hazarding the life of the assailant; and || Lawfulness of Self-defence, by a Scotch others again, who deny it not to be law- Dissenter. ful in some cases to kill the aggressor, at the same time affirm it to be a thing more laudable and consonant to the Gospel, to choose rather to lose one's life, in imitation of Christ, than to secure it at the expense of another's, in pursuance of the permission of na-in refusing favours conferred on us in

ture. But,

SELF-DENIAL, a term that denotes our relinquishing every thing that stands in opposition to the divine command, and our own spiritual welfare, Matthew, xvi. 24. It does not consist in denying what a man is, or what he has:

the course of providence; in rejecting the use of God's creatures; in being careless of life, health, and family; in macerating the body, or abusing it in any respect; but in renouncing all those pleasures, profits, views, connections, or practices, that are prejudicial to the true interests of the soul. The understanding must be so far denied as not to lean upon it, independent of divine instruction, Prov. iii. 5, 6. The will must be denied, so far as it opposes the will of God, Eph. v. 17. The affections, when they become inordinate, Col. ii. 5. The gratification of the members of the body must be denied when out of their due course, Rom. vi. 12, 13. The

"Notwithstanding," says Grove, "the great names which may appear on the side of any of these opinions, I cannot but think self-defence, though it proceeds to the killing of another to save one's self, is in common cases not barely permitted, but enjoined by nature; and that a man would be wanting to the Author of his being, to society, and to himself, to abandon that life with which he is put in trust. That a person forfeits his own life to the sword of justice, by taking away another's unprovoked, is a principle not to be disputed. This being so, I ask, whence should arise the obligation to let another kill me, rather than venture to save myself by destroy-honours of the world, and praise of men, ing my enemy? It cannot arise from a when they become a snare, Heb. xi. 24. regard to society, which, by my suffering -26. Worldly emoluments, when to be another to kill me, loses two lives; that obtained in an unlawful way, or when of an honest man by unjust violence, and standing in opposition to religion and that of his murderer, if it can be called usefulness, Matt. iv. 20-22. Friends a loss, by the hand of justice. Whereas, and relatives, so far as they oppose the by killing the invader of my life, I only truth, and would influence us to oppose take a life, which must otherwise have it too, Gen. xii. 1. Our own righteousbeen forfeited, and preserve the life of ness, so as to depend upon it, Phil. iii. 8, an innocent person. Nor, for the same 9. Life itself must be laid down, if callreason, can there be any such obligationed for, in the cause of Christ, Matt. xvi. arising from the love of our neighbour; 24, 25. In fine, every thing that is sinsince I do not really save his life by ful must be denied, however pleasant, parting with my own, but only leave and apparently advantageous, since, him to be put to death after a more ig-without holiness, no man shall see the nominious manner by the public execu- Lord, Heb. xii. 14. To enable us to tioner. And if it be said that I dispatch practise this duty, let us consider the him with his sins upon him into the injunction of Christ, Matt. xvi. 24; his other world, which he might have lived eminent example, Phil. ii. 5, 8; the enlong enough to repent of, if legally con-couragement he gives, Matt. xvi. 25; demned; as he must answer for that, who brought me under a necessity of using this method for my own preservation; so I myself may not be prepared, or may not think myself so, or so well assured of it as to venture into the pre- SELF-EXAMINATION, is the call sence of my great Judge; and no cha-ing ourselves to a strict account for all rity obliges me to prefer the safety of the actions of our lives, comparing them another's soul to my own. Self-defence, with the word of God, the rule of duty; therefore, may be with justice practised, considering how much evil we have 1. In case of an attempt made upon the committed, and good we have omitted. life of a person, against which he has no It is a duty founded on a divine comother way of securing himself but repel-mand, 2 Cor. xiii. 5. and ought to be, 1. ling force by force.-2. It is generally esteemed lawful to kill in the defence of chastity, supposing there be no other way of preserving it." See Grove's Moral Philosophy. Also Hints on the

the example of his saints in all ages; Heb. xi.; the advantages that attend it, and, above all, learn to implore the agency of that Divine Spirit, without whom we can do nothing.

