Page:Tales of my landlord (Volume 2).djvu/206

with wicked exactions, and giving mammon of unrighteousness to the sons of Belial, that it may make their peace with them! It is a sinful compliance, a base confederacy with the enemy. It is the evil that Menahan did in the sight of the Lord, when he gave a thousand talents to Peel, King of Assyria, that his hand might be with him, Second Kings, feifteen chapter, aughteen verse. It is the evil deed of Ahab, when he sent money to Tigteth Peleaser, see the saame Second Kings, saxteen and aught. And if it was accounted a backsliding even in godly Hezekiah, that he complied with Sennacherib, giving him money and offering to bear that which was put upon him, (see the saame Second Kings, aughteen chapter, fourteen and feifteen verses) even so it is with them that in this contumacious and backsliding generation pays localities and fees, and cess and fines, to greedy and unrighteous publicans, and extortions and stipends to hireling curates, (dumb dogs which bark not, sleeping,