us in this History of this Heroical Woman Esther what she did in a perplexed and scrupulous case when an evident danger appeared and an evident Law was against her action and from thence consider Serm. 22. what every Christian Soul ought to do when it is surprised and overtaken with any such scruples or difficulties to the Conscience For Esther in particular this was her case She being Wife to the King Haman who had great power with the King had got from him an Edict for the destruction of all her people the Jews When this was intimated to her by Mordecai who presented to her Conscience not onely an irreligious forsaking of God if she forbore to mediate and use her interest in the King for the saving of hers and Gods people but an unnatural and unprovident forsaking of her self because her danger was involved in theirs and that she her self being of that Nation could not be safe in her person though in the Kings house if that Edict were executed though she had not then so ordinary access to the King as formerly she had had yea though there were a Law in her way that she might not come till she was called yet she takes the resolution to go she puts off all Passion and all particular respects she consecrates the whole action to God and having in a rectified and well informed Conscience found it acceptable to him she neglects both that particular Law That none might have access to the King uncalled and that general Law That every Man is bound to preserve himself and she exposes her self to an imminent and for any thing she knew an unescapable danger of death If I perish I perish For the ease of all our memories we shall provide best Divisio by contracting all which we are to handle to these two parts Esthers preparation and Esthers resolution How she disposed her self how she resolved What her consultation was what her execution was to be Her preparation is an humiliation and there first she prepares that that glory which God should receive by that humiliation should be general All the people should be taught and provoked to glorifie God vade congrega Go and assemble all Secondly The act which they were to do was to fast Jejunate And thirdly It was a limited fast Tribus diebus Eat not nor drink in three days and three nights And then this fast of theirs was with relation and respect to her Jejunate super me Fast ye for me But yet so as she would not receive an ease by their affliction put them to do it for her and she do nothing for her self Ego cum Ancillis I and my Maids will fast too and similiter likewise that is As exactly as they shall And so far extends her preparation Her resolution derives it self into two branches First That she will break an Humane and Positive Law Ingrediar contra legem I will go in though it be not according to the Law and secondly She neglects even the Law of Nature the Law of Self-preservation Si peream peream To enter into the first part The assembling of the people though the occasion and purpose here were religious yet the assembling of them was a civil act 1. Part. Assemblies an act of Jurisdiction and Authority Almost all States have multiplied Laws against Assemblies of People by private Authority though upon pretences of Religious occasions All Conventicles all Assemblies must have this character this impression upon them That they be Legitima lawful And Legitima sola sunt quae habent authoritatem principis onely those are lawful which are made by the Authority of the State Aspergebatur infamia Alcibia des quòd in domo sua facere Mysteria dicebatur There went an ill report of him because he had sacrifices and other worships of the gods at home in his own house And this was not imputed to him as a Schismatical thing or an act of a different Religion from the State but an act of disaffection to the State and of Sedition In times of persecution when no exercise of true Religion is admitted these private Meetings may not be denied to be lawful As for bodily sustenance if a man could no otherwise avoid starving the Schoolmen and the Casuists resolve truly That it were no sin to steal so much meat as would preserve life so those souls which without that must necessarily starve may steal their Spiritual food in corners and private meetings But if we will steal either of these foods Temporal or Spiritual because that meat which we may have is not so dressed so dished so sauced so served in as we would have it but accompanied with some other ceremonies then are agreeable to our taste This is an inexcusable Theft and these are pernicious Conventicles Dan. 6. When that Law was made by Darius That no man for thirty days should ask any thing of God or man but onely of the King though it were a Law that had all circumstances to make it no Law yet Daniel took no occasion by this to induce any new manner of worshipping of God he took no more company with him to affront the Law or exasperate the Magistrate onely he did as he had used to do before and he did not disguise nor conceal that which he did but he set open his windows and prayed in his Chamber But in these private Conventicles where they will not live voto aperto that is pray so as that they would be content to be heard what they pray for As the Jews in those Christian Countreys where they are allowed their Synagogues pray against Edom and Edomites by name but they mean as appears in their private Catechisms by Edom and Edomites the Christian Church and Christian Magistracy so when these men pray in their Conventicles for the confusion and rooting out of Idolatry and Antichrist they intend by their Idolatry a Cross in Baptism and by their Antichrist a man in a Surpless and not onely the persons but the Authority that admits this Idolatry and this Antichristianism As vapors and winds shut up in Vaults engender Earth-quakes so these particular spirits in their Vault-Prayers and Cellar-Service shake the Pillars of State and Church Domus mea Domus orationis and Domus orationis Domus mea My house is the house of Prayer says God and so the house of Prayer must be his house The Centurion of whom Christ testified That he had not found so great Faith even in Israel Matth. 8.10 thought not himself worthy that Christ should come under his Roof and these men think no Roof but theirs fit for Christ no not the Roof of his own House the Church For I speak not of those Meetings where the blessed Children of God joyn in the House to worship God in the same manner as is ordained in the Church or in a manner agreeable to that Such Religious Meetings as these God will give a blessing to but when
