expostulations, as God discovers in regard || call themselves men of sense, of character, to the unconverted? Matt. xxiii. 37. or of decency, I know not. By the last statute against this crime, 19 George II. which repeals all former ones, every la

Lastly, we desire to know, how is it possible to conceive a God, who, being in the actual enjoyment of perfect happiness,bourer, sailor, or soldier, profanely cursing incomprehensible and supreme, could de- or swearing, shall forfeit one shilling; eve termine to add this decree, though use. ry other person, under the rank of a genless to his felicity, to create men without tleman, two shillings; and every gentle. number for the purpose of confining them man, or person of superior rank, five shil. for ever in the chains of darkness, and lings, to the poor of the parish; and on a burning them for ever in unquenchable second conviction double, and for every flames. Gill's Body of Divinity, vol. i. p. sub equent offence, treble the sum first 299; Brine's Works; Saurin's Sermons, torfeited, with all charges of conviction; vol. v. p. 336. Eng. trans. and, in default of payment, shall be sent to the house of correction for ten days.

and angels. From that time he began to print and publish various wonderful things, which, he says, were revealed to him, relating to heaven and hell, the state of men after death, the worship of God, the spiritual sense of the Scriptures, the various e rths in the univ rse, and their inh_bi. tants; with many other strange particulars.

SUPREMACY OF THE POPE, a doc. trine held by the Roman Catholics, who SWEDENBORGIANS, the followers of believe that the bishop of Rome is, under Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish nobleChrist, supreme pastor of the whole man, born at Stockholm in 1689. He apchurch; and, as such, is not only the first pears to have had a good education; for bishop in order and dignity, but has also a his learning was extensive in almost every power and jurisdiction over all Christians. branch He professed himself to be the This doctrine is chiefly built upon the founder of the New Jerusalem Church, alsupposed primacy of St. Peter, of whom leding to the New Jerusalem spoken of the bishop of Rome is the pretended suc. in the book of the Revelation. He asserts cessor; a primacy we no where find com- that, in the year 1743, the Lord manifest. manded or countenanced, but absolutely ed himself to him by a personal appear prohibited, in the word of God, Luke xxii.|| ance, and at the same time opened his 14. 24. Mark ix. 35. See INFALLIBILITY, Spiritual eyes, so that he was enabled conPRIMACY, POPE, and POPERY: Dr. Barstantly to see and converse with spirits row's Treatise on the Pope's Supremacy, Chillingworth's Religion of the Protestants;|| and Smith's Errors of the Church of Rome. SUPREMACY, OATH OF See OATH. SUSPICION consists in imagining evil of others without proof. It is sometimes opposed to charity, which thinketh no evil "A suspicious temper checks in the bud every kind affection; it hardens the heart, and estranges man from man. What friend ship can we expect from him who views all our conduct with distrustful eyes, and ascribes every benefit we confer to artifice and stratagem? A candid man is accustomed to view the characters of his neigh bours in the most favourable light, and is like one who dwells amidst those beauti ful scenes of nature on which the eye res's with pleasure. Whereas the suspicious man, having his imagination filled with all the shocking forms of human falsehood, deceit, and treachery, resembles the traveller in the wilderness, who discerns no objects around him but what are either dreary or terrible; caverns that open, serpents that hiss, and beasts of prey that howl."

Swedenborg lived and died in the Latheran communion, but always professed the highest respect for the church of England. He carried his respect for the person and divinity of Jesus Christ to the highest point of veneration, considering him altogether as "God manifested in the flesh, and as the fulness of the Godhead united to the man Christ Jesus." With respect, therefore, to the sacred Trini ty, though he rejected the idea of three distinct persons as destructive of the unity of the Godhead, he admitted three distinct essences, principles, or characters, as existing in it; namely, the divine essence or character, in virtue of which he is called the Father or Creator; the bu man essence, principle, or character, united to the divine in the person of Jesus Christ, in virtue of which he is called the Son and Redeemer; and, lastly, the pro ceeding essence or principle, in virtue of which he is called the Holy Ghost. He farther maintains, that the sacred Scrip ture contains three distinct senses, calird celestial, spiritual, and natural, which are united by correspondences; and that in each sense it is divine truth accommoda. ted respectively to the angels of the thres

SYM

This

565

SYR

SYNAGOGUE, a place where the Jews meet to worship God.

