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SOME such thing we read of in the book of Chronicles. For Joash the
king of Judah at the age of seven was summoned by Jehoiada the priest to
the kingdom and by the witness of Scripture is commended for all his
actions as long as the aforesaid priest lived. But hear what Scripture
relates of him after Jehoiada's death, and how he was puffed up with pride
and given over to a most disgraceful state. "But after the death of
Jehoiada the princes went in and worshipped the king: and he was soothed by
their services and hearkened unto them. And they forsook the temple of the
Lord, the God of their fathers, and served groves and idols, and great
wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem because of this sin." And after a
little: "When a year was come about, the army of Syria came up against him:
and they came to Judah and Jerusalem, and killed all the princes of the
people, and they sent all the spoils to the king to Damascus. And whereas
there came a very small number of the Syrians, the Lord delivered into
their hands an infinite multitude, because they had forsaken the Lord the
God of their fathers: and on Joash they executed shameful judgments. And
departing they left him in great diseases." You see how the consequence
of pride was that he was given over to shocking and filthy passions. For he
who is puffed up with pride and has permitted himself to be worshipped as
God, is (as the Apostle says) "given over to shameful passions and a
reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient." And
because, as Scripture says, "every on, who exalts his heart is unclean
before God," he who is puffed up with swelling pride of heart is given
over to most shameful confusion to be deluded by it, that when thus humbled
he may know that he is unclean through impurity of the flesh and knowledge
of impure desires,--a thing which he had refused to recognize in the pride
of his heart; and also that the shameful infection of the flesh may
disclose the hidden impurity of the heart, which he contracted through the
sin of pride, and that through the patent pollution of his body he may be
proved to be impure, who did not formerly see that he had become unclean
through the pride of his spirit.
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