(G. Lawson.)

(G. Lawson.)

1. It was a time of great trial for the people of Israel.

2. The time tested the sincerity of Esther's affection for Mordecai, and brought that into immediate demonstration.

3. The time also tried the sincerity of Esther's affection for her nation. The truly pious heart will cherish an universal love. The wants and sorrows of all mankind are the subjects of its sympathy and its concern. But true religion especially exalts and enlarges domestic love, and love for our country and nation. The more truly the heart is engaged for God the more earnestly will it feel the sorrows and needs of those who are near to us. Have we wealth? We have those connected with us who are poor and suffering. Have we station or knowledge? It is no Christian heart which has no fellowship in suffering and no tenderness for woe. Yet we sadly see a hardness of heart often attendant on exalted conditions. Men seem to feel that they have been elevated by their own efforts, and that inability to do the same in others is in some degree a crime which ought to be punished by suffering. They invent every possible excuse for withholding their demanded aid.

4. The time displayed her entire disinterestedness of spirit, and her trust in God. She resolved to put the request of Mordecai into immediate operation. Mere self-indulgence would have delighted in her own state of luxury and enjoyment, and have shut her ears and her heart against the cries and woes of her people. To preserve this people she must hazard her own life. Beautiful is this illustration of a disinterested and devoted spirit. I am content to perish to gain the great end of blessing to others which I have before me. Such was the love of our Divine Redeemer for us. "For the joy that was set before Him He endured the Cross and despised the shame."

(S. H. Tyng, D. D.)

I. THAT GREAT ADVANTAGES ARE CONFERRED FOR A DIVINE PURPOSE. Talents, position, influence, wealth.

II. THAT GOD REQUIRES THAT SUCH ADVANTAGES SHOULD BE FAITHFULLY USED FOR THE PROMOTION OF HIS PURPOSES.

III. THAT SUCH DIVINE PURPOSES CANNOT BE FRUSTRATED.

IV. THOSE WHO FRUSTRATE DIVINE PURPOSES SHALL BE INJURED.

V. LEARN THAT A FAITHFUL DISCHARGE OF DUTY MUST BRING RICH RESULTS.

(W. Burrows, B. A.)

I. HEARKEN!

1. To a question. Brother, will you separate your interests from those of your people and your God? Do you mean to say, "I shall look to my own salvation, but I cannot be supposed to take an interest in saving others"? In such a spirit as that I do not say you will be lost, but I say you are lost already. It is as needful that you be saved from selfishness as from any other vice.

2. To a second question: If you could separate your interests from those of the cause of God, would you thereby secure them?

3. Remember, for your humiliation, that God can do without you.

4. As God can do without us, it may be He will do without us.

5. How will you bear the disgrace, if ever it come upon you, of having suffered your golden opportunities to be despised?

II. CONSIDER —

1. To what some of you have been advanced.

2. Why the Lord has brought you where you are.

3. At what a time it is that you have been thus advanced.

4. Under what special circumstances you have come where you are.

5. With what singular personal adaptations you are endowed for the work to which God has called you.

III. ASPIRE. "Who knoweth," etc. When Louis Napoleon was shut up in the fortress of Ham, and everybody ridiculed his foolish attempts upon France, yet he said to himself, "Who knows? I am the nephew of my uncle, and may yet sit upon the imperial throne," and he did so before many years had passed. I have no desire to make any man ambitious after the poor thrones, etc., of earth, but I would fain make you all ardently ambitious to honour God and bless men.

IV. CONFIDE.

1. If thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this, be con fident that thou art safe.

2. If God has a purpose to serve by a man, that man will live out his day and accomplish the Divine design.

( C. H. Spurgeon.)

1. That the college graduate of to-day, who has completed a four years' course of liberal training in a well-equipped and thoroughly-manned institution of learning comes into a kingdom.

2. The college graduate of to-day comes into his kingdom at a time of marvellous and portentous significance.

3. Our time, with its sudden transitions, is fraught with danger to all classes of society, but to none more than to those who till the soil.

(C. S. Walker, Ph. D.)

