2 Kings 22:8 And Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD… Following two of the most notoriously wicked rulers, Josiah, the boy king of Judah, was a remarkable instance of independence of character and the differentiating influence of the grace of God. His individuality made a deep and lasting impress upon the history of the nation. One of the chief tasks he set himself was the repair of the temple — not done since the time of Joash, two hundred and fifty years before. It was during the progress of this work that the Book of the Law was discovered, a circumstance which was so powerfully to affect the action of the king and the future of his people. I. THE FINDING OF THE BOOK CONSTITUTED IN ITSELF A LITERARY RESURRECTION OF THE MOST REMARKABLE DESCRIPTION. There has been no lack of dogmatic opinions as to what the book was which was thus found. In the passages referred to above it is simply styled "a book" and "the book of the Law of the Lord given by Moses"; language perfectly consistent with the theory that it was the survivor of several, it may be many, previously existing copies. but one doughty champion of the Reformation does not hesitate to identify it with the copy of the law that was preserved in the Ark of the Covenant, and others, as, for instance, the Fathers, and Wellhausen and his Scottish disciple, Robertson Smith, hold that it was none other than the Book of Deuteronomy. How significant the circumstances of this discovery! Are we to pronounce it a "happy accident"? or to refer it to some "Intelligent Cause"? We can recall similar incidents in the history of non-religious or (so-called) profane literature. The Nicomachean Ethics are said to have lain in the cellars of Scepsis, the king of Pergamos, for nearly two centuries after Aristotle had ceased to teach, when, rediscovered by men who loved philosophy, they were conveyed to Athens and then to Rome in the days of Cicero. Their publication stirred afresh the dormant spirit of the schools, and broke like a new morning upon the intellectual life of Europe. I have read, too, an even more romantic tale concerning a book of modern poetry familiar to most of us. Its author had occasionally quoted stanzas in the hearing of his friends, which he said belonged to poems he once had written, but never intended to publish. At last they prevailed upon him to divulge their secret. Years before he had lost the wife of-his youth, in whose praise they had been written, and he had vowed that they should be buried with her. Searching in her coffin they found the MS. pillowing her head, the golden tresses of which were so intertwined with its leaves that it was with the greatest difficulty they were separated and restored to a condition that admitted of their being printed. Instances of a similar character might be multiplied, and it may be asserted that the problem is essentially the same in any case; that the intrinsic character of the writings can have no bearing upon the interpretation to be put upon their rescue from oblivion. But surely the respective circumstances must be taken into account, and the relation of the writings to the spiritual life of mankind? The loss of the "Ethics" would have been a great loss, in some respects an irretrievable one; and had Rosetti's House of Life still lain beneath the cerements of the tomb, English literature to-day would have been distinctly poorer, and the development of our poetry less perfect than it has been. But who will say that such works as these are essential to the higher life, the spiritual progress of humanity? Apart from its own solemn claim to immortality, the Word of the Lord is too closely and causatively associated with the future of the race, and it has outlived too many antagonistic influences, too many ages of unbelief and indifference, for us to conclude hastily that its presence amongst us now is but a lucky survival, to be accounted for by a theory of chances. II. THE DISCOVERY WAS CONNECTED WITH A GREAT AWAKENING OF RELIGIOUS LIFE. The story of its reception by the young king and his subjects, simply as it is told, thrills us as we read it. The great high-priestly penitence of the one for the general sin and the heroic resolution of the others as they "stood by the covenant" have in them not a little of the "moral sublime." But we must not fail to lay to heart the enduring lessons it teaches us. 1. Look at the light which it throws upon the question of a "book-religion." The history of that age illustrated the difference there is between being with a Bible and being without one. Of course it is allowed that the sense the expression "book-religion" often bears is false and mischievous enough. When Chillingworth shouted that "the Bible, and the Bible alone, was the religion of Protestants," he probably attached a very different signification to "religion" than the term generally conveys; if he did not his error was not much less than that which he sought to overturn. Religion is of the heart — an inward and spiritual influence — a communion with God. But it is not independent of external standards, nor does it spring into existence ..unprovoked or unassisted. This, at any rate, is the teaching of history and of individual experience. Without the authoritative medium of Scripture Judah failed to advance upon the religion of the Fathers, in fact, fell further and further behind it. The beliefs of the people wanted fixity; their pious emotions were without definiteness or moral force; and they became a prey to the plausible falsehoods of heathenism. With the reappearance of the Book of the Law the religious spirit of the nation recovered itself, and the forward movement towards the great fulfilment was resumed. But it would be a mistake to suppose that a truth, even an important truth, is as such immortal. As John Stuart Mill has remarked, there are too many instances to the contrary for us to entertain such a comfortable belief. Not once only, but many times, have great religious or moral movements perished untimely for lack of a Scripture that could give their principles authoritative expression and permanence. On the other hand, the "book-religions" of the world have been the only persistent or widely influential ones, as witness the faiths of China, India, Persia, or Palestine. Once fixed in literary form, the creed of a people is open to general reference, becomes a public standard of opinion and of conduct, and in conjunction with the spiritual experience to which it is related, it of necessity advances and refines upon itself. In Fetichism alone have we a religion (if religion it can be called) without a book, which at the same time continues and reproduces itself! Proteus, like it springs up, a rank but stunted growth of diseased imaginations, wild vagaries, and sexual excesses. Yes, in the superstition that haunts the dark places of the earth, that either opposes morality or lies wholly outside of it, and that brands with such unmistakable inferiority its devotees, we have, par excellence, the religion without a book! 2. How independent Divine revelation is of the moral and intellectual conditions amidst which it appears. It is impossible for any candid inquirer to suppose that the dust-covered MS. so seasonably brought forth from its age-long rest was the product of forgery. Apart from the transparent self-contradiction of such a conception, there was no man of that day who could have achieved such a tour de force in literature or morals. How is the problem to be explained, that in an epoch of decadence and apostasy, there should have appeared at once so marvellous a transformation in public and private conduct? Evolution, however it may be manipulated, cannot solve the difficulty. Revelation, that glorious "anticipation of reason," as Lessing conceived it to be, was in that instance, at any rate, no child of the Zeit-geist. The truth that could so regenerate a people must have had its origin in the supernatural and Divine. 3. Vital contact with Holy Scripture is essential to the enjoyment of its advantages. So commonplace are our notions of God's ways that we are startled at the thought of His permitting such an utter and appalling ignorance of Divine things. It is a great mystery; yet we can see certain disciplinary reasons for it. To have a Bible is of little use if we do not read it; to read it, if it be not laid to heart. Of how many might it still be said, "The word of hearing did not profit them, because they were not united by faith with them that heard." Only when in penitence and faith we "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest" the teachings of the Bible, can it become a means of grace, a source of spiritual life and power. (A. F. Muir, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it. |
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