Doubt

A little before I went to bed, my soul was harassed, in a sad and very unusual manner, with doubts and fears and unbelief. I was in spiritual darkness, even darkness that might be felt.… My heavenly Pilot disappeared; I seemed to have quite lost my hold on the rock of ages; I sunk in the deep mire; and the waves and storms went over me. Yet, at last, in prayer, I was enabled, I do not know how, to throw myself, absolutely and at large, on God, at all events, and for better for worse: yet without comfort, and almost without hope.

Human reason is very deficient in things concerning God. A sign of this is that philosophers in their researches, by natural investigation, into human affairs have fallen into many errors, and have disagreed among themselves. And consequently, in order that men might have knowledge of God, free of doubt and uncertainty, it was necessary for divine matters to be delivered to them by way of faith, being told to them, as it were, by God Himself who cannot lie.

It usually happens that the greater number of persons of sense—or I might say that all such—trust the judgment of another person rather than their own in doubtful cases, and that those who have a clear judgment in the affairs of others, however obscure, frequently hesitate and are undecided about their own.