This page has been validated.

3

Christ, who hath glorified you: that by a uniform obedience, "Ye may be perfectly joined together in the same mind, and in the same judgment; and may all speak the same thing:" and that being subject to your Bishop, and his Presbytery, ye may be sanctified in all things.

III. These things I prescribe to you, not as if I were somebody; for though I am bound for His name, I am not yet perfect in Christ Jesus. But now I begin to learn, and I speak to you as Fellow-Disciples together with me. For I ought to have been stirred up by you in Faith, in Admonition, in Patience, in Long-suffering. But forasmuch as Charity suffers me not to be silent towards you, I have first taken upon me to exhort you, that ye would all concur in the mind of God. For Jesus Christ, our inseparable Life, is the Mind of the Father; like as the Bishops, appointed even unto the utmost bounds of the earth, are after the mind of Jesus Christ.

IV. Wherefore it will become you to concur in the mind of your Bishops, as also ye do. For your famous Presbytery, worthy of God, is knit as closely to its Bishop, as the strings to a harp. Therefore by your unanimity and harmonious love Jesus Christ is sung; and each of you taketh part in the chorus: that so being attuned together in one mind, and taking up the song of God, ye may with one voice, and in a perfect unity, sing to the Father by Jesus Christ; to the end that by this means He may both hear you, and perceive by your works, that ye are indeed the members of His Son. Wherefore it is profitable for you to live in blameless unity, that so ye may always have fellowship with God.

V. For if I in this little time have held such communion with your Bishop, I mean not earthly, but spiritual; how much more must I think you blessed, who are so joined to him, as the Church is to Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ to the Father; that so all things may agree in the same unity? Let no man deceive himself; if a man be not within the altar, he faileth of the bread of God. For if the prayer of one or two be of such force, as we are told, how much more that of the Bishop and the whole Church? He, therefore, that does not come together into the same place with it, is proud, and has already condemned himself. For it is written, "God resisteth the proud." Let us take heed therefore,