The Puritans held, that all the names of God and Christ were to be had in equal reverence, and therefore considered it as beside all reason to bow the knee, or uncover the head only at the name of Jesus."

See Neal.

One of the innovations of which Archbishop Laud was charged by the Puritans, on his trial for high treason, 1644, was bowing at the name of Jesus.

"In the name of Jesus."-Belsham's Translation.

"In the name, not at the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow, as his disciples, not his worshippers."

Belsham.

"In the name of Jesus.-Unitarian Version."

"Dr. Jebb renders the preposition to the name of Jesus, i. e. in acknowledgment of his religion every creature shall bend. For things above the earth, below the earth, &c. mean only that all human creatures shall acknowledge his religion." See Dr. Jebb's Note apud Lindsey, p. 291."

Note to the Unitarian Version.

PHILIPPIANS iii. 20.
(UNITARIANISM.)

"For we are citizens of heaven, whence indeed we are expecting a deliverer," &c.-Belsham, so also Wakefield's Translation.

"The Apostle always expresses himself as if the second coming of Christ was very near at hand; so that some then living would be eye witnesses to it. 1 Thess. iv. 5. The times and seasons were not revealed to him, nor even to Christ himself. Acts i. 7." Belsham.

No. 1.

PHILIPPIANS iv. 3.

(ROMAN CATHOLICS.)

"Sincere companion."-Roman Catholic Version. "Protestants render it true yoke fellow, to insinuate that St. Paul here speaks to his wife; whereas he plainly tells us, 1 Cor. vii. 8, that he had no wife."

No. 2.

Note to the Roman Catholic Version.

(QUAKERS.)

"Those women which laboured with me in the Gospel."

(See Note on Rom. xvi. 1.)

A a

COLOSSIANS.

COLOSSIANS i. 3.

"God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ."

(UNITARIANISM.)

"What more could have been said by any Unitarian? It is the same Being that is called our God and Father; and to whom our Saviour always prayed under the character of his God and Father. Where, therefore, is the evidence of Christ's having any nature superiour to ours?"

Priestley.

COLOSSIANS i. 14.

By whom we have this deliverance, even the remission of sins."
Wakefield, so also Belsham's Translation.

"The three most valuable ancient versions, Syriac, Coptic, and Ethiopic, take no notice of the words δια του αίματος αυτου.

Wakefield.

By whom we have redemption, even the forgiveness of our sins." Unitarian Version.

66

Redemption, i. e. deliverance from our heathen state; which signifies the same as forgiveness of sin.' Being now brought into a holy state, all which they had done in their state of heathenism, was no longer a bar to their admission into a state of reconciliation and privilege. In plain language, nothing which they had done in their heathen state excluded them from being members of the Christian community."

Note to the Unitarian Version.

COLOSSIANS i. 15.

"Who is the image of the invisible God, the first-born," &c.
(UNITARIANISM.)

"Gen. i. 26. Man is said to be made in the image of God, as having dominion over the creatures; and here Christ is represented as an image of God, as being the Sovereign of that kingdom which God has established in the world. Nor is there any reason to suppose, that Christ exercises any personal authority over believers: but as the dominion of Satan signifies the dominion, not of a real person, but of ignorance, idolatry, and vice, so the dominion of Christ is the dominion not of Christ personally, but of the doctrines and spirit of the Gospel."

Belsham.

"The first-born.-πрwтотокоs, an expression of endearment similar to the expressions beloved, ver.

13, and only-begotten, John iii. 16. See also Exod. iv. 22. The meaning may be, that Christ is the most distinguished person in the new dispensation-the chief of the prophets and messengers of God-as much superior to the rest as the first-born son is to the other children of the family. It may also have reference to priority in time as well as in rank, ver. 18. 'He was the first who rose from the dead.”

Belsham.

No. 1.

COLOSSIANS i. 16.

"By him were all things created."

(HERMOGENES.)

Hermogenes, who lived in the second century, after having studied the Stoic philosophy, embraced the Christian religion, and united the philosophic principles of the one, with the divine doctrine of the other.

Regarding matter as the fountain of all evil, he could not persuade himself that God had created it from nothing by an almighty act of his will; and, therefore, he maintained, that the world, with whatever it contains, as also the souls of men, and other spirits, were formed by the Deity from an uncreated and eternal mass of corrupt matter.

In support of this opinion, he contended, that Scripture did not, in any place, teach us, that matter was created out of nothing.

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
In principio Deus fecit cœlum et terram.

Hermogenes translated the passage as follows: "In a principle (which was matter) God created the heaven and the earth."