gratitude for a lower mercy obtains for him a higher, a blessing which is singularly his, and reaches not merely to the springs of bodily health, but to the healing of the very sources of his spiritual being. That which the others missed,' to which their bodily healing should have introduced them, and would so have done, if they had received it aright, he has obtained; for to him, and to him only, it is said, Go thy way; thy faith hath made thee whole."2

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It gives a special significance to this miracle, and explains its place in that Gospel which is eminently the Gospel for the heathen, that this thankful one should have been a Samaritan, a stranger therefore by birth to the covenants of promise, while the nine unthankful were of the seed of Abraham. It was involved in this that the Gentiles (for this Samaritan was no better) were not excluded from the kingdom of God; nay rather, might obtain a place in it before others who by nature and birth were children of the kingdom; that the ingratitude of

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1 Bernard (In Cant. serm. 51): Ingratitudo ventus urens, siccans sibi fontem pietatis, rorem misericordiæ, fluenta gratiæ. And he draws the lesson for us: Disce in referendo gratiam non esse tardus aut segnis, disce ad singula dona gratias agere. Diligenter, inquit, considera quæ tibi opponantur [Prov. xxiii. 1], ut nulla videlicet Dei dona debitâ gratiarum actione frustrentur, non grandia, non mediocria, non pusilla. Denique jubemur colligere fragmenta ne pereant, id est nec minima beneficia oblivisci. Numquid non perit quod donatur ingrato?

2 Calvin: Servandi verbum quidam interpretes ad carnis munditiem restringunt; verum si ita est, quum vivam in hoc Samaritano fidem commendet Christus, quæri potest quomodo servati fuerint alii novem; nam eadem promiscue omnibus sanitas obtigit. Sic ergo habendum est Christum hic aliter æstimâsse donum Dei quam soleant profani homines, nempe tanquam salutare paterni amoris symbolum vel pignus. Sanati fuerunt novem leprosi, sed quia Dei gratiam impie obliterant, ipsam sanitatem inficit et contaminat eorum ingratitudo, ut quam decebat utilitatem ex eâ non percipiant. Sola igitur fides dona Dei nobis sanctificat, ut pura sint, et cum legitimo usu conjuncta in salutem nobis cedant. . Servatus est suâ fide Samaritanus. Quomodo? certe non ideo tantum, quod a leprâ curatus sit (nam hoc et reliquis commune erat), sed quia in numerum filiorum Dei acceptus est, ut paterni amoris tesseram ex ejus manu acciperet.

SAMoyens our Lord expressly call him; and see my Notes on the Parables, 9th edit. p. 302.

these might exclude them, while the faith of those might give to them an abundant entrance into all its blessings.

How aptly does the image which this history supplies set forth the condition of the faithful in this world! They too are to take Christ's word that they will be cleansed, that in some sort they are so already (John xv. 3); for in baptism they have the pledge and promise and the initial act of it all. And this they must believe, even while they still feel in themselves the leprous taint of sin,-must go forward in faith, being confident that in the use of his Word and his sacraments, and all his appointed means of grace, slight as they may seem to meet and overcome such mighty mischiefs, they will find that health which according to the sure word of promise is in some sort already theirs ; and as they go, believing this word, using these means, they are healed. And for them, too, a warning is herethat they forget not the purging of their old sins (2 Pet. i. 9)—nor what those sins were, how ugly, how loathsome; after the manner of those nine, who perhaps did not return, as desiring to obliterate the very memory of all which once and so lately they had been. Let those who now are clean through the word spoken to them, keep ever in memory the times of their past anguish,—the times when everything seemed defiled to them, and they to everything; when they saw themselves as unclean, unclean,' shut out from all holy fellowship of God and men, and cried out in their anguish, 'Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.' Let them see to it, that they forget not all this; but let each remembrance of the absolving word which was spoken to them, with each new consciousness of a realized deliverance from the power and pollution of sin, bring them anew to the Saviour's feet, giving glory to God by Him; lest, failing in this, their guilt prove greater than even that of these unthankful nine. For these carried away temporal mercies unacknowledged; but we should in such a case be seeking to carry away spiritual; not, indeed, that we

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should succeed in so doing; since the spiritual mercy which is not evermore referred to its Author, sooner or later inevitably ceases from him who hopes on any other conditions to retain it.'