1. In the advent of Christ for the world's salvation.

2. The spread of the gospel and the conversion of the Gentiles.

3. The restoration of peace between nations and the final destruction of slavery.

II. THE HIGHEST GOOD OF MAN IS SECURED INDEPENDENTLY OF MAN'S INDIVIDUAL CONDUCT. The stream of human agency is like a river, ever flowing and ever changing. One drop in the stream cannot say, "When I am gone the channel will be dry." No sooner is room made than another follows, and the channel is ever full. So it is in the history of man. God's providence will secure workers.

III. THAT MEN ARE PLACED BY GOD IN SUCH POSITIONS THAT THEY MAY SECURE FOR THEMSELVES THE HONOUR OF HELPING GOD IN HIS PROVIDENTIAL WORK.

IV. IN NOT MAKING USE OF OUR PROVIDENTIAL POSITION WE EXPOSE OURSELVES TO FEARFUL EVILS.

V. THAT IN MAKING USE OF OUR PROVIDENTIAL POSITIONS, WE SHALL REQUIRE SPECIAL QUALIFICATIONS, AND SHALL HAVE THE SYMPATHY AND CO-OPERATION OF A HOLY UNIVERSE, AS WELL AS THE COMMENDATION AND BLESSING OF GOD. Notice —

1. That in doing our duty we show the possession of the highest and noblest moral qualities.

(1)Duty done under the pressure of difficulty is done by faith in God, and is therefore a proof of piety.

(2)Duty done in difficulty requires a self-sacrificing disposition.

(3)Duty done amid difficulties requires consummate skill.

(4)In doing duty no time should be lost.

2. That in doing our duty we have the help of a holy universe (Esther 6:1).

(Evan Lewis.)

: —The text presents for our consideration —

I. A FIRM CONVICTION OF AN OVERRULING PROVIDENCE.

II. THE RECOGNITION OF HUMAN INSTRUMENTALITIES IN THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT.

III. THE PRINCIPLE OF SELF-SACRIFICE WHICH ENABLES MEN TO RE ACCEPTABLE INSTRUMENTS IN THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT.

(Prof. E. J. Wolf, D. D.)

(W. F. Adeney, M. A.)

:

I. THAT RUNNING THROUGH THE PROVIDENCE OF THIS WORLD THERE IS A GRACIOUS DIVINE PURPOSE FOR ITS ULTIMATE SALVATION.

1. Mordecai believed in the indestructibility of the Jews. This was with him evidently a religious faith. This faith must have been founded on one or more of the promises of God.

2. This purpose of the preservation of the Jews is but a branch and a sign of another and grander purpose — a purpose to gather and save the whole world. This types itself in the kingly history; gleams in the prophet's vision; breathes in the holy psalm; speaks out in the Acts of the Apostles; runs through all the epistles, and sighs up to heaven in that last apocalyptic cry, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

II. THAT RICH AND RARE OPPORTUNITIES OCCUR IN THE PROGRESS OF THINGS, BY WHICH BELIEVING MEN ARE ALLOWED TO COME EFFECTUALLY "TO THE HELP OF THE LORD AGAINST THE MIGHTY." We must spread the gospel or lose it. Our moral opportunities, our seasonable times for action, are very precious, are very brief, and when they are gone they cannot be renewed. So it is at times with Churches, with societies, and with nations.

III. THAT THE NEGLECT OF SUCH PROVIDENTIAL CALLS HAS A TENDENCY TO BRING DESTRUCTION. Mordecai probably had in view a general principle of retribution, acting at all times, but sure to act swiftly and terribly in a case like this. This principle has its fullest application to the ungodly. The way, the hope, the expectation, the works, the memory, and saddest of all, the soul of the wicked shall perish. Let a Christian man neglect opportunities and hold truth in unrighteousness, and what will happen to him? He perishes as to the real power of his life. It is the same with Churches, etc. No Church, etc., can live except as they continue to be in harmony with the purpose and the providence of God. Where are the seven Churches in Asia?

IV. THAT OBEDIENCE WILL BRING ELEVATION AND BLESSING.

(A. Raleigh, D. D.)

I. THAT THE MAN WHO USED THESE WORDS WAS EVIDENTLY WELL AWARE THAT THE CAUSE OF GOD WAS NOT DEPENDENT ON THE AIDS OF MEN. This is evident if we consider —

1. The meanness of the instruments and the greatness of the work to be done.

2. How absolute are the promises of God, which show His determination to bless His people.

3. The power of God. These considerations ought to teach the instruments to be humble, and they ought also to confirm the faith of the people of God.

