Selected quad for the lemma: law_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
law_n	pay_v	priest_n	tithe_n	4,836	5	10.3389	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A23660	The danger of enthusiasm discovered in an epistle to the Quakers : in which 'tis endeavoured, to convince them of being guilty of changing God's method of bringing men to salvation / by one who is no more an enemy to their opinions, than their opinions are enemies to them themselves.	Allen, William, d. 1686.	1674 (1674)	Wing A1058; ESTC R13150	64,102	137

said of himself that he robbed other Churches taking wages that he might serve the Church of Corinth without charge which he did only to take occasion from the false Apostles who songht occasion to blast the reputation of his Ministry upon occasion of his taking mony just as you do now by the Ministers of the Gospel 2. Cor. 11. 8 12 13. And if you do as they did you will too much deserve the same name they had You think it seems you may compare them as frequently you do with the false Prophets and bad Priests of old of whom it is said that the Priests did teach for hire and the Prophets divine for mony But are you indeed so far forsaken of understanding as to think it was a crime in the Priests under the Law to take mony or moneys-worth whereby to live to discharge their Office You cannot but know what ample provision God made for them and accounted himself rob'd when their Tithes were detained and kept back from them and therefore that could not be their crime But when the people were wicked and did not make conscience of observing God's Laws but broke them in keeping back the Tithes as well as in other things the crime of the Priests complained of then doubtless was that they taught the people corrupt Doctrine such as would please them that they might thereby incline them to pay them their Tithes God in Malachi's Prophesie complains of the people that they had robbed him in Tithes and Offerings even the whole Nation And then he complaines of the Priests also saying 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 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 Mal. 2. 8. 9. And so the false Prophets that saw vanity and divined lies saying thus saith the Lord God when the Lord had not spoken And why did they so but to get the peoples mony by pleasing them in Prophesying peace to them when the true Prophets prophesied of judgment and were prasecuted for it Ezek. 22. 25 28. And are you sure that all those Ministers that receive mony of the people as a reward of their Labours whom you brand with preaching for hire and divining for mony are such aud do as those Priests and Prophets did for which they are so stigmatized And if you are not sure of it as I am sure you are not nor can be Then I pray you consider how or which way you will quit your selves from being of the number of those false accusers of whom St. Paul Prophesied as persons that should have a form of Godliness and yet deny the power of it by whom the times should be mad perilous 2 Tim. 3. 3. 'T is possible and too probable that there may be some who for worldly and fleshly respects may greatly fall short of a faithful discharge of their duty towards the souls under their charge and if there be any that by dawbing with untempered Mortar do betray them I am no advocate for such they shall bear their burden whosoever they be But if there be some such how unreasonable and unchristian is it to condemn the Righteous with the Wicked and to censure all for somes sake It looks as if the work and office it self were the eye-sore to you as much if not more than their miscarriage in it And that which adds ground of suspition herein is that your great out-cry against them is for taking mony for preaching which is none of their crime they doing their duty But those which I fear stand behind you and insensibly influence you herein know well enough that if the people could be but prevailed with to withold maintenance from the Ministry the Ministerial work would cease and a Door would be opened for somewhat else And therefore those Romish Factors that can turn themselves into any shape have cunningly made use of all sorts of Sects among us however otherwise differing among themselves yet in this to agree to cry down the publick Ministry There were in the Apostles time such pretenders to Christianity and Teachers too as sought their own things and not the things of Jesus Christ that served their own bellies instead of serving Jesus Christ that through covetousness with feigned words made merchandize of the people in order to all which they did corrupt the Word by reason of whose pernicious ways the way of truth was evil spoken of But by whom doubtless by none but by malignant adversaries to the truth it self But we have not the least whisper of any good Christians speaking evil of the faithful Ministry because of some miscarriages of the Scandalous and unfaithful And yet I believe you would take it ill if upon account of your doing now not as the good but as ill men then did you should be rank'd and numbred not with the good but with the bad which if you be not it is because some have more charity for you than you have for others that better deserve it What I was beginning to answer to your Plea for the incongruity of your opinion and practice hath led me to somewhat a long discourse and yet I have something more directly to say to it Your opinion is that men being taught of God himself by his Light and Spirit within now under the New Covenant need not to be taught by men nor to have the Scripture for their Teacher And yet for all that you take upon you to teach the Peopel your selves whil'st you decry it in others and say in your defence that in as much as men may disobey the Light in them therefore your teaching is necessary to perswade them to obey it But I pray you is God's shewing men their duty all the inward teaching you pretend to Do you not pretend to be led and moved by the Spirit to do as well as to know your duty Do you not say expresly that the Spirit of God moveth and leadeth into all the works of righteousness and that the Spirit of Christ only exercises the Conscience to God and Man and leads into the practice of all Truth Nay do you not make the acceptation of what is acceptably done to depend upon the motion and work of the Spirit in the doing of it and do you not count all that is not so done to be done in man's own will And therefore why do you thus dissemble the matter and heap one contradiction upon another But suppose that which you pretend were the only reason of your teaching is there not then the same reason that others should Preach as well as you Or are none in danger of rebelling against the Light but only such as hear you But the plain Truth is for all your talk that you do undertake to teach men what their Duty is as