The faith of the Syrophoenician idolatress gave way to no such suggestions of despair. It required, indeed, the sagacity of a lively faith to discern that an absolute refusal of her prayer was not contained in our Lord's discouraging declaration. In that godly sagacity she was not deficient. "He is not sent." Is he then a servant, sent upon an errand, with precise instructions for the execution of his business, which he is not at liberty to exceed? No: he comes with the full powers of a son. Wise, no doubt,

and just is the decree that salvation shall be of the Jews, that the general blessing shall take its beginning in the family of Abraham, — that the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of Jehovah from Jerusalem: be it, that by disclosing the great scheme of mercy to the chosen people, he fulfils the whole of his engagement; yet though he is sent to none but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, no restriction is laid upon him not to receive his sheep of any other fold, if any such resort to him. What though it be misfortune to have been born an alien from the chosen stock? what though I have no claim under any covenant or any promise? I will hope against hope; I will cast me on his free uncovenanted mercy ; I will trust to the fervour of my own prayers to obtain what seems to be denied to the intercession of his followers.

my

Supported by this confidence, she followed our Lord into the house where he took up his abode : there she fell prostrate at his feet, crying, "Lord, help me!"-O faithful daughter of an unbelieving race! great is the example which the afflicted have in thee, of an unshaken confidence in that mercy which ordereth all things for the good of them that fear

God! Thy prayer is heard; help shall be given thee: but thy faith must yet endure a farther trial. By his answer to the disciples, our Lord seemed studious only to disown any obligation that the nature of his undertaking might be supposed to lay upon him to attend to any but the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Stifling the emotions of his pity, and dissembling his merciful intentions, he answers the wretched suppliant at his feet as if he were upon principle disinclined to grant her request, -lest a miracle wrought in her favour should be inconsistent with the distinction due to the chosen family. "It is not meet,

he said, "to take the children's bread and cast it to dogs." Children's bread; and cast to dogs! Terrible distinction! - The Israelites children, the Gentiles dogs! The words, perhaps, in the sense which they bore in the mind of the speaker, were rather descriptive of the different situation of the Jews and the Gentiles at that time with respect to the degree of religious knowledge they had for many ages severally enjoyed, than of the different rank they held in God's favour. It is certain that God hath made of one blood all nations of men; and his tender mercy is over all his works. The benefit of the whole world was ultimately intended in the selection of the Jewish people. At the time of the call of Abraham, the degeneracy of mankind was come to that degree that the true religion could no where be preserved otherwise than by miracle. Miracle, perpetual miracle, was not the proper expedient for its general preservation; because it must strike the human mind with too much force to be consistent with the freedom of a moral agent. A single family, therefore, was selected, in which the truth might be preserved in a way that

generally was ineligible. By this contrivance, an ineligible way was taken of doing a necessary thing (a thing necessary in the schemes of mercy); but it was used, as wisdom required it should be used, in the least possible extent. The family which for the general good was chosen to be the immediate object of this miraculous discipline enjoyed no small privilege: they enjoyed the advantages of the light of Revelation; while among the Gentiles, the light of nature itself, in what regards morals and religion, bright as it may shine in the writings of their philosophers, was to the general mass of mankind almost extinguished. It was for this advantage which the one enjoyed, and the others were allowed to want that they might feel at length the dismal consequences of their defection from the worship of their Maker, that they are called collectively -the Jews "children," and the Gentiles

66

dogs." The Jew, indeed, who duly improved under the light which he enjoyed, and (not relying on his descent from Abraham, or on the merit of his ritual service,) was conscientiously attentive to the weightier matters of the law, became in another sense the child of God, as personally the object of his favour; and the Gentile who, shutting his eyes against the light of nature, gave himself up to work iniquity with greediness, became in another sense a dog, as personally the object of God's aversion; and it is ever to be remembered, that in this worst sense the greater part of the Gentile world were dogs, and lived in enmity with God: but still no Jew was individually a child, nor any Gentile individually a dog, as a Jew or a Gentile, but as a good or a bad man, or as certain qualities morally good or evil were included in the notion of a Jew or a Gentile.

But how great was that faith, which, when the great mystery was not yet disclosed-when God's secret purpose of a general redemption had not yet been opened, was not startled at the sound of this dreadful distinction, the Israelites, children; the Gentiles, dogs! How great was the faith which was displayed in the humility and in the firmness of the woman's reply! She said, "Truth, Lord; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table."

First, observe her humility, her submission to the arrangements of unerring wisdom and justice. She admits the distinction, so unfavourable as it might seem to her own expectations, so mortifying as it unquestionably was to her pride: she says, "Truth,

Lord I must confess the reality of the distinction which thou allegest: thy nation are the children; we are dogs!" She admits not only the reality but the propriety of the distinction; she presumes not to question the equity and justice of it; she says not, "Since God hath made of one blood all nations of men, why should a single family be his favourites, and the whole world beside outcasts?" She reposes in a general persuasion of God's wisdom and goodness; she takes it for granted that a distinction which proceeded from him must be founded in wisdom, justice, and benevolence, --that however concealed the end of it might be, it must be in some way conducive to the universal good, that it ought, therefore, to be submitted to with cheerfulness, even by those on whose side the disadvantage for the present lay. Would God, that men would imitate the humility of this pious Canaanite; that they would consider the scanty measure of the human intellect; rest

satisfied in the general belief of the Divine goodness and wisdom; and wait for the event of things, to clear up the things "hard to be understood" in the present constitution of the moral world as well as in the Bible!

We have seen the humility of the Syrophoenician suppliant; let us next consider her firmness. Hitherto she had prayed; her prayers meet with no encouragement: she ventures now to argue. The principles and frame of her argument are very extraordinary: she argues, from God's general care of the world, against the inference of neglect in particular instances; such was the confidence of her faith in God's goodness, that she argues from that general principle of her belief against the show of severity in her own case: she seems to say, "Though thou slay me, yet will I trust in thee; I will rely on thy general attribute of mercy, against what, to one less persuaded of thy goodness, might seem the tenour of thine own words and the sense of thy present conduct." Nor were the grounds of her argument less extraordinary than the drift of it: she avails herself of the distinction which our Lord had himself alleged, as it should seem, in bar of her petition, to establish a claim upon his mercy. This expostulation of the Syrophoenician woman with our Lord hath no parallel in the whole compass of the sacred history, except it be in Abraham's pleadings with the Almighty upon the case of righteous men involved in national calamities. "It is true," she said, "O Lord! I am not thy child, — I am a dog; but that's the worst of my condition, — I still am thine, - I am appointed to a certain use, — I bear a certain relation, though no high one, in the family