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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.

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 posed 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 dis

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tinction 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 nowhere 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 "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."

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First, observe her humility mission 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