are bright already with the glory they herald;-which, I say, shall be shall be your destiny when that long-promised morn shall have dawned, as under God it lies with yourselves, may God in His mercy enable you this day to resolve!

SERMON XI.

THE CANAANITE MOTHER A TYPE OF THE GENTILE

CHURCH.

MATT. XV. 28.

Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt!

THESE

HESE are the last words of Christ to one who had persevered to trust in His mercy, through silence, and exclusion, and reproach; who had beheld the flow of His boundless benevolence checked, and its glory clouded;-yet had penetration enough to detect the divine reality concealed under these harsh appearances, to read a willing heart through the veil of unwilling words, to believe in Him in spite of Himself, and, amid every assumption of coldness and severity, to see in Him the one unaltered incarnation of divine love. The woman of Canaan comes forth out of the depths of a dark and degrading idolatry, to be an example, for ever, to the world of light, and privilege, and profession. A rescued heathen is chosen to be the model and instructress of the Church of the living God. He who, of old, went to "Ur of the Chaldees" to find a father for believers, has chosen his fairest and fullest example of Gospel faith from the worshippers of Baal

and of Dagon. It is indeed deserving of remark, that the most eminent instances of faith in Christ's claims and powers, recorded in the Gospel history, should have been found among the Gentile world: that of the Centurion (of whom, even after the call of the Apostles, our Lord declares that He had "not found so great faith, no not in Israel"), and the still more interesting case which the text brings before us. Everything in the life and actions of Christ is profound in purpose, and pregnant with meaning; and surely we can discover in this an ordinance of the most perfect propriety. If it be through the special virtue and dignity of the grace of faith that the new dispensation is enabled to make itself commensurate with the world, it seems peculiarly appropriate, that the chief examples of that grace, which was thus to equalize the claims of all the races of mankind, should have been selected from among those who were to gain the advantage in this equalization. This farther typical purport seems to have been present to our Lord's mind, when, after commenting on the Centurion's faith, he rose to that extension of it which was yet to embrace the world: "I say unto you that many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven, but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out." Nor, perhaps, is it altogether unworthy of notice in this point of view, that, when the Church was indeed to be declared a church of Gentile no less than Jew, the first believer -the common ancestor of the world of evangelized heathen-was a man holding the same office, and, it would appear, similarly connected in habits and dispo

sition with the Jews: for as it is said of the Centurion of the Acts, that he was "one that feared God, and gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway," so is it likewise said of the Centurion of the Gospel, that he loved their nation, and had built them a synagogue." And I may add that this respectful attachment to the ancient people of Jehovah is very discernible in the language of our immediate subject, the believing Canaanite; for she not only addressed her Redeemer in her supplication as "the Son of David" (a title which could appear honourable only to one who sympathized with the feelings and prepossessions of a Jew), but even acceded to the justness of our Lord's strong expressions when He classed her nation as "dogs" in comparison with the long-adopted children" of God. If this remark be well founded (that the prominent examples of the first heathen elect were purposely such as had some connexion with Israel), it may, perhaps, be properly considered as a continuation of that wonderful dispensation of heaven, so observable through all ancient history, which made the prosperity or adversity of heathen nations depend largely on their treatment of the Jewish people, a dispensation which has rendered the Israelite prophets the anticipative historians of the chief empires of antiquity: a dispensation which, as the Jews are undoubtedly reserved for a mysterious future, may not, perhaps, have ceased so completely as we are apt to imagine. "Behold, I will bring again the captivity of Jacob's tents, and have mercy on his dwelling-places. Their children also shall be as aforetime, and their congregation shall be established before me, and I will punish

"Assemble

all that oppress them."-Jer. xxx. 18, 20. yourselves, and come!" cries the Spirit of God by the Prophet Ezekiel (xxxix. 17); "gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh and drink blood. Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth... And I will set my glory among the heathen, and all the heathen shall see my judgment that I have executed, and my hand that I have laid upon them." If these predictions refer to times and events not yet elapsed (as seems most probable), they would seem to show that the eye of God is not yet closed upon the oppressors of Judah (a crime of which nearly all European nations have at various times been flagrantly guilty), and that, like their own Ark wandering among the Philistines of old, they are a people whose indestructible consecration to heaven makes their presence among the nations of the earth even yet a mysterious element of trial and perplexity. However this may be, the choice of the previous friends and reverers of Israel, as the special instances of Gentile faith in Christ, may be considered in a view beyond this; not merely as a striking exemplification of that law of gradual transition which seems to pervade all the works of God, spiritual no less than physical, the heathen being partially Judaized before he becomes wholly enlightened, but also as manifestly rendering these instances more appropriate types of the entire work of Gentile conversion :—externally, of the preaching of the Gospel to the heathen in all ages, which in all ages must include so large a Jewish