others, a bishop, of Upper Egypt, who was the founder of the sect. As,
from their doctrine, it follows that God the Father suffered, they were
hence called by their adversaries, Patripassians; and, as their idea of
the trinity was by some called a modal trinity, they have likewise been
called Modalists. Sabellius having been a disciple of Noëtus, Noëtians
is another name by which his followers have sometimes been known; and
as, from their fears of infringing on the fundamental doctrine of all
true religion, the unity of God, they neglected all distinctions of
persons, and taught the notion of one God with three names, they may
hence be also considered as a species of Unitarians. Sabellius
flourished about the middle of the third century, and his doctrine seems
to have had many followers for a short time. Its growth, however, was
soon checked by the opposition made to it by Dionysius, bishop of
Alexandria, and the sentence of condemnation pronounced upon its author
by Pope Dionysius, in a council held at Rome, A. D. 263. Sabellius
taught that there is but one person in the Godhead; and, in confirmation
of this doctrine, he made use of this comparison: As man, though
composed of body and soul, is but one person, so God, though he is
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is but one person. Hence the Sabellians
reduced the three persons in the trinity to three characters or
relations, and maintained that the Word and Holy Spirit are only
virtues, emanations, or functions, of the Deity; that he who is in
heaven is the Father of all things; that he descended into the virgin,
became a child, and was born of her as a son; and that, having
accomplished the mystery of our redemption, he effused himself upon the
Apostles in tongues of fire, and was then denominated the Holy Ghost.
This they explain by resembling God to the sun, the illuminative virtue
or quality of which was the word, and its quickening virtue the Holy
Spirit. The word, according to their doctrine, was darted, like a divine
ray, to accomplish the work of redemption; and having reäscended to
heaven, the influences of the Father were communicated, after a like
manner, to the Apostles. They also attempted to illustrate this mystery,
by one light kindled by another; by the fountain and stream, and by the
stock and branch. With respect to the sentiments of Sabellius himself,
the accounts are various. According to some, he taught that the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, were one subsistence, and one person, with three
names; and that, in the Old Testament, the Deity delivered the law as
the Father; in the New Testament dwelt among men as the Son; and
descended on the Apostles as the Holy Spirit. According to Mosheim, his
sentiments differed from those of Noëtus, in this, that the latter was
of opinion, that the person of the Father had assumed the human nature
of Christ; whereas Sabellius maintained, that a certain energy only
proceeded from the supreme Parent, or a certain portion of the divine
nature was united to the Son of God, the man Jesus; and he considered,
in the same manner, the Holy Ghost as a portion of the everlasting
Father.
Between the system of Sabellianism and what is termed the indwelling
scheme, there appears to be a considerable resemblance, if it be not
precisely the same, differently explained. The indwelling scheme is
chiefly founded on that passage in the New Testament, where the Apostle
speaking of Christ says, “In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead
bodily.” Dr. Watts, toward the close of his life, adopted this opinion,
and wrote several pieces in its defence. His sentiments on the trinity
appear to have been, that the Godhead, the Deity itself, personally
distinguished as the Father, was united to the man Christ Jesus; in
consequence of which union or indwelling of the Godhead, he became
properly God. Mr. Palmer observes, that Dr. Watts conceived this union
to have subsisted before the Saviour’s appearance in the flesh, and that
the human soul of Christ existed with the Father from before the
foundation of the world: on which ground he maintains the real descent
of Christ from heaven to earth, and the whole scene of his humiliation,
which he thought incompatible with the common opinion concerning him.
SACKCLOTH, a sort of mourning worn at the death of a friend or relation.
In great calamities, in penitence, in trouble also, they wore sackcloth
about their bodies: “Gird yourselves with sackcloth, and mourn for
Abner,” 2 Sam. iii, 31. “Let us gird ourselves with sackcloth; and let
us go and implore the clemency of the king of Israel,” 1 Kings xx, 31.
