CRITICAL NOTES.]
Esther 4:4-5.] The matter was made known to Esther by her maids and eunuchs; and she fell into convulsive grief. The verb here used is a passive intensive—to be affected with grief as one seized with the pains of delivery. She sent clothes to her guardian, that he might put them on, doubtless, that thereby he might again stand in the gate of the king, and so relate to her the cause of his grief. But he refused them, not only because he would wear no other than garments of mourning, but because he desired a private opportunity to communicate with her. Mordecai accomplished his object, and Hatach the eunuch was sent to him to obtain particulars.—Lange. What it was, and why it was] lit what this, and why this? She had not been informed of this terrible decree.
Esther 4:6. The street of the city] The broad open place before the palace.—Whedon’s Commentary.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH. Esther 4:5-6
A MINISTERIAL APPOINTMENT
“Hatach, one of the eunuchs in the court of Ahasuerus, in immediate attendance on Esther.” This is the short and simple biography of Hatach given in the secular chronicles, and the account given in the sacred chronicle is not much longer. However, the best men have not the longest biographies. Indeed, it may be safely asserted that some of earth’s noblest sons have not had their virtues either recorded by the historian or celebrated by the poet. Modest goodness blooms in the shade, and passes away without a grand funeral oration. Not the merely useful, but the brilliant life is that which commands attention and receives applause. Hatach’s life does not seem to have been of the brilliant character. His position precluded the possibility of startling adventure. He moved along in a quiet sphere; but he is commended now as being a pleasing contrast to the character given of other eunuchs. Fryer and Chardin describe the eunuchs as being the base and ready tools of licentiousness, as tyrannical in humour, and pertinacious in the authority which they exercise; as eluded and ridiculed by those whom it is their office to guard. Hatach evidently did not take a mean advantage arising from his position. Instead of being tyrannical in humour, and pertinacious in authority, he appears to have been amenable to the authority of Esther, and to have done her bidding most readily. It may be that Hatach felt the salutary influence of Esther’s loveliness and Esther’s virtuous nature. As she exercised a wise influence over her maids, so she may have exercised a similar influence over Hatach. A good life is not without its influential power. A good woman’s influence is especially radiating and subduing and elevating. This eunuch must have received moral as well as material advantages from this ministerial appointment. In serving Ahasuerus he served one of the mightiest of earthly kings at that period; but in serving Esther he was waiting upon one who was the servant of the King of all worlds. God can so order it that the servants of kings shall be the servants of his chosen; so that earthly kings become indirectly, and sometimes directly, the servants of heaven’s royal children. Earthly ambition is to minister to the royalties of earth; but the noblest ambition is to minister to the royalties of heaven. This ministry is satisfactory, and is sure to meet with its appropriate reward. And if Hatach served with a view to this higher ministry, he may claim a distant kinship with that other eunuch, who served Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, and who said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” Why may not Esther have her converted eunuch as well as Philip? Heaven is larger than we think. Time is peopling eternity. Heaven’s children may come from heathen palaces as well as from Christian homes. But we may safely leave Hatach and his kind to the mercy of that God who is larger than the dogmatists.
I. A ministerial appointment suggested by self-love. Hatach was appointed by King Ahasuerus to attend upon Esther. And it must be plain that Ahasuerus made this appointment not to subserve the interests of his subjects, not to consolidate his kingdom, not to make his people virtuous and happy, but to minister either to his own vanity or to his love of pleasure. Such an appointment finds its counterpart in other times and in far different states of society. How many appointments all through life are made in consequence of the working of self-love! We have often heard the phrase court favourites. The minions of the court are found not only in the palace, but in the house of legislature, on the seat of justice, and at the head of the army. The ablest men are not always selected, but the men who can bring the most influence to bear. The men who can successfully appeal to the selfishness of the ruling powers will rise above the heads of those superior men who either cannot or will not use such base means for elevation. It is a happy thing in our times that commoners—men not noble by birth, but noble by sterling worth and by brilliant characters—are taking their place in the front ranks. But still the men who can fawn and cringe and not be true to principle are in high places. In the ecclesiastical kingdom too ministerial appointments are made through the working of this low principle of self-love. Sometimes unconscious, it may be, but nevertheless operative. There is nepotism in the Church. The son or the nephew gets the good living, while the superior man remains a curate still. The man, in other Churches, of showy qualities secures the votes of the congregation, while the man of more solid but less brilliant character is left in obscurity. It is what we may call a happy chance when the working of self-love brings the best man to the front. We have no reason to suppose that the appointment of Hatach was not a good one.
