and substituted satisfactions; and they called the animals so offered [their arxa] the ransom of their souls.

"But if these notions are so remote from, nay, so contrary to, any lesson that nature teaches, as they confessedly are, how came the whole world to practise the rights founded upon them? It is certain that the wisest Heathens, Pythagoras, Plato, Porphyry, and others, slighted the religion of such sacrifices, and wondered how an institution so dismal (as it appeared to them,) and so big with absurdity, could diffuse itself through the world.-An advocate for the sufficiency of reason [Tindall] supposes the absurdity prevailed by degrees; and the priests who shared with their gods, and reserved the best bits for themselves, had the chief hand in this gainful superstition. But, it may well be asked, who were the priests in the days of Cain and Abel? Or, what gain could this superstition be to them, when the one gave away his fruits, and the other his animal sacrifice, without

is a real destruction or change of the thing offered; whereas an oblation is only a simple offering or gift, without any such change at all: thus, all sorts of tithes, and first fruits, and whatever of men's worldly substance is consecrated to God for the support of his worship and the maintenance of his ministers, are offerings, or oblations; and these, under the Jewish law, were either of living creatures, or other things; but sacrifices, in the more peculiar sense of the term, were either wholly or in part consumed by fire. They have, by di vines, been divided into bloody and unbloody. Bloody sacrifices were made of living creatures; unbloody, of the fruits of the earth. They have also been divided intoexpia:ory impetratory, and eucharistical. The first kind were offered to obtain of God the forgiveness of sins; the second to procure some favour; and the third, to express thank fulness for favours already received. Under one or other of these heads may all sacrifices be arranged, though we are told that the Egyptians had six hun-being at liberty to taste the least part dred and sixty-six different kinds; a number surpassing all credibility. Various have been the opinions of the learned concerning the origin of sacrifices. Some suppose that they had their origin in superstition, and were merely the inventions of men; others, that they Dr. Spencer observes [De Leg. Heb. originated in the natural sentiments of lib. iii. § 2.] that "sacrifices were lookthe human heart; others imagine thated upon as gifts, and that the general God in order to prevent their being of fered to idols, introduced them into his service, though he did not approve of them as good in themselves, or as proper rites of worship. "But that animal sacrifices," says a learned author, "were not instituted by man, seems extremely evident from the acknowledged univer sality of the practice; from the wonderful sameness of the manner in which the whole world offered these sacrifices; and from the expiation which was constantly supposed to be effected by

them.

of it? And it is worth remarking, that what this author wittily calls the best bits and appropriates to the priests,appear to have been the skin of the burntoffering among the Jews, and the skin and feet among the Heathens."

opinion was, that gifts would have the same effect with God as with man; would appease wrath, conciliate favour with the Deity, and testify the gratitude and affection of the sacrificer, and that fromthis principle proceeded expiatory, precatory, and eucharistical offerings. This is all that is pretended from natural light to countenance this practice, But, how well soever the comparison may be thought to hold between sacrifices and gifts, yet the opinion that sacrifices would prevail with God must proceed from an obervation that gifts Now human reason, even among had prevailed with men; an observation the most strenuous opponents of the di- this which Cain and Abel had little opvine institutions, is allowed to be incapa-portunity of making. And if the coats ble of pointing out the least natural fit-of skin which God directed Adam to ness or congruity between blood and atonement; between killing of God's creatures and the receiving a pardon for the violation of God's laws. This consequence of sacrifices, when properly offered, was the invariable opinion of the heathens, but not the whole of their opinion in this matter; for they had also But the grand objection to the divine a traditionary belief among them, that origin of sacrifices is drawn from the these animal sacrifices were not onlyScriptures themselves, particularly the expiations, but vicarious commutations, "following [Jer. vii. 22, 23:] “I spake not

make were the remains of sacrifices, sure Adam could not sacrifice from this observation, when there were no subjects in the world upon which he could make these observations," [Kennicott's second Dissert. on the Offerings of Cain and Abel, p. 201, &c.]

