Page:Some Reflections on the Importance of a Religious Life.djvu/34

 religion. May you prefer that course of serious reading which leads to inward, experimental piety, which promotes vital, unostentatious religion, and strengthens the desire to be approved by Him who seeth and knoweth the heart, rather than of men who often form mistaken judgments of others. But be intreated, in love, to be very careful that neither by reading nor by association with others, the mind is injured by opinions which weaken a firm faith in the doctrines of the Gospel. Be not perplexed or distressed, if in the moral government of the world, if in the state of the church of Christ, even if in Holy Scripture, you meet with some things which are beyond the comprehension of the reason of man. Our gracious Heavenly Father is altogether perfect and infinitely wise; but the faculties and perceptions which He has granted to us are very limited: here we see but in part, and know but in part. We are constantly called to the exercise of faith: it becomes us, as reasonable and dependent beings, to trust in God; and if we do thus trust, he will stay our minds on him, give us to confide in him, and to rejoice both in his goodness and in his power.

And as it is my warm and sincere desire, that from the approbation of your judgments, and through the