Therefore have I also made you contemptible and base before all the people, according as ye have not kept my ways, but have been partial in the law.
Ver. 9. Therefore have I also made you contemptible, and base] And so have cried quittance with you and returned you your own with usury. God loves to retaliate, and to proportion jealousy to jealousy, provocation to provocation, Deuteronomy 32:21, frowardness to frowardness, Psalms 18:26, contrariety to contrariety, Leviticus 26:18; Leviticus 26:21, contempt to contempt, 1 Samuel 2:30, and here. How these unworthy priests had slighted God, and exposed his name and service to contempt and obloquy, hath been before set forth sufficiently. And now it is come home to them. It was threatened before, Malachi 2:3, See Trapp on " Mal 2:3 " and now it is executed. Graceless men are apt to imagine that God threateneth in terrorem in fear only; and are ready, with those miscreants in the Gospel, to say, God forbid; we hope he will be better than his word, and not be so unmerciful as the preachers would make him. They believe the predictions of Scripture but as they believe the predictions of an almanack, which saith, such a day will be rain, and such a day wind; men think it may come to pass, and it may be not. But shall God say the word, and not see it fulfilled? Is not his dicere to say his facere? do do, his word his deed? Yea, doth be not sometimes, dicto citius, by saying more quickly, break out upon his enemies, as he did upon Nadab and Abihu, Nebuchadnezzar, Herod, &c. God had poured contempt already upon these degenerate priests. And the like he had threatened to those, Jeremiah 23:40 : see Mic 3:7 Zechariah 13:4. Ribera upon this text bewails the business in their Romish clergy, now become despicable by reason of their evil manners. Petrarch complained long before that the stench of that sink, the court of Rome, was come up to heaven. Erasmus laid them open in their colours, and did them more mischief iocando, by his jeering and jesting at them, than Luther did stomachando, by dry blows and invectives, as one well observeth. He made the world look up that had been long lulled asleep, and take notice of the truth of that which Chrysostom had long before discovered and lamented: Multi sacerdotes, et pauci sacerdotes; multi in nomine, pauci in opera. There are many priests, and yet but few many so in name, few so indeed. Fie on such rascal ribalds, a said the excommunicated barons in King John's time (in their declaration), concerning the Pope and his Cardinals, and yet they were no Protestants. No more are the Venetians; and yet how they slight their Pope (who is now, like the cuckoo in June, heard, but not regarded, by them) is sufficiently manifested by their manifestos to the Christian world. In Biscany (anciently Cantabria), a province of Spain, they admit no bishops to come among them; such a hatred they have taken against that order of men. And when King Ferdinand came in progress thither, accompanied, among others, by the Bishop of Pampeluna, the people arose in arms, drove back the bishop, and, gathering all the dust on the which they thought he had trodden, flung it into the sea. What our bishops did in Queen Mary's days we all know; that bloody Bonner especially, buried at length in a dunghill (too good a grave for him). Sure it was an unhappy proverb that was then learned, The bishop's foot hath trodden here. They are now utterly cashiered, and lie wrapped up in the sheet of shame for this sin (among others) here charged upon these priests, their dishonouring God's great name, his services and servants. For it was come to that height of wickedness among us, a little before the late troubles, as to cast odium in religionis professores tanquam in adversaries, an evil report upon the professors of religion, as so many adversaries, as Redo saith the ancient Britons did immediately before their destruction by the Saxons. He that would not be an Arminian was therefore accounted a practical Puritan. He that was not for the iure divino by divine law of episcopacy, was little better than a public enemy. If the ministry of England be under any abuses at present, as they are through the iniquity of the times, and the overflow of errors and atheism, let it serve to humble them for their desire of vain glory, and not seeking the honour that cometh from God only, John 5:44; let it also work in them a greater care to approve themselves to God, that they may be glorious in his eyes and to his people, who dare not but honour such as fear the Lord, Psalms 15:4, and have his ministers in singular esteem for their work's sake, 1 Thessalonians 5:13 .