II. THAT HIS PROVIDENCE DOES RAISE UP SUITABLE INSTRUMENTS TO CARRY FORWARD HIS WORK.

III. THAT IT IS THE DUTY OF THOSE INSTRUMENTS TO GIVE THEMSELVES UP TO THE WORK. We are not only to study the book of God to know what is our duty in general, but also the book of providence to know what is the particular duty He designs us to do. We ought to study —

1. Our particular talent.

2. Our sphere.

3. Our circumstances.

4. The times.

IV. THAT AN AWFUL DOOM RESTS ON THOSE WHO LISTEN NOT TO THE CALL OF PROVIDENCE.

1. We shall lose the satisfaction of doing good.

2. We shall not prosper.

(1)Temporally.

(2)Spiritually.Those who are not actively employed in the service of Christ feel most of the bitterness arising from doubts as to their actual condition and fears as to their spiritual state. Listlessness in the cause of Christ will be a cause of gloom on a dying bed.

3. There is an intimate connection between the degrees of glory in heaven and the exercises of activity here.

(W. H. Cooper.)

I. AS TO LIFE ITSELF, HUMAN EXISTENCE; ENTRY UPON IT IS A COMING TO A KINGDOM. Living now, we are conditioned by the time and circumstances of to-day. Our days have fallen on a time different from all that have gone before, unique in this particular, if in nothing else — the power of public opinion. In former days but one man here and there seemed to have a kingdom to enter upon, a few men swayed the nations, a few men seemed to be inspired to deeds which raised them into leaders of the people. But now the rulers in name are the ruled in fact. The government is governed and the people control everything. It is a great thing to live now. Literature and science pour their wealth out before us. By these things we have the chance of being better men in some directions of thought and of exerting a mightier influence in the world than our fathers could exert. Some men might just as well have lived hundreds of years ago, for any appreciation they seem to have of the privileges and demands of the time. No time is like another in all its details. We have to make it what it shall be. By the impulse of an earnest life, by the influence of holy character, by brief words spoken and little deeds done according to our opportunity, must we do something to mould that public opinion which is omnipotent.

II. AS CHRISTIANS WE HAVE COME TO A KINGDOM. Christianity has always presented two aspects, the offensive and the defensive. In the old days of national warfare, when ships were made of wood, rough-wrought cannon and shot were sufficient means of attack. But with the iron-plating has necessarily come improvement in the means of destruction. As the ship becomes more exposed to the danger of improved appliances she must be more scientifically defended. We sometimes smile as we see the way in which truth used to be asserted and defended. We now see that truth is its own best defence.

(J. Jones.)

I. IN ORDER TO MEET THE SPECIAL DEMAND OF THIS AGE YOU NEED TO BE AN UNMISTAKABLE, AGGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN. Of half-and-half Christians we do not want any more. A great deal of the piety of the day is too exclusive. It hides itself. It needs more fresh air, more outdoor exercise. There are many Christians who are giving their entire life to self-examination. They are feeling their pulses to see what is the condition of their spiritual health. How long would a man have robust physical health if he kept all the day feeling his pulse instead of going out into active, earnest, every-day work? I was once amid the wonderful, bewitching cactus growths of North Carolina. I never was more bewildered with the beauty of flowers, and yet when I would take up one of these cactuses and pull the leaves apart the beauty was all gone. You could hardly tell that it had ever been a flower. And there are a great many Christian people in this day just pulling apart their Christian experiences to see what there is in them, and there is nothing left in them. This style of self-examination is a damage instead of an advantage to their Christian character. I remember when I was a boy I used to have a small piece in the garden that I called my own, and I planted corn there, and every few days I would pull it up to see how fast it was growing. Now, there are a great many Christian people in this day whose self-examination merely amounts to the pulling up of that which they only yesterday or the day before planted. If you want to have a stalwart Christian character, plant it right out of doors in the great field of Christian usefulness. The century plant is wonderfully suggestive and wonderfully beautiful, but I never look at it without thinking of its parsimony. It lets whole generations go by before it puts forth one blossom; so I have really more admiration when I see the dewy tears in the blue eyes of the violets, for they come every spring. Time is going by so rapidly that we cannot afford to be idle. A recent statistician says that human life now has an average of only thirty-two years. From these thirty-two years you must subtract all the time you take for sleep, and the taking of food, and recreation; that will leave you about sixteen years. From those sixteen years you must subtract all the time that you are necessarily engaged in the earning of a livelihood; that will leave you about eight years. From those eight years you must take all the days, and weeks, and months — all the length of time that is passed in sickness; leaving you about one year in which to work for God.

