Qualifications for Overseers
(Titus 1:5–9; 1 Peter 5:1–4)

1This is a true sayege: Yf a ma covet ye office of a Bisshoppe, he desyreth a good worke. 2But a Bisshoppe must be blamelesse, the hussbade of one wife, sober, discrete, manerly, harberous, apte to teach: 3Not geuen to moch wyne, no fighter, not geuen to filthy lucre: but gentle, abhorrynge stryfe, abhorrynge couetousnes: 4& one that ruleth his awne house honestly, hauynge obedient children with all honestye. 5(But yf a man can not rule his owne house, how shal he care for the congregacion of God?) 6He maye not be a yoge scolar, lest he be puft vp, and fall in to the iudgment of ye euell speaker. 7He must also haue a good reporte of them which are without, lest he fall in to the rebuke and snare of the euell speaker.

Qualifications for Deacons
(Acts 6:1–7)

8Likewyse must the mynisters be honest, not double tonged, not geuen to moch wyne, nether vnto fylthie lucre, 9but hauynge the mystery of faith in pure conscience. 10And let them first be proued, and then let them mynister, yf they be blamelesse. 11Euen so must their wyues be honest, not euell speakers, but sober and faithfull in all thinges. 12Let the mynisters be, euery one the hussbade of one wyfe, and soch as rule their children well, and their owne housholdes. 13For they that mynister well, get them selues a good degree and greate libertye in the faith which is in Christ Iesu.

The Mystery of Godliness

14These thinges wryte I vnto the, trustinge shortly to come vnto the: 15but yf I tary loge, that then thou mayest yet haue knowlege, how thou oughtest to behaue thy selfe in Gods house, which is the congregacion of the lyuynge God, the piler and grounde of trueth:

16and without naye, greate is that mystery of godlynes. God was shewed in the flesh: was iustified in the sprete: was sene of angels: was preached vnto the Heythen: was beleued on in the worlde: was receaued vp in glory.