As interesting, however, as the origin of “Malachi’s” attitude to the heathen, are two other points about it. In the first place, it is remarkable that it should occur, especially in the form of emphasising the purity of heathen sacrifices, in a book which lays such heavy stress upon the Jewish Temple and ritual. This is a warning to us not to judge harshly the so-called legal age of Jewish religion, nor to despise the prophets who have come under the influence of the Law. And in the second place, we perceive in this statement a step towards the fuller acknowledgment of Gentile religiousness which we find in the Book of Jonah. It is strange that none of the post-exilic Psalms strike the same note. They often predict the conversion of the heathen; but they do not recognise their native reverence and piety. Perhaps the reason is that in a body of song, collected for the national service, such a feature would be out of place.
3. THE PRIESTHOOD OF KNOWLEDGE (Chap. ii. 1-9).
In the third section of his book “Malachi” addresses himself to the priests. He charges them not only with irreverence and slovenliness in their discharge of the Temple service—for this he appears to intend by the phrase _filth of your feasts_—but with the neglect of their intellectual duties to the people. _The lips of a priest guard knowledge, and men seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the Angel_—the revealing Angel—_of Jehovah of Hosts_. Once more, what a remarkable saying to come from the legal age of Israel’s religion, and from a writer who so emphasises the ceremonial law! In all the range of prophecy there is not any more in harmony with the prophetic ideal. How needed it is in our own age!—needed against those two extremes of religion from which we suffer, the limitation of the ideal of priesthood to the communication of a magic grace, and its evaporation in a vague religiosity from which the intellect is excluded as if it were perilous, worldly and devilish.[1032] “Surrender of the intellect” indeed! This is the burial of the talent in the napkin, and, as in the parable of Christ, it is still in our day preached and practised by the men of one talent. Religion needs all the brains we poor mortals can put into it. There is a priesthood of knowledge, a priesthood of the intellect, says “Malachi,” and he makes this a large part of God’s covenant with Levi. Every priest of God is a priest of truth; and it is very largely by the Christian ministry’s neglect of their intellectual duties that so much irreligion prevails. As in “Malachi’s” day, so now, “the laity take hurt and hindrance by our negligence.”[1033] And just as he points out, so with ourselves, the consequence is the growing indifference with which large bodies of the Christian ministry are regarded by the thoughtful portions both of our labouring and professional classes. Were the ministers of all the Churches to awake to their ideal in this matter, there would surely come a very great revival of religion among us.