"Thou shalt not steal." This law first used to denote the systems, requires justice, truth, and faith-or rather the heterogeneous fables,

fulnes, in all our dealings with of those poets and philosophers men; to owe no man any thing, who wrote of the genealogy and but to give to all their dues; to exploits of the gods of Greece. be true to all engagements, pro- Hence Orpheus, Museus, Hesiod, mises, and contracts; and to be &c., were called Theologians; and faithful in whatever is committed the same epithet was given to Plato our care and trust. It forbids to, on account of his sublime speall unjust ways of increasing our culations on the same subject. It own and hurting our neighbour's was afterwards adopted by the substance by using false balances earliest writers of the Christian and measures; by over-reaching church, who styled the author of and circumventing in trade and the Apocalypse, by way of emicommerce; by taking away by nence, o deoλoyos, the divine. As force or fraud the goods, persons, the various branches of theology and properties of men; by bor-are considered in their places in rowing, and not paying again; by this work, they need not be inoppression, extortion, and unlaw-sisted on here. The theological ful usury. It may include in it student will find the following also, what is very seldom called books on the subject, of utility: by this name, i. e. the robbing of Grotius de Veritate Religionis ourselves and families, by neglect-Christiana; Stillingfleet's Origiing our callings, or imprudent ma-nes Sacra; Turretine's Institutio nagement thereof; lending larger Theologia Elenctica; Butler's Asums of money than our circum-nalogy; Picteti Theologia Chrisstances will bear, when there is no tiana; Stapferi Institutiones Theprospect of payment; by being ologia; Witsius on the Covenants; profuse and excessive in our ex- Usher, Boston, Watson, Gill, and pences; indulging unlawful plea- Ridgley's Divinity; Doddridge's sures, and thereby reducing our Lectures; Brown's Compendium families to poverty; or even, on of Natural and Revealed Religion; the other hand, by laying up a and Ryan's Effect of Religion on great deal for the time to come, Mankind. See also articles CHRISwhile our families are left to starve, TIANITY, RELIGION, REVELAor reduced to the greatest incon- TION, SCRIPTURES. venience and distress. THEOPASCHITES, a denoTHEODOSIANS. See AN-mination, in the fifth century, who held that Christ had but one na

GELITES.

THEOLOGY signifies that sci-ture, which was the divine, and ence which treats of the being and consequently that this divine naattributes of God, his relations to ture suffered. us, the dispensations of his providence, his will with respect to our actions, and his purposes with respect to our end. The word was

THEOPHILANTHROPISTS, a sect of deists, who, in September 1796, published at Paris a sort of catechism or directory for social

worship, under the title of Ma- them with affection, comfort their nuel des Theanthrophiles. This old age. Fathers and mothers, religious breviary found favour, instruct your children.—Fifth inthe congregation became nume-scription. Wives, regard your rous; and in the second edition of husbands, the chiefs of your houtheir Manual they assumed the ses. Husbands, love your wives, less harsh denomination of Theo- and render yourselves reciprocalphilanthropists, i. e. lovers of Godly happy.

and man. According to them, From the concluding part of the the temple the most worthy of the Manual of the TheophilanthroDivinity is the universe. Aban-pists, we may learn something doned sometimes under the vault more of their sentiments. "If of heaven to the contemplation of any one ask you," say they, "what the beauties of nature, they render is the origin of your religion and its Author the homage of adora-of your worship, you can answer tion and of gratitude. They ne-him thus: Open the most ancivertheless have temples erected by ent books which are known, seek the hands of men, in which it is there what was the religion, what more commodious for them to as- the worship, of the first human semble, to hear lessons concerning beings of which history has prehis wisdom. Certain moral in served the remembrance. There scriptions; a simple altar, on you will see that their religion which they deposite, as a sign of was what we now call natural regratitude for the benefits of the ligion, because it has for its prinCreator, such flowers or fruits as ciple even the Author of nature. the seasons afford; a tribune for It is he that has engraven it in the lectures and discourses, form the heart of the first human bethe whole of the ornaments of ings, in ours, in that of all the intheir temples. habitants of the earth: this reliThe first inscription, placed gion, which consists in worshipabove the altar, recals to remem-ping God, and cherishing our kind, brance the two religious dogmas which are the foundation of their

moral.

