m, and blessed,
and profitable peace was given
unto you: and an unsatiable desire
of doing good; and a plentiful
effusion of the Holy Ghost was
upon all of you.

11 And being full of good
designs, ye did with, great
readiness of mind, and with
a religious confidence stretch
forth your hands to God Almighty;
beseeching him to be merciful
unto you, if in anything ye had
unwillingly sinned against him.

12 Ye contended day and night
for the whole brotherhood; that
with compassion and a good
conscience, the number of his
elect might be saved.

13 Ye were sincere, and without
offence towards each other; not
mindful of injuries; all sedition
and schism was an abomination
unto you.

14 Ye bewailed every one his
neighbours' sins, esteeming their
defects your own.

15 Ye were kind one to another
without grudging; being ready to
every good work. And being
adorned with a conversation
altogether virtuous and religious,
ye did all things in the fear of
God; whose I commandments were
written upon the tables of your
heart.

CHAPTER II.

How their divisions began.

ALL honour and enlargement
was given unto you; and so
was fulfilled that which is written,
my beloved did eat and drink, he
was enlarged and waxed fat, and
he kicked.

2 From hence came emulation,
and envy, and strife, and sedition;
persecution and disorder, war and
captivity.

3 So they who were of no renown,
lifted up themselves against
the honourable; those of no
reputation against those who were
in respect; the foolish against the
wise; the young men against the
aged.

4 Therefore righteousness and
peace are departed from you,
because every one hath forsaken
the fear of God; and is grown blind
in his faith; nor walketh by the
rule of God's commandments nor
liveth as is fitting in Christ:

5 But every one follows his
own wicked lusts: having taken
up an unjust and wicked envy, by
which death first entered into the
world.

CHAPTER III.

Envy and emulation the original of all
strife and disorder. Examples of the
mischiefs they have occasioned.

FOR thus it is written,
And in process of time it came to
pass, that Cain brought of the fruit
of the ground an offering unto the
Lord. And Abel, he also brought
of the firstlings of his flock,
and of the fat thereof:

2 And the Lord had respect unto
Abel, and to his offering. But
unto Cain and unto his offering he
had not respect. And C