A Warning to the Rich 1Go to nowe ye riche men, weepe and howle on your wretchednesse that shall come vpon you. 2Your riches is corrupt, your garmentes are motheaten: 3Your golde and siluer is cankred, and the rust of them shalbe a witnesse agaynst you, and shall eate your fleshe as it were fyre. Ye haue heaped treasure together in your last dayes. 4Beholde, the hire of labourers, which haue reaped downe your fieldes, which hire is of you kept backe by fraude, cryeth: and the cryes of them which haue reaped, are entred into the eares of the Lorde Sabaoth. 5Ye haue liued in pleasure on the earth, and ben wanton: Ye haue nourisshed your heartes, as in a day of slaughter. 6Ye haue condempned and kylled the iust, and he hath not resisted you. Patience in Suffering 7Be patient therfore brethren, vnto the commyng of the Lorde. Beholde, the husbandman wayteth for the precious fruite of the earth, and hath long patience thervpon, vntill he receaue the early and the later rayne. 8Be ye also patient therfore, and settle your heartes, for the commyng of the Lorde draweth nye. 9Grudge not one agaynst another brethren, lest ye be dampned: Beholde, the iudge standeth before the doore. 10Take my brethren, the prophetes for an ensample of suffering aduersitie, and of patience, which spake in the name of the Lorde. 11Beholde, we count the happy which endure. Ye haue hearde of the patience of Iob, and haue knowen what ende the Lorde made: For the Lorde is very pitifull and mercifull. 12But aboue all thynges my brethren, sweare not, neither by heauen, neither by earth, neither any other othe: Let your yea, be yea, and your nay nay, lest you fall into condempnation. The Prayer of Faith 13Is any among you afflicted? let hym pray. Is any mery? let him sing psalmes. 14Is any diseased among you? let hym call for the elders of the Churche, and let them pray for him, and annoynt him with oyle in the name of the Lorde: 15And the prayer of fayth shall saue the sicke, and the Lorde shall raise him vp: and yf he haue committed sinnes, they shalbe forgeuen hym. 16Knowledge your faultes one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed: For ye feruent prayer of a ryghteous man auayleth much. 17Elias was a man vnder infirmities euen as we are, and he prayed in his prayer that it myght not rayne: and it rayned not on the earth by the space of three yeres and sixe monethes. 18And he prayed againe, and the heauen gaue rayne, & the earth brought foorth her fruite. Restoring a Sinner 19Brethren, yf any of you do erre from the trueth, and another conuert hym, 20Let the same knowe, that he which conuerteth the sinner from going astray out of his way, shall saue a soule from death, and shall hyde the multitude of sinnes. |