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of the latter is absolutely inconsistent with wisdom and goodness, which are demonstrably attributes of that Being by whom alone mi

prescience, and have impelled them to fabricate a pretended revelation for the purpose of deceiving the world, and involving themselves in certain and foreseen de-racles can be performed. Whence struction.

it follows, that the supposition of the apostles bearing false testimony to the miracles of their Master, implies a series of deviations from the laws of nature infinitely less probable in themselves

"The power necessary to perform the one series of these miracles may, for any thing known to us, be as great as that which would be requisite for the performance of the other; and, considered than those miracles: and theremerely as exertions of preternatu- fore, by Mr. Hume's maxim, wé ral power, they may seem to bal- must necessarily reject the suppoance each other, and to hold the sition of falsehood in the testimomind in a state of suspence; but ny, and admit the reality of the when we take into consideration miracles. So true it is, that for the different purposes for which the reality of the Gospel miracles these opposite and contending we have evidence as convincing miracles were wrought, the balance to the reflecting mind as those is instantly destroyed. The mira- had who were contemporary with cles recorded in the Gospels, if Christ and his apostles, and were real, were wrought in support of a actual witnesses to their mighty revelation which, in the opinion of works." all by whom it is received, has brought to light many important truths which could not otherwise have been made known to men; and which, by the confession of its adversaries, contains the purest moral precepts by which the conduct of mankind was ever directed. The opposite series of miracles, if real, was performed to enable, and even to compel, a company of Jews, of the lowest rank and of the narrowest education, to fabricate, with the view of inevitable destruction to themselves, a consistent scheme of falsehood, and by an appeal to forged miracles to impose it upon the world as a revelation from heaven. The object of the former miracles is worthy of a God of infinite wisdom, goodness, and power; the object

The power of working miracles is supposed by some to have been continued no longer than the apostles' days. Others think that it was continued long after. It seems pretty clear, however, that miracles universally ceased before Chrysostom's time. As for what Augustine says of those wrought at the tombs of the martyrs, and some other places, in his time, the evidence is not always so convincing as might be desired in facts of importance. The controversy concerning the time when miraculous powers ceased was carried on by Dr. Middleton, in his Free Enquiry into the Miraculous Powers, &c.; by Mr. Yate, Mr. Toll, and others, who supposed that miracles ceased with the apostles. On the contrary side

appeared Dr. Stebbing, Dr. Chap- || it with a steady and perpetual se man, Mr. Parker, Mr. Brooke, renity."

and others.

MISANTHROPIST, maar@poAs to the miracles of the Ro-Tos, a hater of mankind; one that mish church, it is evident, as abandons society from a princiDoddridge observes, that many of ple of discontent. of ple of discontent. The considethem were ridiculous tales, ac-ration of the depravity of human cording to their own historians; nature is certainly enough to others were performed without raise emotions of sorrow in the any credible witnesses, or in cir-breast of every man of the least cumstances where the performer sensibility; yet it is our duty to had the greatest opportunity for juggling: and it is particularly remarkable, that they were hardly ever wrought where they seem most necessary, i. e. in countries where those doctrines are renounced, which that church esteems of the highest importance. See Fleetwood, Claparede, Conybeare, Campbell, Lardner, Farmer, Adams, and Weston, on Miracles; dishonourable character. article Miracle, Enc. Brit.; Dodd-gusted with life, he seeks a reridge's Lect., lec. 101 and 135; treat from it: like a coward, he Leland's View of Deistical Writers, letters 3, 4, 7; Hurrion on the Spirit, p. 299, &c.

bear with the follies of mankind; to exercise a degree of candour consistent with truth; to lessen, if possible, by our exertions, the sum of moral and natural evil; and by connecting ourselves with society; to add at least something to the general interests of mankind. The misanthropist, therefore, is an ungenerous and

Dis

flees from the scene of action, while he increases his own misery by his natural discontent, and leaves others to do what they can for themselves.