II. To meet the duties this age demands of you, you must, ON THE ONE HAND, AVOID RECKLESS ICONOCLASM, AND ON THE OTHER HAND, NOT STICK TOO MUCH TO THINGS BECAUSE THEY ARE OLD. Do not take hold of a thing merely because it is new. Do not adhere to anything merely because it is old. There is not a single enterprise of the Church or the world but has sometime been scoffed at. There was a time when men derided even Bible societies, and when a few young men met in Massachusetts and organised the first missionary society ever organised in this country there went laughter and ridicule all around the Christian Church. They said the undertaking was preposterous. And so also the work of Jesus Christ was assailed. People cried out, "Who ever heard of such theories of ethics and government? Who ever noticed such a style of preaching as Jesus had?" Many have thought that the chariot of God's truth would fall to pieces if it once got out of the old rut. And so there are those who have no patience with anything like improvement in church architecture, or with anything like good, hearty, earnest church singing, and they deride any form of religious discussion which goes down walking among every-day men rather than that which makes an excursion on rhetorical stilts. Oh, that the Church of God would wake up to an adaptability of work! There is work for you to do, and for me to do, in order to this grand accomplishment. Here is my pulpit, and I preach in it. Your pulpit is the bank. Your pulpit is the store. Your pulpit is the editorial chair. Your pulpit is the anvil. Your pulpit is the house scaffolding. Your pulpit is the mechanic's shop.

III. In order to be qualified to meet your duty in this particular age, YOU WANT UNBOUNDED FAITH IN THE TRIUMPH OF THE TRUTH AND THE OVERTHROW OF WICKEDNESS,

(T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.)

I. LET US RECOGNISE THE FACT THAT AS SHE HAD HER OPPORTUNITY, SO HAVE WE OURS. If we look around us we must see how God brings certain persons into certain circumstances because they are most fit to be there. One in a family converted. One in a family to whom has been given the seeing eyes and the understanding heart. One in a family more clever, more strong, more amiable than the rest. Why? That that one may fulfil the duties, and meet, not shirk, the responsibilities of that position.

II. LET US LEARN THAT THE FACT OF A DUTY BEING DIFFICULT AND DANGEROUS IS NO EXCUSE FOR OUR FAILING TO PERFORM IT HONESTLY.

III. WE MAY LEARN THE SOURCE OF TRUE STRENGTH AND CONFIDENCE.

IV. WE MAY LEARN THAT HAVING SEEN OUR DUTY, AND ASKED GOD'S GUIDANCE AND BLESSING, WE SHOULD FEARLESSLY GO THROUGH WITH OUR TASK. Fearlessly, but wisely, according to the light that is given to us. Esther fortified her soul with trust in God, and then used her own common sense. Esther's judgment was equal to her courage. She knew how to "bide her time.

(Marianne Farningham.)

I. THAT GOD'S CAUSE IS INDEPENDENT OF OUR EFFORTS. Mordecai believed that the record of God's faithfulness in the past gave the assurance that in some way of His own He would prevent the extinction of His people. This is an attitude of mind we should seek to cultivate in reference to the cause of Christ. This cause has the omnipotence of God behind it. He has promised Christ the heathen for His inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession, and, whoever helps and whoever hinders, His word shall not be broken. One man with truth and the promise of God at his back is stronger than an opposing world. The cause of Christ has come through crises when persecution has tried to exterminate it. It has passed through periods of scepticism when learning and cleverness have fancied that they have blown it away as an exploded superstition. Men have had to stand up for it single-handed against principalities and powers, but with it at their backs they have been stronger than all that were against them.

II. THAT WE ARE NOT INDEPENDENT OF IT. We cannot hold back from Christ's cause with impunity. It can do without us, but we cannot do without it. If religion is a reality, to live without it is to suppress and ultimately destroy the most noble part of our being. To live without God is to renounce the profoundest and most influential experience which life contains. If Christ is the central figure in history, and if the movement He has set ageing is the central current of history, then to be dissociated with His aims is to be a cipher or perhaps even a minus quantity in the sum of good.

