But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.
Ver. 26. And to cast it to dogs] To whelps, saith St Mark. a So he calls her bitch, her daughter whelp. This might have easily damped and discouraged her. But she was that well-resolved Christian, whose part Luther saith it is to believe things invisible, b to hope for things deferred, and to love God when he shows himself most angry with him, and most opposite to him. Our Saviour was no sooner gone from this Canaanitess, but he heals the deaf and dumb man (though far weaker in faith than her) at first word, Mark 7:33; Matthew 15:30, the Galileans no sooner laid their sick and lame friends at his feet, but he cured them without any more ado. He is "a God of judgment," Isaiah 30:18, and knows how and when to deal forth his favours. He lays heaviest burdens on the strongest backs and proportions our afflictions to our abilities, holding us off for deliverance till he finds us fit for it, and giving us hearts to wait and want it till his time is come.
a κυναριοις, catellis, ut maiore contemptu loqui videretur. Beza.
b Credere invisibilia, sperare dilata, et amare Deum se ostendentem contrarium. Luth.