The following is his character more at large.

MIRTH, joy, gaiety, merriment. It is distinguished from cheerfulness thus: Mirth is consi- | dered as an act; cheerfulness an habit of the mind. Mirth is short "He is a man," says Saurin, and transient; cheerfulness fixed "who avoids society only to free and permanent. "Those are of himself from the trouble of being ten raised into the greatest trans-useful to it. He is a man, who ports of mirth who are subject to considers his neighbours only on the greatest depressions of melan- the side of their defects, not knowcholy on the contrary, cheerful-ing the art of combining their virness, though it does not give such tues with their vices, and of renan exquisite gladness, prevents us dering the imperfections of other from falling into any depths of sor-people tolerable by reflecting on. row. Mirth is like a flash of light- his own. He is a man more emhing, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills

ployed in finding out and inflicting punishments on the guilty than in devising means to reform them. He is a man, who talks of nothing

but banishing and executing, and is prudence which requires him to who, because he thinks his talents provide not only for his present are not sufficiently valued and em- wants, but for such as he may ployed by his fellow citizens, or have in future. Sometimes it is rather because they know his foi- charity which requires him not to bles, and do not choose to be sub- give society examples of prodigaject to his caprice, talks of quit-lity and parade. Sometimes it is ting cities, towns, and societies, parental love obliging him to save and of living in dens or de-something for his children. Some

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MISER, a term formerly used in reference to a person in wretchedness or calamity; but it now denotes a parsimonious person, or one who is covetous to extremity; who denies himself even the comforts of life to accumulate wealth. Avarice, says Saurin, may be considered in two different points of light. It may be considered in those men, or rather those public bloodsuckers, or, as the officers of the Roman emperor Vespasian were called, those sponges of society, who, infatuated with this passion, seek after riches as the supreme good, determine to acquire it by any methods, and consider the ways that lead to wealth legal or illegal, as the only road for them to travel.

Avarice, however, must be considered in a second point of light. It not only consists in committing bold crimes, but in entertaining mean ideas and practising low methods, incompatible with such magnanimity as our condition ought to inspire. It consists not only in omitting to serve God, but in trying to associate the service of God with that of mammon.

How many forms doth avarice take to disguise itself from the man who is guilty of it, and who will be drenched in the guilt of it till the day he dies! Sometimes it

times it is circumspection, which requires him not to supply people who make an ill use of what they get. Sometimes it is necessity, which obliges him to repel artifice by artifice. Sometimes it is conscience, which convinces him, good man, that he hath already exceeded in compassion and alms-giving, and done too much. Sometimes it is equity, for justice requires that every one should enjoy the fruit of his own labours, and those of his ancestors.-Such, alas! are the awful pretexts and subterfuges of the miser. Saurin's Ser., vol. v, ser. 12. See AVARICE, COVET

