as of a second David, leaping from crag to crag like the free gazelle,1 in a strength mightier than his own.

Whatever be the date or precise fulfilment of these

Josiah.

B. C.

hopes of Habakkuk, it is certain that in the ac640-609. cession of the grandson of Manasseh a better day dawned upon the Church of Judah. The popular election 2 which placed Josiah on the throne, of itself marks some strong change of public feeling. There was also a circle of remarkable persons in or around the Palace and Temple, who, possibly driven together by the recent persecutions, had formed a compact band, which remained unbroken till the fall of the monarchy itself. Amongst these the most conspicuous at this time were Shaphan the secretary, Hilkiah the High Priest, and Huldah the Prophetess, who, with her husband Shallum, himself of the Priestly race, and keeper of the royal wardrobe, lived close by the Temple precincts. Within this circle, the King had grown up, with another youth, destined to be yet more conspicuous than the King himself, the Prophet Jeremiah. It was by the joint action of this group that a discovery was made which, if we could but unravel its whole mystery, would throw more light on the history of sacred literature than any other event under the monarchy, and which, even in the obscure form in which we now discern it, precip itated the great reaction of Josiah, and colored the whole teaching of his age. Eighteen years had passed before the King entered on the work which, from the various influences which it represented, and from its unexpected and welcome appearance, was

B. C. 622.

1 Hab. iii. 17-19. Verse 19 is taken from Ps. xviii. 33.

3 2 Kings xxii. 14. "In the second fortification of the city," translated

2 2 Kings xxi. 24; 2 Chr. xxxiii. "in the college," see Thenius, ad loc

25.

to make his remembrance "like the composition of the perfume that is made by the art of the apothecary; "sweet as honey in all mouths, and as music at a ban"quet of wine.” 1 The Temple during the previous reign had fallen into a state of neglect such that, as in the time of Joash, a complete repair had become necessary. On this occasion, however, the King and the Priesthood acted in entire harmony. Suddenly, Discovery under the accumulated rubbish or ruins of the of the Law. Temple (as it would seem), the High Priest discovered a roll containing the "Book 2 of the Law."

of the Book

Whatever may have been the exact nature of this document, two points, and two alone, are clear. First, it was as complete a surprise as if the Book had never been known before. During the troubles of the reign of Manasseh, there is no proof of its destruction During the previous reigns, with two or three doubtful exceptions, there is no proof of its existence. David. Solomon, Asa, and Jehoshaphat had lived in constant, and apparently unconscious, violation of the ordinances which came home with such force to Josiah. Whether it were written now or ages before, the revolution in the mind of the discoverers was the same. Like the revival of the Pandects at Amalfi, like the revival of the Hebrew and Greek text of the Bible at the Reformation, the sudden republication of the sacred Book of the Constitution amounted almost to a new revelation.

Secondly, whatever other portions of the Pentateuch may have been included in the roll, there can be little doubt that the remarkable work to which the Greek

1 Ecclus. xlix. 1.

2 The facts stated in the text are such as are admitted by all. The Arguments for the book being Deu

teronomy, are well stated in Dean Milman's History, i. 389; for its being the whole Pentateuch, in Ewall, iii. 699.

Deuteronomy.

translators gave the name of "the Second Law"1 (Deu teronomy) occupied the chief place. The duties of the Prophetic order, the duties of the King, the necessity of political and religious unity, the prohibition of high places, the extreme severity against idolatrous practices, the blessings and curses pronounced on obedience and disobediance to the Divine precepts, are all peculiar to Deuteronomy, and either applied or were directly applicable 2 to the evils which Josiah was called to reform. There was a still higher purpose which the "Second Law" served, a still nobler spirit in which Moses might be said to have risen again in the days of Josiah, to promulgate afresh the code of Sinai. Now, for the first time, the Love of God, as the chief ground of His dealings with His people. - the love towards God as the ground of their service to Him the spiritual character and free choice of that service -were urged on the nation with all the force of Divine and human authority. Fully to bring out this aspect of the Mosaic law was reserved for a greater than Josiah, that other youth of whom we spoke, his contemporary Jeremiah; and yet more completely for a Greater either than Josiah or Jeremiah, to whom the Book of Deuteronomy was amongst the chief weapons which He deigned to use from the ancient Scriptures, and who, beyond even Jeremiah, corresponded to the Second Moses, of whom that book spoke.