Deliberately.-2. Frequently.-3. Impartially.-4. Diligently.-5. Wisely.— And, 6. With a desire of amendment. This, though a legal duty, as some mo dern Christians would call it, is essential

to our improvement, our felicity, and interest. "They," says Mr. Wilberforce, (Pract. View.) "who, in a crazy vessel, navigate a sea wherein are shoals and currents innumerable, if they would keep their course, or reach their port in safety, must carefully repair the smallest injuries, and often throw out their line, and take their observations. In the voyage of life, also, the Christian who would not make shipwreck of his faith, while he is habitually watchful and provident, must make it his express business to look into his state, and ascertain his progress."

SELF-EXISTENCE OF GOD is his entire existence of himself, not owing it to any other being whatsoever: and thus God would exist, if there were no other being in the whole compass of nature but himself. See EXISTENCE and ETERNITY OF Gon.

SELF-GOVERNMENT.

HEART.

See

SELFISHNESS. See SELF-SEEK

ING.

and more permanent one in reversion: and he will as often submit to a present pain to avoid a greater hereafter. Selflove, as distinguished from selfishness, always comprehends the whole of a man's existence; and, in that extended sense of the phrase, every man is a selflover; for, with eternity in his view, it is surely not possible for the most disinterested of the human race not to prefer himself to all other men, if their future and everlasting interests could come into competition. This, indeed, they never can do; for though the introduction of evil into the world, and the different ranks which it makes necessary in society, put it in the power of a man to raise himself in the present state by the depression of his neighbour, or by the practice of injustice; yet, in the pursuit of the glorious prize which is set before us, there can be no rivalship among the competitors. The success of one is no injury to another; and therefore, in this sense of the phrase, self-love is not only lawful, but absolutely unavoidable." Self-love, however, says Jortin (ser. 13, vol. iv.) is vicious, 1. When it leads us to judge too favourably of our faults.-2. When we think too well of our righteousness, and over-value our good actions, and are pure in our own eyes.-3. When we over-value our abilities, and entertain too good an opinion of our knowledge and capacity.-4. When we are proud and vain of inferior things, and value ourselves upon the station and circumstances in which, not our own deserts, but some other cause, has placed us.When we make our worldly interest, convenience, ease or pleasure, the great end of our actions.

SELF-KNOWLEDGE, the knowledge of one's own character, abilities, duties, principles, prejudices, tempers, secret springs of action, thoughts, memory, taste, views in life, virtues, and vices. This knowledge is commanded in the Scriptures, Psalm iv. 4. 2 Cor. xiii. 5. and is of the greatest utility, as it is the spring of self-possession, leads to humility, steadfastness, charity, moderation, self-denial, and promotes our usefulness in the world. To obtain it, there should be watchfulness, frequent and close attention to the operations of our own minds, regard had to the opi-5. nions of others, conversation, reading the Scriptures, and dependence on divine grace. See Mason on Self-knowledge; Baxter's Self-Acquaintance; Locke on the Underst.; Watts's Improvement of the Mind.

SELF-LOVE is that instinctive principle which impels every animal, rational and irrational, to preserve its life and promote its own happiness. "It is very generally confounded with selfishness; but, perhaps, the one propensity is distinct from the other. Every man loves himself, but every man is not selfish. The selfish man grasps at all immediate advantages, regardless of the consequences which his conduct may have upon his neighbour. Selflove only prompts him who is actuated by it to procure to himself the greatest possible sum of happiness during the whole of his existence. In this pursuit, the rational self-lover will often forego a present enjoyment to obtain a greater

Much has been said about the doctrine of disinterested love to God. It must be confessed, that we ought to love him for his own excellences; yet it is difficult to form an idea how we can love God unconnected with any interest to ourselves. What, indeed, we ought to do, and what we really do, or can do, is very different. There is an everlasting obligation on men to love God for what he is, however incapable of doing it; but, at the same time, our love to him is our interest; nor can we, in the present state, I think, while possessed of such bodies and such minds, love God without including a sense of his relative goodness. "We love him," says John, "because he first loved us." See LovE.