Ahab rent his clothes, put on a shirt of haircloth next to his skin,
fasted, and lay upon sackcloth, 1 Kings xxi, 27. When Mordecai was
informed of the destruction threatened to his nation, he put on
sackcloth, and covered his head with ashes, Esther iv. On the contrary,
in time of joy, or on hearing good news, those who were clad in
sackcloth tore it from their bodies, and cast it from them, Psalm xxx,
11. The prophets were often clothed in sackcloth, and generally in
coarse clothing. The Lord bids Isaiah to put off the sackcloth from
about his body, and to go naked, that is, without his upper garment,
Isaiah xx, 2. Zechariah says that false prophets shall no longer
prophesy in sackcloth, to deceive the simple, Zech. xiii, 4.
SACRAMENT. There is no word in the Bible which corresponds to the word
sacrament. It is a Latin word; and, agreeably to its derivation, it was
applied by the early writers of the western church to any ceremony of
our holy religion, especially if it were figurative or mystical. But a
more confined signification of this word by degrees prevailed, and in
that stricter sense it has been always used by the divines of modern
times. Sacraments, says Dr. Hill, are conceived in the church of Rome to
consist of matter, deriving, from the action of the priest in
pronouncing certain words, a divine virtue, by which grace is conveyed
to the soul of every person who receives them. It is supposed to be
necessary that the priest, in pronouncing the words, has the intention
of giving to the matter that divine virtue; otherwise it remains in its
original state. On the part of those who receive the sacrament, it is
required that they be free from any of those sins, called in the church
of Rome mortal; but it is not required of them to exercise any good
disposition, to possess faith, or to resolve that they shall amend their
lives; for such is conceived to be the physical virtue of a sacrament
administered by a priest with a good intention, that, unless when it is
opposed by the obstacle of a mortal sin, the very act of receiving it is
sufficient. This act was called, in the language of the schools, _opus
operatum_, the work done independently of any disposition of mind
attending the deed; and the superiority of the sacraments of the New
Testament over the sacraments of the Old was thus expressed, that the
sacraments of the Old Testament were effectual _ex opere operantis_,
from the piety and faith of the persons to whom they were administered;
while the sacraments of the New Testament convey grace, _ex opere
operato_, from their own intrinsic virtue, and an immediate physical
influence upon the mind of him who receives them. This notion represents
the sacraments as a mere charm, the use of which, being totally
disjoined from every mental exercise, cannot be regarded as a reasonable
service. It gives men the hope of receiving, by the use of a charm, the
full participation of the grace of God, although they continue to
indulge that very large class of sins, to which the accommodating
morality of the church of Rome extends the name of venial; and yet it
makes this high privilege entirely dependent upon the intention of
another, who, although he performs all the outward acts which belong to
the sacrament, may, if he chooses, withhold the communication of that
physical virtue, without which the sacrament is of none avail.
The Socinian doctrine concerning the nature of the sacraments is founded
upon a sense of the absurdity and danger of the popish doctrine, and a
solicitude to avoid any approach to it, and runs into the opposite
extreme. It is conceived that the sacraments are not essentially
distinct from any other rites or ceremonies; that, as they consist of a
symbolical action, in which something external and material is employed
to represent what is spiritual and invisible, they may by this address
to the senses be of use in reviving the remembrance of past events, and
in cherishing pious sentiments; but that their effect is purely moral,
and that they contribute, by that moral effect, to the improvement of
the individual in the same manner with reading the Scriptures, and many
other exercises of religion. It is admitted, indeed, by the Socinians,
that the sacraments are of farther advantage to the whole society of
Christians, as being the solemn badges by which the disciples of Jesus
are discriminated from other men, and the appointed method of declaring
that faith in Christ, by the public profession of which Christians
minister to the improvement of one another. But in these two points, the
moral effect upon the individual, and the advantage to society, is
contained all that a Socinian holds concerning the general nature of the
sacraments. This doctrine, like all other parts of the Socinian system,
represents religion in the simple view of being a lesson of
righteousness, and loses sight of that character of the Gospel, which is
meant to be implied in calling it a covenant of grace. The greater part
of Protestants, therefore, following an expression of the Apostle, Rom.