to your fathers, nor commanded them, first was the diverting things appropri at the time that I brought them out of ated to sacred purposes to other uses.Egypt, concerning the matters of burnt- 2. Robbing the graves, or defacing and offerings or sacrifices; but only this spoiling the monuments of the dead. very thing commanded I them, saying. 3. Those were considered as sacrilegious Obey my voice, and I will be your persons who delivered up their Bibles God, and ye shall be my people." The and the sacred utensils of the church to ingenious writer above referred to, ac- the Pagans, in the time of the Dioclecounts for this passage [p. 153 and 209] sian persecution.-4. Profaning the sa by referring to the transaction at Marah craments, churches, altars, &c.-5. Mo[Exod. xv. 23, 26,] at which time God lesting or hindering a clergyman in the spake nothing concerning sacrifices: it performance of his office.-6. Depriving certainly cannot be intended to contra- men of the use of the Scriptures or the dict the whole book of Leviticus, which sacraments, particularly the cup in the is full of such appointments. Another eucharist. The Romish casuists aclearned author to account for the above, knowledge all these but the last. and other similar passages, observes, SADDUCEES, a famous sect among "The Jews were diligent in perform- the Jews; so called, it is said, from ing the external services of religion; their founder, Sadoc. It began in the in offering prayers, incense, sacrifices, time of Antigonus, of Socho, president oblations but these prayers were not of the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, and offered with faith; and their oblations teacher of the law in the principal diwere made more frequently to their vinity school of that city. Antigonus idols than to the God of their fathers. having often, in his lectures, inculcated The Hebrew idiom excludes with a ge- to his scholars that they ought not to neral negative, in a comparative sense, || serve God in a servile manner, but only one of two objects opposed to one ano- out of filial love and fear, two of his ther, thus: I will have mercy, and not scholars, Sadoc, and Baithus, thence insacrifice.' [Hosea, vi. 6.] For I spake ferred that there were no rewards at all not to your fathers, nor commanded after this life; and, therefore, sepathem, concerning burnt-off rings or sa- rating from the school of their master, crifices; but this thing I commanded they thought there was no resurrection them, saying, Obey my voice." [Lowth nor future state, neither angel nor spion Isaiah, xliii. 22, 24.] The ingenious rit. Matt. xxii. 23. Acts, xxiii. 8. Dr. Doddridge remarks, that, accord. They seem to agree greatly with the ing to the genius of the Hebrew lan- Epicureans; differing however in this, guage, one thing seems to be forbidden, that, though they denied a future state, and another commanded, when the yet they allowed the power of God to meaning only is, that the latter is ge- create the world; whereas the follownerally to be preferred to the former.ers of Epicurus denied it. It is said The text before us is a remarkable in stance of this; as likewise Joel, ii. 13. Mat. vi. 19, 20. John, vi. 27. Luke, xii. 4, 5. and Col. iii. 2. And it is evident that Gen. xlv. 8. Exod. xvi. 8. John, v. 30. John, vii. 19. and many other passages, are to be expounded in SAINT, a person eminent for godlithe same comparative sense. [Paraph. ness. The word is generally applied by on the New Test. sect. 59.] So that us to the apostles and other holy perthe whole may be resolved into the sons mentioned in the Scriptures: but apophthegm of the wise man. [Prov. the Romanists make its application xxi. 3:] To do justice and judgment much more extensive; as, according to is more acceptable to the Lord than sa-them, all who are canonized are made crifice." See Kennicott, above referred saints of a high degree. See CANONIto; Edwards's History of Redemption, ZATION. p. 76, note; Outram de Sacrificiis; SALVATION means the safety or Warburton's Divine Leg b. 9. c. 2; preservation of any thing that has been Bishof Law's Theory of Rel p. 50 to or is in danger; but it is more particu54; Jennings's Jewish Antiq. vol. 1. p. larly used by us to denote our deli26, 28; Fleury's Manners of the Israel- verance from sin and hell, and the final ites,part iv.ch.4. MEwen on the Types. enjoyment of God in a future state, SACRILEGE, the crime of pro- through the mediation of Jesus Christ. faning sacred things, or things devoted See articles ATONEMENT, PROPITIAto God. The ancient church distin- TION, RECONCILIATION, REDEMP guished several sorts of sacrilege. TheTION, and SANCTIFICATION,

also, that they rejected the Bible, except the Pentateuch; denied predestination; and taught, that God had made man absolute master of all his actions, without assistance to good, or restraint from evil.

