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rather the flesh, may be abandoned, there is an uncrucified nature in us, which our profession and standing as Christians have hitherto concealed, and which the pressure of circumstances exposes, when in dreariness and loneliness, we turn to Egypt (i.e., nature, not exactly the flesh) for help and for alleviation of our suffering. Thus was it with Abraham; when he went down into Egypt all evidence of his profession was lost; and his exit from it was covered with reproaches for his unfaithfulness.

But this was not all however searching this open and public discipline was to him, a still greater and more personal suffering awaited him, and one by which his soul was taught more deeply to rise above those resources of nature which had led him into Egypt. Something, therefore, acquired in Egypt must be used as a means of crucifying that element in his nature which had led him down there. How this was effected is detailed in that remarkable page of Abram's history which treats of Ishmael, son of Hagar, the Egyptian woman; and do you not think that after all the sorrow he endured about him, when he had to cast him out, a thing "very grievous in Abram's sight because of his son" (and who can wonder that it was so?), that he did not, from his heart, repent having ever set his foot in Egypt? But still-so tender and blessed are the ways of our God-it was not till after the birth of Isaac that this painful demand was made on him, though long before necessary, in order that the element of opposition to faith in the soul might be silenced in crucifixion.

The Lord's way with us when we are learning, is to attach us to Himself first, and then detach us from nature. It was not until after the weaning of Isaac, and the feast consequent thereon, that Ishmael was cast out by the requirement of Sarah and the command of the Lord. How many years had elapsed since Abram had gone down into Egypt, seeking to mitigate the dreariness and famine which beset him in Canaan! yet only now comes the moment for the crucifixion of that which led him there, in the summary and relentless casting out of his son as a wanderer in this cold world! But Abram's soul, now full of the unfoldings of God's love to him in the gift of Isaac, is prepared, though sufferingly, to surrender the fruit of his own nature, which for five-and-twenty years has been allowed to remain only partially rebuked.

The Lord will teach us how tender and full is His love, and how absolute is His holiness in detaching us from every support which obstructs our enjoyment in Himself.

No. XV.

THE DISPERSED AMONG THE GENTILES.

ESTHER.

IN the books of Ezra and Nehemiah, on which I have already meditated, we saw the captives brought back to Jerusalem, there to await the coming of the Messiah, that it might be known, whether Israel would accept the Messenger and Saviour whom God would send to them. In this book of Esther, we are in a very different scene. The Jews are among the Gentiles still.

We will look at it in its succession of ten chapters; and in the action recorded, we shall find

The Lord God working wondrously, but secretly.
The Jews themselves.

The Gentile, or the Power.

The great Adversary.

i., ii.

The book opens by presenting to us a sight of the Gentile now in power. It is, however, the Persian and not the Chaldean; "the breast of silver," not "the head of gold," in the great Image which Nebuchadnezzar saw. We are here reading rather the 2nd than the 1st chapter in the history of the Gentile in supremacy in the earth. We see him in the progress rather than at the commencement of his career; but, morally, he is the same. Moab-like, his taste remains in him, his scent is not changed. All the haughtiness that declared itself in Nebuchadnezzar re-appears in Ahasuerus. No spirit or fruit of repentance-no learning of himselfor of what becomes him as a creature, is seen in this man of the earth. The lie of the serpent, which formed man at the beginning, is working as earnestly as ever.

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The old desire to be as God, utters itself in the Persian now, as it had afore in the Chaldean. The one had built his royal city, and looked at it in pride, and said, “Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?" The other now makes a feast, and for one hundred and eighty days, shows to the princes and nobles the whole power of his realm, “the riches of his glorious kingdom, and the honour of his excellent majesty."

Nay more; for the Persian exceedeth. There is a bold affecting to be as God in Persia, which we did not see in Babylon. We notice this in three distinguished Persian ordinances.

1. No one was to appear in the royal presence unbidden. In such a case, had this ordinance of the realm been violated, life and death would hang on the pleasure of the king. 2. No one was to be sad before the king; his face or presence was to be accepted of all his people as the spring and power of joy and gladness. 3. No decree of his realm could be cancelled: it stood for ever.