iv, 11, when he is speaking of circumcision, consider the sacraments as
not only signs, but also seals, of the covenant of grace. Those who
apply this phrase to the sacraments of the New Testament, admit every
part of the Socinian doctrine concerning the nature of sacraments, and
are accustomed to employ that doctrine to correct those popish errors
upon this subject which are not yet eradicated from the minds of many of
the people. But although they admit that the Socinian doctrine is true
as far as it goes, they consider it as incomplete. For, while they hold
that the sacraments yield no benefit to those upon whom the signs
employed in them do not produce the proper moral effect, they regard
these signs as intended to represent an inward invisible grace, which
proceeds from him by whom they are appointed, and as pledges that that
grace will be conveyed to all in whom the moral effect is produced. The
sacraments, therefore, in their opinion, constitute federal acts, in
which the persons who receive them with proper dispositions, solemnly
engage to fulfil their part of the covenant, and God confirms his
promise to them in a sensible manner; not as if the promise of God were
of itself insufficient to render any event certain, but because this
manner of exhibiting the blessings promised gives a stronger impression
of the truth of the promise, and conveys to the mind an assurance that
it will be fulfilled. According to this account of the sacraments, the
express institution of God is essentially requisite to constitute their
nature; and in this respect sacraments are distinguished from what may
be called the ceremonies of religion. Ceremonies are in their nature
arbitrary; and different means may be employed by different persons with
success, according to their constitution, their education, and their
circumstances, to cherish the sentiments of devotion, and to confirm
good purposes. But no rite which is not ordained by God can be conceived
to be a seal of his promise, or the pledge of any event that depends
upon his good pleasure. Hence, that any rite may come up to our idea of
a sacrament, we require in it, not merely a vague and general
resemblance between the external matter which is the visible substance
of the rite, and the thing thereby signified, but also words of
institution, and a promise by which the two are connected together; and
hence we reject five of the seven sacraments that are numbered in the
church of Rome, because in some of the five we do not find any matter
without which there is not that sign which enters into our definition of
a sacrament; and in others we do not find any promise connecting the
matter used with the grace said to be thereby signified, although upon
this connection the essence of a sacrament depends.
SACRIFICE, properly so called, is the solemn infliction of death on a
living creature, generally by the effusion of its blood, in a way of
religious worship; and the presenting of this act to God, as a
supplication for the pardon of sin, and a supposed means of compensation
for the insult and injury thereby offered to his majesty and government.
Sacrifices have, in all ages, and by almost every nation, been regarded
as necessary to placate the divine anger, and render the Deity
propitious. Though the Gentiles had lost the knowledge of the true God,
they still retained such a dread of him, that they sometimes sacrificed
their own offspring for the purpose of averting his anger. Unhappy and
bewildered mortals, seeking relief from their guilty fears, hoped to
atone for past crimes by committing others still more awful; they gave
their first-born for their transgression, the fruit of their body for
the sin of their soul. The Scriptures sufficiently indicate that
sacrifices were instituted by divine appointment, immediately after the
entrance of sin, to prefigure the sacrifice of Christ. Accordingly, we
find Abel, Noah, Abraham, Job, and others, offering sacrifices in the
faith of the Messiah; and the divine acceptance of their sacrifices is
particularly recorded. But, in religious institutions, the Most High has
ever been jealous of his prerogative. He alone prescribes his own
worship; and he regards as vain and presumptuous every pretence of
honouring him which he has not commanded. The sacrifice of blood and
death could not have been offered to him without impiety, nor would he
have accepted it, had not his high authority pointed the way by an
explicit prescription.
Under the law, sacrifices of various kinds were appointed for the
children of Israel; the paschal lamb, Exod. xii, 3; the holocaust, or
whole burnt-offering, Lev. vii, 8; the sin-offering, or sacrifice of
expiation, Lev. iv, 3, 4; and the peace-offering, or sacrifice of
thanksgiving, Lev. vii, 11, 12; all of which emblematically set forth
the sacrifice of Christ, being the instituted types and shadows of it,
Heb. ix, 9–15; x, 1. Accordingly, Christ abolished the whole of them
when he offered his own sacrifice. “Above, when he said, Sacrifice, and
offering, and burnt-offerings, and offering for sin, thou wouldest not,
neither hadst pleasure therein, which are offered by the law; then said
he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he
may establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified through
the offering of the body of Christ once for all,” Heb. x, 8–10; 1 Cor.
