REALLY IMMUTABLE LAW.

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she needs to lean, while she speaks her mind and gives her counsels freely. And thus there is the supremacy and the submission-yea, and the submission quietly and gently making the supremacy itself subject, so that God's blessed object is wrought out—these two are one.

Such, practically, is the law of husband and wife in the Christian family, and the establishment of it is one of the highest temporal blessings which the Gospel has conferred on man.

2. In the second place, we have in the text a law spoken of which changeth not. And, my friends, there is such a law; but it is not the law of the Medes and Persians: it is the law of the Eternal. Jehovah's law changeth not. And what does it say? "This do and live." "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do them." That seals

us all up under wrath. But we turn the page, and we

read and see that "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness." And is not this our conclusion, then"I will flee from the curse of the immutable law, and shelter myself under the righteousness of Christ, which is also perfect and immutable, that through Him and from Him I may have mercy and life eternal ?" Amen.

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LECTURE III.

CHAPTER II. 1-4.

UR last lecture comprehended the latter portion of the preceding chapter, which records the results of those festivities in which the king of Persia, his counsellors, his princes, and his people, had been engaged. It very seldom is found that great assemblages for feasting, or for dissipation of any kind, pass by without some untoward and miserable consequences. We verily believe, that an honest acknowledgment of the experience of all who frequent public festivals and ball-rooms, and such other places of amusement, would consist rather in a detail of disappointments and vexations than of real satisfaction. It is not with any feeling of morbid disrelish of those things, which appear for a time to make some people happy; but as bearing testimony to an unquestionable fact, that we would say, that the inscription which Solomon long ago wrote over the festivities and gaieties of life—“all is vanity and vexation of spirit,"-gives the true account of them. Yea, and we would add,—this is the real estimate formed of them by most of the very parties who have joined in them, imagining that they would make them happy.

At all events, whatever may have been the experience

of those who were invited to partake of the festivities of the Persian court, it is manifest, that when they were concluded, the king himself had nothing to look back upon with comfort. In a fit of wrath, when he was excited by wine, he had decreed the degradation of his queen Vashti. His counsellors, who should have given him better advice, had encouraged him in the perpetration of this unrighteous act. The sentence was passed upon the queen without a voice raised in her defence, or opportunity afforded to her to justify herself. And according to the foolish notion, that the laws of the Medes and Persians were unchangeable-that sentence must take effect, however irrational it might afterwards be found and felt to be.

These remarks bring us down to the second chapter, in which we are permitted to see the consequences which resulted from the banquet. The present lecture, however, will consist rather in the statement and enforcing of one or two general principles, than in what may properly be called exposition. Ver. 1-4: "After these things, when the wrath of King Ahasuerus was appeased, he remembered Vashti, and what she had done, and what had been decreed against her. Then said the king's servants that ministered unto him, Let there be fair young virgins sought for the king: and let the king appoint officers in all the provinces of his kingdom, that they may gather together all the fair young virgins unto Shushan the palace, to the house of the women, unto the custody of Hege the king's chamberlain, keeper of the women; and let their things for purification be given

them: and let the maiden which pleaseth the king be queen instead of Vashti. And the thing pleased the king; and he did so."

We have here first to notice the regret of the king for his rash and unwarrantable act. It is very obvious from the narrative, that when he came to himself, and had time to reflect upon all that had taken place, he was sensible that he had committed injury; and that he had not only wronged Vashti, but also made himself a sufferer. At the same time he could not devise a remedy. There are wishes which even the most powerful despots cannot get gratified, and limits to their will which even they cannot overpass. It seemed to be by a simple exercise of supreme authority that Artaxerxes triumphed over the helpless, and had his desire carried into effect. But when he would have retraced his steps, he could not. The law of the Medes and Persians must stand, although the enactment which did wrong to the innocent queen, at the same time recoiled upon the head of the king himself.

But again, secondly, we have to notice the expedient which his counsellors suggested to free him from his difficulty. Very probably he would be moody and harsh toward them, when he saw to what issue their advice had brought him. But despotism is like spoilt childhood, it must be soothed and flattered; and in this way the wise men of Persia dealt with their sovereign. He had degraded his queen, but another might be found at least as worthy as she to occupy the place from which she had been removed. It is a description of Eastern manners

altogether that we have presented to us in the suggestion of the Persian counsellors contained in ver. 3-4, that the monarch should have all the beauty of the empire placed at his disposal, and that the maiden who pleased him should be chosen queen instead of Vashti. As was mentioned in the first lecture, we are not to regard these arrangements as referred to by way of approval in the divine records. It is, indeed, the opinion of some commentators, that all the allusions made in this book to public affairs, are to be considered as actual extracts from the chronicles of the kingdom of Persia. And this opinion may be correct. But whether it be so or not, what we are principally concerned with is the fact, that we have here a true account of what took place at the time-inserted in the Scripture by the Spirit, for the purpose of showing how the Divine Providence makes even the sins, and follies, and passions, of men subservient to the accomplishment of its own high purposes. And the point in the history which bears upon this is, that the humour of the king on the present occasion fell in with the suggestion of his counsellors, and he consented to the arrangement proposed by them, which ultimately led to the promotion of Esther, a Jewess, to the high dignity of being queen of Persia. Nothing farther requires to be stated in the way of comment upon the verses which have been read. But they are well worthy of our attention in the way of practical application. They suggest several lessons which may be profitable to us. 1. In the first place we may draw from them this lesson, that when men suffer themselves to be