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THE PRAYER OF FAITH; EXEMPLIFIED IN THE WO

MAN OF CANAAN.

SERMON XIII.

MATT. XV. 21-28.

Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. And behold a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me! But he answered and said, It is not meat to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs. And she said, Truth Lord; yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's table, Then Jesus answered and said unto her O woman! great is thy faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

WHEN John the Baptist sent a message to Jesus, saying, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another! Jesus gave an indirect answer, an answer containing a reproof. Whether John himself, retaining, like the apostles, the notion of a temporal kingdom, and therefore expecting, on his being put in prison, that a great revolution would follow in favour of the Messiah, and hearing of nothing but companies of poor people repairing to him

to be healed of their infirmities, began to hesitate whether he might not have been mistaken; or whether he only personated some of his disciples; somebody appears to have been stumbled at the simplicity of Christ's appearance. Hence, the indirect answer of Jesus: Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them-And blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me. To be encompassed by crowds of afflicted people supplicating for mercy, and employed in relieving them, was sustaining a character, though far from what the world calls splendid, yet truly great, and worthy of the Messiah. The short account of this poor woman is more profitable to be read than a long and minute history of military exploits.

In endeavouring to improve this brief story, we will notice, Who the petitioner was; what was her errand, and the repeated applications which were made, with the repeated repulses, but ultimate success, that she met met with.

I. Let us observe, WHO THE PETITIONER Was. She is said to be a woman of Canaan. Mark says, she was a Greek; but the term, in this and some other connexions, seems to denote only that she was a Gentile, and not that she came from the country called Greece; for in the same passage she is said to have been a Syrophenician by nation.

She was a Gentile; one of the first fruits of that harvest of Gentiles that was shortly to be gathered in. Our Lord, though he was sent, as he said, to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, yet extended his mercy to individuals of other nations: and it is worthy of notice, that those few who were gathered at this early period, are highly commended for the eminence of their faith. Like the first fruits of the earth they were the best. It might still be said on a review of things among us, that such faith as that of the woman of Canaan and the Roman centurion, is rarely to be found in Israel.

Farther: She was not only a Gentile, but one of those Gentiles who were under a peculiar curse. She appears to have been one of the descendants of the ancient Canaanites; many of whom, when

driven from their own country, settled on the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. We know the curse to which that people were devoted, even from the days of their ancestor Canaan, the Son of Ham. We know also that Joshua was commanded not to spare them, and that Israel was forbidden to make leagues with them. This curse, however came upon them for their being an exceedinly wicked people. The abominations of which they were guilty, and which were nursed by their idolatry as by a parent sin, are given as the reason why the land vomited out its inhabitants, and why Israel must form no alliances with them, lest they should learn their ways. There was no time in which the God of Israel refused even a Canaanite, who repented, and embraced his word. Of this, Rahab the harlot, Uriah the Hittite, Ornan the Jebusite, and others were examples. The door of mercy has ever been open to faith: and though it seemed, in this instance, to be shut, it was only to prove the party, and to induce her to plead with greater importunity.

It was not her own case, but

11. Let us notice. HER ERRAND. a case which she had made her own; that of her young daughter. She pleaded it, however, as if it were her own-Have mercy on ME! Lord help ME! From this part of the subject we may learn,

1. That in our approaches to Christ, it becomes us to go not for ourselves only, but for others around us, and to make their cases ours. He to whom the application was made, could not but approve of this principle; for it was that on which he himself was acting at the time. He took the cause of perishing sinners, and made it his own. He bore our griefs, and carried our sorrows. A spirit of sympathy is the very spirit of Christ, which they that are joined to him must needs possess.

2. That it behoves us more, especially, to carry the cases of our children to the Lord, and to make them our own. It may be, they are too young to understand or feel their own malady, or to know where help is to be had; in this case, surely it is our proper business to personate them before the Lord: or, it may be, their minds are blinded, and their hearts hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, so as to have no desire to pray for themselves; and then we

can do no less than carry their case to him, who alone is able to help. What less, and in many instances, what more can an afflicted parent do for an ungodly child? It is true, we have no ground to except the salvation of our children, while they continue hardened; but Jesus is exalted to give repentance and remission of ains; and, while we present our supplication in a way of submission to his will, he will not be offended with us. It was the practice of holy Job to offer sacrifices for his children; and it seems to be a part of God's plan. frequently to bless the children at the intercession of the parent, and thus to express his approbation of something which they have done for him. The Lord give mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus, said Paul, for he oft refreshed me, and was not ashamed of my chain.

III. Let us remark THE REPEATED APPLICATIONS, THE REPEATED REPULSES, AND THE ULTIMATE SUCCESS WHICH CROWNED THE

WHOLE. Here were no less than four applications; three of which were made by the woman herself, and one by the disciples, on her behalf. Three out of the four failed; but the fourth succeeded. Let us examine them, and the success they met with, distinctly.

The first was made by the woman, and is described as follows: -She cried unto him saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. We might remark the brevity, the fullness, and the earnestness of this petition; but there is one thing, which our Lord himself afterwards noticed, and which, therefore, is particularly deserving of our attention: it was the prayer of faith. She believed, and confessed him to be the Messiah. Her addressing him under the character of Lord, and as the son of David, amounted to this. It was a principle universally acknowledged among the Jews, that the Lord, or king Messiah, should be of the seed of David. To address him, therefore, under this character, was confessing him to be the Christ. This was the appellation under which he was more than once invoked by certain blind men; and, in every instance, the same idea was meant to be conveyed. These poor people did not address our Saviour in a way of unmeaning com

plaisance: they understood that the Messiah, the son of David, was to be distinguished by the exercise of mercy: hence, they continually associated these ideas, HAVE MERCY on me, O Lord, thou son of DAVID!-Jesus, thou son of David, HAVE MERCY ON us! And this is the very character given to the Messiah in the Old Testament, especially in the Seventy-second Psalm. He shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper. Thus they had heard, thus they believed, and thus their faith wrought in a way of effectual prayer.

But whence had this woman, an alien from the commonwealth of Israel, a stranger to the covenant of promise, this wisdom? Providence had placed her on the borders of the Holy Land, and she appears to have profited by it. The true religion, contained in the oracles of God, had its influence not only on Israel, but on many individuals in the neighbouring nations. It was foretold, that they who dwelt under his shadow should return; and here we see it accomplished. Probably this poor Canaanite had often gone into the Jewish synagogue, to hear the reading of the law and the prophets; and, while many of those who read them gained only a superficial acquaintance with them, she understood them to purpose. One would almost think she must lately have heard the Seventy-second Psalm read, at one of these assemblies, and have made up her petition out of the passage forecited. He shall deliver the needy when he crieth; the poor also, and him that hath no helper ;-then why not me? I will go, and turn this prophecy into a prayer; Have mercy upon me, O Lord, thou son of David!' It is good to have our residence near to the means of grace, and to have a heart to make use of them. It is good to grow upon the banks of this river of the water of life. It is pleasant, also, to think of the good effects of the true religion among the posterity of Abraham. It is thus we see the fulfilment of the promise to that faithful man, I will bless thee, and thou shalt be a blessing.

But, while these things afford pleasure to us, they must, methinks, have been very provoking to the Jews; and happy had it been for them, if they had been provoked to a godly jealousy. Many among them were far behind these strangers in knowledge and in faith, though they enjoyed very superior advantages. The

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