ow, O Lord, I beseech
thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect
heart, and have done that which is good in thy sight.' And Hezekiah
wept sore. But he did pray. He went to God, and told his story to
him, and wept sore; and the Lord God heard him, and taught him that
he was not as good as he fancied; taught him that, after all, he had
nothing to say for himself--no reason to shew why he should not die.
'What shall I say? He hath both spoken unto me, and himself hath
done it: I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my
soul.' And so he felt that, instead of justifying himself, he must
throw himself utterly on God's love and mercy; that God must
undertake for him. 'O Lord, I am oppressed, crushed--the heart is
beaten out of me. I have nothing to say for myself. Undertake for
me. I have nothing to say for myself, but I have plenty to say of
thee. Thou art good and just. Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell.
I can say no more.'

And then he found that the Lord was ready to save him. That what
the Lord wished was, not to kill him, but to recover him, and make
him live--live more really, and fully, and wisely, and manfully--by
making him trust more utterly in God's goodness, and love, and
mercy; making him more certain that, good as he thought himself, and
perfect in heart, he was full of sins: and yet that the Lord had
cast all these sins of his behind his back, forgotten and forgiven
them, as soon as he had made him see that all that was good and
strong in him came from God, and all that was evil and weak from
himself. And then he says, 'O Lord, by these things men live, and
in all these things is the life of my spirit.' God meant all along
to receive me, and make me live. He chastened me, and brought me
low, to shew me that my own faith, my own righteousness, was no
reason for his saving me: but that his own love and mercy was a
good reason for saving me. 'Behold,' he goes on to say, 'for peace
I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered
it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins
behind thy back.'

And, my dear friends, what Hezekiah saw but dimly, we ought to see
clearly. The blessed news of the Gospel ought to tell us it
clearly. For the blessed Gospel tells us that the same Lord who
chastened and taught, and then saved, Hezekiah, was made flesh, and
born a man of the substance of a mortal woman; that he might in his
own pe