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1 CORINTHIANS iii. 19.

"The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God."

(ABECEDARIANS.)

When the principle was established by the Reformers that every individual was a judge of the sense of Scripture, Stork, a disciple of Luther, maintained not only that every true believer might discern the sense of Scripture, that God himself instructs us, but that science prevents us from attending to the voice of God; and the best method therefore of preventing these distractions is being unable to read, and that consequently those who were able to read were in a dangerous state.

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Hence a branch of Anabaptists assumed, that to be in a state of salvation it was necessary even to be ignorant of the alphabet; whence they were called Abecedarians.

Carlostad attached himself to this sect, renounced the university, and title of doctor, and took upon himself the office of a street porter. He assumed the name of brother André. This sect spread to some extent in Germany.

Consult Osiander, cent. xvi. b. 2. Stockman's Lexicon in voce
Abecedarii, Bossuet, Hist. des Variat. 1. 2.

1 CORINTHIANS iii. 23.

"And Christ is God's."

(UNITARIANISM.)

"As you are his subjects and servants, and acknowledge Jesus as your head, so does he, your

Master, acknowledge subjection to God, and profess allegiance to the Great Supreme, from whom he derives existence, from whom he received his high commission, and all the gifts and powers by which it was confirmed; by whose almighty power he was raised from the dead, and invested with the authority which he now exercises over the church; whose servant and subject he avows himself to be, to whose glory all his labours are consecrated, and from whose hand he has received his glorious and transcendent reward."

Belsham.

1 CORINTHIANS iv. 9.

"Angels."

(UNITARIANISM.)

"To angels; i. e. to men in high stations. See 1 Pet. iii. 22.;

of low rank.

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Ps. xcvii. 7. to men,' i. e. to persons
See John xix. 5.; Phil. ii. 7.; Luke

xii. 36.

Note to the Unitarian Version.

1 CORINTHIANS Vi. 2.

"The saints shall judge the world."

(UNITARIANISM.)

"Saints are here said to judge the world; and in other passages of the Scriptures it is said to be the office of Christ to judge the world, and the judgment of the saints is usually understood in a figurative sense, but that of Christ literally. The Scriptures,

however, do not make this distinction. It may not unjustly be alleged, that both phrases are literal, or both figurative. And hence it may be concluded, that no argument can be drawn from the office of Christ, as Judge of the world, whatever that phrase may mean, to prove that he possesses a nature superior to that of a human being; because the same office is attributed to the saints; and, for any thing that appears, in the same sense. And it is possible that nothing more may be meant by the assertion, that Christ shall judge the world, than that Christ was authorized to declare, in the most solemn and explicit manner, the unchangeable purpose of God to deal with his reasonable creatures in correspondence with their moral characters."

Belsham.

No. 1.

1 CORINTHIANS VI. 9.

“Adulterers."

During the Commonwealth in England, it was ordered (May 10, 1650,) that incest and adultery should be made felony, and that fornication should be punished with three months' imprisonment for the first offence, and that the second offence should be felony, without benefit of clergy. Persons keeping houses of ill fame, to be placed in the pillory, to be whipped, and marked on the forehead with the letter B, and then committed to the house of correction for three years for the first offence, and for the second to suffer death, provided the prosecution be within twelve months.

Neal's History of the Puritans.

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A rule of discipline observed by the Glassites and Sandemanians, which they conceive to be prescribed by St. Paul (1 Cor. v. 1.) is, that where any one who is called a brother, turns out to be, by character, a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, the offence occasioned by his practice is not to be the subject of private dealing between two or three brethren, but must be directly laid before the whole church; who, if the character be established, must put him away by excommunication, whatever may be his profession of repentance at the time. But the offending brother is to be restored to communion with the church, and love confirmed towards him, whenever it shall appear, to the satisfaction of the church, that he repents, and is in danger of being swallowed up with over-much sorrow, according to the apostolic precept, 2 Cor. ii. 6-8.

It is rather by this strictness of discipline, than by any other peculiar tenet or usage, that this sect are to be distinguished from other dissenters; for various classes of the latter profess to hold both the faith and other tenets professed by them. But this, by which the Glassites or Sandemanians are most readily distinguished from other sects, not only prevents their becoming numerous, but keeps their numbers in a state of constant fluctuation.

Adam's Religious World.

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1 CORINTHIANS vi. 14.

"And God hath both raised," &c.

(UNITARIANISM.)

"Observe how explicitly the resurrection of Christ is attributed by the Apostle to the power of God, and not to any power inherent in Christ himself."

Belsham.

1 CORINTHIANS vi. 20.

Bought with a price."

(UNITARIANISM.)

"All Christians may be said to belong to God, because he has purchased them with the life of his Son. But this can only be said in a figurative, and by no means in a literal sense; for then there must have been some person of whom he bought them, and who could this be? It was at first imagined, that God redeemed us from the devil, by abandoning to him the life of his Son: and strange as this idea now appears, it prevailed for many centuries, and it was not till long afterwards that any person imagined that it was Christ, and not God, that was the purchaser; having given his life to the justice of God in order to redeem us from death. This total change in the system of atonement was not completed till after the Reformation; when Luther, in order to combat with more advantage the popish doctrine of human merit, advanced the merits of

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