II. A ministerial appointment suggested by unselfish love. Ahasuerus made a ministerial appointment, and Esther also made a ministerial appointment. Ahasuerus appointed Hatach to attend upon Esther, and Esther gave Hatach a commandment to Mordecai. The latter appointment arose out of the working of unselfish love. Esther’s affection for her foster father would not let her rest, and she sent the chamberlain to minister to Mordecai in his distress. The best appointments are those which are made through the working of unselfish love. Selfishness blinds the mind and dwarfs the judgment. Benevolence is a truer guide in affairs than great intellect if perverted by the working of selfishness. The king who through true love to his subjects seeks their highest welfare will make the best appointments in his kingdom. The Church that has a true love for humanity, that is most desirous of blessing the race, of instructing the ignorant, of raising the fallen, and of giving the oil of joy to the mourners, will secure the services of the truest servants in her courts. Shall we not here think of the highest ministerial appointment made at the suggestion of infinite love? “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many.”
III. A ministerial appointment to the young and the joyful. We can well imagine that there was great gladness to Hatach when he “received a call” to serve in the palace of Ahasuerus, and had to “attend upon” the young, the beautiful, and the joyful Esther. In one sense it would be a pleasant life, and comparatively free from irksome duties. To wait upon other court beauties might be painful, for the mere beauty is often exacting and difficult to please. The more her demands are met, and the more numerous do they become. The very monotony of her life may render it difficult to soothe her ill humours, and to find the means of relieving the dulness of her existence. But this difficulty would not obtain in the case of Esther, for she had beauty of mind as well as beauty of person. She would be able to fall back upon herself. As the good man is satisfied from himself, so Esther the good woman would be satisfied from herself. It is well said that she required nothing. The smallness of her requirements rendered it an easy task for Hatach to perform the duties of his post. How delightful to wait upon this young and joyful maiden! Instead of Hatach being required to charm away her griefs, we may easily and reasonably suppose that she would be a wise charmer to Hatach. His sorrows would be forgotten in her presence, and his joys would be increased by the influence of her joyful nature. Happy the man who has to wait upon the young and the joyful! As we think of the condition, we shrink from acknowledging the truth of the wise man’s statement. Sorrow is better than laughter. Men long for appointments where life is rendered pleasant. To serve in the palace is more an object of ambition than to serve in the abodes of misery. The house of feasting is desired rather than the house of mourning. To preach in the well-arranged and tastefully-built and decorated place of worship to a crowded and fashionable audience is the fond desire of the large majority.
IV. A ministerial appointment to the old and the mournful. Hatach, we find, was willing to go to Mordecai, the poor Jew, clothed in his hairy garment and having ashes on his head. He passes from Esther to Mordecai with no signs of unwillingness. He would willingly find out the means of lessening the anxiety of Esther, while at the same time he seeks to lessen the grief of Mordecai. This is the true ministry, to seek to comfort the aged, and to console the mourners. The highest Minister set himself to this glorious work. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.” How slow most men are to follow this sublime example! This world is full of mourners; but the cries of the mourners would be hushed in greater measure if there were men with sympathetic and benevolent natures going forth with words of gospel sweetness in their hearts, and the oil of gospel consolations in their hands.
