falls upon themselves, saying, 'What have I done that I should be
smitten thus?' or when their friends suffer, saying, 'What a
marvellous thing it is that such a good man as A, B, or C should have
so much trouble!' or, when widespread calamities strike a community,
standing aghast at the broad and dark shadows that fall upon a nation
or a continent, and wondering what the meaning of all this heaped
misery is, and why the world is thus allowed to run along its course
surrounded by an atmosphere made up of the breath of sighs, and
swathed in clouds which are moist with tears.

My text gives us an illustration in the sharpest form of the mystery.
'After these things and this faithfulness, Sennacherib came'--and he
always comes in one shape or another. For, to begin with, a good man's
goodness does not lift him out of the ordinary associations and
contingencies and laws of life. If he has inherited a diseased
constitution, his devotion will not make him a healthy man. If he has
little common sense, his godliness will not make him prosper in
worldly affairs. If he is tied to unfortunate connections, he will
have to suffer. If he happens to be in a decaying branch of business,
his prayers will not make him prosperous. If he falls in the way of
poisonous gas from a sewer, his godliness will not exempt him from an
attack of fever. So all round the horizon we see this: that the godly
man is involved like any other man in the ordinary contingencies and
possible evils of life. Then, have we to say that God has nothing to
do with these?

Again, Hezekiah's story teaches us how second causes are God's
instruments, and He is at the back of everything. There are two
sources of our knowledge of the history of Judah in the time with
which we are concerned. One is the Bible, the other is the Assyrian