SYNERGISTS, so called from the Greek Guvegger, which signifies co-operation. Hence this name was given to those in the sixteenth century, who denied that God was the sole agent in the conversion of sinful man, and affirmed that man co-operated with divine grace in the accomplishment of this salutary purpose.

heavens, and also to men on earth. science of correspondences (it is said) has been lost for some thousands of years, viz. ever since the time of Job, but it is now revived by Emanuel Swedenborg, who uses it as a key to the spiritual or internal sense of the sacred Scripture; every page of which, he says, is written by correspondence, that is, by such things in the na tural world as correspond unto and signify SYNOD, a meeting or assembly of ec things in the spiritual world. He denies clesiastical persons to consult on matters the doctrine of atonement, or vicarious sacrifice; together with the doctrines of pre-of religion. Of these there are four kinds, destination, unconditional election, justifi- viz. 1. General, were bishops, &c. meet cation by faith alone, the resurrection of from all nations. These were first called the material body, &c. and, in opposition by the emperors; afterwards by Christian thereto, maintains that man is possessed princes; till, in later ages, the pope usurpof free will in spiritual things; that salva ed to himself the greatest share in this tion is not attainable without repentance, business, and by his legates presided in that is, abstaining from evils, because they them when called -2. National, where are sins against God, and living a life of those of one nation only come together to charity and faith, according to the com- determine any point of doctrine or discimandments; that man, immediately on his pline. The first of this sort which we decease, rises agun in a spiritual body, read of in England was that of Herudford, or Hertford, in 673; and the las was that which was enclosed in his material body, held by Cardinal Pole, in 1555.-3. Proand that in this spiritual body he lives as a man to eternity, either in heaven or in vincial, where those only of one province meet, now called the.convocatim-4. Diohell, according to the quality of his past life. That all those passages in the Scrip- cesan, where those of but one diocess meet, to e force canons made by general counture generally supposed to signify the destruction of the world by fire, ad c m- cils, or national and provincial synods, and to consult and agree upon rules of discimonly called the last judgment, must be pline for themselves. These were not understood according to the above-men tioned science of correspondences, which wholly laid aside, till, by the act of sub. mission, 25 II n. VIII. c. 19, it was made teaches, that by the end of the world, or consummation of the age, is not signified unlawful for any synod to meet but by roythe destruction of the world, but the deal authority. See COUNCIL, and CONVOCAstruction or end of the present Christian church, both among Roman Catholics and Protestants, of every description or deuomination; and that this last judgment actually took place in the spiritual world in the year 1757; from which era is dated the second advent of the Lord, and the commencement of a new Christian church, which, they say, is meant by the new heaven The Syrian Christians are not Nestoand new earth in the Revelation, and the New Jerusalem thence descending. They rians. Formerly, indeed, they had bishops of that communion; but the liturgy of the use a liturgy, and instrumental as well as vocal mus c, in their public worshp Sum- present church is derived from that of the mary View of Swedenborg's Doctrine; Swe-early church of Antioch, called Liturgia denborg's Works: Dualagues on Swedenborg's Theological Writings

TION.

SYRIAN CHRISTIANS. The number
of Syrian churches is greater than has
been supposed. There are, at this time,
fifty-five churches in Malayala, acknow-
ledging the patriarch of Antioch.
church was erected by the present bishop,
in 1793. See Evang. Mag. for 1807. p.
480.

The

in the world. Their proper designation, and that which is sanctioned by their own use, is, Syrian Christians, or the Syrian Church of Malayala

nated Jacobite; but they differ in ceremoJacobi Apostoli. They are usually denomiSYMBOL, an abstract or compendium; nial from the church of that name in Sya sign or representation of something moria, and indeed from any existing church ral by the figures or properties of natural things. Hence symbols are of various kinds; as hieroglyphics, types, en ginas, parables, fables, &c. See Dr. Lancaster's Dictionary of Scripture Symbols; and Bicheno's Symbolical Vocabulary in his Signs of the Times; Faber on the Prophecies; W. Jones' Works, vol. iv. let. 11.