V. An undesigned connection arising from this ministerial appointment. Here there is a wonderful chain of unexpected links. Ahasuerus, the mighty monarch, ruling over the largest empire of the world, at one end of the chain; and Mordecai, the despised and captive Jew, at the other end of the chain—the joining links being Esther the queen and Hatach the king’s chamberlain. From a human point of view, how mysterious are the ways by which men are linked together. The monarch is bound to the captive by an invisible bond, and is nearer than he thinks. We are indeed members one of another. There is a communistic principle working in societies. But let there not be communistic violence. Let not Ahasuerus forget the just claims of Mordecai. Let the monarch remember that manhood has its rights. And let not the Mordecais seek their rights by violence, but betake themselves to fasting and prayer, as did this Mordecai, and deliverance must come sooner or later. But these undesigned connections of earth are the designed connections of heaven. It was evidently so in this case, and it is so in a greater number of cases than we suppose. A greater number of cases! If we believe in a great supreme Power ruling over all, must we not behold his guiding and selecting power and wisdom in all cases, or at least making use of earth’s selections for the advancement of his beneficent and all-wise purposes? And God’s direct ministerial appointments do establish an extended connection. “Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation!” The angels form a blessed connection between the poor souls, enslaved by sin, but enfranchised by Divine grace, and the eternal God. Wonderful the connection between Mordecai and Ahasuerus, but surely more wonderful still the connection between the sinful but redeemed creature and the glorious Creator. The gospel ministry speaks to us in visible fashion of this connection. Redeemed men speak to men still in their sins. Christ’s true ambassadors stand between and join together the Saviour and the believing sinner. The undesigned coincidences and connections of life are coincidences and connections because God is working. The undesigned may be the product of Divine purpose. The human has its undesigned movements, the Divine has no purposeless motions. All is harmonious. The very discords of earth shall work to the production of final and eternal concords. Chaos itself will give birth to Divine order. Confusion is working to the evolution of method. There are links of connection binding all things together, both in the material and in the moral world.
VI. The unintentional benefit conferred by this ministerial appointment. Ahasuerus had not the slightest idea of helping those Jews against whom he had issued the murderous edict at the instigation of Haman. But here he is. Strange to himself would his conduct have appeared if he had known all. At one time he is working for the destruction of the Jews, and at another working for their deliverance. Working for their deliverance not only in his selection of Esther to be queen, but in the appointment of Hatach to be her minister. Esther herself could not hold conference with Mordecai, and so Hatach the king’s chamberlain becomes the medium of communication. The very vices of kings have tended to the welfare of their subjects; but no excuse this for the vices. The blunders of sovereigns have worked out to the vindication of the truth; but this does not condone the blunders. Kings by their weakness, by their love of display, by their fondness for pleasure have unintentionally conferred benefits upon their people. They have sometimes made wise appointments, and the nation has rejoiced because the righteous are in authority. By way of pleasant contrast, notice that the benefits conferred by heaven’s ministerial appointments are intentional. God’s material ministers move and work for the bestowal of benefits in answer to his merciful intention. God’s intellectual and moral ministers think, and speak, and write, and act for the bestowal of benefits, for they have been raised up for this very purpose by his benevolence. God’s benevolence is not the working of a kind feeling only, but is the expression of his infinite mind designing the welfare of his creatures. Whatever benefits we receive from the ministry of others, while we practically show our appreciation of such a beneficial ministry, let us above all manifest our sense of indebtedness to God, from whom and by whom all true ministerial appointments proceed and are made.
