“ the promises a” with which the writings of Moses and the Prophets abound. .

With these promises, as they were made successively to Abraham and his posterity-to David and his royal lineamounting, 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 prophet" 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

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 the 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

other words, a pure and apostolical portion of Christ's Holy Catholic Church ; and if the present time, the course of this world now transpiring be, with reference to us in the above capacity “such a time” as the crisis we have been contemplating was to them, then are we individually, and to the extent of our respective abilities, equally with Esther, the parties charged by Mordecai's warning voice; and if we hold our peace, are as much “ fore-ordained" in his denouncement to what would have been, in that case, her “ condemnation,” as the “ ungodly men,” in St. Jude's days, were to the two several condemnations of “ Cain and Balaam," by “ going in the way of the one,” and “ running greedily after the error of the other a.” For God's judgments—His decisions upon human conduct-recorded in the Sacred Oracles, whether pronounced by Himself or by His servants, are there promulgated for our admonition, and, equally with His laws, are parts and parcels of the sacred code ordained for our rule and governance.

Now it is clear from St. Paul, that to the two religious classes of Jew and Gentile, into which the world was divinely distributed under the former dispensation, a third was added immediately upon the promulgation of the gospel; for, writing to the Corinthians, and charging them to “give none offence,” he thus particularizes the parties contemplated in his prohibition, “ neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the Church of God ;” and, if we seek further acquaintance with this newly-created community, we shall find it to be a people called out from both the other two divi. sions of mankind, who, receiving Christ, and him crucified, as the wisdom and the power of God, were made by baptism one body in him, and, in virtue of this incorporation, “ Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise b. Of this community, church, or kingdom, it is equally clear that somewhere or other it is now existing in the world, for Christ's promise is express, that his kingdom shall have no end ; and further, that it is as much separated and distinguished from all other bodies of men as the Jews were of old from all other nations, for not only are there transferred to it, as is set forth by St. Peter, those distinctive designations of “ a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people," which God himself ascribed to Israel, to set it up on high, and proclaim its pre-eminence above all the earth"; but, together with these ascriptions, there are transferred also, though not the identical prerogatives of Judaism, yet prerogatives corres

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ponding with those of that economy, the very substances of its shadows--the law of faith, the gospel of Jesus Christ, instead of the law of works, as its charter of incorporation--the Christian priesthood instead of that of Moses, but by its triple order of ministry assimulated to it, as its dispensing officers—and the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, instead of those of Circumcision and the Passover, as its federal institutions—and thus is it rendered as well defined and as conspicuous, as Israel's chosen race, yea, conformably to our Lord's declaration, as the great luminary in the heavens to all “ whose minds the God of this world has not blinded b» to its marvellous light.

The first question then growing out of the text, in reference to its application to ourselves, may now be decided in the affirmative, beyond all reasonable dispute; for the Faith—THE MINISTRY -and THE SACRAMENTS — the lavishments of God's predilection upon his church and the instruments of that mighty working by which its great salvation is imparted, the same in essence, though differently modified, under the former and the present dispensations, are therefore, in every age, the divine vouchers of its identity throughout the whole of its earthly course; and being still, through God's mercy, the distinguishing privileges of our