contrary, he was completely master of it, and frequently employed it. He spoke in high terms of the analytical works of Mr. Cotes, and of the two Bernouillis, as well as of an improvement of the infinitesimal calculus by D'Alembert and De la Grange. That Dr. Simson was master of this calculus, in general, appears from two valuable dissertations in his posthumous works; the one on logarithms, and the other on the limits of ratios. Having never married, he lived entirely a college life; and thus, instead of the commodious house to which his place in the university entitled him, he contented himself with chambers, good indeed, and spacious enough, but without any decoration. His official servant sufficed for valet, footman, and chambermaid. As this retirement was devoted to study, he entertained no company, but in a neighbouring house, where his apartment was sacred to him and his guests. Retired from promiscuous intercourse, he contented himself with a small society of intimate friends, with whom he could lay aside every restraint, and indulge in all the innocent frivolities of life. Every Friday evening was spent in a party at whist, in which he excelled. The cardparty was followed by an hour or two of playful conversation. Every Saturday he had a less select party to dinner at a house about a mile from town. The doctor's long life enabled him to see the dramatis personæ of this little theatre several times completely changed, while he continued to give it a personal identity so that it became, as it were, his own house; and he, as its father and head, was respected and beloved by all. He never exerted his presidial authority, unless to check some infringement of good breeding, religion, or purity of manners; for these he had the highest reverence. Having a fine voice, and most accurate ear, he sometimes. sung some lines of a Latin hymn to the divine geometer, with a kind of celestial rapture. Dr. Simson was of an advantageous stature, with a fine countenance; and, even in his old had a age, graceful carriage, and always, except when in mourning, dressed in white cloth. He was of a cheerful and affable disposition; and strangers were at perfect ease in his company. joyed a long course of uninterrupted health, and died in 1768, aged eighty-one. He left to the university his valuable library, which is considered as the most choice collection of mathematical books and MSS. in the kingdom, rendered doubly valuable by Dr. Simson's notes. : He en SIMSON (professor), a younger brother of the learned Dr. R. Simson. This gentleman was professor of medicine in the university of St. Andrew's, and is famed for some works of reputation; particularly a Dissertation on the Nervous System, occasioned by the Dissection of a Brain completely Ossified. SIMUL CUM (together with), in English law, words used in indictments and declarations of trespass against several persons, where some of them are known, and others not known: as, the plaintiff declares against A. B. the defendant, together with C. D., E. F., and divers others unknown, for that they committed such a trespass, &c. 2 Lil. Abr. 469. If a writ is generally against two or more persons, the plaintiff may declare against one of them, with a simul cum, but if a man bring an original writ against one only, and declares with a simul cum, he abates his own writ. Comber. 260. SIM'ULAR, n. s. Lat. simulo. One that counterfeits. Obsolete. Hide thee, thou bloody hand, Shakspeare. King Lear. SIMULATION, n. s. Fr. simulation; Lat. simulatio.. That species of hypocrisy which pretends that to be which is not. Simulation is a vice rising of a natural falseness, or fearfulness; or of a mind that hath some main faults; which, because a man must needs disguise, it maketh him practise simulation. Bacon. For the unquestionable virtues of her person and mind, he well expressed his love in an act and time of no simulation towards his end, bequeathing her all his mansion-houses, and a power to dispose of his Wotton. whole personal estate. For distinction sake, a deceiving by word is commonly called a lye; and deceiving by actions, gestures, or behaviour, is called simulation or hypocrisy. South. SIMULTANEOUS, adj. Lat. simultaneus. Acting together; existing at the same time. If the parts may all change places at the same time, without any respect of priority or posteriority crowded in a box, move by a like mutual and simulto each other's motion, why may not bullets, closely taneous exchange? Glanville. SIMULUS, an ancient Latin poet, who wrote a poem on the Tarpeian rock. Plut. in Rom. SIMYRA, an ancient town of Phoenicia. SIN, n. s. SIN'FUL, adj. SIN'FULLY, adj. SIN'FULNESS, n. s. SIN'LESS, adj. Sax. rýn; Goth. synia. An act against or in contempt of the laws of God. See below. Used by Shakspeare for a very wicked man to sin is so to act; to offend against right: the derivatives all corresponding. SIN'LESSNESS, n. s. SIN'NER. He shall ask, and he shall give him life for them 1 John, v. 16. that sin not unto death. Thrice happy man, said then the father grave, Whose staggering steps thy steady hand doth lead, Who better can the way to heaven read. And shews the way his sinful soul to save, Faerie Queene. All this from my remembrance brutish wrath Sinfully plucked, and not a man of you Had so much grace to put it in my mind. Skakspeare. Richard III. Here's that which is too weak to be a sinner, honest water, which never left man i' th' mire. Id. Timon. Infernal ghosts and hellish furies round Environed thee; some howled, some yelled, some shrieked, Id. Some bent at thee