+I. Divine knowledge is within the reach of human understanding.+ When a physician has created an appetite in his patient, he sees that he is provided with food that will satisfy his hunger. As God has given the eye, so He has given light to meet its needs. God has created man with a _need_, and with _capabilities_ of knowing Him, and has therefore placed such knowledge within his reach. "The Word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart, etc." (Rom. x. 8). +II. The conditions of its attainment.+ 1. _Attention_. In all departments of knowledge we must begin by doing the easiest thing. The first thing we have to do is to listen to what the teacher has to say. Everybody can do that. This is the first thing to be done in order to attain a knowledge of God. We can listen to His message. We can "receive" His words, "incline our ear." "Faith cometh by hearing." 2. _Retention_. The simple attention of the soul is not the reclaiming power. The hearing will not bless us if we do not hold the truth in our memory. "And some seed fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up" (Matt. xiii. 4). But the ploughed earth receives the seed, and holds it, and hides it, and by _retention_ comes seed to the sower and bread to the eater. We must not only "receive" but "hide" the words of God. 3. _Reflection_. This prevents forgetfulness; this is indispensable to retention. The rules or grammar, or of arithmetic, must not only be received into the memory, but meditated upon. We must "apply" our minds to them in order to understand them. The soul which receives and holds Divine truth must apply itself to the understanding of it. 4. _Supplication_. If the learner has not only the book, but the author of the book at hand, he can turn to him and ask him to unfold the meaning of the difficult passages, or to show him how to apply the rules. We have not only the Divine Word of God, but we have the Divine Spirit; not only the Book of Wisdom, but the Author of the Book, the source of wisdom. And He has promised to give wisdom for the asking. "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him" (Jas. i. 5). There must be an asking in order to receive. "If thou criest after knowledge, etc." 5. _Perseverance._ Those who find a few diamonds upon the surface of the ground do not then bring their labours to a conclusion. They dig down beneath, and toil on for months and years if the mine yields. They do not cease while they think there is more to be gained. The Divine wisdom is a mine which yields a little on the surface, but we must not stop there: we must dig down deep, we must continue to hear, to remember, to meditate, to cry for enlightenment,--we must ask, and seek, and knock, and never cease to "search" for the hidden and exhaustless treasures of wisdom.