Of course God does not _need to be convinced:_ no arguments can make any plainer to Him the claims of trusting souls to His intervention, claims based upon His own word, confirmed by His oath. And yet He will be inquired of and argued with. That is His way of blessing. He loves to have us set before Him our cause and His own promises: He delights in the well-ordered plea, where argument is piled upon argument. See how the Lord Jesus Christ commended the persistent argument of the woman of Canaan, who with the _wit of importunity_ actually turned his own _objection_ into a _reason._ He said, "It is not meet to take the children's bread and cast it to the little dogs."* "Truth, Lord," she answered, "yet the little dogs under the master's tables eat of the crumbs which fall from the children's mouths!" What a triumph of argument! Catching the Master Himself in His words, as He meant she should, and turning His apparent reason for not granting into a reason for granting her request! "O woman," said He, "great is thy faith! Be it unto thee even as thou wilt"--thus, as Luther said, "flinging the reins on her neck." * Cf. Matt. vii. 6, xv. 26, 27. Not [Transcriber's note: Greek word here], but [Transcriber's note: another Greek word here], the diminutive for little pet dogs. This case stands unique in the word of God, and it is this use of argument in prayer that makes it thus solitary in grandeur. But one other case is at all parallel,--that of the centurion of Capernaum,* who, when our Lord promised to go and heal his servant, argued that such coming was not needful, since He had only to speak the healing word. And notice the basis of his argument: if he, a commander exercising authority and yielding himself to higher authority, both obeyed the word of his superior and exacted obedience of his subordinate, how much more could the Great Healer, in his absence, by a word of command, wield the healing Power that in His presence was obedient to His will! Of him likewise our Lord said: "I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel!" * Matt. viii. 8. We are to argue our case with God, not indeed to convince _Him,_ but to convince _ourselves._ In proving to Him that, by His own word and oath and character, He has bound Himself to interpose, we demonstrate _to our own faith_ that He has given us the right to ask and claim, and that He will answer our plea because He cannot deny Himself. There are two singularly beautiful touches of the Holy Spirit in which the right thus to order argument before God is set forth to the reflective reader. In Micah. vii. 20 we read: "Thou wilt perform the _truth_ to Jacob, The _mercy_ to Abraham, Which thou hast sworn unto our fathers, From the days of old."