4

1 The argument here remains the same, whether the Book of Deuteronomy, in its present shape, was of a long anterior date (as Dean Milman, 208, 209, 215), or written in the time of Manasseh (as Ewald, iii. 683), or by Jeremiah himself (as Bishop Colenso, On the Pentateuch, Part 8, p.

2 Deut. xii. 2; xvi. 21, 22; xvii. 18; xviii. 10; xxiii. 17, 18, &c.

3 Ibid. vi. 4-9; vii. 6-11; x. 1215; xix. 9; xxx. 6-20.

4 Matt. iv. 4, 7, 10; John v. 46 Comp. Deut. viii. 3; vi. 13, 16; xviii 15-22.

But for the moment it was not the Prophet, but the King, who took his stand on the newly dis- Josiah's covered law. To him it was communicated by reformation the Secretary Shaphan. By him it was recited aloud from end to end to an immense concourse assembled in the court of the Temple, in which every order of the State, Priests and Prophets, no less than nobles and peasants, heard the new revelation from the lips of the Royal Reformer, as he stood erect, leaning against the pillar, at the entrace of the inner court, beside the sacred laver, himself the new Lawgiver of his people.

Within the limits prescribed, the Reformation of Josiah now began. It was inaugurated by one of those national vows or covenants which were in the monarchy what the vows of individuals had been in the earlier stages of the nation. This was followed by a Passover, such as even Hezekiah had not been able to celebrate - such as had not been celebrated as far back as the first foundation of the kingdom. The Pagan worship was uprooted with the same punctilious care as that with which, during the Paschal season, the houses of Israelites were to be cleansed from every morsel of leaven. Every instrument or image, if of wood, was burnt; if of metal or stone, was shattered to pieces and ground to powder. The ashes were carried beyond the territory of Judah, or thrown on the numerous graves along that vast cemetery, the necropolis of the glen of the Kedron. Then fell in rapid succession the houses of those who ministered to the licentious rites close by the Temple, and the sanctuaries that stood just outside the gates of Jerusalem. The wooden chariots conse

42 Kings xxiii. 3. So Mahomet leaned first against a palm-tree and then against a pillar; so the Khalif

at Cordova had his own special pulpit in the great mosque.

2 2 Chr. xxxv. 1-19.

2

crated to the Sun, the brazen altars planted by Ahaz and Manasseh in different parts of the Temple disappeared. Everywhere, as by a kind of exorcism, he desecrated the sanctuaries of the High Places, especially those in the valley of Hinnom and on Mount Olivet, by heaping upon them the bones of the dead.1 Even beyond the limits of Judah his zeal extended to the old Israelite sanctuaries of Bethel and Samaria. Thither he came as the long-expected deliverer, foretold by Iddo the seer. A terrible vengeance followed on those who had ministered at these shrines. Those that he still found alive were executed upon their own altars.3 Of those who were dead, the bones were dug up (with the one exception of the Prophet of Bethel, whose memory was still preserved on the spot) and thrown upon the sites of the altars which they had once served. We cannot doubt that the sanguinary acts of Josiah, no less than of Elijah and of Jehu, are condemned by Him in whom was fulfilled the spirit of the true Deuteronomy, the Revived Law, which the impetuous King carried out only in its external observances, and by its own hard measures. It was the first direct persecution that the kingdom of Judah had witnessed on behalf of the True Religion. Down to this time the mournful distinction had been reserved for the half-pagan King Manasseh. But cruelty had here, as in all like cases, provoked a corresponding cruelty; and the reformation of Josiah, if from his youth and his zeal it has suggested his likeness to our Edward VI., by its harsher features encouraged the rough acts which disfigured so many of the last efforts of that and other like movements of the Christian Church.

His violence.

1 2 Kings xxiii. 4-14.

2 1 Kings xiii. 2.

3 2 Kings xxiii. 20.