their fiery darts, while thou scensions to those, the sinlessness of whose condition The Stoicks looked upon all passions as sinful defects and irregularities, as so many deviations from right reason, making passion to be only another word for perturbation. South. The humble and contented man pleases himself innocently and easily, while the ambitious man attempts to please others sinfully and difficultly, and perhaps unsuccessfully too. Id. Let the boldest sinner take this one consideration along with him when he is going to sin, that, whether the sin he is about to act ever come to be pardoned or no, yet, as soon as it is acted, it quite turns the balance, puts his salvation upon the venture, and makes it ten to one odds against him. Id. Did God indeed, insist on a sinless and unerring observance of all this multiplicity of duties, had the Christian dispensation provided no remedy for our lapses, we might cry out with Balaam, Alas! who should live, if God did this? Rogers. Vice or virtue chiefly imply the relation of our actions to men in this world; sin and holiness rather imply their relation to God and the other world. Watts's Logick. Sad waste! for which no after thrift atones; The giave admits no cure for guilt or sin; Dewdrops may deck the turf that hides the bones, But tears of godly grief ne'er flow within. Cowper. Never.consider yourselves as persons that are to be seen, admired, and courted by men; but as poor sinners, that are to save yourselves from the vanities and follies of a miserable world, by humility, devotion, and self-denial. Law. SIN, in theology, has been defined to be any want of conformity to the law of God, and under this definition are comprehended both the sins of omission and of commission. Plato defines sin to be something void, both of number and measure: by way of contradiction to virtue, which he makes to consist in musical numbers! Simplicius, and after him the schoolmen, assert that evil is not any positive thing, contrary to good; but a mere defect and accident. Sins are distinguished into original and actual. Original sin has been divided by some divines into inherent and imputed: the former term being used to denote that corruption or degeneracy of nature which is said to be propagated by the laws of generation from the first man to all his offspring, by reason of which man is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite unto all that is spiritually good, and wholly inclined to all evil, and that continually. Hence, it is said, proceed all actual transgressions. The general cause and ground of this propagation of a sinful nature are referred originally to man's common interest in the guilt or condemnation of Adam's first sin; but the manner in which this hereditary corruption is conveyed is not particularly explained, though some have supposed that it may result from the constitution of the body, and the deMalebranche pendence of the mind upon it. accounts for it from men at this day retaining in the brain all the traces and impressions of their first parents! All animals, he argues, produce their like, and with like traces in the brain; whence it is that animals of the same kind have the same sympathies and antipathies, and do the same things on the same occasions; and our first parents, after their transgression, received such deep traces in the brain by the impression of sensible objects, that it was very possible they might communicate them to their children. Now as it is necessary, according to the order established by nature, that the thoughts of the soul be conformable to the traces in the brain, it may be said that, as soon as we are formed in the womb, we are infected with the corruption of our parents; for, having traces in the brain like those of the persons who gave us being, it is necessary we have the same thoughts, and the same inclinations, with regard to sensible objects. Thus, of course, we must be born with concupiscence and original sin. With concupiscence, if that be nothing but the natural effort the traces of the brain make on the mind to attach it to sensible things; and with original sin, if that be nothing but the prevalency of concupiscence; nothing, in reality, but these effects considered as victorious, and as masters of the mind and heart of the child. Imputed original sin denotes that guilt or obligation to punishment to which all the posterity of Adam are subject by the imputation Adam's first sin, in which the sinfulness of that of his transgression. This is called the guilt of state into which man fell, is said partly to consist; and it is denominated original sin, in order to distingu sh it from actual sin, or personal guilt. This doctrine of imputed guilt has been explained and vind cated by supposing a covenant made with Adam (called by divines the covenant of works,) as a public person, not for himself only, but for his posterity, in consequence of which he became the federal head, surety, or representative of all mankind; and they, descending from him by ordinary generation, sinned in him, and fell with him, in his first transgression. It has been debated how far the imputation of Adam's sin reaches: some have maintained that it extends to final condemnation, and eternal misery: others have suggested that the sin of Adam has subjected his posterity to an utter extinction of being; so that all who die in their infancy fall into a state of annihilation, excepting those who are the seed of God's people, who, by virtue of the blessings of the covenant made with Abraham, and the promise to the seed of the