PROVIDENCE IN HISTORY. 319 same writer observes in his Lectures on Roman History,* that there are occasional points of time at which the whole course of history, and of the fates of nations, is decided by some event which does not grow necessarily out of previous events, and which a reasonable man can only explain by referring to the providence of God. Mr. Grote, on the other hand, recognizes, but leaves unexplained, such master-events of history. He points out, that if Darius had not contrary to probable expectation-delayed the first Persian invasion till the Greeks had had twenty years for efficient preparations, they must have been overwhelmed, and Greece, such as it has been to the world, would never have existed; and he draws the general inference, 'that the history of any nation, considered as a sequence of causes and effects affording applicable knowledge, requires us to study not merely real events, but also imminent contingencies:'t but there he stops. And when Niebuhr takes me a step further, and shows me a 'cause affording applicable knowledge,' where Mr. Grote only indicated an unexplained effect,' I must think that Niebuhr's is the more completely scientific criticism-the criticism which takes the most complete cognizance of all the facts. The study of the complicated workings of a steam-engine, with its arrangements for supplying its own water, oiling its own wheels, changing vertical to horizontal movements, and so on, would lead me to admit rather than to deny that the hand of the everwatchful engineer might occasionally intervene to give the machine some new application, or to prevent some hideous crash; least of all could I pass such explanation in silence, as though it had no interest to a rational man. * English Translation, vol. ii. p. 146. CHAPTER XXI. ISAIAH XXXVIII.—THE SICKNESS OF HEZEKIAH-IMPORTANCE OF HIS LIFE TO IN N those days was Hezekiah sick unto death.'—It is said that the treatment of plague boils in the East still corresponds with that prescribed by Isaiah on this occasion; and from this, as well as from the other possible allusions (already noticed) to the existence of pestilence in Jerusalem and in Sennacherib's army, it has been suggested that this deadly sickness was the plague; and that it occurred before the country was freed from the enemy is the natural inference from the words in verse 6. But some commentators maintain the other hypothesis, and Delitzsch says that the Hebrew word " means an abscess, and never a plague-spot. Either way, the absence of any allusion to the deliverance in Hezekiah's song is one of those facts which, in historical documents, are so perpetually contradicting our notions of what was likely to have been said or done, and which teach us within what narrow limits all deductive criticisms must be kept if they are not to become mere speculations of the fancy. This sickness and recovery of Hezekiah from the gates of death, was an event of such national importance as made it properly find a place here, as well as in the historical books. For the throne of David, as far as we know, was without an heir at this moment; and Hezekiah's death might have been followed by some such interregnum, anarchy, and seizure of the crown by a soldier, as hastened the downfall of the kingdom of Ephraim. Such ISAIAH XXXVIII. 1- -8. HEZEKIAH SICK. 321 a failure in the succession, in times of national depression and disorganization, would be pregnant with evil even in England now; and we must remember that in Judea then, as in all Eastern and patriarchal governments still, the personal character of the hereditary sovereign was of an importance to the people which it has to a great degree, though not utterly, lost in every country of Europe except Russia. Let us contrast the character and acts of Hezekiah with those of his immediate predecessor and successor, and we shall see of what moment it was that the interval by which his reign separated theirs should be prolonged fifteen years; and especially when the country needed a hand disciplined by experience and guided by faith to recover it from the moral and material disorganization into which (as we know from Isaiah's discourses) it had fallen during the Assyrian supremacy. And thus this crisis in the personal life of Hezekiah-the fact cannot be denied, though here, as in so many like cases, our philosophy cannot trace out the connection of cause and effectbecame the type and symbol of the like crisis in the life of the nation: it, too, was sick unto death, and was granted a new period of life by God, after it was past the help of man. And therefore it will rather argue our own low moral standard than our understanding of Hezekiah's state of mind, if we see nothing but selfishness and weakness in his lamentations at the prospect of death. Selfishness and weakness we may find there, for in whom are they not found in the hour of extreme suffering?