* Courtiers shift their sails to the fitting of every wind. A cubit was half a yard at least. In those parts they had trees very small, or they might piece one to another ; but why so high a gallows, but for the greater disgrace to Mordecai, and terror to all that should slight the king's grand favourite.
WITH HIS PEOPLE IN THEIR GREATEST TROUBLES. 487
when great favourites fall into disgrace, all about princes will be ready to pluck them up by the roots, if the season be fair to clear the court or land of such noisome weeds. The king s indignation being up, the courtiers point at the gallows fifty cubits high, that Haman had set up for Mordecai. All are now for Mordecai, there is not a courtier that has one good word for Haman. Ah, what a rare hand of God was there in all these things, for the good of his people, and the utter overthrow of their grand enemy ! To sum all up in a little room, the breaking of the king's sleep, was the breaking of one of the most bloody designs that ever was laid against the people of God, Well, what though the king could not sleep, could he not lie still in his bed ? No, he must have a book, and that book must be the Book of Chronicles, and that book must be opened where accidentally — not by turning to that place purposely — yet surely by God's providence directing him that read, to that very story concerning Mordecai, where was registered his faithfulness, in discovering and disappointing of a murder intended against the king; whereupon God sets this act of faithfulness so close upon the king's heart, that he could not rest till Mordecai was nobly rewarded for it, and this reward must be Haman's ruin ; his advancement, Haman's abatement ; and this was the rise of Haman's disappointment. In this famous instance you may run and read the favourable, signal, and eminent presence of the Lord, in the miraculous preservation of his church from a total ruin and destruction, and in the disappointing the plots, designs, and counsels of their greatest enemies, and in taking of them in the very snares that they had laid for others ; suitable to that of the psalmist, ' He made a pit and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made ; his mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing upon his own pate,' Ps. vii. 16, 17. Henry the Third of France was stabbed in the same chamber where he had helped to contrive the French massacre ; and his brother, Charles the Ninth, had blood given him to drink, for he was worthy. There is no end of stories of this nature. So Ps. ix. 15, ' The heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made : in the net which they hid, is their own foot taken.' The wicked are compared to hunters for their cruelty, and to fowlers for their craft ; but see their success, they are sunk down in their own pit, caught in their own net. Thus it befell Pharaoh, Jabin, and Sisera, Sennacherib, Antiochus Epiphanes, Maxentius the tyrant, who fell into the Tiber, from his own false bridge laid for Constantine ; the Spanish armada, and our powder-plotters :i ver. 16, ' The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. Higgajon, Selah.' Goliath was killed with his own sword. Christ's justice liath two acclamatory notes, ' Higgajon, Selah;' the like is not found in all the Scripture, as worthy of present admira- tion, and of deep and perpetual meditation. I have been the longer a-glancing at this famous story of Esther, because of its seasonableness and suitableness to the days and times wherein we live.
A further proof of this eighth particular, that is under our present consideration, you have in Isa. viii. 9, ' Associate yourselves, 0 ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces ; and give ear, all ye of far countries : gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces ; gird
' Exod. ix. 15 ; Judges x. 4; 2 Chron. xxxii. ; Euseb., lib. ix. c. 9.
488 THE SIGNAL FKESENCE OF GOD
yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces' — Heb., ' And be broken in pieces, And be broken in pieces : And be broken in pieces.' It is thrice repeated, to work it the deeper into the minds and hearts of those, that should either hear or read it ; and to give the stronger assurance of the certainty of their being inevitably broken in pieces, who were adversaries and conspirators against the people of God. This speech is directed to the kings of Assyria, and other nations that combined with him against the people of God ; but especially against the city of Jerusalem. It is a holy irony, or laughing to scorn the associating enemies of the church. Well saith the prophet, Proceed as unanimously, as politicly, and as powerfully in your combinations, consultations, and preparations as you can, yet be assured that all your associations shall be dissolved, and your counsels frustrated, and your attempts returned back upon yourselves to your own ruin and confusion': ver. 10, ' Take counsel together,' — [Hebreiv, ' Consult a consultation,' to wit, about invading Judah, and surprising Jerusalem,] — ' and it shall come to nought ; speak the word, and it shall not stand ; for God is with us :' Isa. vii. 5, 6 ; Ps. xxxiii. 3. Consult, conclude, determine, resolve upon what you please, i you shall never be able, by all your power and policy, to prevail against the people of God ; for his favourable, signal, and eminent presence is constantly with them, to assist, counsel, and pro- tect them against aU oppositions and assaults. God bringeth to nought the counsel of the nations, Ps. xxxiii. 10. Neither the devil nor liis imps, nor any of their counsels, or enchantments, shall ever be able to stand before the presence of the Lord with his people. Charles the Fifth and the French king had, upon counsel, taken, covenanted, and agreed utterly to extirpate the Lutheran faction out of all their dominions ; but God found them other employment, and, by his signal presence with his people, he gave them a happy halcyon. Let men and devils conspire, let them plot, consult, and determine, all shall be in vain, because there is no counsel against the Lord, there is no possibility of carrying of it against the presence of the Lord with his people. His signal presence will be their greatest safety and security in the midst of all plots, designs, dangers, &c. The signal pre- sence of God with his people mars and frustrates all the plots, coun- sels, and curious contrivances of the world's wizards, as might be shewed in those instances of Balaam, Pharaoh, Saul, Herod, with many others. But I must hasten, and therefore,