the poor woman of Canaan

Gurnall's passage below about the poor woman of Canaan:

[Now for a soul to make its
approaches to God by a recumbency of faith,
while God seems to fire upon it, and shoot his
frowns like envenomed arrows into it, is hard
work, and will try the Christian's mettle to
purpose. Yet such a masculine spirit we find in
the poor woman of Canaan, who takes up the
bullets of Christ shot at her, and with a humble
boldness of faith sends them back again in her
prayer.]

is a reference to this passage in the New Testament, Matthew 15:21-28:

21 Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.

22 And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.

23 But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us. [I.e. the disciples pleaded with Jesus to do as the woman asked so they didn't have to hear her pleading anymore.]

24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. [Jesus' Earthly mission was not to Gentiles. Only after His sacrifice and the inauguration of the New Covenant would gentiles be made a part of the Covenant.]

25 Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.

26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs.

27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. [This, like the episode with the Roman centurion - another gentile - is one of the passages that define faith as a recognition of 'chain-of-command'. A recognition of hierarchy. A recognition that there is something higher than 'you'. A recognition of God as your Creator and a recognition of the command of God over you as the potter over the clay. Vanity, worldly pride, and self-will have to be transcended internally to be able to make this connection of faith and to accept one's position in the hierarchy, in this case, with the Canaanite woman, accepting that she is lower than the house of Israel (as a dog is to the family members who sit at the table).]

28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

Gurnall's point here is to notice how this woman was talking to God Himself (and she knew it) and was being rebuffed by God Himself, yet she persisted in her request and accepted her position, and maintained respect for the 'chain-of-command' above her and didn't get resentful or angry at God.

A side note: I recently saw an interview Bob Dylan gave on television and he referenced God in the interview (he had an episode in his life where he became an evangelical Christian, to what degree who knows), but his reference to God was the way many do as 'the man above' or something like that, but in Dylan's case he referenced Him as 'the commander-in-chief'.