CONTEMPLATION VI.

ESTHER SUING TO AHASUERUS.

THE Jews are easily intreated to fast, who had received in themselves the sentence of death; what pleasure could they take in meat that knew what day they must eat their last? The three days of abstinence are expired; now Esther changes her spirits, no less than her clothes: who, that sees that face, and that habit, can say she had mourned, she had fasted? never did her royal apparel become her so well. That God, before whom she had humbled herself, made her so much more beautiful, as she hath been more dejected; and now with a winning confidence, she walks into the inner court of the king, and puts herself into that forbidden presence; as if she said, Here I am with my life in my hand; if it please the king to take it, it is ready for him. Vashti, my predecessor, forfeited her place for not coming when she was called; Esther shall now hazard the forfeiture of her life, for coming when she is not called. It is necessity, not disobedience, that hath put me upon this bold approach; according to thy construction, O king, I do either live or die, either shall be welcome. The unexpectedness of pleasing objects makes them many times the more acceptable: the beautiful countenance, the graceful demeanour, and goodly presence of Esther, have no sooner taken the eyes, than they have ravished the heart of king Ahasuerus: love hath soon banished all dreadfulness; "And the king held out to Esther the golden sceptre that was in his hand." Moderate intermission is so far from cooling the affection, that it inflames it. Had Esther been seen every day, perhaps that satiety had abated of the height of her welcome; now, three and thirty days re

tiredness hath endeared her more to the surfeited eyes of Ahasuerus.

Had not the golden sceptre been held out, where had queen Esther been? The Persian kings affected a stern awfulness to their subjects; it was death to solicit them uncalled. How safe, how easy, how happy a thing it is to have to do with the King of heaven, who is so pleased with our access, that he solicits suitors: who, as he is unweariable with our requests, so is infinite in his beneficences !

How gladly doth Esther touch the top of that sceptre by which she holds her life! And now, while she thinks it well that she may live, she receives, besides pardon, favour. "What wilt thou, queen Esther, and what is thy request? It shall be given thee, even to the half of the kingdom." Commonly, when we fear most, we speed best; God, then, most of all, magnifies his bounty to us, when we have most afflicted ourselves. Over confident expectations are seldom but disappointed, while humble suspicions go laughing It was the benefit and safety of but one piece of the kingdom, that Esther comes to sue for, and behold Ahasuerus offers her the free power of the half. He that gave Haman, at the first word, the lives of all his Jewish subjects, is ready to give Esther half his kingdom ere she ask. Now she is no less amazed. at the loving munificence of Ahasuerus, than she was before afraid of his austerity: "The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water; he turneth it whithersoever he will."

away.

It is not good to swallow favours too greedily, lest they either choke us in the passage, or prove hard of digestion. The wise queen, however she might seem. to have a fair opportunity offered to her suit, finds it not good to apprehend it too suddenly, as desiring by this small dilation, to prepare the ear and heart of the king for so important a request.

Now all her petition ends in a banquet, " If it seem good unto the king, let the king and Haman

come this day unto the banquet that I have prepared for him." It is an easy favour to receive a small courtesy, where we offer to give great. Haman is called, the king comes to Esther's table; and now highly pleased with his entertainment, he himself solicits her to propound that suit, for which her modesty would, but durst not solicit him. Bashfulness shall lose nothing at the hand of well-governed great

ness.

Yet still Esther's suit sticks in her teeth, and dares not come forth without a further preface of time and expectation; another banquet must pass, ere this reckoning can be given in. Other suitors wait long for the delivery of their petition, longer for the receipt of their answer. Here the king is fain to wait for his suit: whether Esther's heart would not yet serve her to contest with so strong an adversary as Haman, without further recollection; or whether she desired to get better hold of the king, by endearing him with so pleasing entertainments; or whether she would thus ripen her hopes, by working in the mind of king Ahasuerus a foreconceit of the greatness and difficulty of that suit, which was so loth to come forth; or whether she meant thus to give scope to the pride and malice of Haman, for his more certain ruin; howsoever it were, to-morrow is a new day set for Esther's second banquet, and third petition.

The king is not invited without Haman; favours are sometimes done to men with a purpose of displeasure: doubtless Haman tasteth of the same cates with his master; neither could he, in the forehead of Esther, read any other characters, than of respect and kind applause, yet had she then in her hopes designed him to a just revenge. Little do we know, by outward carriages, in what terms we stand with either God or man.

Every little wind raiseth up a bubble; how is Haman now exalted in himself with the singular graces

of queen Esther; and begins to value himself so much more, as he sees himself higher in the rate of others' opinion!

Only surly and sullen Mordecai is an allay to his happiness; no edict of death can bow the knees of that stout Jew; yea, the notice of that bloody cruelty of this Agagite hath stiffened them so much the more. Before he looked at Haman as an Amalekite, now as a persecutor. Disdain and anger look out at those eyes, and bid that proud enemy do his worst. No doubt Mordecai had been listening after the speed of queen Esther; how she came in to the king, how she was welcomed with the golden sceptre, and with the more precious words of Ahasuerus; how she had entertained the king, how she pleased; the news had made him quit his sackcloth, and raised his courage to a more scornful neglect of his professed adversary.

Haman comes home, I know not whether more full of pride, or of rage; calls an inward council of his choice friends, together with his wife; makes a glorious report of all his wealth, magnificence, height of favour, both with the king and queen; and, at last, after all his sunshine; sets in this cloudy epilogue; "Yet all this availeth me nothing, so long as I Mordecai the Jew sitting at the king's gate." It is seldom seen, that God allows, even to the greatest darlings of the world, a perfect contentment; something they must have to complain of, that shall give an unsavoury verdure to their sweetest morsels, and make their very felicity miserable.

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The wit of women hath wont to be noted for more sudden, and more sharp. Zeresh, the wife of Haman, sets on foot that motion of speedy revenge, which is applauded by the rest: "Let a gallows be made of fifty cubits high, and to-morrow speak thou to the king, that Mordecai may be hanged thereon; then go thou in merrily with the king unto the banquet.' I do not hear them say, Be patient a while, thou hast

already set Mordecai his last day; the month Adar will not be long in coming; the determination of his death hath made him desperate; let him in the mean time eat his own heart in envy at thy greatness; but they rather advise of a quick dispatch. Malice is a thing full of impatience, and hates delay of execution, next unto mercy. While any grudge lies at the heart, it cannot be freely cheerful. Forced smiles are but the hypocrisy of mirth. How happy were it for us, if we could be so zealously careful to remove the hindrances of our true spiritual joy, those stubborn corruptions that will not stoop to the power of grace!

CONTEMPLATION VII.

MORDECAI HONOURED BY HAMAN.

THE wit of Zeresh had like to have gone beyond the wit of Esther; had not the working providence of the Almighty contrived these events beyond all hopes, all conceits, Mordecai had been dispatched ere Esther's second banquet. To-morrow was the day pitched for both their designs; had not the stream been unexpectedly turned, in vain had the queen blamed her delays; Mordecai's breakfast had prevented Esther's dinner; for certainly he that had given to Haman so many thousand lives, would never have made dainty upon the same suit, to anticipate one of those whom he had condemned to the slaughter. But God meant better things to his Church, and fetches about all his holy purposes, after a wonderful fashion, in the very instant of opportunity. "He that keepeth Israel,