Chapter 1

Knowing the great orderliness of your love towards God I gladly determined to address you in the faith of Jesus Christ.

For being counted worthy to bear a most godly name I sing the praise of the Churches in the bonds which I carry about, and pray that in them there may be a union of the flesh and spirit of Jesus Christ, who is our everlasting life, a union of faith and love, to which is nothing preferable, and (what is more than all) a union of Jesus and the Father. If we endure in him all the evil treatment of the Prince of this world and escape, we shall attain unto God.