III. CHRIST'S CAUSE OFFERS THE NOBLEST EMPLOYMENT FOE OUR GIFTS. It is a transfiguring moment when the thought first penetrates a man that the purpose for which he has received his gifts is to help humanity and the cause of Christ in the world. A man enters upon his spiritual majority when he ceases to be the most important object in the world to himself, and sees outside an object which makes him forget himself and irresistibly draws him on. The problem of the degraded and disinherited is pressing on the attention of intelligent minds with an urgency which cannot be disregarded. The heathen world is opening everywhere to the influences of the gospel If you would run in response to this call, do not neglect the preparation. Knowledge is the armour of light in which the battles of progress have to be fought. Life for God in public must be balanced by life with God in secret.

(James Stalker, D. D.)

(W. C. Burns, D. D.)

I. THAT A CRISIS HAS COME OF OVERWHELMING IMPORTANCE IN THE RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF THE WORLD. It is a crisis of magnificent opportunity and also of infinite responsibility. It is a crisis in which unparalleled success may be achieved for the glory of God, or where Churches may be utterly broken and destroyed by their unfaithfulness and disobedience. It is, indeed, the crisis of history; for never have such opportunities for the evangelisation of our own country, or of the heathen abroad, been presented; never have difficulties been so remarkably removed, and never were calls for help so loud and piercing as just now. That I may help you to realise this truth, let me recall a few facts to your remembrance. Within the lifetime of some now here the world was practically closed against the extension of Protestant Christianity. Mohammedanism sealed itself against the truth of Jesus; and the heathen nations of the earth were walled around by prejudice or by prohibitory laws. China and Japan were hermetically sealed against the entrance of Christianity. And now, with our scientific discoveries, our mechanical inventions, our great social movements and combinations, we are sweeping along with a rapidity which it is almost bewildering to contemplate. All this is wonderful beyond realisation. Never did the human race move so quickly. Time after time have the maps of the world been altered and reformed in our day. Now with a startling swiftness the moral map of the world is changing, and no one can presage what will be the next great movement that will command the wonder of mankind. In all these revolutions and developments of the hour, what institution ought to be more concerned than the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ? The Church of to-day is the arbiter of the world's future. It is called on to save idolatrous nations awakening from the sleep of ages from relapsing into the abyss of scepticism. It is summoned to sanctify and beautify the growing intelligence and wealth of barbarous peoples, by suffusing them with the glory of Christian holiness and truth. It is destined to become the harbinger and bestower of liberty, of enfranchisement, of spiritual expansion to classes and masses of the race who have hitherto groaned in bondage and shame.

II. WHAT IS REQUIRED FROM THE CHURCH TO MEET THE PRESSING CRISIS. We have a Church of the times; we need a Church for the times. The Church of the times is far too much formal, aiming at gentility and fashion; the Church for the times must be spiritual and powerful, aiming at evangelistic aggression and the conversion of the world. If the Church will seek a new baptism and enter on a new career of aggressiveness, how soon the most glorious prophecies of time shall be fulfilled it is impossible to realise. "A short work will God make upon the earth." A very brief period sufficed for the destruction of Sennacherib's host and for the downfall of Babylon. It was a short time only that was required for the humbling of Napoleon's pride. And if the Church of God, with her splendour of learning, her ripeness of intellect, her boundless wealth, and her unparalleled vantage-ground, be only faithful and obedient, and ready for the avalanche of opportunities which now present themselves, the progress of the gospel must be far more rapid and glorious than ever before.

(W. J. Townsend.)

