2 Kings 24

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. XXIV.—By their own means God infatuates those whom in his purpose or threatening he has marked out for ruin. Multitudes of wicked men, for their own selfish purposes, are always ready to execute the threatened vengeance of God: and all resistance is vain when God will destroy. If men mourn not for their fathers’ iniquities, they shall smart for them; and not one jot or tittle of God’s threatenings shall fail. In a day of wrath, the vain confidence of sinners shall utterly fail them; and the mightiest arm of flesh will be a weak support against an angry God. In his sovereign power he nips wicked princes in the bud, and lifts them up, that their fall may be the more ruinous and miserable. How craftily conquerors weaken the nations which they purpose to keep enslaved! But there is no evil in the city which the Lord hath not done. Hardened indeed must men be in wickedness when the repeated miseries of their fellow transgressors deter them not at all from treading in their steps. And a nation is on the verge of ruin when God gives up her rulers to infatuation; and when for the sin of a land many and wicked are the princes thereof. 9