in Walton's, from three Samaritan manuscripts, which belonged to Usher. The generality of divines hold, that the Samaritan Pentateuch, and that of the

ten in the same language only in different characters; and that the difference between the two texts is owing to the inadvertency and inaccuracy of trans

SAMARITANS, an ancient sect among the Jews, whose origin was in the time of king Rehoboam, under whose reign the people of Israel were divided into two distinct kingdoms, that of Ju-Jews, are one and the same work, writdah and that of Israel. The capital of the kingdom of Israel was Samaria, whence the Israelites took the name of Samaritans. Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, having besieged and taken Sama-cribers, or to the affectation of the Saria, carried away all the people cap- maritans, by interpolating what might tives into the remotest parts of his do- promote their interests and pretenminions, and filled their place with Ba- sions; that the two copies were oribylonians, Cutheans, and other idola-ginally the very same, and that the adters. These, finding that they were ditions were afterwards inserted. And exposed to wild beasts, desired that an in this respect the Pentateuch of the Israelitish priest might be sent among Jews must be allowed the preference to them, to instruct them in the ancient re- that of the Samaritans; whereas others ligion and customs of the land they in- || prefer the Samaritan as an original, habited. This being granted them, preserved in the same character and they were delivered from the plague of the same condition in which Moses left wild beasts, and embraced the law of it. The variations, additions, and transMoses, with which they mixed a great positions which are found in the Samapart of their ancient idolatry. Upon the ritan Pentateuch, are carefully collected return of the Jews from the Babylonish by Hottinger, and may be seen on concaptivity, it appears that they had en- fronting the two texts in the last volume tirely quitted the worship of their idols. of the English Polyglot, or by inspectBut though they were united in reli- ing Kennicott's edition of the Hebrew gion, they were not so in affection with Bible,where the various readings are inthe Jews; for they employed various serted. Some of these interpolations calumnies and stratagems to hinder their serve to illustrate the text; others are rebuilding the temple of Jerusalem; a kind of paraphrase, expressing at and when they could not prevail, they length what was only hinted at in the erected a temple on Mount Gerizim, in original; and others, again, such as faopposition to that of Jerusalem. [See vour their pretensions against the Jews; 2 Kings, xvii. Ezra, iv. v. vi.] The Sa- namely, the putting Gerizim for Ebal. maritans at present are few in number, Besides the Pentateuch in Phoenician but pretend to great strictness in their characters, there is another in the lanobservation of the law of Moses. They guage which was spoken at the time are said to be scattered; some at Da- that Manasseh, first high priest of the mascus, some at Gaza, and some at temple of Gerizim, and son-in-law of Grand Cairo, in Egypt. Sanballat, governor of Samaria, under the king of Persia, took shelter among the Samaritans. The language of this last is a mixture of Chaldee, Syriac, and Phoenician. It is called the Samaritan version, executed in favour of those who did not understand pure Hebrew; and is a literal translation, expressing the text word for word.

SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH, the collection of the five books of Moses, written in Samaritan or Phoenician characters; and, according to some, the ancient Hebrew characters which were in use before the captivity of Baby lon. This Pentateuch was unknown in Europe till the seventeenth century,though quoted by Eusebius, Jerome, &c. Archbishop Usher was the first, or at least among the first, who procured it out of the East, to the number of five or six copies. Pietro della Valle purchased a very neat copy at Damascus, in 1616 for M. de Sansi, then ambassador of France at Constantinople, and after wards bishop of St. Malo. This book was presented to the Fathers of the Oratory of St. Honoré, where perhaps it is still preserved; and from which father Morinus, in 1632, printed the firstSamaritanPentateuch, which stands in Le Jay's Polyglot, but more correctly

