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examples to all that look upon you; your unholy lives give an ill savour, and do not enlighten any man in the way of truth; and saints, that are glorified, do deny you, and hear you not, excepting to give their witness against you: neither do you know what the saints' hallelujahs are, who rejoice over the whore that hath made all nations drunk; but of these things are you ignorant, and you are shut out from the assembly of them that can sing hallelujah to God and the Lamb for

evermore.

P. 'It is treason to undertake an embassage without commission: I sent them not, yet they run, saith the Lord, not knowing why, nor whither, they can tell no tidings for climbing on high, with the ape they do but show their own deformity.'

A. There is none more guilty than yourselves of this treason, and out of your own mouths will the Lord judge you. Where is your commission, and what is it? any other except such as the pope gave to his ministers? having your degrees in your schools and attaining from one art and office to another, till at last you profess to be attained to the ministry: but this is not God's way of commissioning, but antichrist's way, and the Lord God is risen who will confound it. For the Lord hath not spoken to you, neither hath he revealed his glory to you, you have neither seen his shape nor heard his voice, neither are the tidings you bring, effectual to convert sinners; for you are climbed up another way, and enter not in at the door, and the ape is truly your figure, for your deformity appears to the saints, and all the children of light do see you and your original, which came up in the falling away of the true churches, when antichrist took the throne, and the man of sin got up into the temple, who for many generations amongst you hath shown himself to be God, and hath been worshipped as God.

P. The accomplices of Corah, Dathan, and Abiram, who usurped the priests' office, were destroyed, a warning piece for such as usurp the ministerial function uncalled, and unordained; let them take heed, when they presume to vent their illiterate, rude incoherence, and blasphemous stuff.'

A. This belongs to yourselves, ye men of unholy lives, who have usurped the ministry uncalled and unordained of the Lord, and by his spirit; and you may take warning at Corah's destruction, whom the Lord shall as surely destroy with the fire of his jealousy. For while the beast hath had power over nations, and the whore made nations drunk, all this time hath your authority been exalted, by which you have been set up, and your ministers, without the life that the true ministers were in, and without that call and ordination which they had, for you are of man and by man, and you effect not the work of the true ministry of Christ, but are left desolate, and are desolate of the presence of God,

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and thither shall it be turned into the pit that hath no bottom. Oh! how have you blind leaders led the blind, that have been professing to teach Christ, and faith in him, these many years. And have you taken so much money of the nations, and do you now tell us that the greatest mysteries of your religion are squeezed out of the heathens' writings? O ye unrighteous men, blind leaders! the Lord God Almighty is now risen, and the nations can no longer be satisfied with this religion, but the Lord is gathering out of your mouths, and you must howl and lament; all the idle dumb shepherds shall be confounded, and souls delivered, of which they have made a prey; for the souls of 'men have been the merchandise of Babylon's merchants, they have bought and sold the souls of men, they have blinded the eye of the soul, and trodden it down, and the immortal soul hath not been respected otherwise than to make merchandise thereof, to get gain thereby. There have been many traffickers since the days of the apostles, that have made merchandise of souls, but the judgment of the great whore is come, and of Babylon the mother of harlots, and the Lord God and the Lamb will plead against her, and the jaws of the wicked shall be broken, and their hearts shall utterly fail in the midst of them, and the Lord will reveal his righteousness from heaven, and by his judgments shall he be known in the earth, a mighty God, and a dreadful; and his dread and terror shall take hold upon your consciences. Come down and sit in the dust, for the Lord's controversy is against you; he will bruise you with an iron rod, he will break you as a potter's vessel, and his hand ye shall not escape; for ye are but like briars and thorns in battle before him, and like the stubble in which the fire is kindled, and you will be as the dross in the time of purging, and as reprobate silver: the Lord God hath said it.

W. S's book, called 'A Parson's Guide, concerning Tithes and the Law of Tithes.'

P. AND he saith he supposes, that taking away tithes from ministers, but not taking away tithes from other men,' &c.

A. The law that hath set up tithes, since the days of the apostles, is from the pope, the false church, the whore. The true church set up none among the apostles; and so tithes must be taken away from men as well as ministers, for they have been set up since the days of the apostles, by the pope's law, and not by the law of God, but by the false church, the whore, who have set up their tenths, and keep people in the ninths of the earth, with all their images; for the true priesthood that took tithes, among whom were all the figures, and VOL. III.

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required any such thing, but these things have been set up since the days of the apostles, your oblations, obventions, offerings; and this hath been your cover, to say they were offered to God and holy church, and thou sayst, tithes, the tenth part, have been given by the law, to the ministers of the gospel.

By the ecclesiastical law it hath been given to clerks, and vicars, and parsons, and their curates, and thou sayst our laymen by the common law could not have had their inheritance of tithes descendable and grantable as of other temporal possessions, neither will they pass by the same words in grant, as other temporal possessions will do. Then men do not hold their temporal possessions by ecclesiastical laws, but by that which you call your common law. So all these laws the pope, the whore, the false church were the author of, which have been got up since the days of the apostles, by them that went forth from the apostles, into the earth, who keep people in the lying signs and wonders in the earth, under the false prophets, and the people must give them their tenths, and put into their mouths, and they live in the ninths, though they have no storehouses for widows, fatherless, and strangers; and this is done by the corruptible mystery Babylon, got up since the day's of the apostles and their church: by us she is judged, and all their ecclesiastical laws and government, by them that are in the law of Christ, the law of life, that witness the judgment of the great whore to be come, and the lamb and the saints have the victory, who are come into the power that the apostles were in. And these witness the marriage of the lamb, Christ Jesus, in whom there is no shadow of turning, him by whom the world was made before it was made, who was glorified with the Father before the world began, who ends the first priesthood, and its tithes and storehouse, and redeems men out of the earth up to God, from whence they have been drawn, to know the word of life, which was in the beginning, by which all things were made. And who are in it, are in the life, and the word of wisdom by which all things were made and created, with which wisdom they know how to use all things again to the glory of him that created them. And thus men glorify God, in their bodies, soul, and spirit, which are the Lord's, amongst whom the blessing of God is felt, who in his kingdom reigns, and among whom the life and power of God dwell.

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