v, 7. In illustrating this fundamental doctrine of Christianity, the
Apostle Paul, in his Epistle to the Hebrews, sets forth the excellency
of the sacrifice of our great High Priest above those of the law in
various particulars. The legal sacrifices were only brute animals, such
as bullocks, heifers, goats, lambs, &c; but the sacrifice of Christ was
himself, a person of infinite dignity and worth, Heb. ix, 12, 13; i, 3;
ix, 14, 26; x, 10. The former, though they cleansed from ceremonial
uncleanness, could not possibly expiate sin, or purify the conscience
from the guilt of it; and so it is said that God was not well pleased in
them, Heb. x, 4, 5, 8, 11. But Christ, by the sacrifice of himself, hath
effectually, and for ever, put away sin, having made an adequate
atonement unto God for it, and by means of faith in it he also purges
the conscience from dead works to serve the living God, Heb. ix, 10–26;
Ephes. v, 2. The legal sacrifices were statedly offered, year after
year, by which their insufficiency was indicated, and an intimation
given that God was still calling sins to his remembrance, Heb. x, 3; but
the last required no repetition, because it fully and at once answered
all the ends of sacrifice, on which account God hath declared that he
will remember the sins and iniquities of his people no more.
The term sacrifice is often used in a secondary or metaphorical sense,
and applied to the good works of believers, and to the duties of prayer
and praise, as in the following passages: “But to do good, and to
communicate, forget not; for with such sacrifices God is well pleased,”
Heb. xiii, 16. “Having received of Epaphroditus the things which ye
sent, an odour of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing
to God,” Phil. iv, 18. “Ye are built up a spiritual house, a holy
priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus
Christ,” 1 Peter ii, 5. “By him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice
of praise to God continually; that is, the fruit of our lips, giving
thanks to his name,” Heb. xiii, 15. “I beseech you, by the mercies of
God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable
unto God, which is your reasonable service,” Rom. xii, 1. “There is a
peculiar reason,” says Dr. Owen, “for assigning this appellation to
moral duties; for in every sacrifice there was a presentation of
something unto God. The worshipper was not to offer that which cost him
nothing; part of his substance was to be transferred from himself unto
God. So it is in these duties; they cannot be properly observed without
the alienation of something that was our own,--our time, ease, property,
&c, and a dedication of it to the Lord. Hence they have the general
nature of sacrifices.” The ceremonies used in offering the Jewish
sacrifices require to be noticed as illustrative of many texts of
Scripture, and some points of important doctrine. See ATONEMENT,
OFFERINGS, EXPIATION, PROPITIATION, RECONCILIATION, and REDEMPTION.
SADDUCEES, a sect among the Jews. It is said that the principles of the
Sadducees were derived from Antigonus Sochæus, president of the
sanhedrim, about B. C. 250, who, rejecting the traditionary doctrines of
the scribes, taught that man ought to serve God out of pure love, and
not from hope of reward, or fear of punishment; and that they derived
their name from Sadoc, one of his followers, who, mistaking or
perverting this doctrine, maintained that there was no future state of
rewards and punishments. Whatever foundation there may be for this
account of the origin of the sect, it is certain, that in the time of
our Saviour the Sadducees denied the resurrection of the dead, Acts
xxiii, 8, and the existence of angels and spirits, or souls of departed
men; though, as Mr. Hume observes, it is not easy to comprehend how they
could at the same time admit the authority of the law of Moses. They
carried their ideas of human freedom so far as to assert that men were
absolutely masters of their own actions, and at full liberty to do
either good or evil. Josephus even says that they denied the essential
difference between good and evil; and, though they believed that God
created and preserved the world, they seem to have denied his particular
providence. These tenets, which resemble the Epicurean philosophy, led,
as might be expected, to great profligacy of life; and we find the
licentious wickedness of the Sadducees frequently condemned in the New
Testament; yet they professed themselves obliged to observe the Mosaic
law, because of the temporal rewards and punishments annexed to such
observance; and hence they were always severe in their punishment of any
crimes which tended to disturb the public tranquillity. The Sadducees
rejected all tradition, and some authors have contended that they
admitted only the books of Moses; but there seems no ground for that
opinion, either in the Scriptures or in any ancient writer. Even
Josephus, who was himself a Pharisee, and took every opportunity of
reproaching the Sadducees, does not mention that they rejected any part
of the Scriptures; he only says that “the Pharisees have delivered to
the people many institutions as received from the fathers, which are not
written in the law of Moses. For this reason the Sadducees reject these
things, asserting that those things are binding which are written, but
that the things received by tradition from the fathers are not to be
observed.” Beside, it is generally believed that the Sadducees expected
the Messiah with great impatience, which seems to imply their belief in
the prophecies, though they misinterpreted their meaning. Confining all
their hopes to this present world, enjoying its riches, and devoting
themselves to its pleasures, they might well be particularly anxious
that their lot of life should be cast in the splendid reign of this
expected temporal king, with the hope of sharing in his conquests and
glory; but this expectation was so contrary to the lowly appearance of
our Saviour, that they joined their inveterate enemies, the Pharisees,
in persecuting him and his religion. Josephus says, that the Sadducees
were able to draw over to them the rich only, the people not following
them; and he elsewhere mentions that this sect spread chiefly among the
young. The Sadducees were far less numerous than the Pharisees, but they
were in general persons of greater opulence and dignity. The council
before whom our Saviour and St. Paul were carried consisted partly of
Pharisees and partly of Sadducees.