the Law of Nature it self in exposing her self to that danger How far Humane Laws do binde the conscience how far they lay such an obligation upon us as that if we transgress them we do not only incur the penalty but sin towards God hath been a perplexed question in all times and in all places But how divers soever their opinions be in that they all agree in this That no Law which hath all the essential parts of a Law for Laws against God Laws beyond the power of him that pretends to make them are no Laws no Law can be so meerly a Humane Law but that there is in it a Divine part There is in every Humane Law part of the Law of God which is obedience to the Superior That Man cannot binde the conscience because he cannot judge the conscience nor he cannot absolve the conscience may be a good argument but in Laws made by that power which is ordained by God man bindes not but God himself And then you must be subject not because of wrath but because of conscience Though then the matter and subject of the Law that which the Law commands or prohibits may be an indifferent action yet in all these God hath his part and there is a certain Divine soul and spark of Gods power which goes through all Laws and inanimates them In all the Canons of the Church God hath his voice Ut omnia ordine fiant that all things be done decently and in order so the Canon that ordains that is from God in all the other Laws he hath his voice too Ut piè tranquillè vivatur That we may live peaceably and religiously and so those Laws are from God And in all of all sorts this voice of his sounds evidently qui resistit ordinationi he that resists his Commission his Lieutenancy his Authority in Law-makers appointed by him resists himself There is no Law that is meerly humane but only Lex in membris The Law in our flesh which rebels against the Law in our minde and this is a Rebellion a Tyranny no lawful Government In all true Laws God hath his interest and the observing of them in that respect as made by his authority is an act of worship and obedience to him and the transgressing of them with that relation that is a resisting or undervaluing of that authority is certainly sinne How then was Esthers act exempt from this for she went directly against a direct Law That none should come to the King uncalled Whensoever divers Laws concur and meet together that Law which comes from the superior Magistrate and is in the nature of the thing commanded highest too that Law must prevail If two Laws lie upon me and it be impossible to obey both I must obey that which comes immediately from the greatest power and imposes the greatest duty Here met in her the fix'd and permanent Law of promoting Gods glory and a new Law of the King to augment his greatness and Majesty by this retiredness and denying of ordinary access to his person Gods Law for his glory which is infinite and unsearchable and the Kings Law for his ease of which she knows the reason and the scope were in the ballance together if this Law of the King had been of any thing naturally and essentially evil in it self no circumstance could have delivered her from sin if she had done against it Though the Law were but concerning an indifferent action and of no great importance yet because Gods Authority is in every just Law if she could not have been satisfied in her conscience that that Law might admit an exception and a dispensation in her case she had sinn'd in breaking it But when she proceeded not upon any precipitation upon any singular or seditious spirit when she debated the matter temperately with a dispassioned man Mordecai when she found a reservation even in the body of the Law That if the King held up his Scepter the Law became no Law to that party when she might justly think her self out of the Law which was as Josephus delivers it Ut nemo ex domesticis accederet That none of his servants should come into his presence uncalled she was then come to that which onely can excuse and justifie the breaking of any Law that is a probable if not a certain assurance contracted Bona fide in a rectified conscience That if this present case which makes us break this Law had been known and considered when the Law was made he that made the Law would have made provision for this case No presuming of a pardon when the Law is broken no dispensation given before hand to break it can settle the Conscience nor any other way then a Declaration well grounded that that particular case was never intended to have been composed in that Law nor the reason and purpose thereof So when the Conscience of Esther was and so when the Conscience of any particular Christian is after due consideration of the matter come to a religious and temperate assurance That he may break any Law his assurance must be grounded upon this That if that Law were now to be made that case which he hath presently in hand would not be included by him that made that Law in that Law otherwise to violate a Law either because being but a Humane Law I think I am discharged paying the penalty or because I have good means to the King I may presume of a pardon in all cases where my priviledge works any other way then as we have said that is that our case is not intended in that Law it had been in Esther it should be in us a sin to transgress any Law though of a Law-nature and of an indifferent action But upon those circumstances which we mentioned before Esther might see that that Law admitted some exceptions and that no exception was likelier then this That the King for all his majestical reservedness would be content to receive information of such a dishonor done to his Queen and to her god she might justly think that that Law intended onely for the Kings ease or his state reached not to her person who was his wife nor to her case which was the destruction of all that professed her Religion It was then no sin in her to go in to the King Si Peream though not according to the Law but she may seem to have sinned in exposing her self to so certain a danger as that Law inflicted with such a resolution Si peream peream If I perish I perish How far a man may lawfully and with a good conscience forsake himself and expose himself to danger is a point of too much largeness and intricacy and perplexity to handle now The general stream of Casuists runs thus That a private man may lawfully expose himself to certain danger for the preserving of the Magistrate or of a superior person and that reason might have justified Esthers enterprise if
