men--in a corrupt
court--after an apostasy of more than half a century; far from God's
Prophets, and in the midst of idols.

In such times was Josiah born; and, like Manasseh, he came to the
throne in his boyhood. As if to show us that religion depends on a
man's self (under God, who gives grace), on the state of his heart, not
on outward circumstances, Manasseh was the son of the pious Hezekiah,
and Josiah was the son of wicked Amon. Josiah was but eight years old
when his father was slain. We hear nothing of his boyhood; but
scarcely was he of age to think for himself, and to profess himself a
servant of the true God, but he chose that "good part which could not
be taken away from him[7]." "In the eighth year of his reign" (i.e.
when he was sixteen years of age), "while he was yet young, he began to
seek after the God of David his father[8]." Blessed are they who so
seek, for they shall find. Josiah had not the aid of a revealed
volume, at least not of the Law; he was surrounded by the diversities
of idol-worship, the sophistries of unbelief, the seductions of sinful
pleasure. He had every temptation to go wrong; and had he done so, we
might have made allowances, and said that he was not so bad as the
other kings, for he knew no better, he had not sinned against light.
Yes, he would have sinned against light--the event shows it; for if he
had light enough to go right (which he had, for he did go right), it
follows, that if he had gone wrong, it would have been against light.
Not, indeed, so strong and clear a light as Solomon disobeyed, or
Joash; still against his better knowledge. This is very important.
Every one, even the poorest and most ignorant, has knowledge enough to
be religious. Education does not make a man religious: nor, again, is
it an excuse for a man's disobedience, that he has not been educated in
his duty. It only makes him less guilty than those who have been
educated, that is all: he is still guilty. Here, I say, the poorest
and most unlearned among us, may take a lesson from a Jewish king.
Scarcely can any one in a Christian land be in more disadvantageous
circumstances than Josiah--nay, scarcely in a heathen: he had idolatry
around him, and at the age he began to seek God, his mind was unformed.
What, then, was it that guided him? whence his knowledge? He had that,
which all men have, heathen as well as Christians, till they pervert or
blunt it--a natural sense of right and wrong; an