righteous, shall, through the grace and power of Christ, obtain a part in a happy resurrection, in which other infants shall have no share. It seems best to acknowledge, says Dr. Doddridge, that we know nothing certain concerning the state of infants, and therefore can assert nothing positively; but that they are in the hands of a merciful God, who, as he cannot consistently with justice and truth give them a sense of guilt for an action they never committed, so probably will not hold their souls in being merely to make them sensible of pain for the guilt of a remote ancestor, their existence in a state of everlasting insensibility (which was Dr. Ridgley's scheme) seems hardly intelligible; we must, therefore, either fall in with the above-mentioned hypothesis, or suppose them all to have a part in the resurrection to glory, which seems to put them all on a level, without a due distinction in favor of the seed of believers; or else must suppose they go through some new state of trial, concerning which the Scripture is wholly silent. Such is the doctrine of original sin, both inherent and imputed, as some divines, eminent as scholars and theologians, have stated it. In proof of their view of the depravity of human nature they have appealed to observation and experience, and referred to a variety of texts of Scripture, in which, according to their ideas of them, it is either implied or expressed. Those who maintain that the sin of Adam is imputed to all who descend from him in the way of ordinary generation, allege, in proof of this opinion, that we are all born with such constitutions as will produce some evil inclinations, which we probably should not have had in our original state; which evil inclinations are represented in Scripture as derived from our parents, and therefore may be ultimately traced up to the first sinful parents from whom we descended; that infants are plainly liable to diseases and death, though they have not committed any personal transgression, which, while they cannot know the law, it seems impossible they should be capable of (Rom. v.12-14);-that the seeds of diseases and death were undoubtedly derived to children from their immediate parents, and from them may be traced up to the first diseased and mortal parent, i. e. Adam;-that the Scripture teaches us to consider Adam as having brought a sentence of death upon his whole race, and expressly says that many were constituted sinners, i. e. on account of it are treated as such (1 Cor. xv. 22; Rom. v. 12-19);-that the sin of Adam brought upon himself depraved inclinations, an impaired constitution, and at length death-and there is no reason to believe that if man had continued in a state of innocence his offspring would have been thus corrupt, and thus calamitous from their birth. Hence it has been inferred that the covenant was made with Adam, not only for himself, but in some measure for his posterity; so that he was to be considered as the great head and representative of all that were to descend from him. On the other hand, many divines have disputed the validity of the arguments alleged in proof of the doctrine of original sin; and whilst some of them have disowned the doctrine in toto, as irrational and unscriptural, others have allowed that part of it which comprehends the depravity of the human species, but have rejected the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity. Limborch, rejecting and refuting the imputation of Adam's sin, acknowledges that men are now born less pure than Adam was created, and with a certain inclination to sin; but this inclination cannot properly be called sin, or a habit of sin propagated to them from Adam; but merely an inclination to esteem and pursue what is agreeable to the flesh, arising from the bodily constitution transmitted to them by their parents. Inclinations and appetites of this kind, being most agreeable to the flesh, are contrary to the divine will, as God, by prohibiting them, tries the readiness of our obedience, and of course these inclinations are inclinations to sin. But if it be asked, says this author, whether there be in human nature a certain original corruption or habit of sin propagated from Adam to his posterity, which may truly and properly be called sin, by which the understanding, and will, and all the affections are so depraved that they are inclined only to evil, and that all mankind are by nature subject to the wrath of God, such kind of corruption is consistent neither with Scripture nor with right reason. The Scripture, he says, teaches no such doctrine as that which charges infants with a moral corruption that is truly and properly sin. See Deut. i. 39; Jonah iv. 11; Rom. ix. 11. Our Saviour recommends it to his disciples to be as little children. See also 1 Cor. xiv. 20. This notion, says Limborch, is contrary to the justice of God, who would not punish men with this moral corruption, from which all actual sins proceed, and which leads to future perdition and misery. God cannot be the author of sin. Besides it cannot be conceived how this sin can be propagated; it cannot belong to the mind, which proceeds immediately from God; nor can it exist in the body, which is incapable of sin. But, as diseases may be propagated, so may a peculiar temperament or constitution, and together with this an inclination to certain objects, which, immoderately indulged, may become sinful, but is not sinful in itself. Moreover, no sin is liable to punishment which is involuntary; but original corruption is involuntary. Limborch explains many texts, and refutes many arguments, urged by the advocates of original sin. Another writer (Dr. Taylor), who has taken a lead in this controversy on the same side of the question, proceeds, in the examination of the doctrine of original sin, upon the same plan with Dr. Clarke in his Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity,' by citing and explaining all those passages of Scripture which expressly speak of the consequences of the first transgression. He observes that the consequences of the first transgression are spoken of certainly and plainly but five times in the whole Bible, twice in the Old, and thrice in the New Testament. The first passage is Gen. ii. 17. In this passage, he says, death is opposed to life, and must be so understood. But not one word occurs in this text relating to Adam's posterity. 