About this time I repeatedly prayed with sick believers till they were restored. _Unconditionally_ I asked the Lord for the blessing of bodily health (a thing which I could not do now), and almost always had the petition granted. In some instances, however, the prayer was not answered. In the same way, whilst in London, November, 1829, in answer to my prayers, I was immediately restored from a bodily infirmity under which I had been laboring for a long time, and which has never returned since. The way in which I now account for these facts is as follows. It pleased the Lord, I think, to give me in such cases something like the gift (not grace) of faith, so that unconditionally I could ask and look for an answer. The difference between the _gift_ and the _grace_ of faith seems to me this. According to _the gift of faith_, I am able to do a thing, or believe that a thing will come to pass, the not doing of which, or the not believing of which, _would not be sin_; according to _the grace of faith_, I am able to do a thing, or believe that a thing will come to pass, respecting which I have the word of God as the ground to rest upon, and, therefore, the not doing it, or the not believing it, _would be sin_. For instance, _the gift of faith_ would be needed to believe that a sick person should be restored again, though there is no human probability, for _there is no promise to that effect_; _the grace of faith_ is needed to believe that the Lord will give me the necessaries of life, if I first seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, for _there is a promise to that effect_.[15] [Footnote 15: Matt. vi.]