TATAI

decai, having first led him in triumph, in royal array, through the streets of Shushan, proclaiming him his own supplanter, both in the king's favour, and in the honour intended for himself : “ the device which he devised against the Jews” resulted only in the destruction of their enemies; and so far were they from being either lessened or impoverished by the exterminating decree, that their numbers were multiplied by a large influx of converts to their faith from the very population whose swords had been directed against them; and their own forbearance alone prevented them from enriching them. selves to a vast extent; for the whole spoil of the seventy-five thousand whom they slew was declared their own, but “ they laid not their hands upon it“.”

Such is the stateinent of the case that called forth Mordecai's expostulation ; upon the facts of which I must not omit to observe, that they have come down to us accompanied by this indisputable confirmation, that to this very day the Jews preserve the memorial of their deliverance by the annual celebration of the festival instituted by Mordecaib. I now proceed to inquire into the grounds upon which this expostulation was founded. And the first ground taken the short-sightedness of Esther's policy, upon her own principle of selfpreservation, in avoiding the hazard, to incur the

eve

certainty of death-needs only a distinct statement to be displayed in all its force. For it being the law of the Medes and Persians that the King himself could make no alteration in a decree which he had once established “, the royal authority could not have interposed to exempt her from its operation; and, as Mordecai laid it before her, she could no more have escaped in the King's house, than the rest of her devoted people in the provinces.

But, if there was not in the King himself any power of reversal, to what purpose was Esther's going in unto him, and making her supplication ? Here Mordecai's faith inspired him with confidence, and furnished the strong reason he pro. ceeded to urge in furtherance of his remonstrance. It was his uncompromising steadfastness in the covenant of his God, and persevering disdain of all temporizing compliances, that had revived in Haman's heart, with aggravated bitterness, the hereditary enmity of his progenitors, and brought the whole house of Israel to this fearful crisis. It was God, therefore, that was challenged by the intended massacre, and that too in the attributes of which he is most jealous, his honour and his fidelity; and it would have been a failure in Mor. decai, in the faith he had hitherto so heroically maintained, had he for one moment doubted of the divine protection.

a Esther, viji. 8.

Although, therefore, the decree was gone forth, and the day fixed for exterminating his devoted race by a general carnage, he sent word to Esther, in terms of the fullest assurance that language could convey, that “ enlargement and deliverance should arise to the Jews,” and that if she “ altogether held her peace," and so forfeited her privilege of being God's instrument in procuring it, it “ should arise from another place, but she and her father's house should be destroyed.” And he brought liome to her own experiences this un. daunted and most impressive communication, by putting her upon pondering in her heart the disposals of Providence, so legible in her inheritance of the throne of glory, and in the se. veral incidents by which it was brought to pass ; and upon bethinking herself what were God's purposes in her elevation, and whether it was not “ for such a time as this, that she was come to the kingdom.”

In a member of any other nation of the earth, at the period in question, to have thus cast scorn upon its enemies' machinations, and pre-assured it of its own security, would have been in the highest degree presumptuous. But in a Jew it was an act of religion-the ordinary exercise of bis faith-for to his nation, as St. Paul states, it “ pertained the adoption” to be God's peculiar people, and, together with that high prerogative,

I

“the promises a” with which the writings of Moses and the Prophets abound. į . .. With these promises, as they were made successively to Abraham and his posterity-to David and his royal liner amounting, in the last instance, to a divine pledge, that the kingdom given to him, sustained equally against the injuries and decays incident to all other kingdoms, should be established for ever, the mind of the devout Mordecai was doubtless deeply imbued. He had, moreover, himself witnessed the literal fulfilment of those remarkable predictions, which related to his nation's deliverance from the Babylonish captivity, and restoration to their own land, precisely at the time appointed. He had also personal knowledge of those visible interpositions of the Almighty, in the two several cases of Shadrach and his companions, and of Daniel": and, in addition to these sure grounds of confidence, he was acquainted with the more recent revelations, both of the last-named propheto and of Haggai, the one of which secured to the Jews a perpetuation of their kingdom for at least four hundred and ninety years, when their Prince, Messiah, was to be raised up to his father David's throne; and the other confirmed this divine pledge, by the further representation of the glories

"Dan. chap. iii & vi. Dan. ix. 25.

and the felicities which should be showered down upon them, under his dominion a.

All these strong incentives—the lessons of Esther's youth-so calculated to constrain her to quit herself as the emergency required, must have flowed, in quick succession, into her mind, upon receiving Mordecai's expostulation ;' and had she not, by a prompt compliance, given evidence of her faith, the very wife of Haman would have pronounced her condemnation ; for no sooner did she hear of the task imposed on him, to conduct his victim in royal array through the streets of Shushan, than she declared, in concert with all her Heathen counsellors, that he would fall before this proscribed object of his bitter hatred, “ if Mordecai were of the seed of the Jews b.

Such are the circumstances under which Mordecai expostulated with Esther in the strong language of the text, and such the ample warrant for the high tone of authority that he assumed in urging the admonition upon her. I come now to show you how we are affected by it, and to make thie practical application to ourselves. And if we are now, what the Jews were then, God's chosen people the people pointed at by Christ, to whom the kingdom of God was to be given, when taken from them -an integral part of that people or, to express the high privilege in