art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" The expectation of death had not quelled the strong heart of faithful Mordecai: even while he mourns. his zeal droops not; there could have been no life in that breast, which this message could not have roused. The good queen is astonished with this constant humiliation of so dear a friend; and now she sends Hatach, a trusty, though a pagan attendant, to inquire into the occasion of this so irremediable heaviness. It should seem Esther inquired not greatly into matters of state; that which perplexed all Shushan, was not yet known to her: her followers, not knowing her to be a Jew-in ess, conceived not how the news might concern her, and therefore had forborne the relation. Mordecai first informs her, by her messenger, of the decree that was gone out against all her nation, of the day wherein they must all prepare to bleed, of the sum which Haman had proffered for their heads, and delivers the copy of that bloody edict, charging her now, if ever, to bestir herself, and to improve all her love, all her power, with king Ahasuerus, in a speedy and humble supplication for the saving of the life, not of himself, so much as of her people. What then? is it death that thou fearest this attempt of thy supplication? what other than death awaits thee in the neglect of it? There is but this difference: sue, and thou mayest die; sue not, and thou must die. What blood hast thou but Jewish? and if these unalterable edicts exempt no living soul, what shall become of thine? And canst thou be so vainly timorous, as to die for fear of death? to prefer certainty of danger before a possibility of hope? Away with this weak cowardice, unworthy of an Israelite, unworthy of a queen! But if faint-heartedness or private respects shall seal up thy lips, or withhold thine hand It was tidings able to confound a weak from the aid of thy people; if thou canst so heart; and hers so much the more, as she far neglect God's church, know thou that could apprehend nothing but impossibility God will not neglect it: it shall not be in of redress. She needs but to put Mordecai the power of tyrants to root out his chosen in mind of that which all the king's servants seed; that Holy One of Israel shall rather and subjects knew well enough, that the work miracles from heaven, than his inhePersian law made it no less than death, for ritance shall perish upon earth: and how whomsoever, man or woman, that should just shall it then be for that jealous God to press into the inner court of the king un- take vengeance upon thee and thy father's called: nothing but the royal sceptre ex-house, for this cold unhelpfulness to his distended, could keep that presumptuous of- tressed church? Suffer me, therefore, to fender from the grave. For her, thirty days adjure thee, by all that tenderness of love were now passed, since she was called in wherewith I have trained up thine orphan to the king, an intermission, that might infancy, by all those dear and thankful rebe justly suspicious, whether the heat of spects which thou hast vowed to me again, his first affection were thus soon of itself by the name of the God of Israel whom we allayed towards her; or whether some sug- serve, that thou awaken and stir up thine gestions of a secret enemy, perhaps this holy courage, and dare to adventure thy life Agagite, might have set him off; or whe- for the saving of many! It hath pleased the ther some more pleasing object may have Almighty to raise thee up to that height of laid hold on his eyes. Whatever it might honour, which our progenitors could little be, this absence could not but argue some expect: why shouldst thou be wanting to strangeness, and this strangeness must needs him, that hath been so bountiful to thee? imply a danger in her bold intrusion. She yea, why should I not think that God hath could bewail, therefore, she could not hope put this very act into the intendment of to remedy, this dismal day of her people. thine exaltation, having on purpose thus This answer in the ears of Mordecai sound-seasonably raised thee to the throne, that ed truth, but weakness; neither can he thou mayest rescue his poor church from take up with so feeble a return: these oc- an utter ruin? casions require other spirits, other resolutions, which must be quickened by a more stirring reply: Think not with thyself, that thou shalt escape in the king's house, more than all the Jews; for, if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place, but thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed; and who knoweth whether thou .. O the admirable faith of Mordecai, that shines through all these clouds, and, in the thickest of these fogs, descries a cheerful glimpse of deliverance! He saw the day of their common destruction enacted; he knew the Persian decrees to be unalterable; but, withal, he knew there was a Messiah to come: he was so well acquainted with God's covenanted assurances to his church, that he can, through the midst of those bloody resolutions, foresee indemnity to Israel, rather trusting the promises of God, than the threats of men. This is the victory that overcomes all the fears and fury of the world, even our faith. It is quarrel enough against any person, or community, not to have been aidful to the distresses of God's people. Not to ward the blow, if we may, is construed for little better than striking. Till we have tried our utmost, we know not whether we have done what we came for. Mordecai hath said enough: these words have so put a new life into Esther, that she is resolute to hazard the old: “Go, gather together all the Jews that are present in Shushan, and fast ye for me, and neither eat nor drink three days, night or day; I also and my maidens will fast likewise, and so will I go in unto the king, which is not according to the law; and if I perish I perish." Heroical thoughts do well befit great actions. Life can never be better adventured, than