1 Chemnitz (Harm. Evang. 125): Remittit nos Filius Dei ad ministerium Verbi et Sacramentorum in Ecclesiâ; et quemadmodum hi sanati sunt dum iverunt, et mandato Christi obtemperârunt, ita et nos dum in Ecclesiâ Verbum Dei audimus, absolutione et Sacramentis utimur, vult nobis Christus peccata remittere, nos sanare, ut in cælesti Jerusalem mundi coram Deo compareamus. .. Omnes nati sumus filii iræ, in baptismo remittitur nobis ille reatus, sed non statim in cælos abripimur: verum dicit nobis, Ite, ostendite vos sacerdotibus. Leve quid ut videtur injungit. Utut autem leve sit, sequitur tamen enarrabile bonum, quia is qui nobis hoc præcipit, est omnipotens Deus, qui ex minimis maxima producere potest. Cf. Augustine, Quæst. Evang. ii. 40.

23. THE HEALING OF THE DAUGHTER OF THE

WE

SYROPHOENICIAN WOMAN.

MATT. XV. 21-28; MARK Vii. 24-30.

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E have no reason to think that at any time during his earthly ministry our Lord overpassed the limits of the Holy Land; not even when He departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.' It was only into the borders of Tyre and Sidon,' as St. Mark expressly tells us (vii. 24), that He went; and even St. Matthew's words need not, and certainly here do not, mean more than that He approached the confines of that heathen land.' The general fitness of things, and more than this, his own express words on this very occasion, 'I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel,' combine to make it most unlikely that He had now brought his healing presence to any other but the people of the Covenant; and, moreover, when St. Matthew speaks of the woman of Canaan' as coming out of that district, or 'of the same coasts,' he clearly shows that he did not intend to describe the Lord as having more than drawn close to the skirts of that profane land. Being there, He entered into a house, and would have no man know it:' but, as the ointment bewrayeth itself,' so He, whose Name is like ointment poured out,' on the present occasion could not be hid;' and among those attracted by its sweetness was a woman of that country,—' a

1 Kumoel here: In partes Palæstinæ regioni Tyriorum et Sidoniorum finitimas. So Exod. xvi. 35. ɛis μépos tñs Þowiens (LXX), 'to the borders of Canaan.'

woman of Canaan,' as St. Matthew terms her, 'a Greek, a Syrophonician,' as St. Mark has it,' by the first term indicating her religion, that it was not Jewish, but heathen; by the second, the stock of which she came, being no other than that accursed race once doomed of God to a total excision, root and branch (Deut. vii. 2), but of which some branches had been spared by those first generations of Israel that should have destroyed all (Judg. ii. 2, 3). Everything, therefore, was against her; yet this everything did not prevent her from drawing nigh, from seeking, and as we shall presently see from obtaining, the boon that her soul longed after. She had heard of the mighty works which the Saviour of Israel had done: for already his fame had gone through all Syria; so that they brought unto Him, besides other sick, those which were possessed with devils, and those which were lunatic, and He healed them' (Matt. iv. 24). And she has a boon to ask for her daughter;-or say rather for herself, so entirely has she made her daughter's misery her own: ‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil;' just as on a later occasion the father of the lunatic child exclaims, 'Have compassion on us, and help us' (Mark ix. 22).

But she finds Him very different from that which report had described Him to her. That had extolled Him as the merciful and gracious, not breaking the bruised reed, nor quenching the smoking flax, inviting every weary and afflicted soul to draw nigh and find rest with Him. He, who of Himself had anticipated the needs of others (John v. 6), withdrew Himself from hers; 'He answered her not a

1 Συροφοινίκισσα, Lachmann; Σύρα Φοινίκισσα, Tischendorf; and between these readings the best MSS. are divided. Evpopoívoca is very weakly attested: it is indeed the more Greek form, yet not therefore here to be preferred, but rather the contrary. See a learned note by Grotius, on Matt. xv. 22. This woman's name, according to the Clementine Homilies (ii. 19), was Justa, where legends of her later life, and her passage from heathenism to Judaism, are to be found.