Him who is the source of them all. So
you and I are responsible for bringing our faith to the highest
development of which it is capable.

Alas! alas! are we not all like this very Apostle, who, in an ecstasy of
trust and longing, ventured himself on the wave, and as soon as he felt
the cold water creeping above his knees lost his trust, and so lost his
buoyancy, and was ready to go down like a stone? He had so little faith,
that he was beginning to sink; he had so much that he put out his
hand--a desperate hand it was--and cried, 'Lord, save me!' And the hand
came, and that steadied him, and bore him up till the water was beneath
the soles of his feet again. 'Lord! I believe; help Thou my unbelief!'

MAN SUMMONED BY GOD'S GLORY AND ENERGY

'... His Divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain
unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath
called us to glory and virtue.'--2 Peter i. 3.

'I knew thee,' said the idle servant in our Lord's parable, 'that thou
wert an austere man, reaping where thou didst not sow, and gathering
where thou hadst not strewed. I was afraid, and went and hid my talent
in the earth.' Our Lord would teach us all with that pregnant word the
great truth that if once a man gets it into his head that God's
principal relation to him is to demand, and to command, you will get no
work out of that man; that such a notion will paralyse all activity and
cut the nerve of all service. And the converse is as true, namely, that
the one thought about God, which is fruitful of all blessing, joy,
spontaneous, glad activity, is the thought of Him as giving, and not of
demanding, of bestowing, and not of commanding. Teach a man that he is,
as the book of James has it,'the giving God,' and let that thought soak
into the man's heart and mind, and you will get any work out of him. And
only when that thought is deep in the spirit will there be true service.

Now that is the connection in which the words of my text come; for they
are laid as the broad foundation of the great commandment that follows:
'Beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to
your virtue knowledge,' and so on, all the round of the ladder by which
the Apostle represents us as climbing up to God. The foundation of this
injunction is--God has given you everything. You have got it to begin
with, and so do you set yourselves to work, and see that you make the
thing that is you