The Christian's Faith (Continued)
0 woman, great is thv faith.” — Matt. xv. 28.
“Give strong drink unto him that is ready wj perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts,” so says the Bible; and out of what story can there be extracted stronger drink or better wine, than that of the woman of Canaan? Nor is hers a singular case. Give*us time, and from the Bible alone, I could gather of such cases a cluster, like that which the dusty spios brought from the land of Canaan, and the purple vineyards of Eshcol. A case that illustrates the freeness and the fulness of grace, this is but one star in a brilliant constellation.
To confine our attention to a single class of them, that of sainted women, look at our Lord’s genealogy as given by the Evangelist Matthew! From Eve onward to Mary but four women are named whose blood flowed in Jesus’ veins; and how curious, to say the least of it, that God puts into this honourable roll the very four that many, and certainly a Jew, cherishing the pride of ancestry, would have kept out — an incestuous person, a harlot, an adultress, and one of the cursed race of Moab. Had the list professed to be a catalogue of the mothers from whom Jesus
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sprang, Trath, with her impartial pen, must have inserted, besides the name of Ruth, the names of Tamar and Rahab, and Bathsheba, blushing as she wrote them. But these are brought in apparently without occasion; for the list is that of our Lord’s male, not female, ancestors. The family tree would have stood complete in all its branches without them. What explanation have we to offer of this? Why are the very women specially, and, indeed, only mentioned, whose antecedents were such as to reflect no honour, but in the world’s judgment, rather discredit on the Saviour? This is what a hostile biographer would have done; and are we to account for it as for the appearance of tares among the wheat by saying, An enemy hath done this? Assuredly not. The record proceeds from the pen of a disciple, and was written by the penman as he was moved by the Holy Ghost,
The truth is, that hope hangs nowhere more within the reach of sinners than on these branches that pride would lop off — there, the lowliest penitent, the vilest wretch who writhes like a crushed worm in the dust, may pluck the fruit of the tree of life. These names awanting, we should have wanted one of the most remarkable proofs that the honours of the heavenly kingdom are bestowed on the dishonourable; r. nd that the graces of salvation, given without respect of persons or regard to merit, are free as the winds of heaven. To find Tamar, and Rahab, and Bathsheba in the same roll with such grand saints as Abraham, and Jacob, and the sweet sin,2rer of Israel, relieves our fears and sustains our hopes. Some Sabbaths ago, on returning from churchj I saw a little bird seated on a leafless spray of lilac; and as he sat there with red throbbing breast, and his large, bright, golden eye turned on the setting sun, he sung most beautifully a carol of the spring; and to my ear his notes fashioned themselves into the words of a song that celebrates the departure of gloomy winter, and how soft the “westlin breezes” blow. And to my fancy these women in the roll of the ancestry of the Saviour of the world, the Prince of life, and the Lord of glory, speak hope to us. Give them speech, and they say, If Jesus was not ashamed of us, neither will he be of you; fear not; he who was not ashamed to own us as his mothers, will not be ashamed to call you his sisters and his brethren.
Once on a time our Lord said, “I tell you of a truth, many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias; but unto none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and none of them was cleansed, save Naaman the Syrian.” These words of grace had hardly left his lips, when the audience, starting to their feet, left their seats; and, incensed, infuriated, made a rush at the pulpit. Plucking the speaker down, they dragged him forth; cast him out of the synagogue; and, pouring in angry tide along the streets, thrust him out of their city. For the mercy and grace indicated in that declaration, we welcome Jesus to our assemblies; and, as the trumpets of salvation sound the King’s advance, we throw the doors wide open — crying to them
“Lift up your heads, 0 ye gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in;” and crying to him, “Hosanna to the son of David, hosanna in the highest, blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” Unless pardon is bestowed on the guiltiest, and honours crown the vilest’ head; unless men are chosen to eternal life, not out of regard to merit, but of the freest mercy; unless they that are far away are brought nigh by the blood of Christ; unless the dogs, so to speak, may not only crawl under the table, and eat the crusts and crumbs of the floor, but, transformed into men, may sit down and eat of the children’s bread, what hope for us? “What dost thou here, Elijah?” Thanks to God for this blessed story! Woman of Canaan, bright star of the East, lead on! We follow thee, beautiful Exemplar of faith, — thy success assuring us that none come in vain to Jesus who go with thy earnest heart, thy frank confession, and thy touching plea, Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table. In further meditation on this case, consider,