I. THAT ALL GENERATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS ARE CREATED FOR THEIR OWN END. We cannot doubt that it was with a definite design that God set up the pillars of the universe. And so with its continued existence. The mighty river of human life which gushed forth in Adam, flows, we are sure, to some goal and makes to some issue. God beholds the vast tide of being sweeping on to a glorious consummation, which He perceives now, and we shall see hereafter, to have been the point to which the current tended from the beginning. This will appear from the continual changes which take place. Why do not men's habits remain always the same? Why does one generation abandon the principles and tastes of its predecessor? How is it that the nineteenth century is not like the sixteenth? Continual change intimates that we are travelling on to an appointed destination. To suppose otherwise would be to suppose God to be a God, not of order, but of confusion. We see traces of this in the several dispensations of religion which God has revealed. The law prepared the way for the gospel; all the wars and conquests of Rome brought the human family into a condition the most favourable for the preaching of the apostles. The Patriarchal, the Levitical, and the Christian dispensations, appear to follow in manifest order, each working up and fading into that which came next. What the world is now is a necessary step to what the world is to be. And what is true of periods of a thousand years is true also of each period of fourscore years. Every generation of human kind is born for an end. We are apt to consider overmuch individual life, not the life of the universe. We see unnumbered ripples on the stream of time, coming and going apparently without cause or effect: God beholds in each ripple an onward flow; that not one could be withdrawn without injury to the symmetry of the great whole. There arises out of all this a very solemn character attaching to our tenure of life. We have our part in a stupendous work, whose limits we cannot discern. We have been launched into being just at the moment when we were wanted. Not to do our own pleasure, but to fulfil a part in working out God's counsels. This is the solemn vocation of each generation.

II. VERY COMMONLY A MAN'S LIFE WORKS UP TO, OR HANGS UPON A CERTAIN CRITICAL MOMENT. "Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" Oh I they are words which may well sound in the ears of the soul, at many a sick-bed, at many an event of inferior importance in our earthly career. How did Abraham live seventy years in his father's house an ordinary man, till the mysterious moment when the voice said to him, "Come out from thy kindred"? and on what he did at that strange bidding hung not only his, but the world's history! How did all David's life turn upon the incident, that at the moment when he chanced to visit his brethren in the camp, at that moment Goliath came out with his defiance of the living God! And so with ourselves: there are in almost every man's life turning-points upon which all hangs. Who cannot look back and discern times and seasons when, if he had acted otherwise, his whole after-life would have been altered? And thus in religion — whether a man be lost or saved will frequently depend upon a step taken at a particular crisis; all subsequent steps grow out of that step. True that every hour of our lives is an hour when good and evil are set before us. There are strong temptations occurring at intervals, which, well got over, leave a man's heart for a long time at liberty; which, if not resisted, lead from deceit to deceit-from sin to sin — until there is no getting the feet out of the net. "Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" Sometimes a man's whole life may be traced afterwards to have led up to one such moment. His education, his tastes, his companionships may all be discerned to have been the instrumentality of drawing him into the wilderness for his one great conflict with the adversary.

(J. B. Woodford, M. A.)

(Homilist.)

(W. M. Taylor, D. D.)

(T. McEwan.)

(A. Whyte, D. D.)

     1305   God, activity of
     4019   life, believers' experience
     5047   opportunities, in life
     5091   Deborah
     5950   silence
     6738   rescue
     7418   Purim
     8438   giving, of time

Esther 4:12-14

     7505   Jews, the

Esther 4:12-17

     5978   warning

Esther 4:14-16

     8481   self-sacrifice

Watkinson -- the Transfigured Sackcloth
William L. Watkinson, Wesleyan minister, was born at Hull, 1838, was educated privately and rose to eminence as a preacher and writer. The Rev. William Durban calls him "The classic preacher of British Methodism." "He ranks," says Dr. Durban, "with Dr. Dallinger and the Rev. Thomas Gunn Selby as the three most learned and refined of living preachers in the English Methodist pulpit. Dr. Watkinson is famous for the glittering illustrations which adorn his style. These are for the most part gathered …
Grenville Kleiser—The world's great sermons, Volume 8

Appeal to the Christian Women of the South
BY A.E. GRIMKE. "Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not within 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 art come to the kingdom for such a time as this. And Esther bade them return Mordecai this answer:--and so will I go in unto the king, …
Angelina Emily Grimke—An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South

Meditations for Household Piety.
1. If thou be called to the government of a family, thou must not hold it sufficient to serve God and live uprightly in thy own person, unless thou cause all under thy charge to do the same with thee. For the performance of this duty God was so well pleased with Abraham, that he would not hide from him his counsel: "For," saith God, "I know him that he will command his sons and his household after him that they keep the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and judgment, that the Lord may bring upon …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