The doctrines of the Syrian church are contained in a very few articles; and are not at variance, in essentials, with the doctrines of the church of England.

TABERNACLE, among the Hebrews, a kind of building, in the form of a tent, set up by the express command of God, for the performance of religious worship, sacrifices, &c Exod. xxvi. xxvii.

T

fatigue-the natural and acquired abilities of the mind, skill in any lawful art or science, and the capacity for close mental application--the gift of speech, and that Feast of Tabernacles, a solemn festival of and in a convincing, attractive, or persua of speaking with fluency and propriety, of the Hebrews, observed after harvest,sive manner-wealth, influence, or author on the 15th day of the month Tisri, insti-ity-a man's situation in the church, the tuted to commemorate the goodness of community, or relative life-and the va God, who protected the Israelites in therious occurrences which make way for him wilderness, and make them dwell in booths when they came out of Egypt. TABORITES.

THREN.

See BOHEMIAN BRE

to attempt any thing of a beneficial tenScarcely be enumerated, are talents which dency: these, and many others that can TALOPOINS, or TALOPINS, priests of the glory of God, and the benefit of the consistent Christian will improve to Siam. They enjoy great privileges, but mankind. Nay, this improvement proare enjoined celibacy and austerity of life. They live in monasteries contiguous to cures an increase of talents, and gives a the temples; and, what is singular, any cumulating power of doing good; because man an accession of influence, and an ac one may enter into the priesthood, and, it tends to establish his reputation for pru. after a certain age, may quit it to marry, dence, piety, integrity, sincerity, and dis and return to society. There are Tala- interest d benevolence: it gradually forms poinesses, too, or nuns, who live in the him to a habitual readiness to engage in same convents, but are not admitted till beneficent designs, and to conduct them they have passed their fortieth year. The in a gentle, unobtrusive, and unassuming Talapoins educate children, and at every manner; it disposes others to regard new and full moon explain the precepts him with increasing confidence and affec of their religion in their temples; and, tion, and to approach him with satisfac during the rainy season, they preach fromtion: and it procures for him the coun six in the morning till noon, and from one in the afternoon till five in the evening. They dress in a very mean garb, and go bare-headed and bare-footed; and no person is admitted among them who is not well skilled in the Baly language. They believe that the universe is eternal, but admit that certain parts of it, as this world, may be destroyed, and again regenerated. They believe in a universal pervading spirit, and in the immortality and transmigra tion of the soul; but they extend this last doctrine not only to animals, but to vegetables and rocks. They have their good and evil genii, and particular local deities, who preside over forests and rivers, and interfere in all sublunary affairs.

he can employ in accomplishing his own
tenance of many persons, whose assistance
salutary purposes."

ings. There are two works which bear
TALMUD, a collection of Jewish writ
this name-the Talmud of Jerusalem, and
the Talmud of Babylon.
are composed of two parts-the Mishna,
Each of these
which is the text, and is common to both:
and the Gemara, or commentary.

laws, institutions, and rules of life (which, The Mishna, which comprehends all the beside the ancient Hebrew Scriptures, the Jews thought themselves bound to ob serve,) was composed according to the unanimous testimony of the Jews, about TALENT figuratively signifies any gift the work of rabbi Jehuda (or Juda) the close of the second century. It was or opportunity God gives to men for the Hakkadosh, who was the ornament of the promotion of his glory. "Every thing school of Tiberias, and is said to have almost," says Mr. Scott, "that we are, or occupied him forty years. The commen. possess, or meet with, may be considered taries and additions which succeeding as a talent; for a good or a bad use may rabbies made were collected by rabbi be made of every natural endowment, or providential appointment, or they may re-fifth, others in the sixth, and others in Jochanan Ben Eliezer, some say in the main unoccupied through inactivity and selfishness. Time, health, vigour of body, and the power of exertion and enduring

the seventh century, under the name of Gemara, that is, completion, because it completed the. Talmud. A similar addition

Was made to the Mishna by the Babylou-of the popes, with a barbarous zeal, and ish doctors in the beginning of the sixth a timidity of spirit for the success of the century, according to Enfield; and in the Christian religion, which the belief of its seventh, according to others. divinity can never excuse, ordered great numbers of the Talmud to be burned. Gregory IX. burned about twenty cart.

