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| Written By Charles Spurgeon |
Some things in nature
must remain a mystery to the most intelligent and enterprising investigators.
Human knowledge has bounds beyond which it cannot pass. Universal knowledge is
for God alone.
If this be so in the
things which are seen and temporal, I may rest assured that it is even more so
in matters spiritual and eternal. Why, then, have I been torturing my brain
with speculations as to destiny and will, fixed fate, and human responsibility?
These deep and dark
truths I am no more able to comprehend than to find out the depth which couched
beneath, from which old ocean draws her watery stores. Why am I so curious to
know the reason of my Lord's providences, the motive of his actions, and the
design of his visitations?
Shall I ever be able
to clasp the sun in my fist, and hold the universe in my palm? Yet these are as
a drop of a bucket compared with the Lord my God. Let me not strive to
understand the infinite, but spend my strength in love. What I cannot gain by
intellect I can possess by affection, and let that suffice me.
I cannot penetrate the
heart of the sea, but I can enjoy the healthful breezes which sweep over its
bosom, and I can sail over its blue waves with propitious winds. If I could
enter the springs of the sea, the feat would serve no useful purpose either to
myself or to others, it would not save the sinking bark, or give back the
drowned mariner to his weeping wife and children; neither would my solving deep
mysteries avail me a single whit, for the least love to God, and the simplest
act of obedience to him, are better than the profoundest knowledge.
My Lord, I leave the
infinite to thee, and pray thee to put far from me such a love for the tree of
knowledge as might keep me from the tree of life.