SANCTIFICATION, that work of God's grace, by which we are renewed after the image of God, set apart for his service, and enabled to die unto sin and live unto righteousness. It must be carefully considered in a twofold light. 1. As an inestimable privilege granted us from God, 1 Thess. v. 23.-And, 2. As an all-comprehensive duty required of us by his holy word, 1. Thess. iv. 3. It is distinguished from justification thus: Justification changeth our state in law before God as a Judge; sanctification changeth our heart and life before him as our Father. Justification pre

kingdom; but being charged with a design of subverting the national convenant, and sapping the foundation of ail national establishments, by maintaining that the kingdom of Christ is not of this world, was expelled from the syned by the church of Scotland. His sentiments are fully explained in a tract, published at that time, entitled, "The Testimony of the King of Martyrs," and preserved in the first volume of his works. In consequence of Mr. Glass's expulsion, his adherents formed themselves into churches, comformable, in their institution and discipline, to what they apprehended to be the plan of the first churches recorded in the New Testanent. Soon after the year 1755, Mr. Robert Sandeman, an elder in one of these churches in Scotland, published a series of letters addressed to Mr. Hervey, cccasioned by his Theron and Aspasio, in which he endeavours to show that his notion of faith is contradictory to the Scripture account of it, and could only serve to lead men, professedly holding the doctrines called Calvinistic, to establish their own righteousness upon their frames, feelings, and acts of faith. In these letters Mr. Sandeman attempts to prove that justifying faith is no more than a simple belief of the truth, or the divine testimony passively received by the understanding; and that this divine testimony carries in itself sufficient ground of hope to every one who believes, it without any thing wrought in us, or done by us, to give it a particular direction to ourselves.

cedes, and sanctification follows, as the fruit and evidence of it. The suretyrighteousness, of Christ imputed is our justifying righteousness; but the grace of God implanted is the matter of our sanctification. Justification is an act done at once; sanctification is a work which is gradual. Justification removes the guilt of sin; sanctification the power of it. Justification delivers us from the avenging wrath of God; sanctification conforms us to his image. Yet justification and sanctification are inseparably connected in the promise of God, Rom. viii 28 to 30; in the covenant of grace, Heb. viii. 10; in the doctrines and promises of the Gospel, Acts, v. 31; and in the experience of all true believers, 1 Cor. vi. 11. Sanctification is, 1. A divine work, and not to be begun or carried on by the power of man, Tit. iii. 5. -2. A progressive work, and not per fected at once, Prov. iv. 18-3. An internal work, not consisting in external profession or bare morality, Psalms li. 6.-4. A necessary work necessary as to the evidence of our state, the honour of our characters, the usefulness of our lives, the happiness of our minds, and the internal enjoyment of God's pre sence in a future world, John, ii. 3. Heb. xii. 14. Sanctification evidences itself by, 1. A holy reverance, Nehem. v. 15.-2. Earnest regard. Lam. iii. 24. -3. Patient submission, Psalm xxxix. 9. Hence Archbishop Usher said of it, "Sanctification is nothing less than for a man to be brought to an entire resignation of his will to the will of God, and to live in the offering up of his soul con- Some of the popular preachers, as tinually in the flames of love, and as a they were called, had taught that it was whole burnt offering to Christ."-4. In of the essence of faith to believe that creasing hatred to sin, Psal cxix. 133.—|| Christ is ours; but Mr. Sandeman con5. Communion with God Isaiah, xxvi. tended, that that which is believed in 8.-6. Delight in his word and ordinan- true faith is the truth, and what would ces, Psal. xxvii. 4.-7. Humility, Job, have been the truth though we had nexlii. 5, 6.-8. Prayer, Psal. cix 4.-9. ver believed it. They dealt largely in Holy confidence, Psal. xxvii. 1.-10. calls and invitations to repent and bePraise, Psal. ciii. 1-11. Uniform obelieve in Christ, in order to forgiveness; dience, John, xv. 8. See Marshall on Sanctification; Dr. Owen on the Holy Spirit: Witsii Economia, lib. iii. c. 12;|| Brown's Nat and Rev. Theology, p 447; Haweis's Sermons, ser. 11, 12, 13; Scougal's Works. See articles HOLINESS, WORKS.