A Case of Conscience Resolved
WHETHER, WHERE A CHURCH OF CHRIST IS SITUATE, IT IS THE DUTY OF THE WOMEN OF THAT CONGREGATION, ORDINARILY, AND BY APPOINTMENT, TO SEPARATE THEMSELVES FROM THEIR BRETHREN, AND SO TO ASSEMBLE TOGETHER, TO PERFORM SOME PARTS OF DIVINE WORSHIP, AS PRAYER, ETC., WITHOUT THEIR MEN? AND THE ARGUMENTS MADE USE OF FOR THAT PRACTICE, EXAMINED. BY JOHN BUNYAN. EDITOR'S ADVERTISEMENT. This exceedingly rare tract was first published in 1683, and was not reprinted, either separately, or in any edition of Bunyan's …
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Prevailing Prayer.
Text.--The effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.--James v. 16. THE last lecture referred principally to the confession of sin. To-night my remarks will be chiefly confined to the subject of intercession, or prayer. There are two kinds of means requisite to promote a revival; one to influence men, the other to influence God. The truth is employed to influence men, and prayer to move God. When I speak of moving God, I do not mean that God's mind is changed by prayer, or that his …
Charles Grandison Finney—Lectures on Revivals of Religion

Of the Discipline of the Church, and Its Principal Use in Censures and Excommunication.
1. Of the power of the keys, or the common discipline of the Church. Necessity and very great utility of this discipline. 2. Its various degrees. 1. Private admonition. 2. Rebukes before witnesses. 3. Excommunication. 3. Different degrees of delinquency. Modes of procedure in both kinds of chastisement. 4. Delicts to be distinguished from flagitious wickedness. The last to be more severely punished. 5. Ends of this discipline. 1. That the wicked may not, by being admitted to the Lord's Table, put …
John Calvin—The Institutes of the Christian Religion

Of the Public Fast.
A public fast is when, by the authority of the magistrate (Jonah iii. 7; 2 Chron. xx. 3; Ezra viii. 21), either the whole church within his dominion, or some special congregation, whom it concerneth, assemble themselves together, to perform the fore-mentioned duties of humiliation; either for the removing of some public calamity threatened or already inflicted upon them, as the sword, invasion, famine, pestilence, or other fearful sickness (1 Sam. vii. 5, 6; Joel ii. 15; 2 Chron. xx.; Jonah iii. …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

Of a Private Fast.
That we may rightly perform a private fast, four things are to be observed:--First, The author; Secondly, The time and occasion; Thirdly, The manner; Fourthly, The ends of private fasting. 1. Of the Author. The first that ordained fasting was God himself in paradise; and it was the first law that God made, in commanding Adam to abstain from eating the forbidden fruit. God would not pronounce nor write his law without fasting (Lev. xxiii), and in his law commands all his people to fast. So does our …
Lewis Bayly—The Practice of Piety

From his Entrance on the Ministry in 1815, to his Commission to Reside in Germany in 1820
1815.--After the long season of depression through which John Yeardley passed, as described in the last chapter, the new year of 1815 dawned with brightness upon his mind. He now at length saw his spiritual bonds loosed; and the extracts which follow describe his first offerings in the ministry in a simple and affecting manner. 1 mo. 5.--The subject of the prophet's going down to the potter's house opened so clearly on my mind in meeting this morning that I thought I could almost have publicly …
John Yeardley—Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel

Sign Seekers, and the Enthusiast Reproved.
(Galilee on the Same Day as the Last Section.) ^A Matt. XII. 38-45; ^C Luke XI. 24-36. ^c 29 And when the multitudes were gathering together unto him, ^a 38 Then certain of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, Teacher, we would see a sign from thee. [Having been severely rebuked by Jesus, it is likely that the scribes and Pharisees asked for a sign that they might appear to the multitude more fair-minded and open to conviction than Jesus had represented them to be. Jesus had just wrought …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Esther
The spirit of the book of Esther is anything but attractive. It is never quoted or referred to by Jesus or His apostles, and it is a satisfaction to think that in very early times, and even among Jewish scholars, its right to a place in the canon was hotly contested. Its aggressive fanaticism and fierce hatred of all that lay outside of Judaism were felt by the finer spirits to be false to the more generous instincts that lay at the heart of the Hebrew religion; but by virtue of its very intensity …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament