Her prophets [are] light [and] treacherous persons: her priests have polluted the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law.
Ver. 4. Her prophets are light] Rash, headlong, futilous, debauched (as the French translateth it), aerial, fantastic, weightless, worthless men, such as in whose doctrine there is no authority, in whose life no gravity, staidness, severity, constancy (Rodulphus, Archbishop of Canterberry next after Anselm, was surnamed Nugax for his jesting and toying): like the planet Mercury, they can be good in conjunction with good, and bad with bad; like that French apostate of whom Beza saith that he had religionem ephemeram, for every day a new religion, ab his ad illos, ab illis ad hos leviter iens et levius transiens, double-minded and unstable in all his ways, James 1:8 .
And treacherous persons] Viri perfidiarum, most perfidious persons. This is their true title, whom the world counteth and calleth facile, facetious, fair conditioned, comporting, condescending, people pleasing preachers. Can there be a worse treachery than to betray men's souls, as your Aiones and Negones do, that cry peace, peace, and so betray men to hell.
Her priests have polluted the sanctuary] Or holy services.
“ Cum coelum terrae commiscent sacra profanis. ”
God looks to be sanctified in all those that draw nigh unto him, Leviticus 10:3, that they should be singularly holy, handling the word, sancte magis quam scite with greater reverence than knowledge, (as one once told the wanton vestal), and living so that malice itself may be silenced. God of old appointed both the weights and measures of the sanctuary to be twice as large as those of the commonwealth; to show that he expects much more of those that serve him there than he doth of others. See 1Ki 7:15 cf. 2 Chronicles 3:15 .
They have done violence to the law] sc. By their crafty and perverse glosses, setting it on the rack, as it were, and so making it speak more than it would; tawing it with their teeth, as shoemakers do their upper leather, forcing it two miles when it would go but one, yea, murdering it, as Tertullian saith of some, quod caedem scripturarum faciant, that they slaughter the Scriptures to serve their own purposes; for which cause also he calleth Marcion the heretic, Murem Ponticum, the Rat of Pontus, for his arroding and gnawing the text.