where it shall be gain to lose it. There can be no law against the humble deprecation of evils: where the necessity of God's church calls to us, no danger should withhold us from all honest means of relief. Deep humiliations must make way for the success of great enterprises: we are most capable of mercy, when we are thoroughly empty. A short hunger doth but whet the appetite; but so long an abstinence meets death half-way, to prevent it. Well may they enjoin sharp penances unto others, who practise it upon themselves. It was the face of Esther that must hope to win Ahasuerus; yet that shall be macerated with fasting, that she may prevail. A carnal heart would have pampered the flesh, that it might allure those wanton eyes: she pines it, that she may please. God, and not she, must work the heart of the king. Faith teaches her rather to trust her devotions, than her beauty. CONTEMPLATION VI. ESTHER SUING TO AHASUERUS. THE Jews are easily entreated to fast, who had received in themselves the sentence of death: what pleasure can 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 had 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' retiredness 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 he 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 away. 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. Only surly and sulien Mordecai is an alloy to his happiness: no edict of death can bow the knees of that stout Jew; yea, the ere she ask. Now she is no less amazed | How is Haman now exalted in himself with at the loving munificence of Ahasuerus, the singular graces of queen Esther! and than she was before afraid of his austerity: begins to value himself, so much more, as "The king's heart is in the hand of the he sees himself higher in the rate of other's Lord; as the rivers of water, he turneth | opinion! it whithersoever he will." 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, how-notice of that bloody cruelty of this Agagever 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 greatness. Yet still Esther's suit sticks in her teeth, and dares not come forth without a further preface of time and expecta- | tion; 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 her suit. Whether Esther's heart would not yet serve her to contest with so strong an adversary as Haman, without fuller 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 loath 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. ite 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 counsel 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 see 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. 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 meantime eat his own heart in envy at thy greatness. But they rather advise of a quick despatch. 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 would be zealously careful to re move the hinderances 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, and neither slumbereth nor sleepeth," causeth sleep that night to depart from him that had decreed to root out Israel. Great Ahasuerus, that commanded a hundred and seven and twenty provinces, cannot command an hour's sleep. Poverty is rather blessed with the freedom of rest, than wealth and power. Cares and surfeit withhold that from the great, which presseth upon the spare diet and labour of the meanest. Nothing is more tedious than an eager pursuit of denied sleep, which, like to a shadow, flies away so much faster as it is more followed. Experience tells us, that this benefit is best solicited by neglect, and soonest found when we have forgotten to seek it. Whether to deceive the time, or to bestow it well, Ahasuerus shall spend his restless hours in the chronicles of his time. Nothing is more requisite for princes, than to look back upon their own actions and events, and those of their predecessors; the examination of fore-past actions makes them wise—of events, thankful and cautelous. Amongst those voluminous registers of acts and monuments, which so many scores of provinces must needs yield, the book shall open upon Mordecai's discovery of the late treason of the two eunuchs: the reader is turned thither by an insensible sway of Providence. Our most arbitrary or casual actions are overruled by a hand in heaven. The king now feels afresh the danger of that conspiracy; and as great spirits abide not to smother or bury good offices, inquires into the recompense of so royal a service: "What honour and dignity hath been done to Mordecai for this?" Surely Mordecai did but his duty; he had heinously sinned, if he had not revealed this wicked treachery: yet Ahasuerus takes thought for his remuneration. How much more careful art thou, O God of all mercies, to reward the weak obedience of thine (at the best) unprofitable servants! That which was intended to procure rest, sets it off: king Ahasuerus is unquiet in himself, to think that so great a merit should lie but so long neglected; neither can he find any peace in himself, till he have given order for a speedy retribution. Hearing, therefore, by his servants, that Haman was below in the court, he sends for him up to consult with him, "What should be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour?" O marvellous concurrence of circumstances, drawn together by the infinite wisdom and power of the Almighty! Who but Haman should be the man? and when should Haman be called to advise of Mordecai's honour, but in the very instant when he came to sue for Mordecai's hanging? Had Ahasuerus but slept that night, Mordecai had been that morning advanced fifty cubits higher than the earth, ere the king could have remembered to whom he was beholden. What shall we say, then, to reconcile these cross-passions in Ahasuerus? Before he signed that decree of killing all the Jews, he could not but know that a Jew had saved his life; and now, after that he had enacted the slaughter of all Jews as rebels, he is giving order