cept our cordial thanks for the loan of
the manuscript; and our readers will
excuse the omission of other articles of Nor
intelligence, to give place to a more
full exhibition of the importance of an
event, which must fill the christian
world with joy.-Christian Disciple.

For still we're as free
As creatures can be;

can we of shackles complain :
Then why can't it be,
That God may decree,
While we in full freedom remain?

A will without motive
Would be a thought sportive,
The same as to move without motion:
No motive, no will,

To go, or stand still! [tion.
Such words are words but without no-
A will independent

Is power too transcendent
mortals to have or conceive;
It cannot be given

By the great power of Heaven,
Till God his own nature can give.

MR. EDITOR, Sir-The following Poetry, written not long since, has never been published in any religious Magazine. It is thought desirable by a subscriber, that it be inserted in the Utica Christian Magazine; not so much, however, for its merit as to composition For or poetry, as for its general ingenuity of sentiment, and illustration of truth. DIVINE PREDESTINATION AND HUMAN FREE-AGENCY CONSISTENT. THAT God should decree And yet man be free, Is whot you* deny to be true; The first you refuse, The latter you choose, Then let us this statement pursue.

I grant you free-will
To go, or stand still,

As best suits your present occasion:
But can't hence conclude
Your inference is good
That there is no predestination.
That God does foreknow,
If you stand still, or go,

Is a matter you'll readily own:
The point that we part in,

1

You think it uncertain [known.
If the thing come to pass that's fore-

If facts that are past
Are immutably fast

And fixt in God's knowledge immense,
It is equally true

He has the same view

Of the fixed future events.

All things you will own
By him are foreknown
Consistent with freedom of will:
Foreknown, or decreed,
The same must succeed,
Yet no inconsistency still.

• Written in answer to an opponent.

We must be agreed
That all things proceed,
As causes produce their effects;
And by the same laws
There must be a cause
Why I will what my conscience rejects.
Whatever may be said

Of mover, and moved,

Each motion must sure have its mover:
Each movement of mind,

To whatever inclined,
Depends on some mover or other.

Each thought in my heart,
Each purpose I start, [ence:
Had a cause which produced the exist
And the first moving cause,
To the chain must give laws,
And nothing is left for resistance.

Disorder, 'tis true,
Appears to our view,

In the group of a vast complication;
But the All-seeing cye,
With a glance can descry,

The order throughout all creation.

By mortals unseen,

Is the order I mean,

Through causes and all their effects;
Where a cause does exist

Th' effect can't be miss'd;
No power that is, disconnects.

Pursuant to plan

Was the being of man,

With all his vast train of volitions;

The plan was the same,
Which comprized his blame,

And fix'd his blaine-worthy condition.

If thus I express

Man's blame-worthiness,

As fixed by God in His plan, An inference you'll draw (Not heeding the flaw)

That then there's no blameworthy man.

Pray where rests the blame,
(You will still exclaim)

Since God his decrees must fulfil?
If his throne we assault
Why doth he find fault,
"For who hath resisted his will ?"
Why mortal-O why!
Against God thus reply;

Shall creatures instruct their Creator?
Shall vain and weak man
Be judge of God's plan,
Be Infinite Wisdom's dictator!

Leave God to concert,
And act thy own part;
His precepts and not his decrees,
Point out the right way
For us to obey,

And be blest in our God if we please.

Can we will what we please?
Then we clear his decrees,

And know, when we sin, 'tis our own:
Did God not decree,
(Could such a thing be)

No odds in our sin could be known.

But we'll drop the decree

God has his design

In vilitions of mine,

To answer some purpose most wise ;
Invol❜d is my plan,

To obtain, if I can,
Some real, or ideal prize.

It was God's decree,
That we should be free,

To decree for ourselves what we please;
If we choose what is best

We shall surely be blest

By our own and by Heaven's decrees.
But such as oppose

God's counsels, and those

Who decrec against God and his throne:
Then leave such to tell

By decrees how they fell,

While they fall by decrees of their own.
As Judas decreed,

So Jesus must bleed,

While God the same thing did ordain :
The redemption of man
Was the end in God's plan,

In Judas's, criminal gain.

Your decree was to write,*
And God's thus to fight,
As a bar in the way of your own;
I decree to explain,

And thus to maintain,

That both are concenter'd in one.

We decree for some end:

If it is to befriend

The

cause of true virtue alone:

So God hath directed,

And we are accepted;

And say sin was to be:

What was to be, must come to pass:
Then draw your conclusion,
(The same old delusion)
That free-will is only a farce.

Or to some free volition
Deny the position;

Deny that what is, was to be:
As well as dispute,
Or attempt to refute

The doctrine of God's fix'd decree.

To deny God's decree, Or deny the will free, Absurdities follow on either: Let God then ordain, Let free-will remain,

et Heaven and man be together.