These are assumptions indeed. This exceeds, in the way of man showing himself to be as God; and know we not, that this spirit will work till the Gentile has perfected his iniquity? But the hand of God begins to work its wonders now, in the midst of all the festivity and pride which opens the book. The joy of the royal banquet was interrupted; a stain defaces the fair form of all this magnificence. The Gentile Queen refuses to serve the occasion, or be a tributary to this day of public rejoicing; and this leads to the manifesting of the Jew, and of ultimately making that people principal in the action, and eminent in the earth, beyond all thought or calculation.

It was a small beginning, poor and mean in its cha racter and material. Vashti's temper, which goaded her to a course of conduct which jeoparded her life, was the "little fire" which kindled this "how great a matter." It is a miserable, despicable circumstance. What can be meaner? The temper, we may say, of an imperious woman! And yet, God, by it, works results, then

known to Himself in counsel, but the accomplishment of which shall be seen in the coming day of Jewish glory.

"Deep in unfathomable mines
Of never-failing skill,

He treasures up His bright designs,
And works his sovereign will."

Vashti is deposed. She is disclaimed as the wife of the Persian; and others more worthy are to be sought for to take her place.

Now, the question may arise, How far can one of the Jews take advantage of such an occasion? Does holiness avail itself of corruption? Can the people of God forget their Nazaritism, their separation to Him? And yet, Esther consents to go before the king at this time, as in company with all the daughters of his uncircumcised subjects!

This may amaze us, if we judge of things by any light less pure and intense than that in which God Himself dwells. The moral sense of mere man-the verdict of legal ordinances-the voice of Mount Sinai itself-will not do at times. We must walk in the light as God is in the light. We must know "the times," like Issachar of old, ere we can rightly say, "what Israel ought to do." Did not some of Bethlehem-Judah take wives of the daughters of Moab, and that, too, without rebuke? Did not Joseph, in his marriage, deviate from the holiness of Abraham, and Moses from the ordinances of the law? Was not Rahab, though a daughter of the uncircumcised, adopted of Judah, and became conspicuous in the ancestry, after the flesh, of David's Lord? And did not Samson take to wife a woman of Timnath, that belonged to the Philistines?

The people of God were not in due order on the occasions of those strange events; and this is their moral vindication. The light of divine wisdom in divine dispensation_becomes the judge, rather than ordinances. The Jews were now in the dispersion. Joseph, if we please so to express it, is in Egypt again, Moses in Midian, and the sons of Bethlehem-Judah in Moab; and Esther is as much unrebuked for going in unto the King of Persia, as

Joseph for marrying Asenath, or Moses for marrying Zipporah, or Mahlon for marrying Ruth; and each and all of them stand without reproach or judgment before God in these things, just as David did when he ate the shew-bread. Nay, these things were of God, as Samson's marriage with a Philistine woman seems distinctly to be so recognized (Judges xiv. 4).

Divine counsels shall be accomplished; the fruits of grace shall be gathered; and the ordinances of righ teousness, and the arrangements which suit us, were we in integrity, and in well-ordered condition, shall not interfere.

iii.

The Jew, strange to say it, as we have seen, becomes important to the Power- that is, the Persian. But more so than I have as yet noticed-important to his safety as well as to his enjoyments. For Mordecai be comes his protector, as Esther had become his wife. This we see at the close of chap. ii. The king is debtor to both. In spite of all his greatness, and all the resources for happiness and strength which attached to his greatness, he is debtor to the dispersed of Judah. They are important to him. Both his heart and his head, as I may say, have to own this.

But, if the Jew be thus strangely brought into personal favour and acceptance, equally strangely is the Jew's brought into high and honourable elevation, and seated in the very position which capacitated him to gratify all his enmity. An Amalekite sits next in dignity and rule to the king. Above all the princes of the nation, Haman, the Agagite, is preferred; why we are not told. No public virtue or service is recorded of him. It is, apparently, simply the royal pleasure that has done it. A stranger to the nation he was-a distant stranger; one, too, of a race now all but forgotten, we might say, once distinguished, in the day of the infancy of nations, but now all but blotted out from the page of history, superseded by others far loftier in their bearing than ever he had been; the Assyrian first, then the Chaldean, and now the Persian. And yet, there he

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