But he took another step in true justifying faith.  He proved to us the believer is informed touching the excellency of the Lord Jesus, and that fulness that is to be had in Him, tho he can not find the sweetness of His mercy, tho he can not or dare not apprehend and apply it to himself, tho he find nothing in himself, yet he is still resolved to rest upon the Lord, and to stay himself on the God of his salvation, and to wait for His mercy till he find Him gracious to his poor soul.  Excellent and famous is the example of the woman of Canaan.  When Christ, as it were, beat her off, and took up arms against her, was not pleased to reveal Himself graciously to her for the present, “I am not sent (saith He) but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel; and it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to the dogs”; mark how she replied, “Truth, Lord, I confess all that; yet notwithstanding, the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”  Oh, the excellency, and strength, and work of her faith!  She comes to Christ for mercy, He repelleth her, reproacheth her, tells her she is a dog; she confesseth her baseness, is not discouraged for all that, but still resteth upon the goodness and mercy of Christ, and is mightily resolved to have mercy whatsoever befalleth her.  Truth, Lord, I confess I am as bad as Thou canst term me, yet I confess, too, that there is no comfort but from Thee, and tho I am a dog, yet I would have crumbs.  Still she laboreth to catch after mercy, and to lean and to bear herself upon the favor of Christ for the bestowing thereof upon her.  So it must be with every faithful Christian in this particular; he must roll himself upon the power, and faithfulness, and truth of God, and wait for His mercy (I will join them both together for brevity’s sake, tho the latter be a fourth step and degree of faith); I say he must not only depend upon God, but he must wait upon the Holy One of Israel.

But a further step of Abraham’s faith appeared in this:  he counted nothing too dear for the Lord; he was content to break through all impediments, to pass through all difficulties, whatsoever God would have, He had of him.  This is the next step that Abraham went; and this you shall find when God put him upon trial.  The text saith there “that God did tempt Abraham,” did try what He would do for Him, and He bade him, “Go, take thy son, thine only son, Isaac, whom thou lovest, and slay him”; and straight Abraham went and laid his son upon an altar, and took a knife, to cut the throat of his son—­so that Abraham did not spare his son Isaac, he did not spare for any cost, he did not dodge with God in this case; if God would have anything, He should have it, whatsoever it were, tho it were his own life, for no question Isaac was dearer to him than his own life.  And this was not his case alone, but the faithful people of God have ever walked the same course.  The apostle Paul was of the same spirit; “I know not (saith he) the