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Moses during the time of his abode Judah on this occasion being recon the Mount; which he after-tor of the school at Tiberias, and wards communicated to Aaron, president of the sanhedrim in that Eleazer, and his servant Joshua.place, undertook the work, and By these they were transmitted to compiled it in six books, each conthe seventy elders; by them to sisting of several tracts, which althe prophets, who communicated together make up the number of them to the men of the great san-sixty-three. Prid. Connex., vol. hedrim, from whom the wise men ii. p. 468, &c., ed. 9. This of Jerusalem and Babylon re-learned author computes, that the ceived them. According to Pri- Mischna was composed about the deaux's account, they passed from 150th year of our Lord; but Dr. Jeremiah to Baruch, from him to Lightfoot says, that Rabbi Judah Ezra, and from Ezra to the men compiled the Mischna about the of the great synagogue, the last of year of Christ 190, in the latter whom was Simon the Just, who end of the reign of Commodus ; delivered them to Antigonus of or, as some compute, in the Socho and from him they came year of Christ 220. Dr. Larddown in regular succession to ner is of opinion that this work Simeon, who took our Saviour in could not have been finished behis arms; to Gamaliel, at whose fore the year 190, or later. Colfeet Paul was educated; and last lection of fervish and Heathen Tesof all to Rabbi Judah the Holy, timonies, vol. i. p. 178. who committed them to writing in the book called the Mischna was the Mischna. But Dr. Prideaux, formed; a book which the Jews rejecting the Jewish fiction, ob- have generally received with the serves, that after the death of Si- greatest veneration. The origimon the Just, about 299 years be- nal has been published with a Lafore Christ, the Mischnical doc- tin translation by Surenhusius, tors arose, who by their comments with notes of his own and others and conclusions added to the num-from the learned Maimonides, ber of those traditions which had &c., in six vols. fol. Amster. A. D. been received and allowed by Ezra 1698-1703. See TALMUD. It is and the men of the great syna-written in a much purer style, and gogue; so that towards the middle is not near so full of dreams and of the second century after Christ, visions as the Gemara. under the empire of Antoninus Pius, it was found necessary to commit these traditions to writing; more especially as their country had considerably suffered under Adrian, and many of their schools had been dissolved, and their learned men cut off; and therefore the usual method of preserving their traditions had failed. Rabbi

MISREPRESENTATION, the act of wilfully representing a thing otherwise than it is. "This," as an elegant writer observes, 66 is one of the greatest mischiefs of conversation. Self-love is continually at work to give to all we say a bias in our own favour. How often in society, otherwisę respectable, we are pained with

narrations in which prejudice that the most skilful moral chemist cannot analyze or separate them! for a good misrepresenter knows that a successful lie must have a certain infusion of truth, or it will not go down. And this amalgamation is the test of his skill; as too much truth would defeat the end of his mischief, and too little would destroy the belief of the hearer. All that indefinable ambiguity and equivocation; all that prudent deceit, which is rather implied than expressed; those more delicate artifices of the school of Loyola and of Chesterfield, which allow us, when we dare not deny a truth, yet so to disguise and discolour it, that the truth we relate shall not resemble the truth we heard; these, and all the thousand shades of simulation and dissimulation, will be carefully guarded against in the conversation of vigilant Christians."-Miss H. Moore on Educ., vol. ii, p. 91.

warps, and self-love blinds! How often do we see that withholding part of a truth answers the worst ends of a falsehood! how often regret the unfair turn given to a cause, by placing a sentiment in one point of view, which the speaker had used in another! the letter of truth preserved, where its spirit is violated! a superstitious exactness scrupulously maintained in the underparts of a detail, in order to impress such an idea of integrity as shall gain credit for the misrepresenter, while he is designedly mistating the leading principle! How may we observe a new character given to a fact by a different look, tone, or emphasis, which alters it as much as words could have done! the false impression of a sermon conveyed, when we do not like the preacher, or when through him we wish to make religion itself ridiculous! the care to avoid literal untruths, while the mis- MISSAL, the Romish masschief is better effected by the un- book, containing the several masfair quotation of a passage divest- ses to be said on particular days. ed of its context! the bringing to- It is derived from the Latin word gether detached portions of a sub-missa, which in the ancient Chrisject, and making those parts ludi- tian church signified every part of crous, when connected, which divine service. were serious in their distinct position! the insidious use made of a sentiment by representing it as the opinion of him who had only brought it forward in order to expose it! the relating opinions which had merely been put hypo-ture." thetically, as if they were the avowed principles of him we would discredit! that subtle falsehood which is so made to incorporate with a certain quantity of truth, VOL. II.

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MISSION, a power or commission to preach the Gospel. Thus Jesus Christ gave his disciples their mission, when he said, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every crea

See next article.

MISSION, an establishment of people zealous for the glory of God and the salvation of souls, who go and preach the Gospel in remote countries, and among infi

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