SELF-SEEKING, the aiming at our own interest only in every thing we do. It must be distinguished from that regard which we ought to pay to the pre

| SEMI-PELAGIANS, a name anciently, and even at this day, given to such as retain some tincture of Pelagianism.

Cassian, who had been a deacon of Constantinople, who was afterwards a priest at Marseilles, was the chief of these Semi-Pelagians, whose leading principles were, 1. That God did not dispense his grace to one more than ano

i. e. an eternal and absolute decree, but was willing to save all men, if they complied with the terms of his Gospel.-2. That Christ died for all men.-3. That the grace purchased by Christ, and necessary to salvation, was offered to all men.-4. That man, before he received grace, was capable of faith and holy de

servation of our health, the cultivation of our minds, the lawful concerns of business, and the salvation of our souls. Self-seeking evidences itself by parsimoniousness, oppression, neglect, and contempt of others, rebellion, sedition, egotism, immoderate attempts to gain fame, power, pleasure, money, and frequently by gross acts of lying and injustice. Its evils are numerous. It is highly dishonourable and abasing; trans-ther, in consequence of predestination, forming a man into any thing or every thing for his own interest. It is sinful, and the source of innumerable sins; as perjury, hypocrisy, falsehood, idolatry, persecution, and murder itself. It is dangerous. It excites contempt, is the source of tyranny, discord, war, and makes a man a slave, and exposes him to the just indignation of God. The re-sires.-5. That man was born free, and medies to prevent or suppress this evil are these. Consider that it is absolutely prohibited. Jerem. xlv. 5. Luke ix. 23. Heb. xiii. 5. Col. iii. 5. A mark of a wicked, degenerate mind; that the most awful curses are pronounced against it. Isa. v. 18. Hab. iii. 9, 12. Isa. xv. 1, 2. Amos vi. 1. Mic. ii. 1, 2: that it is contrary to the example of all wise and good men: that the most awful examples of the punishment of this sin are recorded in Scripture; as Pharaoh, Achan, Haman, Gehazi, Absalom, Ananias and Sapphira, Judas, and many others.

was, consequently, capable of resisting the influences of grace, or of complying with its suggestion.-6. The Semi-Pelagians were very numerous; and the doctrine of Cassian, though variously explained, was received in the greatest part of the monastic schools in Gaul, from whence it spread itself far and wide through the European provinces. As to the Greeks, and other Eastern Christians, they had embraced the Semi-Pelagian doctrines before Cassian. In the sixth century the controversy between the Semi-Pelagians and the disciples of Augustin prevailed much, and continued to divide the Western churches.

SEMBIANI, so called from Sembianus their leader, who condemned all use of wine as evil of itself. He per- SENSATION properly signifies that suaded his followers that wine was a internal act by which we are made production of Satan and the earth, de-conscious of pleasure or pain felt at the nied the resurrection of the body, and rejected most of the books of the Old Testament.

organ of sense. As to sensations and feelings, says Dr. Reid, some belong to the animal part of our nature, and are common to us with the brutes; others belong to the rational and moral part. The first are more properly called sensations; the last, feelings. The French word sentiment is common to both. The design of the Almighty in giving us both the painful and agreeable feelings is, for the most part, obvious, and well deserving our notice. 1. The painful sensations are admonitions to avoid what would hurt us; and the agreeable sensations to invite us to those actions that are necessary to the preservation of the individual or the kind.—2. By the same means, nature invites us to moderate bodily exercise, and admonishes us to avoid idleness and inactivity on the one hand, and excessive labour on the other.