Notice that—(a) A true ministry is two-sided. It is quite true that a ministry of any importance must be many-sided. In these modern times the ministry as that word has come to be used in an ecclesiastical sense, has upon it many claims. The modern minister, if he is to meet the demands of the time, if he is to reach, half way even, the standard set up by lecturers on preaching and preachers, must be more than human; he should indeed have eyes behind and before. But the ministry of which we now speak is one not treated of in books on homiletics. Hatach is not considered in the “letters ad clerum.” There is a ministry where no eloquence of tongue is required. The eloquence of the life is that which is required in every ministry. Thus the true ministry is two-sided. It looks to heaven and it looks to earth. It waits upon the joyful and goes with messages of comfort to the mourners. Hatach waited in the palace and then went to the palace gates. Let us use the case as a figurative teaching. Wait in the palace of heaven, by prayer and meditation, that we may minister to those standing without. (b) The highest ministry is impelled by unselfish love. We are not in a position to declare the motives which operated in the mind of Hatach; but this we know, that the pure womanly love of Esther impelled Hatach to go and speak to the mourning Mordecai. Hatach may after all have been a mere servile menial in the hands of Esther; still his ministry was the result of love in Esther, and was therefore of the highest order. A base minister may perform the useful and beneficial acts of the ministry of love. But where love operates in the mind, love from without and from above co-operating with love from within, and moving to noblest action, there must be the highest ministry. (c) The noblest ministry is that which seeks lowly spheres. “Hatach went forth to Mordecai unto the street of the city, which was before the king’s gate.” Hatach may not have relished the errand on which he was sent, but still he went. Esther commanded, and Hatach obeyed. Lowly spheres may not always be desired; but if the command is given, the command ought to be obeyed. The streets of modern cities are in a neglected condition. The mourners tread the pavements with heavy hearts, and no Hatach asks what is the cause of the sorrow, no Hatach comes from royal abodes to inquire if nothing can be done to remove the burden of grief. Divine love gives a commandment for the poor outcasts—“Go into the highways and hedges,” but few are found ready to obey. Those who do go are not always judicious. They have not heart sympathy with the distressed. They raise dismal noises, and become a nuisance; instead of quietly and lovingly asking “what it was, and why it was,” as did Hatach. (d) The tests for all ministries. Is it uniting earth and heaven? Is it bringing together all classes? Every life ought to be a ministry, and every life should be tested by these questions. Is it conferring both material and moral benefits? There should be no unproductive classes. Every life should be a ministry of good. Is it a ministry for the instruction of the ignorant, for the restoration of the fallen, and for the consolation of the mourners? Happy the nation where the inmates of the palace consider and seek to promote the welfare and happiness of those in the streets of the cities and outside the palace gates. There are still Hamans about our palaces. There will be Mordecais with bleeding hearts. And the Esthers and the Hatachs have still plenty of room to work.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Esther 4:5-6
If we weep in sincerity with those who weep, it will be our desire, if possible, to remove their sorrows. But to this end it is necessary to know their cause. Physicians cannot administer proper medicines to their patients unless they know the cause of their diseases. They may palliate the symptoms, but the root of the distemper remains if the cause is not removed. So we may soothe the minds of persons labouring under grief; but if they are rooted in the mind, they will soon recover their force, and hold the soul in misery, unless the causes are removed; and these cannot be removed but by a change in those outward circumstances which occasioned them, or by a change in the state of the mind, when it is convinced that the supposed causes do not exist, or that they are not sufficient grounds for the sorrows they occasioned, or that relief or consolation may be found of virtue sufficient to counteract their force. Esther could not now visit Mordecai, or call him to her palace, and therefore, conversing with him by means of a third person, inquires into the causes of his distress, with a sincere intention to do everything in her power to set his heart at ease.—Lawson.
The good queen is astonished with this constant humiliation of so dear a friend, and now 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 Jewess, 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.—Bishop Hall.
The lesson which I would give you is founded on Mordecai’s grief and Esther’s sympathy. Gladly would she have removed the sorrow of her friend, and willingly would she have mingled her tears with his, had it been permitted. Her sympathy he could not doubt; but there are griefs deeper than human sympathy can reach, and Mordecai’s were beyond Esther’s power to assuage. She could only be helpful by speaking to the king. It was the king alone that could change the sorrow into joy. The mourners in Zion have the sympathy of their brethren, and that sympathy is sweet. But still it cannot heal the wounds of a spirit that is troubled by the sense of sin, nor of a heart that is sore pierced by God’s afflictive dispensation. But the King of Zion can heal these wounds; and he is touched with the feeling of his people’s infirmities—he breaketh not the bruised reed; he will heal them. Cast yourselves upon Jesus, ye mourners, with simple-hearted faith, and ask of him the comfort which ye need, and you will receive the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.—Davidson.
So strictly did the laws of Persia confine wives, especially the king’s wives, that it was not possible for Mordecai to have a conference with Esther about this important affair; but divers messages are here carried between them by Hatach, whom the king had appointed to attend her, and it seems he was one she could confide in. She sent to Mordecai to know more particularly and fully what the trouble was which he was now lamenting, and why it was that he would not put off his sackcloth. To inquire thus after news, that we may know the better how to direct our griefs and joys, our prayers and praises, well becomes all those that love Zion. If we must weep with those that weep, we must know why they weep.—Matthew Henry.