I. Her humble confession.
I believe in the dignity of human nature. Like an old roofless temple, man is a grand and solemn ruin, on the front of which we can still trace the mutilated inscription of his original dedication to God. “Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour f — and there are points of view from which an angel of heaven may regard us as occupying a position but a little lowtT than his own; as the next link in the chain of creation; as raised to a platform where our heads, are, at least, on a level with his feet. We enter the study of a Galileo or a Newton — to see, in such a philosopher, the dignity of human nature. Image of his Maker, he is holding converse with the heavens; measuring the distance between star and star; following the comet on its fiery track; weighing not hills only, but worlds in scales, suns and planets in his balance. Leaving these scenes of calm and lofty thought, there, where man subduing the elements to his will, binds fire and water to his wheels; makes the forked lightning his messenger; compels the stubborn earth to supply his table, and the worms to spin his dress; and, spreading his sail to the wind, God-like, has his way on the sea, and his path in the mighty waters — again we see the dignity of human nature. Nor to feel our superiority, and justify such an expression as the “dignity of our nature,” is it necessary to enter the quiet study of a Newton, or, amid the sounding anvils and roar of its machinery, the workshop of a Watt. We see it in that little child, that, at dewy eve, with sapling in her hand and her naked foot on the flowery sward, drives the cattle home, controlling the sulky leader of the herd with her infant voice, and turning him with a wave of her infant hand.
But, on turning the subject round, and looking at the moral aspects of man, alas for the dignity of human nature! A bright intellect and a dark hoart; likeness to God in mind, and unlikeness to him i rr.opals; the union in one creature of the intellect of an angel with the passions of a beast. Nature never gave birth to such a monster. This is the work of sin; not of God. And we have only to look at our race, at ourselves, in this aspect, to subscribe to the Canaanite’s confession; or to justify the language of a man whose piety was as transcendant as his genius, and beside whom our giants are but dwarfs, who said, — I quote the words of David, — “I was as a beast before thee.”
A beast! Of all the creatures which passed in long procession before Adam, take that which furnished our Lord with his figure of speech, and with whose habits we are so well acquainted. The dog is an animal which the Easterns hold in foul contempt, — Job saying, Whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock; — Hazael saying. What! is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing? — Goliath saying, when the stripling advanced to meet him. Am I a dog that thou comest to me with staves? Yet observe the dog! Look at him as he lies there, with wakeful eye, on guard over his master’s property; ready to spring at the robber’s throat; to die of hunger rather than desert his post and betray his trust. How faithful! The artist did him no more than justice who painted him as the emblem of fidelity; but which of us has been as faithful to his God? Look at him again, there where he lies, when spring has melted the wreaths in the corrie, stretched out in death on his master’s corpse;” faithful unto death his last act was to lick the dead man’s face j his dying moans, that sunk lower and lower as the frost congealed his blood and the snow drift gathered over them, saying, Where thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried. Did our hearts ever glow with such love to Christ? — the dumb ass rebuked the proj)het, but that poor, fond, dying dog rebukes us. Look again — see how he watches his master’s eye; how happy a kind word, or even look makes him I with what bounding, noisy, overflowing joy he hails our return; dashing through the blithe group that crowds the doorway, no one’s welcome is more hearty or more sincere. More faithful than we to Christ, he will not abandon his master: and, in that garden, where the disciples deserted Jesus and fled, he would have stood, and fought, and died at his feet. Look at him once more when his master dies! He lingers beside the cojfin, or walks mom-nfuUy through the house, seeking one he cannot find; and when the family have returned from the churchyard, to part the dead man’s estate, and, perhaps, quarrel over the spoil, he has stopped behind to howl over the lonely grave — saddest, truest mourner for the dead.
