Study Desk

for God has not called us to impurity, but to holiness:

for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, we must believe that God by Jesus will raise the dead, and assemble them with him.

for one thing I have in charge to tell you from the Lord, that we, who shall be found still alive at the coming of the Lord, shall not get the advance of those that are dead:

for the Lord himself will descend from heaven, and by the voice of the archangel, with the trumpet of God, resound the summons: they who died christians shall rise first:

for you very well know, that the day of the Lord steals on like a thief in the night.

but let us, who enjoy the light, be temperate; let us be arm'd with the breast-plate of faith and charity, and for an helmet, with the hope of salvation.

for God did not design to make us the objects of his displeasure, but to effect our felicity by the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us,

maintain an intire affection for them, upon account of their office, and don't form any brigues against them.

Don't allow any one to return evil for evil, but strive to do all the good you can to one another, and to all the world.

be thankful to God for every thing, for so christians are oblig'd to be.

My brethren, pray for us.

so that you are the subject of our glorying in the churches of God, for the constancy of your faith, under all the persecutions and afflictions you endure from men,

by which you may be assur'd, that they will be punish'd by the divine justice, and that you shall be rewarded with the kingdom of God, for which you suffer;

you would not by any pretended revelation, by any discourse or epistle ascrib'd to us, be immediately perplex'd in your minds, or under any concern for the approach of the day of the Lord.

and you know what hinders his throwing off the disguise at a time which he enjoys for the present.

for the secret spirit of misrule is ready to break out as soon as the obstacle is taken away:

As for you, my brethren, the favourites of the Lord, we are oblig'd to render perpetual thanks to God, for having chosen you from the beginning, in purifying you by his spirit, upon your believing the gospel.

To conclude, pray for us, my brethren, that the doctrine of the Lord may make its progress, and be respected every where as it is among you:

and that we may be delivered from vexatious wicked men; for all have not the faith.

but as for you, the Lord, who is faithful, will establish you, and protect you from the malicious one.