hezekiah's resignation.
2 Kings XX. 19. 77*^?^ said Hezehiah unto Isaiah, Good is the word of the Lord which thou hast spoken.
379.] hezekiah's resignation. 551
IF of active virtues it may be said, that they are more fascinating and beautiful in the eyes of men ; of passive virtues it may be said, that an equal degree of divine grace is displayed in them. It is as much an effect of divine grace to suffer patiently the will of God, as it is to perform it diligently. Accordingly we find, that most of the eminent saints of old were as remarkable for a meek submission to the divine disposals, as for a zealous execution of the divine commands. Aaron % Eli'', Job% David'', and many others, are recorded as bright examples of the passive graces : arid the history of Hezekiah, as contained in the words before us, furnishes us with an admirable specimen of pious resignation.
We shall consider his resignation, I. As an act of piety —
The judgments denounced against his family and kingdom were of the most distressing nature —
[All the wealth that he possessed, together with the holy city and temple, were to be delivered into the hands of the Chaldeans ; and his sons, whom he should beget, should be made eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon. To a monarch, what could be more distressing than the overthrow of his whole kingdom? To a pious monarch, what more grievous than the destruction of God's temple, and the triumph of idolatry over the true religion ? And to a monarch that was a parent, what more terrible than such degradation and misery as were denounced against his offspring ?
Some may think that these judgments were not very afflic- tive, because they were not to affect the king himself, but only to attach upon his descendants : but, we apprehend that any personal affliction whatever would have been esteemed light, in comparison of the calamities here threatened®.]
Yet were the tidings of them received with the
most perfect submission —
[What could any man say more? Hezekiah justified in the strongest terms the denunciations that had been delivered. Though he was taken entirely off his guard, and had not the smallest expectation of any such message from the Lord, yet, on the delivery of it, he bowed at once, and " accepted it as
a Lev. X. 3. b 1 Sam. iii. 18. '^- Job. i. 21,
^ Ps. xxxix, 9. <^ See 2 Sam. xxiv. 17.