According as ye have not kept my ways] q.d. Your dignity is decayed, like as your duty hath been neglected; you are fallen out of the hearts of good people, and are aviled by all. Neither is it any wonder; for a vicious life breeds vileness of estimation; but virtue is a thousand escutcheons. Hence that close connection, "If there be any virtue, if any praise," Philippians 4:8; this treads upon the heels of that, as it were; follows it as close as the shadow doth the body. When Adam stood in innocence the savage beasts did him reverence. And the same God which did at first put an awe of man in the fiercest creatures, hath stamped in the cruelest hearts a reverent respect to his own image in his faithful ministers, as in Saul to Samuel, Herod to John Baptist, those gallants of Israel to that mad fellow, as they were pleased to call the prophet that came to anoint Jehu; upon whose words (as mad as they made of him) they will presently adventure their lives, and change the crown. God's image (as God's name, Psa 111:9) is holy and reverend; and they that would have good repute and report among men must carefully keep (or, as the word here used may be rendered) watch God's ways. He shall have enough that will watch for his halting, and take any little occasion to revile him with open mouth, as Shimei did David, when he had declined God's ways. It is therefore excellent counsel that Solomon gives, and worthy of all acceptation, Proverbs 4:25,27 "Let thine eyes look right on, and let thine eyelids look straight before thee. Ponder the path of thy feet, and let all thy ways be established. Turn not to the right hand nor to the left: remove thy foot from evil." Lo, this is the ready road to honour and estimation. Do worthily in Ephrata, and so be famous in Bethlehem, Ruth 4:11. Sic famam extendere factis, Hoc virtutis opus. But those Balaams that, persuaded by their Balaks, seek for honour by evil doing, these seek the living among the dead, figs of thistles, heaven in hell, &c.
But have been partial in the law] Heb. Ye have accepted, or acknowledged, faces in the law, i.e. you accept persons; you deal partially in expounding and applying the law, making it pinch the poor and favour the rich. The Church hath ever been pestered with such Aretalogi, story tellers, such parasitic preachers, whose practice hath been, like Ahab's prophets, to speak magis ad voluntatem quam ad veritatem, more to please than to profit. And there is a very great sympathy between great ones that have first flattered themselves, and these false flatterers, who prove a fit helve for such hatchet, and meet lettuce for such lips. Such a one was Uriah, the high priest, to Ahaz, 2 Kings 16:15,16. His motto seems to have been Mihi placet quicquid regi placet. It please me whatever pleases the king. Such were those dirt daubers for the devil in Ezekiel's days, Ezekiel 13:10,11, &c., the Herodians, the Arians, the Arminians, Utenbogardus, &c., the Queen of Navarre's preachers, who persuaded her, out of political respects, to consent to that unhappy match that gave opportunity for the Parisian massacre. The apostle chargeth his son Timothy to do nothing of popularity or partiality, by tilting the balance on the one side, as the word signifieth; 1 Timothy 5:21 , κατα προσκλισιν but as a just law is a heart without affection, an eye without lust, a mind without passion, a treasurer which keepeth for every man that he hath, and distributeth to every man that he ought to have; so should a minister be; remembering that of Job 13:10 "He will surely reprove you, if you secretly accept persons," that is, he will chide you, smite you, curse you for it, and so set it on, as no creature shall be able to take it off. If you reprove meaner men, and wink at the faults of great ones, reproving he will reprove you, he will not do it to halves; no, he will rather do it double; you shall have it both surely and severely. Let your resolution, therefore, be that of Elihu, Job 32:21,22, I will not now accept the person of any man, neither will I give flattering titles to man. For I may not give flattering titles, lest my Maker should suddenly take me away; lest my Master, whose steward I am, finding me unfaithful in the disposal of his mysteries, should confound me before you, Jeremiah 1:17. Nisi fideliter dixerim, vobis erit damnosum, mihi periculosum, If I should not deal faithfully and freely with you, it would be to your loss, but to mine utter undoing, Timeo itaque damnum vestrum, timeo damnationem meam (Bern.).
a A person of abandoned character; a wicked, dissolute, or licentious person. ŒD