Our ends and decrees meet his own.

God can't be defeated,
His plan is compleated:
In all future time, He is there;

His works are all done

As soon as begun,

For time in the whole has no share.

Then let us adore

His wisdom and power,
Display'd in decrees all abroad;
And let us decree,

Since the will is thus free,
To be workers together with God.
*Referring to the above opponent who had
written against this doctrine.

1

THE

UTICA CHRISTIAN MAGAZINE.

VOL. II.

AUGUST, 1814.

For the Utica Christian Magazine. INSTRUCTION FROM THE BOOK CF

No. 2.

ess, else this remarkable display of providence must all have been kept hid. To obtain a new queen, beauty, and not birth, must be made the prime THE following are among the les object, else Esther could have had no

ESTHER.

sons of instruction to be derived from the Book of Esther.*

pretension to a pastnership in the throne of the greatest empire then on

I. The book of Esther most striking-earth. Here again we see that beauly displays a divine prividence. It also ty is no accidental thing. It is God makes it evident, that providence is a who gives us all our features. He for greeable to a plan previously concertan infinitely wise purpose gave Esther ed in wisdom; that it is like a machine those beautiful and striking features, that has a wheel in a wheel, or one which at a glance, attracted the attenwheel turning around another. tion of those who sought for the fair shows that the rings of the wheels are virgins; which also attracted the parso high as to be dreadful, and yet that ticular attention of Hegai, the keeper they are full of eyes round about, agree-of the women; and which won the af able to the representation of divine providence in Ezekiel's vision.

It

To

fections of the Persian monarch.

Another important thing in this great All the parts of the striking history contained in this inspired book, are should be the informer against Bigthan providential plan, was, that Mordecai evidently parts of one most glorious and Teresh, the two chamberlains who display of the DIVINE MAJESTY. sought to lay hand on king Ahasuerus; bring it about the Jews must be scat- and that this should be certified to the tered through the l'ersian Empire, and king in Mordecai's name. To his creAhasuerus must come to the throne at dit it must be written in the chronicles just such a time. His sumptuous feast of the kingdom; and this must be all was a part of the plan; also his sending that should now be done to express for queen Vashti to appear before the the royal approbation for this great fanobles and princes, that he might show vor. The best time was not yet come them her beauty. Her beauty was for this to be done. As the butler fortherefore not so inconsiderable a thing gat Joseph until it was the most imas to be left out of the plan of God; portant time that he should remember but was absolutely necessary to the him; so Ahasuerus forgat the man who turning around of the great mystical had saved his life, until the rememberwheel. Her refusing to come at the ing of him, could be the means of savking's bidding, was another little wheel ing his, and the life of many others. The in the great wheel. She must be set aside, to give place to Esther the Jewsary part of the scheme of providence; Jew-promotion of Haman was one neces

• If the Sacred History contained in this book be not perfectly familiar to the reader, he would do well to read it again, previous ly to the reading of these lessons of instruction which are drawn from it. E VL. 2

and Mordecai's refusing to do him reverence, was another. Should it be said, if this part had been left out, there would have been no need of the other parts of the scheme; it may be res

" On that night, [i. e. the night between these two banquits] could not the king sleep." This must needs be: God held him waking. It seems his conscience

incurred the displeasure of his gods;
and was therefore determined to spend
his wakeful hours in reviewing the re-
cords of the kingdom, that he might
rectify any thing which he should find
had been done amiss. His falling upon
that particular part of the records,
which made mention of the conspiracy
of the two chamberlains, which was
discovered by Mordecai, was as much
included in the divine plan as the ex-
istence of the record. Haman came
into the outward court at the very mo-
ment he was needed there. Before
he could propose the device which he
had devised against Mordecai, the king
had a question to put to him.
"The
answer of the tongue is from the
Lord." Haman's answer was divinely
appointed. He had his object in giv-
ing this answer, and the Lord had his.
The way was now prepared for queen
Esther to bring forward her main peti-

plied; that the display which is hereby made of what there is in God, and of what there is in men, is of infinite importance; so that all those, whose happiness it is to know God and them-was troubled, as if he thought he had selves, rejoice, that effectual measures were taken to bring out to view such wonders as are recorded in this book.* The chain of providence required that Mordecai should be a Jew, and that Haman should become acquainted with this, which led him to deter mine the ruin, not of one man only, but of the whole nation to which he belonged. It was divinely ordered,|| that Haman should have recourse to lot, to find out what day to fix upon for the destruction of the people which be hated. [Chap. iii. 7.] Though it was in the first month that they cast lots, the lot fell upon the thirteenth day of the twelfth month. The relation which subsisted between Mordecai and Esther was another link in the chain. Their humiliation, fasting and prayer, in concert with their brethren the Jews, was a part of the plan which could by no means have been left out. Esther must go in unto the king; the golden|tion to advantage. This she did in the scepter must be held out to her, accompanied with the most generous of fer to ask what she would, even to the half of the kingdom. The plan of providence required, that at this time she should ask nothing but the favor of the presence of the king and Haman at her banquet prepared for them. Here again the plan required, that she should postpone her great petition until the next day at another banquet, which should be prepared for the same guests. Matters were not yet ripe in divine providence for her to come forward boldly and ask what was in her heart.

