their reading becomes more extensive, they learn, with shame, that what appeared to them to be original thought, was only following an old, beaten track.