Then called Esther for Hatach.—She snuffeth not at Mordecai’s refusal of her courtesy. She saith not, Let him choose; the next offer shall be worse. Solomon reckoneth among those four things that the earth cannot bear, a handmaid advanced to the place and state of a mistress. But Esther was none such. In her you might have seen singular humility in height of honours. She calleth there for Hatach, a faithful servant, and perhaps a Jew, a Jew inwardly. Honesty flows from piety.
Whom he had appointed to attend upon her.—Heb., whom he had set before her, to be at her beck and obedience. Probably he was happy in such a service, for goodness is communicative, and of a spreading nature. Plutarch saith of the neighbour villages of Rome in Numa’s time, that, sucking in the air of that city, they breathed righteousness and devotion. So it might very well be here. It was so with Abraham’s servants, and Solomon’s, and Cornelius’s. Nero complained (and no wonder) that he could never find a faithful servant. What could they learn from him but villany and cruelty?
And gave him a commandment to Mordecai, i.e. she commanded him to deliver her mind to Mordecai. A servant is not to be inquisitive (John 15:15—he knoweth not what his lord doeth), but executive, ready to do what is required of him. He is the master’s instrument, and wholly his, ολως ἐκείνου, saith Aristotle. The hands must take counsel of the head, and bestir them.
To know what it was, and why it was.—Some great matter she well knew it must needs be that put him to these loud laments. Wise men cry not till they are sorely hurt. Job’s stroke was heavier than his groaning. He was not of those that are ever whining; like some men’s flesh, if their skin be but razed with a pin, it presently rankleth and festereth; or, like rotten boughs, if a light weight be but hung on them, they presently creak and break. Mordecai she knew was none such. She therefore sendeth to see what was the matter, that she might help him, if possible. The tears and moans of men in misery are not to be slighted, as if they were nothing to us. Who is afflicted, and I burn not? saith Paul. Weep with those that weep, else you add to their misery, as the priest and Levite did by passing by the wounded man. Is it nothing to you, O ye that pass by the way? Are ye not also in the body, that is, in the body of flesh and frailty, subject to like afflictions? And may not your sins procure their sufferings, as a vein is opened in the arm to ease the pain of the head.—Trapp.
A Christian is no libertine, no man of freedom. He is a servant. Indeed, we have changed our master. We are set at liberty from the slavery of sin and Satan; but it is not that we should do nothing, to be Belials without yoke; but it is to serve God. We are taken from the service of Satan to be the Lord’s freemen; and indeed it is to that end. We are delivered that we might serve God. Therefore all the actions of our life should be a “service” to God. The beasts and other creatures and we have common actions, such as we do in common, as to eat, and to drink, and to move. The beast doth this, and man doth it. When a man doth them they are reasonable actions, because they are guided by reason, and moderated by reason; but when the beast doth them they are the actions of a beast, because he hath no better faculty to guide him. So common actions, they are not a service of God as they come from common men, that have not grace and the Spirit of God in their hearts; they are mere buying and selling, and going about the actions of their callings, as the actions of a beast are the actions of a beast. But let a Christian come to do them, he hath a higher life and a higher spirit that makes them spiritual actions that are common in themselves. He raiseth them to a higher order and rank. Therefore a Christian “serveth” God. In all that he doth he hath an eye to God; that which another man doth with no eye to God, but merely in civil respects. The knowledge of a commonwealth, it is a building knowledge, a commanding knowledge; for though a statesman doth not build, he doth not buy and sell and commerce, but he useth all other trades for the good of the state. It is a knowledge commanding all other inferior arts and trades in a commonwealth to the last end. They should all be serviceable to the commonwealth; and if they be not, away with them. So religion, and the knowledge of Divine things, it is a commanding knowledge; it commands all other services in our callings, &c. It doth not teach a man what he shall do in particular in his calling; but it teacheth him how to direct that calling to serve God, to be advantageous and helpful to his general calling; to further him to heaven, to make everything reductive to his last end, which he sets before him; that is, to honour and serve God in all things, to whom he desires to approve himself in life and death. He hath a principle, the Holy Ghost in him, and he labours to reduce everything to the main end. Oh that we were in this temper!
