prescience, and have impelled them to fabricate a pretended revelation for the purpose of deceiving the world, and involving themselves in certain and foreseen destruction.

of the latter is absolutely inconsistent with wisdom and goodness, which are demonstrably attributes of that Being by whom alone miracles can be performed. Whence 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 than those miracles: and therefore, by Mr. Hume's maxim, we must necessarily reject the supposition of falsehood in the testimo

we have evidence as convincing to the reflecting mind as those had who were contemporary with Christ and his apostles, and were actual witnesses to their mighty works."

**"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 merely as exertions of preternatural power, they may seem to balance each other, and to hold the mind in a state of suspence; butny, 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 miracles were wrought, the balance is instantly destroyed. The miracles recorded in the Gospels, if real, were wrought in support of a revelation which, in the opinion of 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 seems pretty clear, however, that moral precepts by which the con-miracles universally ceased before duct of mankind was ever directed. Chrysostom's time. As for what The opposite series of miracles, Augustine says of those wrought 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

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. Chapman, Mr. Parker, Mr. Brooke, and others.

it with a steady and perpetual serenity."

MISANTHROPIST, μισανθρο πος, a hater of mankind; one that abandons society from a principle of discontent. The consideration of the depravity of human nature is certainly enough to raise emotions of sorrow in the breast of every man of the least sensibility; yet it is our duty to bear with the follies of mankind; to exercise a degree of candour consistent with truth; to lessen,

As to the miracles of the Romish church, it is evident, as Doddridge observes, that many of them were ridiculous tales, according to their own historians; others were performed without any credible witnesses, or in circumstances where the performer had the greatest opportunity for juggling: and it is particularly remarkable, that they were hardly ever wrought where they seem if possible, by our exertions, the most necessary, i. e. in countries sum of moral and natural evil; where those doctrines are re-and by connecting ourselves with nounced, which that churches- society; to add at least someteems of the highest importance. thing to the general interests See Fleetwood, Claparede, Conybeare, Campbell, Lardner, Farmer, Adams, and Weston, on Miracles; article Miracle, Enc. Brit.; Doddridge's Lect., lec. 101 and 135; Leland's View of Deistical Writers, letters 3, 4, 7; Hurrion on the Spirit, p. 299, &c.

MIRTH, joy, gaiety, merriment. It is distinguished from cheerfulness thus: Mirth is considered as an act; cheerfulness an habit of the mind. Mirth is short and transient; cheerfulness fixed and permanent. "Those are often raised into the greatest transports of mirth who are subject to the greatest depressions of melancholy: on the contrary, cheerfulness, though it does not give such an exquisite gladness, prevents us from falling into any depths of sorrow. Mirth is like a flash of lighthing, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, and fills

of mankind. The misanthropist, therefore, is an ungenerous and dishonourable character. Disgusted with life, he seeks a retreat from it: like a coward, he 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.

"He is a man," says Saurin, "who avoids society only to free himself from the trouble of being useful to it. He is a man, who considers his neighbours only on the side of their defects, not knowing the art of combining their virtues with their vices, and of rendering the imperfections of other people tolerable by reflecting on his own. He is a man more employed in finding out and inflicting punishments on the guilty than in devising means to reform them. He is a man, who talks of nothing Avarice, however, must be considered in a second point of light. It not only consists in committing || ish Talmud. bold crimes, but in entertaining The Mischna contains the text; mean ideas and practising low me- and the Gemara, which is the sethods, incompatible with such cond part of the Talmud, conmagnanimity as our conditiontains the commentaries: so that 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.

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, Eleazer, and his servant Joshua. By these they were transmitted to the seventy elders; by them to the prophets, who communicated them to the men of the great sanhedrim, from whom the wise

men

president of the sanhedrim in that place, undertook the work, and compiled it in six books, each consisting of several tracts, which altogether make up the number of sixty-three. Prid. Connex., vol. ii. p. 468, &c., ed. 9. This learned author computes, that the Mischna was composed about the 150th year of our Lord; but Dr. Lightfoot says, that Rabbi Judah compiled the Mischna about the year of Christ 190, in the latter end of the reign of Commodus'; or, as some compute, in the year of Christ 220. Dr. Lardner is of opinion that this work could not have been finished before the year 190, or later. Collection of Jervish and Heathen Testimonies, vol. i. p. 178. Thus the book called the Mischna was formed; a book which the Jews have generally received with the greatest veneration. The origi nal has been published with a Latin translation by Surenhusius, with notes of his own and others from the learned Maimonides, &c., in six vols. fol. Amster. A. D. 1698-1703. See TALMUD. It is written in a much purer style, and is not near so full of dreams and visions as the Gemara.

of Jerusalem and Babylon received them. According to Prideaux's account, they passed from Jeremiah to Baruch, from him to Ezra, and from Ezra to the men of the great synagogue, the last of whom was Simon the Just, who delivered them to Antigonus of Socho: and from him they came down in regular succession to Simeon, who took our Saviour in his arms; to Gamaliel, at whose feet Paul was educated; and last of all to Rabbi Judah the Holy, who committed them to writing in the Mischna. But Dr. Prideaux, rejecting the Jewish fiction, observes, that after the death of Simon the Just, about 299 years before Christ, the Mischnical doctors arose, who by their comments and conclusions added to the number of those traditions which had been received and allowed by Ezra and the men of the great synagogue; so that towards the middle of the second century after Christ, 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 conversation. Self-love is con

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, "is one of the greatest mischiefs of

tinually at work to give to all we say a bias in our own favour. How often in society, otherwise respectable, we are pained with

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.

narrations in which prejudice | that the most skilful moral chemist 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 mischief is better effected by the unfair quotation of a passage divested of its context! the bringing together detached portions of a sub-missa, which in the ancient Chris

ject, and making those parts ludicrous, when connected, which 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 hypothetically, 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.

U

MISSAL, the Romish massbook, containing the several masses to be said on particular days. It is derived from the Latin word tian church signified every part of divine service.

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 creature." 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