to our faithful brethren the christian converts at Coloss. favour and peace be to you from God our father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

In our prayers we continually give thanks to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ upon your account,

he is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of the whole creation.

for it seemed good to the father to inhabit the whole body of the church by Christ:

You then that formerly were alienated from God, and were enemies by your imaginations and wicked practices, even you has Jesus Christ now reconciled to the body of his church,

of which I have been established a minister, according to the charge which God has given me to preach his gospel faithfully among you. ---

to whom God does disclose the glorious advantages of this mystery to you Gentiles, to wit, "that by Christ you may have the expectation of glory."

that their hearts might be comforted, and that being firmly united in love, they might possess the highest and fullest persuasion of the truth of this doctrine, by entring into this mystery, even of God the father, and of Christ,

Even you, who were in a dying sinful state, and were uncircumcised Gentiles, has God raised to life, as he did Christ, having pardoned all your sins:

If then you are risen with Christ, seek the things, that are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God.

for you are dead to them, and Christ has secured your life with God.

be you therefore adorn'd with a compassionate temper, with benevolence, humility, meekness, patience as becometh saints and chosen favourites of God:

Let the christian doctrine be the familiar subject of your entertainment: in all wisdom instructing and exhorting one another, in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, melodiously tuning your grateful praises to God.

let your discourse and your actions be all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the father by him.

servants, be entirely obedient to those, whom the laws have made your masters, and not meerly out of regard to their observation, as designing only to please men, but from a principle of integrity, as fearing God:

put up your requests likewise for me, that God would give me an opportunity to declare the mystery of Christ (for which I am even in bonds:)

the whole will of God. for I can witness for him, that he is ardently concern'd for you, and the christians of Laodicea,