Chapter 4

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He exhorts them to live as he taught them: and namely to abstain from all fornication, 9 to love one another, 11 to meddle only with their own matters, 12 to behave themselves well toward the Infidels. 13 Touching their friends departed, he comforts them, showing that they shall meet again at the Resurrection, and be with Christ forever.


1 FOR the rest therefore, brethren, we desire and beseech you in our Lord Jesus, that as you have received of us how you ought to walk, and to please God, as also you do walk, that you abound more. 

2 For you know what precepts I have given to you by our Lord Jesus. 

3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from fornication, 

4 that every one may know to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor: 

5 Not in the passion of lust, as also the Gentiles that know not God, 

6 and that no man over-go  nor circumvent his brother in business: because our Lord is avenger of all these things, as we have foretold you, and have testified. 

7 For God has not called us into uncleanness: but into sanctification. 

8 Therefore he that despises these things, despises not man but God, who also has given his Holy Spirit in us. 

9 But concerning the charity of the *fraternity, we have no need to write to you: for yourselves have learned of God to love one another. 

10 Yea and you do it toward all the brethren in all Macedonia. But we desire you brethren, that you abound more: 

11 and that you employ your endeavor to be quiet, and that you do your own business, and work with your own hands, as we have commanded you: 

12 And that you walk honestly toward them that are without: and need nothing of any man's. 

13 And we will not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that sleep, that you be not sorrowful  as also others that have no hope. 

14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also God them that have slept by Jesus will bring with him. 

15 For this we say to you in the word of our Lord, that *we which live, which are remaining in the advent of our Lord, shall not prevent them that have slept. 

16 For our Lord himself in commandment and in the voice of an *Archangel and in the trumpet of God will descend from heaven: and the dead that are in Christ, shall rise again first. 

17 Then we that live, that are left, withal shall be taken up with them in the clouds to meet Christ, into the air, and so always we shall be with our Lord. 

18 Therefore you comfort one another in these words.
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4:9 Jn 13:34, 15:17; Heb 13:1
4:15 1 Cor 15:23
4:16 Mt 24:31; 1 Cor 13:52



FOOTNOTES FOR CHAPTER 4

8. Not man but God. He, that despises the Church's or her lawful pastors, precepts, offends no less than if he disrespected God's express commandments. For they are of the Holy Spirit, and are not to be counted among the commandments of men only. 

9. fraternity. All Catholic Christians make one fraternity or brotherhood. 

10. Abound more. Christian men ought to proceed and profit continually in good works and justification? 

13. Sleep. Some heretics perversely inferred from this that the souls did sleep till the day of judgment: where it is meant of the bodies only. 

16. dead. He speaks in the person of those that shall be alive when our Savior returns to judgment.








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