but he rejects the whole of them, maintaining that the Gospel contained no of fer but that of evidence, and that it was merely a record or testimony to be credited. They had taught that though acceptance with God, which included the forgiveness of sins, was merely on acSANCTIONS, DIVINE, are those count of the imputed righteousness of acts or laws of the Supreme Being which Christ, yet that none was accepted of render any thing obligatory. See LAW. God, nor forgiven, till he repented ef SANDÉMANIANS, a sect that ori- his sin, and received Christ as the only ginated in Scotland about the year 1728; Saviour; but he insists that there is acwhere it is, at this time, distinguished ceptance with God through Christ for by the name of Glassites, after its foun- sinners, while such, or before any der, Mr. John Glass, who was a minis-act, exercise, or exertion of their minds ter of the established church in that whatsoever:" consequently before re

pentance; and that "a passive belief|| each other's houses in the interval be. of this quiets the guilty conscience, between the morning and afternoon sergets hope, and so lays the foundation for vice. Their kiss of charity used on this love." It is by this passive belief of the occasion at the admission of a new memtruth that we, according to Mr. Sande-ber, and at other times when they deem man are justified, and that boasting is it necessary and proper; their weekly excluded. If any act, exercise, or ex-collection before the Lord's supper, for ertion of the mind, were necessary to the support of the poor, and defraying our being accepted of God, he conceives other expences; mutual exhortation; there would be whereof to glory; and abstinence from blood andthings strangjustification by faith could not be op-led; washing each other's feet, when, posed, as it is in Rom. iv. 4, 6, to justification by works.

per.

as a deed of mercy, it might be an expression of love, the precept concernThe authors to whom Mr. Sandeman ing which, as well as other precepts, refers, under the title of "popular they understand literally: community of preachers," are Flavel, Boston, Guthrie,|| goods, so far as that every one is to conthe Erskines, &c whom he has treated sider all that he has in his possession with acrimony and contempt. "I would and power, liable to the calls of the be far," says he, "from refusing even poor and the church, and the unlawfulto the popular preachers themselves ness of laying up treasures upon earth, what they so much grudge to others, by setting them apart for any distant, the benefit of the one instance of a future, and uncertain use. They allow hardened siner finding mercy at last ; || of public and private diversions, so far for I know of no sinners more hardened, as they are unconnected with circumRone greater destroyers of mankind, stances really sinful; but apprehending than they." There have not been want- a lot to be sacred, disapprove of loting writers, however, who have vindi- teries, playing at cards, dice, &c. cated these ministers from his invec- They maintain a plurality of elders, tives, and have endeavoured to show pastors, or bishops, in each church; that Mr. Sandeman's notion of faith, by and the necessity of the presence of two excluding all exercise or concurrence elders in every act of discipline, and at of the will with the Gospel way of sal-the administration of the Lord's supvation, confounds the faith of devils with that of Christians, and so is calculated to deceive the souls of men. It has also been observed, that though Mr. Sandeman admits of the acts of faith and love as fruits of believing the truth, yet, "all his godliness consisting (as he acknowledges to Mr. Pike) in love to that which first relieved him,"it amounts to nothing but self-love. And as self-hand of fellowship. love is a stranger to all those strong af- In their discipline they are strict and fections expressed in the cxixth Psalm severe, and think themselves obliged to towards the law of God, he cannot ad- separate from the commur ion and wormit of them as the language of a good ship of all such religious societies as ap. man, but applies the whole psalm to pear to them not to profess the simple Christ, though the person speaking ac-truth for their only ground of hope, and knowledges, that "before he was af- who do not walk in obedience to it. We Alicted, he went astray." Others have shall only add, that in every transacthought, that from the same principletion they esteem unanimity to be absoit were easy to account for the bitter-lutely necessary. Glass's Testimony of ness, pride, and contempt, which distinguish the system; for self-love, say they, is consistent with the greatest aversion to all beings, divine or human, excepting so far as they become subservient to us.

The chief opinion and practices in which this sect differs from other Christians, are, their weekly administration || of the Lord's supper; their love feasts, of which every member is not only al Jowed but required to partake, and which consist of their dining together at ||

In the choice of these elders, want of learning and engagement in trade are no sufficient objection, if qualified according to the instructions given to Timothy and Titus ; but second marriages disqualify for the office; and they are ordained by prayer and fasting, imposition of hands, and giving the right

the King of Martyrs; Sandeman's Let ters on Theron and Aspasio, letter 11; Backus's Discourses on Faith and its Influence, p. 7-30; Adams's View of Religions; Bellamy's Nature and Glory of the Gospel, Lon. ed. notes, p. 65-125; History of Dis. Church, p. 265, v. i. Fuiler's Letters on Sandema nianism.

SANHEDRIM, a council or assembly of persons sitting together; the name whereby the Jews called the great council of the nation, assembled in an