2. The consequences of the transgression of Adam and Eve are related in Gen. i. from the seventh verse to the end of the chapter. The natural consequences were shame and fear, the common effects of guilt, which was personal, and could belong only to themselves. The judicial consequences pertained either to the serpent, the woman, or the man. As far as they relate to the man, Adam became obnoxious to death, which, as our author conceives, was death in law, or eternal death; and, if the law had been immediately executed, his posterity then included in his loins must have been extinct. But it is alleged that there is not a word of a curse upon the souls of our first parents, i. e. upon the powers of their minds; nor does the least intimation occur with respect to any other death, besides that dissolution which all mankind undergo, when they cease to live in this world. It is also observed that we, their posterity, are in fact subject to the same afflictions and mortality here inflicted by sentence upon our first parents; but they are not inflicted as punishments for their sin, because punishment includes guilt; but we neither are, nor in the nature of things could be, guilty of their sin. We may suffer by their sin, and actually do suffer by it; but we are not punished for their sin, because we are not guilty of it; and this suffering is eventually a good. Accordingly it appears evident in our world, that the increase of natural evil (at least in some degree) is the lessening of moral evil. 3. The third text occurs in the New Testament, viz. 1 Cor. xv. 21, 22. Here it is said, the death from which all mankind shall be released at the resurrection, is the only death that came upon all men in consequence of Adam's sin; that as all men die, all men are mortal; all lose their life in Adam, and from him our mortality commences; and it is equally undeniable that by Christ came the resurrection of the dead. From this place we cannot conclude, says our author, that any other evil or death came upon mankind in consequence of Adam's first transgression, besides that death from which all mankind shall be delivered at the resurrection, whatever that death be. 4. The most difficult passage is that which occurs in Rom. v. 12-19. A popular advocate of the doctrine of original sin (Dr. Watts) thinks that Adam's being federal head, and our deriving a sinful nature from him, may be collected from this text. In this passage our author apprehends that the apostle is speaking of that death which takes place with regard to all mankind, when the present life is extinguished; and that by judgment to condemnation, or a judicial act of condemnation, the apostle means the being adjudged to the fore-mentioned death. The words, as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners,' are (says Dr. Taylor) of the same signification with those in the foregoing verse, as by the offence of one judgment came Dr. Taylor, in the second part of his book, proceeds to examine other passages of Scripture, which some divines have applied to original sin. We shall here select two or three of the principal, that our readers may be able to form a judgment for themselves; one is Ephes. ii. 3, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.' The apostle, our author apprehends, cannot mean that they were liable to divine wrath or punishment by that nature which they brought into the world at their birth. For this nature, whatever infirmities belong to it, is no other than God's own work or gift; and he thinks that to assert that the nature which God gives us is the hateful object of his wrath, is little less than blasphemy against our good and bountiful Creator. In his address to the Ephesians, the apostle is not speaking of their nature, or the natural constitution of their souls and bodies, as they came into the world, but evidently of the vicious coursé of life they had led among the Gentiles. Nature frequently signifies an acquired nature which men bring upon themselves by contracting either good or bad habits. Besides, by nature may here signify really, properly, truly; for Teкva, children, strictly signify the genuine children of parents by natural generation; and figuratively the word denotes relation to a person or thing by way of friendship, regard, imitation, obl gation, &c.; so that children of wrath' are those who are related to wrath, or liable to rejection or punishment. The Ephesians, as the apostle tells them, were TEкva puru, natural genuine children of wrath, not by natural birth, or the natural constitution of their bodies or souls, but 'they were related to wrath in the highest and strictest sense, with regard to sin and disobedience:-Nature, in a metaphorical expression, signifying that they were