When I look at that, and, thinking of all that a loving God and a dying Saviour have done for us, contrast with such fidelity our disobedience, our coldness, our base ingratitude, our great unfaithfulness, I stand rebuked before this dumb, devoted creature. Who may not say with David, I was as a beast before thee? — or with Ezra, 0 my God, I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my face to thee, my God; for our iniquities are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens? — or with Job, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes? — or with Jacob, I am not worthy of the least of all thy mercies and of all tho truth which thou hast showed unto thy servant? — or with Paul, I am less than the least of all saints? — or with this humble, blessed woman. Truth, Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master’s table?
II. Her thankfulness for the smallest mercy.
Objects seem large or little according to the medium through which they are viewed. In the microscope, what a remarkable change they undergo! The humble moss rises into a graceful tree; the beetle, armed for battle, flashes in golden or silver mail; a grain of sand swells into a mass of rock; and, on the other hand, a mountain, looked at through the wrong end of a telescope, sinks into a mole-hill, and the broad lake contracts into a tiny pool. Even so, according as we look at them, with the eyes of self-condemning humility, or of self-righteous pride, God’s mercies seem great or little. For example, a minister of the gospel, passingone day near a cottage, was attracted to its door by the sound of a loud and earnest voice. It was a bare and lonely dwelling; the home of a man who was childless, old, and poor. Drawing near this mecn and humble cabin, the stranger at length made out these words, “This, and Jesus Christ too! this, and Jesus Christ too!” as they were repeated over and e yer in tones of deep emotion; of wonder, gratitutc, and praise. His curiosity was roused to see wh it that could be which called forth such fervent, over lowing thanks. Stealing near, he looked in at the patched and broken window; and there in the form of a grey, bent, worn-out son of toil, at a rude table, with hands raised to God, and his eyes fixed on some crusts of bread, and a cup of water, sat piety, peace, humility, contentment, exclaiming, “This, and Jesus Christ too I”
Such was the spirit of this woman’s reply. It says — Lord! deserving nothing, I shall be thankful for anything; to ask for myself, or poor child, such honours as the mother of Zebedee’s children sought for her sons; to minister, like these favoured women, to thy necessities, and with these hands to supply thy table, or spread thy couch; to follow thee as thy shadow; bending to unloose the latchet of thy shoes; to kneel by thy side in prayer; like Martha and Mary to receive thee beneath my roof; — these are honours I ask not for; I dare not aspire to. A poor Gentile, I seek nothing but the crumbs of thy table — among thy many and mighty miracles, in pity do some little thing for me; it will cost you but a word, speak that word and my daughter shall be healed. Save her, good Lord; I ask the least that I can do with. Let others sit at thy side, or lie in thy bosom, but grant my petition; and, a happy mother, I shall be content to sit in the dust, and sing at thy blessed feet.
This woman is a model for Christian artists. “What true grace and beauty in her humility! and who that has been brought to a just and deep sense of his sins, will refuse to be content, unless he is raised to heaven’s highest throne, and wears its brightest crown? A drowning man, plucked from the jaws of death, is happy with three feet of bare rock beneath him; happier than others with thousands of broad acres. The wrecked, borne shoreward in the life-boat that is making for the land through roaring seas and winter storms, are happier than Egypt’s queen when the sun gleamed on her golden galley, and silken sails swelled in the summer breeze, and the world’s great conqueror knelt, a suitor at her feet. And there is no humble Christian, no loyer of Jesus, but is happier with the hope of heaven, with Christ in him “the hope of glory,” than the men of the world when their corn and their wine do most abound; and all things go well with them. Though a beggar, the child of God parts not with that hope for all the wisdom and wealth of Solomon. To get within that blessed door; to have a place, not nearest the king, but on the outside of the circle around the throne; to bear the lowest title among heaven’s nobles; to be the weakest child of God’s family, the humblest servant in Christ’s house, the dimmest, smallest jewel in his crown, the least, and less than the least, of all saints, is a hope that sets the heart a-singing —
“Transported with the view I’m lost
In wonder, love, and praise.”
m. Her plea, she appeals to our Lord’s generosity.
