time as despisers of the name of God, and then goes on with his invective as
follows (Mal ii:7, 8): "For the priest's lips should keep knowledge,
and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger of
the Lord of hosts. (17) But ye are departed out of the way; ye have
caused many to stumble at the law, ye have corrupted the covenant of
Levi, saith the Lord of hosts." (18) He further accuses them of interpreting
the laws according to their own pleasure, and paying no respect to God but
only to persons. (19) It is certain that the high priests were never so
cautious in their conduct as to escape the remark of the more shrewd among
the people, for the latter were at length emboldened to assert that no
laws ought to be kept save those that were written, and that the decrees
which the Pharisees (consisting, as Josephus says in his " Amtiquities,"
chiefly, of the common people), were deceived into calling the traditions of
the fathers, should not be observed at all. (20) However this may be, we can
in nowise doubt that flattery of the high priest, the corruption of religion
and the laws, and the enormous increase of the extent of the last-named,
gave very great and frequent occasion for disputes and altercations
impossible to allay. (21) When men begin to quarrel with all the ardour of
superstition, and the magistracy to back up one side or the other, they can
never come to a compromise, but are bound to split into sects.

(18:22) II. It is worthy of remark that the prophets, who were in a private
station of life, rather irritated than reformed mankind by their freedom of
warning, rebuke, and censure; whereas the kings, by their reproofs and
punishments, could always produce an effect. (23) The prophets were often
intolerable even to pious kings, on account of the authority they assumed
for judging whether an action was right or wrong, or for reproving the kings
themselves if they dared to transact any business, whether public or
private, without prophetic sanction. (24) King Asa who, according to
the testimony of Scripture, reigned piously, put the prophet Hanani into a