at reward." Is
not Abraham contented with this? No; mark how he pleadeth with God:
"Lord God (saith he), what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless?"
His eye is upon the promise that God had made to him of a son, of whom
the Savior of the world should come. "O Lord, what wilt thou give me?"
as if he had said, What wilt Thou do for me? alas! nothing will do my
soul good unless I have a son, and in him a Savior. What will become
of me so long as I go childless, and so Saviorless, as I may so speak?
You see how Abraham's mouth was out of taste with all other things,
how he could relish nothing, enjoy nothing in comparison of the
promise, tho he had otherwise what he would, or could desire. Thus
must it be with every faithful man. That soul never had, nor never
shall have Christ, that doth not prize Him above all things in the
world.

The next step of Abraham's faith was this, he casteth himself and
flingeth his soul, as I may say, upon the all-sufficient power and
mercy of God for the attainment of what he desireth; he rolleth and
tumbleth himself, as it were, upon the all-sufficiency of God. This
you shall find in Rom. iv. 18, where the apostle, speaks of Abraham,
who "against hope, believed in hope"; that is, when there was no hope
in the world, yet he believed in God, even above hope, and so made it
possible. It was an object of his hope, that it might be in regard of
God, howsoever there was no possibility in regard of man. So the text
saith, "he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about a
hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb, but was
strong in faith." He cast himself wholly upon the precious promise and
mercy of God.

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 m