First inscription. We believe in the existence of God, in the immortality of the soul.-Second inscription. Worship God, cherish your kind, render yourselves useful to your country.-Third inscription. Good is every thing which tends to the preservation or the perfection of man. Evil

is every thing which tends to destroy or deteriorate him.-Fourth inscription. Children, honour your fathers and mothers; obey

is what we express by one single word, that of Theophilanthropy. Thus our religion is that of cur first parents; it is yours; it is ours; it is the universal religion. As to our worship, it is also that of our first fathers. See even in the most ancient writings that the exterior signs by which they rendered their homage to the Creator were of great simplicity. They dressed for him an altar of earth; they offered him, in sign of their gratitude and of their submission, some of the productions which they held of his liberal hand. The

fathers exhorted their children to virtue; they all encouraged one another, under the auspices of the Divinity, to the accomplishment of their duties. This simple worship the sages of all nations have not ceased to profess, and they have transmitted it down to us without interruption.

all our actions, and the only basis on which our hopes and prospects of success can be built.

THEOSOPHISTS, a sect who pretend to derive all their knowledge from divine illumination. They boast that, by means of this celestial light, they are not only admitted to the intimate knowledge of God, and of all divine truth, but have access to the most sublime secrets of nature. They ascribe it to the singular manifestation of Divine benevolence that they are able to make such a use of the element of fire in the chemical art as enables them to discover the essential principles of bodies, and to disclose stupendous mysteries in the physical world. To this class, it is said, belonged "If they are not struck with the Paracelsus, R. Fludd, Van Helforce of these reasons, do not far-mont, Peter Poiret, and the Rosicrusians.

"If they yet ask you of whom you hold your mission, answer, we hold it of God himself, who, in giving us two arms to aid our kind, has also given us intelligence to mutually enlighten us, and the love of good, to bring us together to virtue; of God, who has given experience and wisdom to the aged to guide the young, and authority to fathers to conduct their children.

THERAPEUTE, so called from the extraordinary purity of their religious worship, were a Jewish sect, who, with a kind of religious frenzy, placed their whole felicity in the contemplation of the Divine nature. Detaching themselves wholly from secular affairs, they transferred their property to their relations or friends,and withdrew into solitary places, where they devoted themselves to a holy

ther discuss the subject, and do not engage yourself in controversies, which tend to diminish the love of our neighbours. Our principles are the Eternal Truth; they | will subsist, whatever individuals may support or attack them, and the efforts of the wicked will not even prevail against them. Rest firmly attached to them, without attacking or defending any religious system; and remember, that similar discussions have never produced good, and that they have of-life. The principal society of this ten tinged the earth with the blood kind was formed near Alexandria, of men. Let us lay aside sys- where they lived, not far from tems, and apply ourselves to doing each other in separate cottages, good: it is the only road to hap-each of which had its own sacred piness." So much for the divinity apartment, to which the inhabitof the Theophilanthropists; a sys-ants retired for the purposes of tem entirely defective, because it devotion. After their morning wants the true foundation, the prayers, they spent the day in stuword of God; the grand rule of dying the law and the prophets,

nued till morning, when the assembly, after a morning prayer, in which their faces were directed towards the rising sun, was broken up. So abstemious were these ascetics,

before the setting sun, and often fasted two or three days. They abstained from wine, and their ordinary food was bread and herbs.