hast nothing of thine own Hoc est nec ingratum esse nec superbum therein thou art neither unthankful to God nor proud of thy self As he that hath no other good parts but money and locks up that or employs it so as that his money feeds upon the Commonwealth and does not feed it that it lies gnawing and sucking blood by Usury and does not make blood by stirring and walking in Merchandize is an unprofitable member in State so he that hath good parts and smothers them in a retired and useless life is inexcusable in the same measure When therefore men retire themselves into Cloysters and Monasteries when they will not be content with St. Pauls diminution to be changed from Saul to Paulus which is little but will go lower then that little by being called minorites less then little and lower then that minims least of all and yet finde an order less then that as they have done nullani nothing at all Exore suo out of their own mouths they shall be judged and that which they have made themselves here God shal make them in the world to come nullanos nothing at all Paulum sepultae distatinertiae celata virtus It is all one as if he had no grace of lips if he never have the grace to open his lips to bury himself alive is as much wrong to the State as if he kill himself Every man hath a Politick life as well as a natural life and he may no more take himself away from the world then he may make himself away out of the world For he that dies so by withdrawing himself from his calling from the labours of mutual society in this life that man kills himself and God calls him not Morte morietur He shall die a double death an Allegorical death here in his retiring from his own hand and a real death from the hand of God hereafter In this case that Vae soli Wo be unto him that is alone hath the heaviest weight with it when a man lives so alone as that he respects no body but himself his own ease and his own ends For to sum up all concerning this part the Subject as our principal duty is Pureness of heart towards God and to love that intirely earnestly so the next is the Grace of lips Ability to serve the Publick which though we be bound not to love it with a pride we are bound not to smother with a retiring And then for these endowments for being Religious and serviceable to the State The King shall be our friend Which is our second general part to which in our order proposed we are now come As it is frequent and ordinary in the Scriptures when the Holy Ghost would express a superlative Rev nota superlativi the highest degree of any thing to express it by adding the name of God to it as when Saul and his company were in such a dead sleep as that David could take his Spear and pot of water from under his head It is called Tardemath Jehovah sopor Domini The sleep of the Lord The greatest sleep that could possess a man and so in many other places fortitudo Domini and timor Domini signifie the greatest strength and the greatest fear that could fall upon a man so also doth the Holy Ghost often descend from God to Gods Lieutenant and as to express superlatives he does sometimes use the name of God so doth he also sometimes use the name of King For Reges sunt summi Regis defluxus says that Author who is so antient that no man can tell when he was Trismegistus God is the Sun and Kings are Beams and emanations and influences that flow from him Such is the manner of the Holy Ghost expressing himself in Esai Tyrus shall be forgotten seventy years Esay 23.15 according to the years of one King that is during the time of any one mans life how happy and fortunate soever And so also the miserable and wretched estate of the wicked is likewise expressed Job 18.14 His hope shall be rooted out of his dwelling and shall drive him to the King of fears that is to the greatest despair ad Regem interituum says the Vulgar to the greatest destruction that can be conceived So that in this first sence Amicitia Regis the Kings friendship that is promised here The King shall be his friend is a superlative friendship a spreading a delating an universal friendship He that is thus qualified all the world shall love him Rex qui fortunatus So also by the name of King both in the Scriptures and in Josephus and in many more prophane and secular Authors are often designed such persons as were not truly of the rank and quality of Kings but persons that lived in plentiful and abundant fortunes and had all the temporal happinesses of this life were called Kings And in this sence the Kings friendship that is promised here The King shall be his friend is utilis amicitia all such frinds as may do him good God promises that to men thus endow'd and qualified belongs the love and assistance that men of plentiful fortunes can give great Persons great in Estate great in Power and Authority shall confer their favours upon such men and not upon such as only serve to swell a train always for ostentation sometimes for sedition much less shall they confer their favours upon sycophants and buffoons least of all upon the servants of their vices and voluptuousness but they whom God hath made Kings in that sence Masters of abundant fortunes shall do good to them only who have this pureness of heart and grace of lips Rex Ipse But if these words be not only intended of the King literally That he shall do good to men thus endowed and qualified but extended to all men in their proportion that all that are able should do good to such persons yet this Text is principally intended of the King himself and therefore is so expressed singularly and emphatically The King shall be his friend As God hath appointed it for a particular dignity to his Spouse the Church That Kings shall be their foster-fathers Esa 49.23 and Queens their nurses so God hath designed it for a particular happiness of religious and capable men that they may stand before the King and hear his wisdom as the Queen of Sheba observed of the servants of Solomon 1 Reg 10. 9. and pronounced them happy for that This then is a happiness belonging to this pureness and this grace that the King shall not only nor absolutely rely upon the information of others and take such a measure and such a character of men as the good or bad affections of others will present unto him but he shall take an immediate knowledge of them himself he shall observe their love to this pureness of heart and their grace of lips and so become their friend Unto which of the Angels said