SEMI-ARIANS, were thus denominated, because, in profession, they condemned the errors of the Arians, but in reality maintained their principles, only palliating and concealing them under softer and more moderate terms. They would not allow, with the orthodox, that the Son was ouosoios, of the same substance, but only ou1800s, of a like substance with the Father; and thus, though in expression they differed from the orthodox in a single letter only, yet in effect they denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. The Semi-arianism of the moderns consists in their maintaining that the Son was, from all eternity, begotten by the will of the Father; contrary to the doctrine of those who teach that the eternal generation is neces--3. The moderate exercise of all our sary. Such, at least, are the respective opinions of Dr. Clarke and Bishop Bull.

rational powers gives pleasure.-4. Every species of beauty is beheld with pleasure, and every species of deformity

with disgust.-5. The benevolent af- || have been as to the mode of translation, fections are all accompanied with an it is universally acknowledged that such agreeable feeling; the malevolent on a version, whole or in part, existed; the contrary; and,-6. The highest, and it is pretty evident that most of the the noblest, and the most durable plea- books must have been translated before sure is that of doing well; and the most our Saviour's time, as they are quoted bitter and painful sentiment, the anguish by him. It must also be considered as and remorse of a guilty conscience. See a wonderful providence in favour of the Theorie des Sentimens Agreables; Reid religion of Jesus. It prepared the way on the Intellectual Powers, p. 332; for his coming, and afterwards greatly Kaims's Elements of Criticism, vol. ii. promoted the setting up of his kingdom p. 501. in the world; for hitherto the Scriptures had remained locked up from all other nations but the Jews, in the Hebrew tongue, which was understood by no other nation; but now it was trans

SENSE, a faculty of the soul, whereby it perceives external objects by means of impressions made on the organs of the body.

was a language commonly understood by the nations of the world. It has also been.with great propriety observed, "that there are many words and forms of speech in the New Testament, the true import of which cannot be known but by their use in the Septuagint. This version also preserves many important words, some sentences, and several whole verses which originally made a part of the Hebrew text, but have long ago entirely disappeared. This is the version, and this only, which is constantly used and quoted in the Gospels and by the apostles, and which has thereby received the highest sanction which any writings can possibly receive."

Moral Sense is said to be an appre-lated into the Greek language, which hension of that beauty or deformity which arises in the mind by a kind of natural instinct, previously to any reasoning upon the remoter consequences of actions. Whether this really exists or not, is disputed. On the affirmative side it is said, that, 1. We approve or disapprove certain actions without deliberation.-2. This approbation or disapprobation is uniform and universal. But against this opinion it is answered, that, I. This uniformity of sentiment does not pervade all nations.-2. Approbation of particular conduct arises from a sense of its advantages. The idea continues when the motive no longer exists; receives strength from authority, imitation, &c. The efficacy of imitation is most observable in children. -3. There are no maxims universally true, but bend to circumstances.-4. There can be no idea without an object, and instinct is inseparable from the idea of the object. See Paley's Moral Philosophy, vol. 1. chap. v.; Hutcheson on the Passions, p. 245, &c.; Mason's Sermons, vol. i. p. 253.

SEPTUAGINT, the name given to a Greek version of the books of the Old Testament, from its being supposed to be the work of seventy-two Jews, who are usually called the seventy interpreters, because seventy is a round number.

Aristobulus, who was a tutor to Ptolemy Physcon; Philo, who lived in our Saviour's time, and was contemporary with the apostles; and Josephus, speak of this translation as made by seventytwo interpreters, by the care of Demetrius Phalereus, in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus. All the Christian writers, during the first fifteen centuries of the Christian æra, have admitted this account of the Septuagint as an undoubted fact; but, since the reformation, critics have boldly called it in question. But whatever differences of opinions there

There have been various editions of the Septuagint; such as Breitenger's edition, 1730; Boss's edition, 1709; Daniel's edition, 1653; Mill's edition, 12mo. 1725; bishop Pearson's, printed by Field, 12mo. 1665; but Grabe's edition, published in 1707, is in great repute.

Dr. Holmes, canon of Christ Church, was employed for some years on a correct edition of the Septuagint. He had been collating from more than three hundred Greek manuscripts; from twenty or more Coptic, Syriac, Arabic, Sclavonian, and Armenian manuscripts; from eleven editions of the Greek text and versions; and from near thirty Greek fathers, when death prevented him from finishing this valuable work. He printed the whole of the Pentateuch in five parts folio; and lately edited the prophecy of Daniel according to Theodotian and the LXX., departing from his proposed order, as if by a presentiment of his end. This valuable work is now continued by Mr. Parsons, of Cambridge.