really and truly children of wrath, i. e. stood in the strictest and closest relation to suffering. Another passage, sometimes referred to in connexion with this subject, viz. Rom. viii. 7, 8, contains not so much as a single word that can carry our minds to Adam, or any consequences of his sin upon us. Gen. vi. 5, expresses the universal wickedness of the old world, but does not so much as intimate that our nature is corrupted in Adam; for the historian does not charge their sin in any way upon Adam, but upon themselves and besides, Noah is exempted out of the number of the corrupt and profligate; but this could not have been the case if the alleged text is a good proof that by Adam's transgression the nature of all mankind is corrupted. Ps. li. 5, 6, is another text which has been considered as of great importance in this controversy. I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.' The word inn, which we translate shapen, signifies, says our author, to bring forth or bear. Is. li. 2; Prov. viii. 24, 25. Again, the word "', conceived me, properly signifies warmed me; and the expression conveys the idea, not of his being conceived, but warmed, cherished, or nursed by his mother, after he was born. Accordingly, the verse is thus translated, Behold I was born in iniquity, and in sin did my mother nurse me;' which has no reference to the original formation of his constitution, but is a periphrasis for his being a sinner from the womb, and is as much as to say, in plain language, I am a great sinner; or I have contracted habits of sin. This, it is said, is a scriptural way of aggravating wickedness. See Ps. lviii. 3; Isaiah xlviii. 8. In the whole psalm there is not one word about Adam, or the effects of his transgression upon us. The psalmist is charging himself with his own sin. But if the words be taken in the literal sense of our version, then it is manifest that he chargeth not himself with his sin and wickedness, but some other person. But our limits will not allow of our enlarging farther. Dr. Taylor's hypothesis has been ably examined, and, as many divines think, successfully refuted, by the acute Jonathan Edwards on Original Sin. SINE, an ancient people of India, reckoned by Ptolemy the most eastern nation in the world. SINAI, a mountain of Arabia, near the head of the Red Sea, the spot celebrated in Scripture history as that whence the Jewish law was given to Moses. It is situated in a vast desert, the few inhabited spots of which are occupied by hordes of Arabs, who render the road impassable, unless for a well defended caravan. The range to which Sinai belongs is called by the Arabs Jibbel Musa, and consists of several lofty summits, the valleys of which are composed of immense chasms, between rugged and precipitous rocks. At the foot of the mountain is the Greek convent of St. Catherine, founded in 1331 by William Bouldesell, and ever since affording hospitality to the few pilgrims who brave the perils of this road. It is situated on the slope of the mountain. The edifice is 120 feet in length, and almost as many in breadth, built of hewn stone, which, in such a desert, must have cost prodigious labor. The gate of entrance is never opened, unless on occasion of the visit of the archbishop. At all other times, men, as well as provisions, are introduced by a basket drawn up by a cord and pulley over the wall. The Arabs often fire upon the convent from the adjacent rocks we are told; and, when they find the monks without the walls, will refuse to release them without a considerable ransom. There is an excellent garden at a little distance, reached by a subterraneous passage, secured by iron gates. The climate is temperate here, and snow falls in winter. The interior of the convent presents little remarkable, except the church of the Transfiguration. It is eighty feet long, and fifty-three broad, paved with marble, adorned with a variety of figures: that event is represented in mosaic. There are many lamps of gold and silver, and the great altar is gilt over. The ascent of the mountain beyond the convent is steep, and rendered practicable only by steps cut in the rock, or loose stones piled. The traveller, after a short ascent, comes to a delightful spring of fresh water, a little above which is a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Higher up is shown the impression made by the foot of the camel on which Mahomet was carried up to heaven, under the guidance of Gabriel; but the Greeks acknowledge that this impression was made by themselves. The summit is marked by a Christian church and a Turkish mosque, the former of which was once much more extensive. Red Sea and the opposite coast of the Thebais; immediately beneath being Tor, once the main channel by which the commodities of India were conveyed to Egypt. The descent is steep and rough, and terminates at the monastery of the Forty Saints, which has suffered much from the depredations of the Arabs. On the other side of it is the mountain of St. Catherine, still loftier than Sinai, 150 miles south-east of Suez. It commands a most extensive view over the SINAPIS, mustard, in botany, a genus of plants belonging to the class of tetradynamia, tural system ranged under the thirty-ninth order, and to the order of siliquosa; and in the nasiliquosæ. The calyx consists of four expanding strap-shaped deciduous leaves; the ungues or bases of the petals are straight; two glandules between the shorter stamina and pistillum, also between the longer and the calyx. There are seventeen species:-1. S. alba; 2. allioni; 3. ar |