permission of offences. Even evil things "work together for good to them that love God." And if sin, notwithstanding man was created upright, " abounded, grace has much more abounded;" for God hath concluded all in sin, that in Christ he might have mercy upon all; all at least who strive to do his will, so far as that is or may be known by them. "O that men would therefore praise the Lord for his goodness, and declare the wonders that he doeth for the children of men"!"

u Psalm cvii. 8.

SERMON VI.

THE INCREASE OF FAITH THROUGH OBEDIENCE.

LUKE xvii. 5-8.

And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our faith. And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you. But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat? and will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink?

THE request which introduces the foregoing parable finds an echo in every Christian heart. There is a confession of weakness in it, which brings the apostles more nearly on a spiritual level with ourselves. The same struggle which we

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make to walk not by sight; to withdraw our minds from the influence of the things of sense, and fix them upon the unseen spiritual presence of Him in whom "we live and move and have our being," they too underwent and though eyewitnesses of his power, yet even in the third year of our Lord's ministry we find them breathing forth a prayer for increase of faith3. He then who, sincerely believing the Gospel to be the power of God unto salvation, has ever felt the lack of that

This appears to be a different occasion from those mentioned Matt. xvii. 20. and xxi. 21. The faith here prayed for seems connected with the precepts of our Lord immediately preceding. At all events, the faith which could work miracles is the same with that which "worketh by love:" in kind, if not in degree; and that which would produce the one, would produce the other. The unbelief which prevented the apostles from casting out the devil from the lunatic child might have been removed apparently by prayer and fasting. Matt. xvii. 21. And the power of removing mountains, Matt. xxi. 21. 1 Cor. xiii. 2. through faith, is expressly extended to all other spiritual gifts and graces, which may be obtained through the same reliance upon God. "And all things whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer believing ye shall receive."

faith, which renders all its commands as easy as they appear just, will duly value this record of the weakness of the apostles.

Two points of duty, both of great practical difficulty, had just been explained to them; the one, not to put a stumblingblock in the way of humble believers in Christ; the other, to forgive an erring brother as oft as he should repent. The solemn denunciation pronounced on a breach of the former," it were better for a man that a mill-stone were hanged about his neck and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones," naturally suggested the prayer, "Lord, increase our faith." Without a greater measure of that divine principle, they could scarcely hope to avoid giving offence; much less to acquire that selfmastery, which can forgive an erring brother until seventy times seven. And it is in cases of like difficulty, arising not from the commandments of God, but from our own wayward hearts, that the Christian will reecho the prayer of the apostles, and long for an increase of his faith. It may be useful, therefore, to consider how that