very manner and language which Heayen had ordained to work up the feelings of the king to a high pitch of indignation against the enemy of his beloved queen, before he knew that this enemy was his favorite. The king's returning from the garden, and finding Haman fallen on the bed where the queen was sitting, was a circumstance which divine providence by no means left undirected. This hastened Haman to the gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai.

Now the way was prepared for Esther to introduce Mordecai to Ahasue * Without taking any delight in natural rus, in the character of her kinsman, or moral evil, we may rejoice that God who had acted the part of a father to makes use of both, to unfold to better ad- her. Mordecai, who had saved the vantage the greatness and goodness of his nature. Jesus Christ said to his disciples, king's life, and indeed the life of his (John xi. 14, 15) "Lazarus is dead; and I queen, was now promoted, and held in am glad for your sakes that I was not there, the highest estimation at court. This to the intent ye may believe." He was glad prepared the way for the favor requestthat there was room made by the death of ed for the Jews. And God had orderLazarus for God to make a greater displayed it so in his providence, that all this of his glory than would have been made by took place so soon after Haman's obpreserving him from death.

that there was sufficient time to reverse the decree before the fatal day, appointed for their destruction, should

arrive.

taining his wicked decree against them, || deliverance. He made every wheel of his providence turn this way. Even those events, which seemed to have a different aspect, proved in the end to be for, and not against his people. Instead of Mordecai's being hanged on the gallows fifty cubits high, the Jews' greatest enemy was hanged on it; and Mordecai was placed next to the king, to the great joy of all the Jewish nation. The day which they had expect

Who can attentively read this piece of sacred history, and not see that there is a God who judgeth in the earth; who ruleth in the kingdoms of men; who putteth down one and setteth up another; whose counsel shall stand, and who will do all his pleasure!ed would be the day of their utter deIs it not most evident that there is a struction, was a day of great victory providence which leaves nothing undi- and triumph. The God of Israel knew rected; no, not t even the features of all the while what he was doing for his the face, nor the casting of the lot? Is people. There was no darkness for it not most evident that God is not dis- him. From the beginning he saw the appointed by any thing which takes end. The mercy of the Lord endurplace; but, on the contrary, that eve- eth forever.. The Lord taketh pleasure ry thing which takes place is according in his people. Though they may be to his foreknowledge and determina- cast down, they will not be destroyed. tion? Ought not this view of divine The church is like the bush in the providence to lead us to the most flame; it is not consumed though in adoring views of the God of provi- the fire. Zion is graven upon the palms dence? Ought it not to lead to the most of the hands of her King; her walls are grateful acknowledgments of his care continually before him. He rules in over us; to entire submission to every the midst of his enemies. He spreads allotment, and to perfect confidence in a table for his people in the presence him, as it respects events in the womb of their foes. of futurity? Although clouds and darkness are round about him; yet justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne: Let the earth rejoice, because the Lord reigneth.

III. The history of the people of God, contained in the book of Esther, is evidently designed to administer comfort and courage to the saints in trying circumstances, to the end of the II. From this piece of sacred histo- world. In the world, said Jesus to his ry we are led to discover the great ob- disciples, shall ye have tribulation.ject which God seeks to promote by Haman is not the only enemy which his holy providence; it appears to be the people of God have had, and their the safety and welfare of his church.-trials have not been confined to the God had a people scattered through reign of Ahasuerus. While Satan is the Persian empire. This people Sa- God of this world, and is suffered to go tan and wicked men sought to destroy; up and down in it, and while so great but He wrought marvellously for their a part of mankind belong to his king* Some have doubted whether this book dom; and while there are so many was given by inspiration, because the name false brethren, and even false teachers, of God is not found in it. The name of God within the pale of the church, the true is not seen in the works of creation, but yet Israel of God must expect trouble.creation is full of God. That thy name is near, saith the Psalmist, thy wonderous Christ never gave us any reasou to exworks declare. So with the canonical book pect to get through the world without of Esther; it is full of God. It cannot be it: but he has mixed consolation in our read in connexion with other parts of the sa- bitter cup. Though in the world we cred volume, without constantly impressing have tribulation, in Him we have peace. the mind with this truth, that God is; and that he is the rewardes of them who diligent. "We are troubled on every side, yet ly seek him. not distressed; we are perplexed, but