It is told in the life of a great criminal, who, though often apprehended and tried, was never convicted, that he made a rule of never answering any questions, nor admitting anything, and thereby, as many have done, committing himself. While others, less cautious, paid the penalty of the law, he thus escaped the gallows; and died in his bed. One would think that sinners expect by not admitting their guilt to elude also the justice and the judgment of God. They do not admit that they are sinners; or if sinners, they do not admit that they are great sinners. On the contrary, like the Pharisee of old, they thank God that they are not as others are — not they! Guilt meets no pity at their hands; to save it, they would not touch it. “It is monstrous to be told” — wrote a lady of this school to the Countess of Huntingdon, when finding fault with George Whitefield’s style of preaching — “it is monstrous to be told that you have a heart as sinful as the common wretches that crawl on the earth; and I cannot but wonder that your ladyship should relish any sentiments so much at variance with high rank and good breeding; their doctrines are most repulsive, and strongly tinctured with disrespect toward their superiors, in perpetually endeavouring to level all ranks, and do away with all distinctions.”
What darkness! Miserable, fatal ignorance! Who would not rather have their soul bound up in the same bundle with the poorest Magdalene, that stands weeping, trembling, timidly knocking at the gate of heaven, than with this haughty dame who, pushing the poor penitent aside, ruffles up to it — as if obsequious porters would throw it open at hei appearance? How different the spirit of the Canaanite! This woman in that word “truth,” as Mary did by the tears that washed the dust from Jesus’ feet, puts in a plea of guilty j uor clean; unworthy. Catching at the word and figure which our Lord uses, and casting herself on his generosity, she says. Yet surely you will treat me as kindly as a man treats his dog. Blessed humility! happy thought! touching, irresistible appeal!
Now, her plea is as good as ever. We have no other; and, thank God, we need no other. By the voice of our conscience or of his word, does God say, You have been a sinner! We reply. Truth, Lord. — There is no commandment of mine you have not broken, nor mercy of mine you have not abused! Truth, Lord. — You have crucified my Son! Truth, Lord. — You have grieved my Spirit! Truth, Lord. — You deserve to be cast into hell! Truth, Lord. — Into the deepest, hottest hell! Truth, Lord. It is all true; but, God of mercy! so is this, that thou never saidst to any of the sons of men, Seek ye my face in vain; that thou art not willing that any man should perish; that thou hast no pleasure in the death of the wicked; that thou didst send thy Son to seek and to save the lost; that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin. The woman was successful, why should not we? We will hope in thy mercy, for is it not written. The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy?
The woman’s plea good as ever? It is better than ever. We can go with more freeness and boldness than she to the throne of grace. “Dog,” that harsh sounding word, is blotted from the Bible. Since Jesus died, the differences between Jew and Gentile abolished, his lips have never said “dog.” Sent to saw in his own day only the lost sheep of the house of Israel, with Jews for the objects of his mercy, and the Holy Land for the orbit of his mission, here our Lord in a sense, exceeded his commission. To save this poor, struggling, sinking creature, he overleaped the barriers of ancient covenants; and taking time by the forelock, anticipated the hour when there should be neither Jew nor Greek, nor bond nor free. How great the Canaanite’s happiness had been if, in reply to disciples, who said. Send her away, he had answered. No, I will not send her away; why should I? it is to her, and to such as her, that I am sent. At such words how had the blood rushed to her palid cheek; how had her heart palpitated with joy; throwing herself at Jesus’ feet, as she clasped and kissed them, now confident of getting all she asked, how had she mingled praises with her prayers! But what in that case had been her position, is ours now. We have not to pursue a departing Saviour; nor has our distress to address itself to an ear that seems deaf to pity. Jesus is passing; but not now silent, reserved, and wrapt in thought of other objects than us. No. He stops; he looks kindly on us; he pities us; he loves us; and, opening his arms he invites us to his bosom. Throned on the mercy-seat, with all power given him in earth and heaven, see how he stretches out the golden sceptre, saying to every suppliant. What is thy request, and what is thy petition, and it shall be granted thee?