God will have his children serve out their generation, to try the truth of our graces before we come to heaven. And he will have us perfect before we come to so holy a place. He will have us “grow in grace,” as Ahasuerus his wives were to be perfumed and prepared before they came to him. It is a holy place that we hope for, a holy condition; therefore he will have us by little and little be fitted by the Spirit of God.
The Scripture values men by that that God values them, and not as men do, by their life, and reign, and flourishing in the world, and their esteem with men, but as his carriage hath been to God. David “served the will of God” in his generation.
Concerning the relation of servants, in a word, some are so by office, as magistrates and ministers, but all are servants as Christians. It was the best flower in David’s garland to be a servant to the Lord; and it is so for every one, be they never so great in dignity, to serve God; for to serve him is to run into the most noble service of all, for all God’s servants shall be kings, nay, they are kings. And then it is a rich and most beneficial service; for we serve a Lord that will reward to a cup of cold water. It is not such a service as Pharaoh’s was, to gather stubble ourselves; but he will enable us to do, and where we fail he will pardon, and when we do anything he will reward, and when our enemies oppress us he will take our parts.
A child of God is the greatest freeman, and the best servant, even as Christ was the best servant, yet none so free; and the greater portion any man hath of his Spirit, the freer disposition he hath to serve every one in love. Even the basest works are a service of God when they are done in obedience to God. The poor servant “serves the Lord Christ.” When a poor servant is at his work, employed in the business of man, poor, common things, yet he serves the Lord all the while. He serves those that are his governors, with an eye to the great Governor and Master that is above all, that will reward them for their poor service, however their master reward them.—Sibbes.
Every man may be considered under a double capacity or relation. As he is a part or member of the body politic, and so is not his own, but stands included in and possessed by the community. In which capacity he is obliged to contribute his proportion of help to the public, as sharing from thence with others the benefits of society, and so being accountable to make it some retribution in his particular station and condition. A man may be considered as he is a member and subject of a spiritual and higher kingdom. And in this capacity he is to pursue the personal yet great interest of his own salvation. He is sent into this world to make sure of a better; to glorify his Maker by studying to save himself; and, in a word, to aim at enjoyments Divine and supernatural, and higher than this animal life can aspire unto. Every man then sustains a double capacity, according to which he has a double work or calling. A temporal one, by which he is to fill up some place in the commonwealth by the exercise of some useful profession, whether as a divine, lawyer, or physician; a merchant, soldier, mariner, or any inferior handicraft; by all which, as by so many greater and less wheels, the business of the vast body of the public is carried on, its necessities served, and its state upheld. And God, who has ordained both society and order, accounts himself so much served by each man’s diligent pursuit, though of the meanest trade, that his stepping out of the bounds of it to some other work (as he presumes) more excellent is but a bold and thankless presumption, by which the man puts himself out of the common way and guard of Providence. For God requires no man to be praying or reading when the exigence of his profession calls him to his hammer or his needle; nor commands any one from his shop to go hear sermon in the church, much less to preach one in the pulpit. God, as the Lord and great Master of the family of the universe, is still calling upon all his servants to work and labour. A thing so much disdained by the gallant and the epicure is yet that general standing price that God and nature has set upon every enjoyment this side heaven; and he that invades the possession of anything, but upon this claim, is an intruder and a usurper. I have given order, says the Apostle, “that if any refuse to labour, neither should he eat.” It is the active arm and the busy hand that must both purvey for the mouth and, withal, give it a right to every morsel that is put into it. Correspondent to a Christian’s other, that is, his spiritual capacity, he has also a spiritual calling or profession; and the work that this engages him to is that grand one of working out his salvation; a work that a life is too little for, had a man anything more than a life to bestow upon it; a work that runs out into eternity, and upon which depends the woe or welfare of an immortal soul. Now this work is threefold—to make our peace with God; to get our sins mortified; to get our hearts purified with the contrary graces.—South.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 4
Esther 4:5. Eudocia and Chrysostom. When Queen Eudocia angrily threatened Chrysostom with banishment, he calmly replied: “Go tell her I fear nothing but sin. He who serves God need fear nothing so much as sin.” It is as Christ Jesus is born in the heart that we are made free from the slavery of sin, and become the servants of God. This is the sign of the new birth, that the man is afraid of sin. The man who serves God may well be delivered from all slavish fear.