of the Talmud to be destroyed. See MISCHNA; the last edition of the Talmud of Babylon, printed at Amsterdam, in 12 vols. folio: the Talmud of Jerusalem is

The Mishna is divided into six parts, o which every one which is entitled order is formed of treatises: every treatise is di-loads; and Paul IV. ordered 12,000 copies vided into chapters; and every chapter into Mishnas, or aphorisms. In the first part is discussed whatever relates to seeds, fruits, and trees; in the second, feasts: in the third, women, their duties, their dis-in one large volume folio. orders, marriages, divorces, contracts, and TANQUELINIANS, so called from nuptials; in the fourth, are treated the Tanquelinus, who formed a numerous de. damages or losses sustained by beasts or nomination in Brabant and Antwerp in the men, of things found, deposits, usuries, twelfth century. He treated with con rents, farms, partnership in commerce, in-tempt the external worship of God, the heritance, sales and purchases, oaths, wit-sacrament of the Lord's supper, and the nesses, arrests, idolatry; and here are rite of baptism, and held clandestine asnamed those by whom the oral law was re-semblies to propagate his opinions. He ceived and preserved in the fifth part are declaimed against the vices of the cler. noticed what regards sacrifices and holy gy with vehemence and intrepidity. things and the sixth treats on purifica. tions, vessels, furniture, clothes, houses, leprosy, baths, and numerous other articles-all this forms the Mishna.

TARGUM, a name given to the Chaldee paraphrases of the books of the Old Testament. They are called paraphrases, or expositions, because they are rather comments and explications, than literal translations of the text. They are written

As the learned reader may wish to obtain some notion of rabbinical composition and judgment, we shall gratify his cu-in the Chaldee tongue, which became fa riosity fufficiently by the following speci- miliar to the Jews after the time of their men: "Adam's body was made of the captivity in Babylon, and was more known earth of Babylon, his head of the land of to them than the Hebrew itself; so Israel, his other members of other parts of that when the Hebrew text was read the world. R. Meir thought he was com- in the synagogue, or in the temple, they pact of the earth gathered out of the generally added to it an explication in whole earth: as it is written, thine eyes did the Chaldee tongue for the service of the see my substance. Now it is elsewhere people, who had but a very imperfect written, the eyes of the Lord are over all the || knowledge of the Hebrew tongue. It is earth. R. Aha expressly marks the twelve probable, that even from the time of Ezra hours in which his various parts were this custom began; and this learned formed. His stature was from one end of scribe, reading the law to the people in the world to the other; and it was for his the temple, explained it, with the other transgression that the Creator, laying his priests that were with him, to make it un. hand in anger on him, lessened him; for derstood by the people, Neh. viii. 7. 9. before,' says R. Eleazar, with his hand But though the custom of making these he reached the firmament.' K. Jehuda sorts of Expositions of the Chaldee lan. thinks his sin was heresy; but R. Isaacguage be very ancient among the He thinks that it was nourishing his foreskin." brews, yet they have no written paraThe Talmad of Babylon is most valued phrases or Targums before the era of by the Jews; and this is the book which Onkelos and Jonathan, who lived about they mean to express when they talk of the time of our Saviour. Jonathan is the Talmud in general. An abridgment placed about thirty years before Christ, of it was made by Maimonides in the 12th under the reign of Herod the Great, Oncentury, in which he rejected some of its kelos is something more modern. The greatest absurdities. The Gemara is stuff Targum of Onkelos is the most of all esed with dreams and chimeras, with many teemed, and copies are to be found in ignorant and impertinent questions, and which it is inserted verse for verse with the style very coarse. The Mishna is the Hebrew. It is so short, and so simple, written in a style comparatively pure, and that it cannot be suspected of being cor may be very useful in explaining passages rupted. This paraphrase wrote only upon of the New Testament, where the phrase-the books of Moses; and his style ap ology is similar. This is, indeed, the only proaches nearly to the purity of the Chaluse to which Christians can apply it; but dee, as it is found in Daniel and Ezra. this renders it valuable.-Lightfoot has This Targum is quoted in the Mishna, judiciously availed himself of such infor-but was not known either to Eusebius, imation as he could derive from it. Some St Jerom, or Origen,