With zeal immense, Josiah,

Himself a prince, acted in such a way

As no one before or after him had ever done!— Idols he

Dethroned; destroyed unhallowed temples; burned

With fire priests on their altars; all the bones

Of false prophets were dug up; the altars burned,

The carcasses to be consumed did serve For fuel! FIVE

It is written in the book of Days: Hezekiah fell because his heart was lifted up.^[1] Certainly, no one but the ungodly will deny that Hezekiah was a just man. You may say, He sinned in certain things, and, therefore, he ceased to be just. But Scripture does not say this. For he did not lose the title of just because he committed small sins, but he possessed the title of just because he performed many good deeds. Say all this to prove, with the testimonies of sacred Scripture, that the just are not sinners simply because they have sinned on occasions, but they remain just because they flourish in many virtues. Of Josiah it is written, He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the way of David his father. He declined neither to the right nor to the left; and yet, although he was a just man, in a time of need and dire necessity, he sent Hilkiah to Huldah, the prophet, the wife of Shallum, the son of Tokhath, the son of Hasrah, keeper of the wardrobe. And she dwelled, he says, in Jerusalem in the second part (a reference, undoubtedly, to that part of the city that is enclosed by an inner wall). And she answered, ‘Thus says the Lord the God of Israel: Go and tell the man that sent you to me.’ There is contained in these words a secret reproof of the king and priests and all men, because never was there any saint found among people who could predict the future.