Esther 4:5. Saxon serfs. Just as the king’s livery frees the wearer of it from certain civil penalties and taxes; just as in our Saxon institutions the serfs of the crown were noble; so it is with Christians. The serfs of Jesus Christ are the truest nobles. They rise above all other kind of nobility. The wearers of heaven’s livery, those who bear in their bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus, ought to be free from men. They are to be free from men, free from the world, free from cares, free from self and sin. What a liberty is this! The more we are enslaved the more we are set free. The more serfdom the more liberty.—Maclaren.
Esther 4:5. Dead swine good. To do a few good works at our death only, it is a swinish doing good. The swine will do good when he is dead. Then there is profit of his flesh, though all his life he were noisome. Those men that put off thus, they are rather swine than men, beastly men. God seldom accepts the good they do then, and it is a forced good. If they were not to die then, no good at all would be done. That they do is because they can keep it no longer. It shows they have no grace nor faith at all; for if there had been faith to depend upon God they would have done good before. But we must serve God in our generation if we will be saved.—Sibbes.
Esther 4:5. Church-door religion. That is no religion that is left behind in the Church; as Lactantius saith, that is no religion that we leave behind when we come to the Church door. But that is religion when we leave our duty here, and carry it in our breasts to practise it every day in the week; when we show it in our places. That is the service of God. It is not the matter or stuff, but the stamp, that makes the coin; so it is not the work, but the stamp, that makes it a service. Let the king set a stamp but upon a brass, yet it will go for current if it have the king’s stamp upon it. Let it be but an action of our callings, if it have God’s stamp upon it, it is a “service” of God. Our whole life, not only in the Church, but in our particular places, may be a “service of God.”—Sibbes.
Esther 4:5. Cardinal Wolsey. The following was his last charge:—“Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away thy ambition. By that sin fell the angels. How can man, then, the image of his Maker, hope to win by it? Love thyself last; cherish those hearts that hate thee; still in thy right hand carry gentle peace, to silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not Let all the ends thou aimest at be thy country’s, thy God’s, and truth’s; then, if thou fallest, on, Cromwell! thou fallest a blessed martyr. Serve the king; and, pr’ythee, lead me in. There take an inventory of all I have, to the last penny: ’tis the king’s; my robe, and my integrity to heaven, is all I dare now call mine own. Oh, Cromwell, Cromwell! had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my king, he would not in mine age have left me naked to mine enemies.”
Esther 4:6. Sermon to one hearer. The well-known American divine, Dr. Beecher, once engaged to preach for a country minister on exchange, and the Sabbath proved to be one excessively stormy, cold, and uncomfortable. It was in mid-winter, and the snow was piled all along in the roads, so as to make the passage very difficult. Still the minister urged his horse through the drifts, put the animal into a shed, and went into the little rural chapel. As yet there was no person in the place, and, after looking about, the preacher took his seat in the pulpit. Soon the door opened, and a single individual walked up the aisle, looked about, and took a seat. The hour came for commencing service, but no more hearers appeared. Whether to preach to such an audience was a question, and it was one that Lyman Beecher was not long deciding. He went through all the services, praying, singing, preaching, and the benediction, with only one nearer. When all was over, he hastened down from the desk to speak to his “congregation,” but he had departed. Travelling in Ohio, twenty years afterwards, the doctor alighted from the stage one day in a pleasant village, when a gentleman stepped up and spoke to him, familiarly calling him by name. “I do not remember you,” said the Doctor. “I suppose not,” said the stranger; “but we once spent two hours together in a house alone in a storm.” “I do not recall it, sir,” added the old man; “pray when was it?” “Do you remember preaching, twenty years ago, in such a place, to a single person?” “Yes, yes,” said the doctor, grasping his hand, “I do, indeed; and if you are the man, I have been wishing to see you ever since.” “I am the man, sir; and that sermon saved my soul, made a minister of me, and yonder is my church. The converts of that sermon, sir, are all over Ohio.”