The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Kings — Section 415

what an ignominious fate was his I Jeremiah had foretold it when he said, "They shall not lament for him, saying, Ah my brother I or, Ah sister I ... He shall be buried with the burial of an ass, clrawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem" (Jer. xxii. 18, 19). It was Jeboiakim who cut with bis penknife the roll on which were written the words of the Lord, and cast the leaves into the fire (Jer. xxxvi.). For this God said, regarding Jehoiakim, that be should have none to sit upon the throne of David ; " and his dead body should be cast out in the day to the heat, and in the night lo the frost." Jehoiakim perished, but the Word of God, which he sought to destroy, was fulfilled. God's Word cannot be destroyed. Roman emperors sought to destroy it. 'l'be Church of Rome, for the exaltation of the priesthood, kept it from the people. "But the Word of God is not bound." Contrast the fate of Jehoiakim, who despised and dishonoured the Word of God, with the universal lamentation that followed the death of his father Josiah, who honoured God's Word and obeyed its teachings.-C. H. I. Vars. l-25.-Good aims and bad methods. "And the king sent," etc. Did the world ever contain a people more morally corrupt than that of the Jews? When we mark them journeying in the wilderness forty years, a more murmuring, disorderly, rebellious set of men where else could we discover? When settled in Palestine, a "land flowing with milk and honey," we find them committing every crime of which humanity is capable-adulteries, suicides, murders, ruthless wars, gross idolatries, their priests impostors, their kings bloody tyrants. Even David, who is praised the most, was guilty of debauchery, falsehood, and blood. They were a nation steeped in depravity. They were "stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears;" they did "always resist the Holy Ghost" (see Acts vii. 51). No doubt there was always a true "Church of God" within the nation (1 Kings xix. 18); but to call the whole nation "the Jewish Church " is a misnomer, and far from a harmless one. It has encouraged Christian nations to fashion their communities after the Jewish model instead of after the Christian one. The verses I have selected record and illustrate good aims and baa methods. I. Goon AIMB. Josiah's aims, as here presented, were confessedly high, noble, and good. I offer two remarks concerning his purposes as presented in these verses. 1. To reduce his people to a loyal obedience to Heaven. His aim was to sweep every vestige of religious error and moral crime from his dominion. Truly, what more laudable purpose could any man have than this, to crush all evil within his domain, to crush it not only in its form but in its essence? This was indeed the great end of Christ's mission to the world. He came "to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." 2. Generated within him by the discovery of the Divine will. Somehow or other, as Wll8 seen in the last chapter, the book of the Law which was to regulate the lives of the Jewish people had been lost in the temple, lost probably for many years, but Hilkiah the high priest had just discovered it, and Josiah becomes acquainted with its contents. What is the result? He is seized with the burning conviction that the whole nation is gone wrong, and forthwith he seeks to flash the same conviction into the sonls of his people. "And the king sent, and they gathered unto him all the elders of Judah and of Jerusalem. And the king went up into the house of the Lord, and all the men of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, both small and great: and he read in their ears all the words of the book of the covenant which was found in the house of the Lord. And the king stood by a pillar, and made a covenant before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his commandments and his testimonies and his statutes with all their hem t and all their soul, to perform the words of this covenant that were written in this book. And all the people stood to the covenant." Thus sprang his noble purpose. It was not a capricious whim or the outcome of a sudden and fitful impulse; it was rooted in an enlightened conviction. A noble purpose must be righteously founded. IL BAD METHODB. Real good work requires not only I\ good purpose, but II good met:hod also. Saul sought to hononr the God of his fathers, and this was good; but his method, viz. that of persecuting the Christi&ns, was bad. How did Josiah now seek to realize his purpose to sweep idolatry from the face of his country? Not by lL KINGB, 2 li  'i:HE SECOND BOOK OF 'l'HE KINGS. [cu. x:xm.1-37.