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In the year 1689, the Scots Church was permitted to follow the ecclesiastical discipline of Geneva, and was delivered from the jurisdiction of Bishops.

No. 5.

Of the sects that have separated from the Established Kirk of Scotland, the chief are,

The Cameronians, or Old Dissenters,

The Seceders,

The Members of the Relief Kirk,

The Scottish Baptists,

The Glassites, or Sandemanians,

The Bereans, and

The Scottish or New Independents.

1 TIMOTHY V. 12.

"Their first faith."

(ROMAN CATHOLICS.)

In the notes to the Roman Catholic English Testament, "their first faith" is explained to be the vow by which they had engaged themselves to

The Kirk of Scotland has no instrumental music; no consecration of churches or of burying-grounds; no funeral service or ceremony; no sign of the cross in baptism; and no administration of the holy communion in private houses, not even to the sick or dying. Adam's Religious World.

Christ; and this passage is quoted to prove, that the breach of the vow of continency is damnable.

See Note to the Roman Catholic Version, and the Table of
Controversies.

1 TIMOTHY v. 21.

"The Lord Jesus Christ, and the chosen messengers."

Unitarian Version.

"Chosen messengers, i. e. the Apostles of Christ, who were chosen to bear testimony to his resurrection.

"If it be objected that Timothy was not actually in the presence of the Apostles, it may be replied, that the Apostle's language does not necessarily imply this.

"Nor can it be proved, that he was in the presence of the elect angels, whoever may be the persons intended."

Note to the Unitarian Version.

No. 1.

1 TIMOTHY vi. 20, 21.

"Avoiding prophane and vain babblings," &c.

(GNOSTICS.)

St. Paul is supposed here to have alluded to the Gnostics, a name given to the first sect of heretics, who boasted of their superior wisdom on subjects of divinity, and piqued themselves upon teaching a doctrine sublime and difficult.

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That branch of Eastern philosophy, which, in the earliest ages of Christianity, occasioned so much disturbance to the church, was called Gnosis, or Science; and its adepts Gnostics, or men of knowledge. The principal tenets of this system were, "that there is much evil in the world; and men are, by some inward instinct, constrained to what their reason condemns: that the eternal mind, from which spirits derive their existence, is of a most perfect and beneficent nature, and so cannot be the author of evil: that matter alone being extrinsic to the Deity, it must be the centre and source of all evil and vice that this matter could neither, be created nor modified by the most perfect Deity, meanwhile they could not explain how it came to be so orderly arranged, or how celestial spirits, formed by the Supreme God in full perfection, were united to bodies formed out of the malignant mass of matter. Some thought there were two eternal principles, the one good and the other evil; the former of whom presided over light, and the latter over darkness. Others thought the ruler of matter was but a subordinate spirit, formed by the Deity; and that he ordered the rude mass of matter, and formed man. Others supposed the Supreme Deity quite different from both the Creator of the lower world, and the material evil principle. They pretended, that he was a most pure and radiant light, filling the Pleroma of infinite celestial space; that after living many ages in absolute solitude, he produced from his own essence a male and a female, perfectly like to himself; that these two produced in the Pleroma a large family of cons, or eternals; all of whom were unchangeable and immortal; but what was their precise number, they were not agreed: at last, one

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of these cons, noted for shining qualities of power and wisdom, but whose arrogance and ambition were quite insupportable, either by chance or by the express orders of the Deity, descended from the Pleroma into the region of unwieldly and malignant matter. After he had reduced it into order, he added to it a portion of the divine nature, or light, to correct its malignancy. This done, he created the various inhabitants of our world; and soon after excluded the Supreme God from all power over it, and demanded from men divine honours for himself and his associates in apostacy from the Deity. The spirits of men, though of a celestial origin, by their unition to malignant matter, became exceedingly defiled and encumbered. The wicked demiurgus, or creator of the world, labours to retain them in this vile and miserable condition, while the Supreme Deity strives to render them free and happy. Such human souls, as by care and diligence throw off the demiurgan yoke, and subdue the turbulent lusts which spring from their body, shall, at death, ascend to the Pleroma to enjoy the Supreme God; but such as remain under the bondage of servile superstition and corrupt matter, shall, for their punishment, pass into new bodies, and continue to do so, till at last they be awakened from their sinful lethargy. At the end of time, the Most High God shall triumph over all opposition; and having delivered the greatest part of human souls from their servitude and imprisonment in mortal bodies, shall dissolve the frame of this world; and having restored tranquillity to the universe, shall, in the Pleroma, eternally reign with happy spirits in the most undisturbed felicity." It is evident, this old system partly owed its rise to revelation, interpo

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lated and perverted by human fancy; and gave rise to a multitude of errors, that have, in almost every age, troubled the Christian Church.

We find the Gnostic heretics were not only divided into many sects, differing in their various rules of religious faith, but in matters which related to practice. Whilst the more rigid sects rejected the most innocent gratifications, that the body might not be so nourished as to degrade the soul; their more relaxed brethren considered the soul as entirely unaffected by the actions of the body, asserted the innocence of complying with every dictate of nature, and abandoned themselves without any restraint to the impulse of the passions. Their persuasion that evil resided in matter, led them to reject the doctrine of the resurrection of the body; and their belief in the power of malevolent genii, the sources of every earthly calamity, induced them to have recourse to the study of magic, to weaken or avert the influence of those malignant agents. A very considerable sect of Gnostics distinguished themselves by the name of Docetæ; but their peculiar opinions are not accurately known.

See Mosheim, Brown, and Gregory.

No. 2.

Plutarch resolves, that as whatsoever is good in the soul and body of the universe, and likewise in the souls of men and demons, is to be ascribed to God as its only original, so whatsoever is evil, irregular, and disorderly in them, ought to be imputed to this other substantial principle, a uxǹ avovę kai Kakожоs, which insinuating itself every where

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