endeavouring, by the help of the commentaries of their ancestors, to discover some allegorical meaning in every part. Besides this, they entertained themselves with composing sacred hymns in va-that they commonly ate nothing rious kinds of metre. Six days of the week were, in this manner, passed in solitude: On the seventh day they met, clothed in a decent habit, in a public assem- Much dispute has arisen among bly; where, taking their places the learned concerning this sect. according to their age, they sat Some have imagined them to have with the right hand between the been Judaizing Gentiles; but Phibreast and the chin, and the left lo supposes them to be Jews, by at the side. Then some one of speaking of them as a branch of the elders, stepping forth into the the sect of Essenes, and expressly middle of the assembly, discours- classes them among the followers ed, with a grave countenance and of Moses. Others have maina calm tone of voice, on the doc- tained, that the Therapeute were trines of the sect; the audience, an Alexandrian, sect of Jewish in the mean time, remaining in converts to the Christian faith, perfect silence, and occasionally who devoted themselves to a moexpressing their attention and ap-nastic life. But this is impossible; probation by a nod. The chapel for Philo, who wrote before Chriswhere they met was divided into two apartments; one for the men, and the other for the women. So strict a regard was paid to silence in these assemblies, that no one was permitted to whisper, nor even to breathe aloud; but when the discourse was finished, if the question which had been proposed for solution had been treated to the satisfaction of the audience, they expressed their approbation by a murmur of applause. Then the speaker, rising, sung a hymn of praise to God; in the last verse of which the whole assembly joined. On great festivals, the meeting was closed with a vigil, in which sacred music was performed, accompanied with solemn dancing; and these vigils were conti

tianity appeared in Egypt, speaks of this as an established sect. From comparing Philo's account of this sect with the state of philosophy in the country where it flourished, it seems likely that the Therapeuta were a body of Jewish fanatics, who suffered themselves to be drawn aside from the simplicity of their ancient religion by the example of the Egyptians and Pythagoreans. How long this sect continued is uncertain; but it is not improbable that, after the appearance of Christianity in Egypt, it soon became extinct.

THOUGHT, an image of any thing formed in the mind; senti ment, reflection, opinion, design. As the thoughts are the prime movers of the conduct; as in the

gives in every thing to which it is applied is that of limited duration. Thus we cannot say of the Deity that he exists in time, because eternity, which he inhabits, is absolutely uniform, neither admitting limitation nor succession.

sight of the Divine Being they || Goodwin's Vanity of Thoughts.bear the character of good or evil; See his Works, vol. iii, p. 239. and as they are therefore cogni- TIARA, the name of the pope's zable at his tribunal, the moral triple crown. The tiara and keys regulation of them is of the great-are the badges of the papal digest importance. It is of conse-nity; the tiara of his civil rank, quence to enquire what thoughts and the keys of his jurisdiction; ought to be rejected, and what to for as soon as the pope is dead, be indulged. Those of an evil na- || his arms are represented with the ture which ought to be banished tiara alone without the keys. The are, 1. Fretful and discontented ancient tiara was a round high cap. thoughts.-2. Anxious and ap- John XXIII first encompassed it prehensive thoughts.-3. Angry with a crown. Boniface VIII adand wrathful thoughts.-4. Ma- ded a second crown; and Benelignant and revengeful thoughts. dict XII a third. 5. Such as are folly, trifling, TIME,a mode of duration markand unreasonable.-6. Wild and led by certain periods, chiefly by extravagant, vain and fantastical. the motion and revolution of the -7. Romantic and chimerical.sun. The general idea which time 8. Impure and lascivious.-9. Gloomy and melancholy.-10. Hasty and volatile.-11. Profane and blasphemous. The thoughts we ought to indulge, are those which give the mind a rational or religious pleasure; tend to improve the understanding; raise the affections to divine objects; to promote the welfare of our fel-ed up or employed in the conscilow creatures, and withal the Di-entious discharge of all the duties vine glory. To bring the mind in- which devolve upon us, as it resto a habit of thinking as we ought pects the Divine Being, ourselves, to think, there should be a con- and our fellow creatures. Time stant dependance on and implo- may be said to be lost when it is ring of divine grace; an increas- not devoted to some good, useful, ing acquaintance with the sacred or at least some innocent purscriptures; an improvement of pose; or when opportunities of every opportunity of serious con-improvement, business, or devoversation; a constant observance tion, are neglected. Time is wast of the works of God in creation, ed by excessive sleep, unnecessa providence and grace; and, lastly, ry recreations, indolent habits, a deep sense of the realities of an useless visits, idle reading, vain eternal world as revealed in the conversation, and all those actions word of God. Mason on Self-which have no good end in them. knowledge; Watts on the Mind; We ought to improve the time,

Time is said to be redeemed or improved when it is properly fill