Those who desire a larger account of this translation, may consult Hody de Bib. Textibus; Prideaux's Connec

tions; Owen's Inquiry into the Septua- || deed, whether we should begin with gint Version; Blair's Lectures on the thy thing particularly calculated to gain Canon; and Michaelis's Introduction the attention, or whether we should to the New Testament; Clarke's Bibli- rise gradually in the strength of remark otheca. and aptness of sentiment. As to this, we may observe, that, although it is acknowledged that a minister should flame

||

SEPTUAGESIMA, the third Sunday before the first Sunday in Lent; so called because it was about 70 days be-most towards the end, perhaps it would fore Easter.

be well to guard against a too low and feeble manner in the exordium. It has been frequently the practice of making apologies, by way of introduction: though this may be admitted in some singular cases, as on the sudden death of a minister, or disappointment of the preacher through unforeseen circumstances; yet I think it is often made use of where it is entirely unnecessary, and carries with it an air of affectation and pride. An apology for a man's self. is often more a reflection than any thing else. If he be not qualified, why have the effrontery to engage? and, if qualified, why tell the people an untruth?

Exordiums should be short: some give us an abridgment of their sermon in their introduction, which takes off the people's attention afterwards; others promise so much, that the expectation thereby raised is often disappointed. Both these should be avoided; and a simple, correct, modest, deliberate, easy

SEPTUAGINT CHRONOLOGY, the chronology which is formed from the dates and periods of time mentioned in the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament. It reckons 1500 years more from the creation to Abraham than the Hebrew Bible. Dr. Kennicott, in the dissertation prefixed to his Hebrew Bible, has shown it to be very probable that the chronology of the Hebrew Scriptures, since the period just mentioned, was corrupted by the Jews between the years 175 and 200; and that the chronology of the Septuagint is more agreeable to truth. It is a fact, that during the second and third centuries, the Hebrew Scriptures were almost entirely in the hands of the Jews, while the Septuagint was confined to the Christians. The Jews had, therefore, a very favourable opportunity for this corruption. The following is the reason which is given by Oriental writers; It being a very ancient tradition that Mes-gradation to the text attended to. siah was to come in the sixth chiliad, As to the plan. Sometimes a text because he was to come in the last days, may be discussed by exposition and in(founded on a mystical application of ference; sometimes by raising a propothe six days creation,) the contrivance sition, as the general sentiment of the was to shorten the age of the world text, from which several truths may be from about 5500 to 3760; and thence to deduced and insisted on; sometimes by prove that Jesus could not be the Mes-general observations; and sometimes siah. Dr. Kennicott adds, that some by division. If we discuss by exposition, Hebrew copies, having the larger chro- then we should examine the authentinology, were extant till the time of Eu-city of the reading, the accuracy of the sebius, and some till the year 700. SERIOUSNESS, a term often used as synonymous with religion. SERMON, a discourse delivered in public for the purpose of religious instruction and improvement.

In order to make a good sermon, the following things may be attended to. The exordium should correspond with the subject on which we are about to treat. For this purpose the context of ten forms a source of appropriate remark; and this, though called a hackneyed way, is one of the best for opening gradually to the subject; though, I confess, always to use it is not so well, as it looks formal. There are some subjects in which the context cannot be consulted: then, perhaps, it is best to begin with some passage of Scripture apposite to the subject, or some striking observation. It has been debated, in

translation, and the scope of the writer. If a proposition be raised, care should be taken that it is founded on the meaning of the text. If observations be made, they should not be too numerous, fo reign, nor upon every particle in the text. If by division, the heads should be distinct and few, yet have a just dependence on and connection one with the other. It was common in the last two centuries to have such a multitude of heads, subdivisions, observations, and inferences, that hardly any one could remember them: it is the custom of the present day, among many, to run into the other extreme, and to have no division at all. This is equally as injurious. "I have no notion," says one, "of the great usefulness of a sermon without heads and divisions. They should be few and distinct, and not coincide. But a general harangue, or a