Love faith. For by his devotion and faith Josiah won great love for himself from his enemies. For he celebrated the Lord’s Passover when he was eighteen years old, as no one had done it before him. As then in zeal he was superior to those who went before him, so do you, my children, show zeal for God. Let zeal for God search you through and devour you, so that each one of you may say, The zeal of your house has eaten me up.^[1] An apostle of Christ was called the zealot.^[2] But why do I speak of an apostle? The Lord himself said, The zeal of your house has eaten me up.^[3] Let it then be real zeal for God, not mean earthly zeal, for that causes jealousy.

How, then, do kings serve the Lord with fear except by forbidding and restraining with religious severity all acts committed against the commandments of the Lord? A sovereign serves God one way as man, another way as king; he serves him as man by living according to faith, he serves him as king by exerting the necessary strength to sanction laws that command goodness and prohibit its opposite. It was thus that Hezekiah served him by destroying the groves and temples of idols and the high places that had been set up contrary to the commandments of God;^[1] thus Josiah served him by performing similar acts. . . . It is thus that kings serve the Lord as kings when they perform acts in his service that none but kings can perform. ^[2] ABOLISHMENT OF THE WORSHIP OF DEMONS. ISHO‘DAD OF MERV: No one would make a son or a daughter pass through fire. The passage through fire is the symbol of combustion. In fact, the demons demanded that [their worshipers] burn their own children, and sometimes they were immolated, sometimes they only underwent the symbolic rite mentioned above,^[1] as if they had been actually placed into the fire and consumed, and so the expectations of the demons were satisfied. Sometimes fire was also passed above somebody to signify that he was by now enveloped in fire. Then salt was thrown, too, according to the customs of those who worship the devil. ^[2]

Yet from that love of the human heart, because of which no one ever hated his own flesh,^[1] if people believe that anything would be lacking to their bodies after death that in their own people or country the solemnity of burial demands, they become sad, and before death they fear for their bodies that which has no effect on them after death. Thus we read in the book of Kings that God through a prophet threatens another prophet who transgressed his word, that his body should not be returned to the sepulcher of his ancestors. Scripture records it in these words: Thus says the Lord: Because you have not been obedient to the Lord and have not kept the commandment that the Lord your God commanded you, and have returned and eaten bread and drunk water in the place wherein he commanded you that you should not eat bread or drink water, your dead shall not be brought in the sepulcher of your ancestors.^[2] If we consider the extent of this punishment according to the Evangelist where we learn that after the body has been slain there is no occasion to fear that the lifeless members will suffer, it should not be called punishment. But, if we consider it in relation to the love of a person for his own flesh, then he might have been frightened and saddened while living at what he was not to feel when dead. This, then, was the nature of the punishment: The soul grieved that something would happen to its body, although, when it did happen, the soul did not grieve. Only to this extent did the Lord wish to punish his servant, for it was not from his own obstinacy that he refused to carry out the command, but, because of the deceit of another person who was deceiving him, he thought he obeyed when he did not obey.

Nobody must think that anything was detracted to the celerity of death because of one’s merits. Enoch was kidnapped,^[1] lest malice might spoil his heart,^[2] and Josiah, who celebrated the Passover of the Lord in the eighteenth year of his reign in such a manner that he overcame in piousness all the previous kings, did not survive longer through the merits of his faith. No, rather, because grievous destruction threatened the Jewish people, the just king was taken away beforehand. I fear that you, too, were snatched away from us because of some offense on our part, so that, as a just person, you might escape in the eighteenth year of your reign the bitterness of impending evil.^[3]

Necessarily, too, the Lord gives us this admonition, to say in our prayer, And lead us not into temptation. In this part it is shown that the adversary has no power against us, unless God has previously permitted it, in order that all our fear and devotion and obedience may be turned to God, since in temptations nothing evil is permitted, unless the power is granted by him. Scripture proves this when it says, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came against Jerusalem and assaulted it, and the Lord gave it into his hand. Moreover, power is given to evil against us according to our sins; as it is written, Who has given Jacob for a spoil and Israel to those who despoiled him? Has not God, against whom they have sinned and were unwilling to walk in his ways and to hear his law, even poured out on them the indignation of his fury?^[1]

There is an excellent and significant illustration in the book of Kings, showing how the sin of fornication is prevented by an attack of pride. When the children of Israel had been taken captive by Neco, king of the Egyptians, Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Assyriaans,^[1] came up and brought them back from the borders of Egypt to their own country,^[2] not indeed meaning to restore them to their former liberty and their native land, but meaning to carry them off to his own land and to transport them to a still more distant country than the land of Egypt in which they had been prisoners. And this illustration exactly applies to the case before us. For though there is less harm in yielding to the sin of pride than to fornication, yet it is more difficult to escape from the dominion of pride. For somehow or other the prisoner who is carried off to a greater distance will have more difficulty in returning to his native land and the freedom of his fathers, and the prophet’s rebuke will be deservedly aimed at him: Why have you grown old in a strange country? Indeed a man is rightly said to have grown old in a strange country, if he has not broken up the ground of his sins.

The church has gold, not stored up but to lay out and to spend on those who need. What necessity is there to guard what is of no good? Do we not know how much gold and silver the Assyrians took out of the temple of the Lord? Is it not much better that the priests should melt it down for the sustenance of the poor, if other supplies fail, than that of a sacrilegious enemy should carry it off and defile it? Would not the Lord say, Why did you allow so many needy to die of hunger? Surely you had gold? You should have given them sustenance. Why are so many captives brought to the slave market, and why are so many unredeemed left to be slain by the enemy? It had been better to preserve living vessels than gold ones.