to honour a Jew as his preserver. It were strange, if great persons, in the multitude of their distractions, should not let fall some incongruities. Yet who can but think that king Ahasuerus meant, upon some second thoughts, to make amends to Mordecai? neither can he choose but put these two together: the Jews are appointed to death at the suit of Haman; this Mordecai is a Jew: how then can I do more grace to him that hath saved my life, than to command him to be honoured by that man who would spill his? When Haman heard himself called up to the bed-chamber of his master, he thinks himself too happy in so early an opportunity of presenting his suit; but yet more in the pleasing question of Ahasuerus, wherein he could not but imagine that favour forced itself upon him with strange importunity for how could he conceive that any intention of more than ordinary honour could fall besides himself? Self-love, like to a good stomach, draws to itself what nourishment | this extraordinary honour but Mordecai. Is it likes, and casts off that which offends it. Haman will be sure to be no niggard in advising those ceremonies of honour, which he thinks meant to his own person. Could he have once dreamed that this grace had been purposed to any under heaven besides himself, he had not been so lavish in counselling so pompous a show of excessive magnificence. Now the king's own royal apparel, and his own steed, is not sufficient, except the royal crown also make up the glory of him who shall thus triumph in the king's favour; yet all this were nothing in base hands. The actor shall be the best part of this great pageant: "Let this apparel, and this horse, be delivered to one of the king's most noble princes, that they may array the man withal whom the king delighteth to honour, and bring him on horseback through the streets of the city, and proclaim before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honour." Honour is more in him that gives, than in him that receives it. To be honoured by the unworthy is little better than disgrace: no meaner person will serve to attend this Agagite, in his supposed greatness, than one of the noblest princes. The ambition is too high-flown, that seeks glory in the servility of equals. The place adds much to the act; there is small heart in a concealed honour: it is nothing, unless the streets of the city of Shushan be witnesses of this pomp, and ring with that gracious acclamation. The vain hearts of proud men can easily devise those means whereby they may best set out themselves. O that we would equally affect the means of true and immortal glory! The heart of man is never so cold within him, as when, from the height of the expectation of good, it falls into a sudden sense of evil: so did this Agagite: "Then the king said to Haman, Make haste, and take the apparel, and the horse, as thou hast said, and do even so to Mordecai the Jew, that sitteth at the king's gate; let nothing fail of all that thou hast said." How was Haman thunderstricken with this killing word!" Do thou so to Mordecai." I dare say, all the honours that Ahasuerus had heaped upon Haman cannot countervail this one vexation. Doubtless, at first, he distrusts his ear, and then muses whether the king be in earnest; at last, when he hears the charge so seriously doubled, and finds himself forced to believe it, he begins to think, What means this unconceivable alteration? Is there no man in all the court of Persia to be picked out for there no man to be picked out for the performance of this honour to him, but Haman? Have I but one proud enemy in all the world, and am I singled out to grace him? did it gall me to the heart, and make all my happiness tedious to me, to see that this Jew would not bow to me, and must I now bow to him? That which he would rather die, and forfeit the life of all his nation, than do to me, notwithstanding the king's command, shall I be forced, by the king's command, to do unto him? Yea, did he refuse to give but a cap and a knee to my greatness, and must I lackey so base a fellow through the streets? must I be his herald, to proclaim his honour through all Shushan? Why do I not let the king know the insolent affronts that he hath offered me? why do I not signify to my sovereign, that my errand now was for another kind of advancement to Mordecai? If I obtain not my desired revenge, yet, at least, I shall prevail so far as to exempt myself from this officious attendance upon so unequal an enemy. And yet that motion cannot be now safe: I see the king's heart is, upon what ground soever, bent upon this action; should I fly off never so little, after my word so directly passed, perhaps my coldness or opposition might be construed as some wayward contestation with my master; especially since the service that Mordecai hath done to the king is of a higher nature than the despite which he hath done to me. I will, I must give way for the time; mine humble yieldance, when all the carriage of this business shall be understood, shall, I doubt not, make way for mine intended revenge. Mordecai, I will honour thee now, that by these steps I may ere long raise thee many cubits higher. I will obey the command of my sovereign in observing thee, that he may reward the merit of my loyalty in thine execution. Thus resolved, Haman goes forth with a face and heart full of distraction, full of confusion; and addresses himself to the attiring, to the attending of his old adversary, and new master, Mordecai. What looks. do we now think, were cast upon each other at their first greeting? Their eyes had not forgotten their old language: certainly, when Mordecai saw Haman come into the room where he was, he could not but think, This man hath long thirsted for my blood, and now he comes to fetch it; I shall not live to see the success of Esther, or the fatal day of my nation. It was known that morning in the court, what a lofty gibbet Haman had provided for Mordecai; and |