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| Chapter X. An instance showing how King Hezekiah was overthrown by the dart of vainglory.
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Chapter X.
An instance showing how King Hezekiah was overthrown by
the dart of vainglory.
For so we read that
Hezekiah, King of Judah, a man of most perfect righteousness in all
things, and one approved by the witness of Holy Scripture, after
unnumbered commendations for his virtues, was overthrown by a single
dart of vainglory. And he who by a single prayer of his was able to
procure the death of a hundred and eighty-five thousand of the army of
the Assyrians, whom the angel destroyed in one night, is overcome by
boasting and vanity. Of whom—to pass over the long list of his
virtues, which it would take a long time to unfold—I will say but
this one thing. He was a man who, after the close of his life had been
decreed and the day of his death determined by the Lord’s
sentence, prevailed by a single prayer to extend the limits set to his
life by fifteen years, the sun returning by ten steps, on which it had
already shone in its course towards its setting, and by its return
dispersing those lines which the shadow that followed its course had
already marked, and by this giving two days in one to the whole world,
by a stupendous miracle contrary to the fixed laws of nature.1009
Yet after signs so great and so incredible,
after such immense proofs of his goodness, hear the Scripture tell how
he was destroyed by his very successes. “In those days,” we
are told, “Hezekiah was sick unto death: and he prayed to the
Lord, and He heard him and gave him a sign,” that, namely of
which we read in the fourth book of the kingdoms, which was given by
Isaiah the prophet through the going back of the sun.
“But,” it says, “he did not render again according to
the benefits which he had received, for his heart was lifted up; and
wrath was kindled against him and against Judah and Jerusalem: and he
humbled himself afterwards because his heart had been lifted up, both
he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and therefore the wrath of the
Lord came not upon them in the days of Hezekiah.”1010
How dangerous, how terrible is the malady of
vanity! So much goodness, so many virtues, faith and devotion, great
enough to prevail to change nature itself and the laws of the whole
world, perish by a single act of pride! So that all his good deeds
would have been forgotten as if they had never been, and he would at
once have been subject to the wrath of the Lord unless he had appeased
Him by recovering his humility: so that he who, at the suggestion of
pride, had fallen from so great a height of excellence, could only
mount again to the height he had lost by the same steps of humility. Do
you want to see another instance of a similar
downfall?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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