-but we may also find patriotism and piety in his words. Ever since his aceession to the throne, and no doubt long before, Hezekiah had been possessed by the idea that he was called by Jehovah to reform and restore the nation: he had been labouring in the work for fourteen years, amidst the greatest difficulties; and now all was to be broken off prematurely; he was neither to be permitted to go on working for the natural 'residue of his years,' nor to hand over a finished task to his children, and thus make known to them Jehovah's truth by his life, as well as by words. These feelings on Hezekiah's part seem to be recognized in 322 FEAR OF DEATH. Isaiah's subsequent promise that he should recover: for the promise is from 'Jehovah, the God of David his father,' and involves an assurance, not only of his own escape from death, but also that the city as well as himself should be delivered out of the hand of the King of Assyria; and thus reminds him that his life is prolonged, not for his individual merits, nor for his individual advantage, but because of God's covenant with the house of David, and that he may fulfil the duties to which that house has been called. If a man has a real work to do in the world, he must lament if it is not permitted him to accomplish it : he will lament even though he acquiesces in the absolute will of God, and believes that God will accomplish his own good design, even more perfectly, through this apparent frustration of it by the power of nature and circumstances. Moreover, before the death and resurrection of Christ there was also a far greater-nay almost entire-obscurity and gloom over the future, even to those who had most habitual faith in God. It is difficult-perhaps, except for a moment, impossible for us now to realize all they then felt; for in our times a man has, with few exceptions, either become too occupied with the duties or the pleasures of this world to have very deep thoughts on death, or the discovery of their depth and darkness has driven him to find light and life in the clear hope of the resurrection which the Gospel has made known to us: but we can see from the language of Hezekiah, and from the like expressions in some of the Psalms, that the holiest men of old could not but look on death as a descent into hell; and therefore, though they believed that God was there also, they shrunk instinctively from it, and desired rather to serve him in the land of the living. We may contrast Hezekiah's language on this occasion with that of St. Paul in his Epistles to the Philippians, and to Timothy. The corresponding narrative in the Second Book of Kings relates the going back of the shadow on the degrees or steps of Ahaz as a miracle; but the account before us falls within the ordinary laws of Providence and nature. And I think that on comparing the two documents (that in the Chronicles is so brief as to throw no farther light PROMISE OF RECOVERY. 323 on the question) by the ordinary methods of historical criticism, we may see that though both the writers believed in the possibility of miracles, which in their minds were not separated by any marked division from what we now call providential events, yet the contemporary historian does not describe the occurrence in terms that exclude any explanation but that of miracle, because he described simply and honestly what he or his informant saw, and which in fact was not a miracle: whereas the other, living 200 years or more after the event, introduces the miraculous element into the account by a few transpositions and variations which to him-to whom the miracle is the most obvious, nay the only conceivable, means of understanding the original documents—seem a mere matter of literary compilation and explanation. He is just as simple and honest here as when he is abstracting the most ordinary fact from the mass of chronicles before him; and as unconscious of the change he has wrought as are the various commentators who, down to the present day, take for granted that the statements in the Book of Kings are a mere supplement to those in Isaiah, without any difference in kind. If we prefer to believe that verses 21 and 22 of the chapter (xxxviii.) before us are a part of the original document added by the author at the end, when he saw that he had omitted, in the proper part of the narrative, the facts they mention, the whole occurrence will appear to have been this:-that Hezekiah being dangerously ill, Isaiah, under an impulse which he, like Socrates, recognized to be from God, but which directed. the Hebrew prophet what to do, while it only admonished the Greek philosopher what to abstain from, went to warn the king that he must prepare for inevitable death; and then left him in great trouble at the declaration, and in earnest prayer that his life might be spared. In this grief and prayer Isaiah both as a patriot and as a personal friend fully sympathized: and being soon convinced that Jehovah had heard their prayers, and that he was empowered to promise Hezekiah recovery instead of death, he returned to announce this new word of Jehovah ;' and to prescribe the medical means which were to be employed |