sin to his posterity, and the doctrine of election and reprobation.

The discipline of this denomination is founded on the supposed perfection of their leaders. The mother, it is said, obeys God through Christ. European elders obey her. American labourers and the common people obey them: while confession is made of every secret in nature, from the oldest to the youngest. The people are made to believe that they are seen through and through in the gospel glass of perfection by their teachers, who behold the state of the dead, and innumerable worlds of spirits, good and bad.

These people are generally instructed to be very industrious, and to bring in according to their ability to keep up the meeting. They vary in their exercises. Their heavy dancing, as it is called, is performed by a perpetual springing from the house floor, about four inches up and down, both in the men's and women's apartment, moving about with extraordinary transport, singing sometimes one at a time, sometimes more, making a perfect charm.

This elevation affects the nerves, so that they have in

tervals of shuddering, as if they were in a strong fit of the ague. They sometimes clap hands, and leap so as to strike the joist above their heads. They throw off their outside garments in these exercises, and spend their strength very cheerfully this way. Their chief speaker often calls for their attention, when they all stop and hear some harangue, and then fall to dancing again. They assert that their dancing is the token of the great joy and happiness of the New Jerusalem state, and denotes the victory over sin. One of the postures, which increases among them, is turning round very swiftly for an hour or two. This, they say, is to shew the great power of God. They sometimes fall on their knees, and make a sound like the roaring of many waters, in groans and cries to God, as they say, for the wicked world who persecute them.*

SIMONIANS, a denomination in the first century. They derived their name from Simon Magus, their leader, who is so often mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles; and assumed to himself the title of the supreme power of God. This denomination main

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tained the eternity of matter, and also the existence of an evil being, who presided, and thus shared the empire of the universe with the supreme and beneficent Mind. They probably embraced the opinion of those who held that matter moved from eternity; and, by an intrinsic and necessary activity, had, from its innate force, produced, at a certain period of time, from its own substance, the evil principle which now exercises dominion over it, with all its numerous train of attendants. They are said to have taught that all human actions were indifferent, to have attributed a surprising power to magic, and to have denied the resurrection of the dead.

Simon Magus taught those who followed him to fall down before him and his mistress Helena in his journey from Asia to Rome, to whom he ascribed the quality of the first intelligence of the sove reign virtue. To her he attributed the production of angels, and to angels the creation of the world. He pretended that in his person resided the greatest and most perfect of the divine aions, and another, of the female sex, the mother of all human souls, dwelt in the

person of his mistress Helena; and that he came by the command of God upon earth to establish the empire of those who had formed the material world, and to deliver Helena from their power and dominion.*

SOCINIANS, a denomination which appeared in the sixteenth century, and embraced the opinions of Lelius Socinus, a man of uncommon genius and learning; and of Faustus Socinus, his nephew, who propagated his uncle's sentiments in a public manner after his death.

The principal tenets maintained by this denomination are as follow; to which are added a few of the arguments they use in defence of their sentiments.

That the holy scriptures are to be understood and explained in such a manner as to render them conformable to the dictates of reason.-In consequence of this leading point in their theology, they maintain that God, who is infinitely more perfect than man, though of a similar nature in some respects, exerted an act of that power by which he governs all things; in consequence of which an extraordinary person was born of the

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Virgin Mary. That person was Jesus Christ, whom God first translated to heaven by that portion of his divine power called the holy Ghost; and, having instructed him fully in the knowledge of his counsels and designs, sent him again into this sublunary world to promulgate to mankind a new rule of life, more excellent than that under which they had formerly lived, to propagate divine truth by his ministry, and to confirm it by his death.

That those who obey the voice of this divine teacher (and this obedience is in the power of every one whose will and inclination lead that way) shall one day be clothed with new bodies, and inhabit eternally those blessed regions where God himself immediately resides. Such, on the contrary, as are disobedient and rebellious, shall undergo most terrible and exquisite torments, which shall be succeeded by annihilation, or the total extinction of their being.

The above is an account of the religious tenets of Socinus

and his immediate followers. Those at the present day who maintain the mere humanity of Christ, differ from Socinus in many things; particularly in not paying religious worship to Jesus Christ, which was a point that Faustus Socinus vehemently insisted on, though he considered Christ as a man only, with divine powers conferred upon him. He supposed that, in condescension to human weakness, in order that mankind might have one of their own brethren more upon a level with them, to whom they might have recourse in their straits and necessities, Almighty God, for his eminent virtues, had conferred upon Jesus Christ, the Son of Mary, some years after he was born, a high divine power, lordship, and dominion, for the government of the christian world only; and had qualified him to hear and answer the prayers of his followers in such matters as related to the cause of the gospel. The chief foundation on which Socinus founded the opinion of Christ's being an

object of religious worship, was the declarations in the scriptures concerning the kingdom and power bestowed upon him. The interpretation which he put on those passages which speak of angels and heavenly powers being put under him, and worshipping him ; his having a knowledge of the secret thoughts of men imparted to him, and the like, which, with some presumed instances of the fact, of prayer being actually made to him, he maintained to be a sufficient though indirect signification of the divine will, that men should invoke Christ by prayer. But he constantly acknowledged that there was no express precept for making him an object of religious worship.

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Socinus allowed that the title of true God might be given to Christ; though all he meant by it was, that he had a real divine power and dominion bestowed upon him, to qualify him to take care of the concerns of christians, and to hear and answer their prayers, though he was originally nothing more than a human creature.

There were some among the early Socinians who disapproved and rejected the worship paid to Christ, as being without any foundation

in the holy scriptures, the only rule of christian faith and worship.

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At present it is agreed, both by Arians and Socinians, that the supreme God, in one person, is the only object of prayer. See Unitarians.

Socinus was a strict Pelagian in his sentiments respecting human nature. See Pelagians.

This denomination differ from the Arians in the following particulars:

The Socinians assert that Christ was simply a man, and consequently had no existence before his birth and appearance in this world.

The Arians maintain that

Christ was a super-angelic being united to a human body: that, though he was himself created, he was the creator of all other things under God, and the instrument of all the divine communications to the patriarchs.

The Socinians say that the holy Ghost is the power and wisdom of God, which is God.

The Arians suppose that the holy Spirit is the creature of the Son, and subservient to him in the work of redemption.*

For an account of the Socinian divisions, see Bidelians, Budneians, and Farvonians.