SALAMIS, once a famous city in the isle of Cyprus, opposite to Seleucia,
on the Syrian coast; and as it was the first place where the Gospel was
preached, it was in the primitive times made the see of the primate of
the whole island. It was destroyed by the Saracens, and from the ruins
was built Famagusta, which was taken by the Turks in 1570. Here St. Paul
preached, A. D. 44, Acts xiii, 5.
SALMON, son of Nahshon: he married Rahab, by whom he had Boaz, 1 Chron.
ii, 11, 51, 54; Ruth iv, 20, 21; Matt. i, 4. He is named the father of
Bethlehem, because his descendants peopled Bethlehem.
SALOME, the wife of Zebedee, and mother of St. James the greater, and
St. John the evangelist, Matthew xxvii, 56; and one of those holy women
who used to attend upon our Saviour in his journeyings, and to minister
to him. She was the person who requested of Jesus Christ, that her two
sons, James and John, might sit on his right and left hand when he
should enter upon his kingdom, having then but the same obscure views as
the rest of the disciples; but she gave proof of her faith when she
followed Christ to Calvary, and did not forsake him even at the cross,
Mark xv, 40; Matt. xxvii, 55, 56. She was also one of the women that
brought perfumes to embalm him, and who came, for this purpose, to the
sepulchre “early in the morning,” Mark xvi, 1, 2. At the tomb they saw
two angels, who informed them that Jesus was risen. Returning to
Jerusalem, Jesus appeared to them on the way, and said to them, “Be not
afraid: go, tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there shall
they see me.”
SALT. God appointed that salt should be used in all the sacrifices that
were offered to him, Leviticus ii, 13. Salt is esteemed the symbol of
wisdom and grace, Colossians iv, 6; Mark ix, 50; also of perpetuity and
incorruption, Numbers xviii, 19; 2 Chronicles xiii, 5. The orientals
were accustomed also to ratify their federal engagements by salt. This
substance was, among the ancients, the emblem of friendship and
fidelity, and therefore used in all their sacrifices and covenants. It
was a sacred pledge of hospitality which they never ventured to violate.
Numerous instances occur of travellers in Arabia, after being plundered
and stripped by the wandering tribes of the desert, claiming the
protection of some civilized Arab, who, after receiving them into his
tent, and giving them salt, instantly relieves their distress, and never
forsakes them till he has placed them in safety. An agreement, thus
ratified, is called, in Scripture, “a covenant of salt.” The obligation
which this symbol imposes on the mind of an oriental, is well
illustrated by the Baron du Tott in the following anecdote: One who was
desirous of his acquaintance promised in a short time to return. The
baron had already attended him half way down the staircase, when
stopping, and turning briskly to one of his domestics, “Bring me
directly,” said he, “some bread and salt.” What he requested was
brought; when, taking a little salt between his fingers, and putting it
with a mysterious air on a bit of bread, he ate it with a devout
gravity, assuring du Tott he might now rely on him.