I. The discovery of Moses' law in the Temple is a very important occurrence in the history, because it shows us that Holy Scripture had been for a long while neglected and to all practical purposes lost. Josiah had been brought up among wicked 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.
II. Still Josiah had knowledge enough to be religious. 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; and he did not blunt it. He acknowledged a constraining force in the Divine voice within him; he heard and obeyed. At sixteen he began to seek after the God of his fathers. At twenty he commenced his reformation with a resolute faith and true-hearted devotion. He found the book of the Law in the course of his reformation. He was seeking God in the way of His commandments, and God met him there.
III. Observe his conduct when the Law was read to him. "He rent his clothes." He thought far more of what he had not done than of what he had done. He bade the priests inquire of God for him what he ought to do to avert His anger. When he received the message of Huldah, he assembled all Judah to Jerusalem, and publicly read the words of the Law. Then he made them renew the covenant with the God of their fathers, and after that he held his celebrated passover. His greater knowledge was followed by greater obedience.
IV. Observe in what Josiah's chief excellence lay. His great virtue was his faith or conscientiousness. These virtues are in substance one and the same; they belong to one habit of mind: dutifulness; they show themselves in obedience, in the careful, anxious observance of God's will, however we learn it. Let us, like Josiah, improve our gifts, and trade and make merchandise with them, so that when He cometh to reckon with us we may be accepted in His sight.
J. H. Newman, Parochial and Plain Sermon's,vol. viii., p. 91.
References: 2 Kings 22 J. Vaughan, Children's Sermons,5th series, p. 48; Parker, vol. viii., p. 300.