Letters to the Churches

Your riches are corrupt, and your garments are moth eaten.

Your gold and siluer is cankred, and the rust of them shalbe a witnesse against you, and shall eate your flesh, as it were fire. Ye haue heaped vp treasure for the last dayes.

Behold, the hire of ye labourers, which haue reaped your fieldes (which is of you kept backe by fraude) cryeth, and the cryes of them which haue reaped, are entred into the eares of the Lord of hostes.

Ye haue liued in pleasure on the earth, and in wantonnes. Ye haue nourished your heartes, as in a day of slaughter.

Ye haue condemned and haue killed the iust, and he hath not resisted you.

Be patient therefore, brethren, vnto the comming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman wayteth for the precious fruite of the earth, and hath long patience for it, vntill he receiue the former, and the latter rayne.

Be ye also patient therefore and settle your hearts: for ye comming of the Lord draweth neere.

Grudge not one against another, brethren, least ye be condemned: behold, the iudge standeth before the doore.

Take, my brethren, the Prophets for an ensample of suffering aduersitie, and of long patience, which haue spoken in the Name of the Lord.

Beholde, we count them blessed which endure. Ye haue heard of the patience of Iob, and haue knowen what ende the Lord made. For the Lord is very pitifull and mercifull.

But before all thinges, my brethren, sweare not, neither by heauen, nor by earth, nor by any other othe: but let your yea, be yea, and your nay, nay, lest ye fall into condemnation.

Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray. Is any merie? Let him sing.

Is any sicke among you? Let him call for the Elders of the Church, and let them pray for him, and anoynt him with oyle in the Name of the Lord.

And the prayer of faith shall saue the sicke, and the Lord shall raise him vp: and if he haue committed sinnes, they shalbe forgiuen him.

Acknowledge your faultes one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed: for the prayer of a righteous man auaileth much, if it be feruent.

Helias was a man subiect to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rayne, and it rayned not on the earth for three yeeres and sixe moneths.

And he prayed againe, and the heauen gaue rayne, and the earth brought forth her fruite.

Brethren, if any of you hath erred from the trueth, and some man hath conuerted him,

Let him know that he which hath conuerted the sinner from going astray out of his way, shall saue a soule from death, and shall hide a multitude of sinnes.

PETER an Apostle of IESVS CHRIST, to the strangers that dwell here and there throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia,

Elect according to the foreknowledge of God ye Father vnto sanctification of ye Spirit, through obedience and sprinkeling of the blood of Iesus Christ: Grace and peace bee multiplied vnto you.

Blessed bee God, euen the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ, which according to his aboundant mercie hath begotten vs againe vnto a liuely hope by the resurrection of Iesus Christ from the dead,

To an inheritance immortall and vndefiled, and that withereth not, reserued in heauen for vs,

Which are kept by the power of God through faith vnto saluation, which is prepared to be shewed in the last time.

Wherein yee reioyce, though nowe for a season (if neede require) yee are in heauinesse, through manifolde tentations,