evidence of their being under the influence of Divine grace, and shall enjoy the Divine blessing, Is. Ivii, 15. See Henry on Meekness; Dunlop's Ser., vol. ii, p. 434; Evans's Sermons on the Christ. Temper, ser. 29; Tillotson on 1st Peter ii, and on Matthew v, 44; Logan's Sermons, vol. i, ser. 10; and Fortin's Sermons, ser. 11, vol. iii. MEETING-HOUSE, a place appropriated by Dissenters for the purpose of public worship. Since the act of uniformity passed, 1662, by which so many hundreds of ministers were ejected from their livings, meeting-houses have become very numerous. For a considerable time, indeed, they were prohibited by the conventicle act; but, at last, toleration being granted to Dissenters, they enjoyed the privilege of meeting and worshipping God according to the dictates of their own consciences, and which they still possess to this day. The number of meetinghouses in London may, perhaps, amount to about 150, though some reckon upwards of 200. In all the respectable towns, and even in many villages of England, there are meeting-houses; and, within a few years, they have greatly increased. MELATONI, so called from one Mileto, who taught that not the soul, but the body of man was made after God's image. power superior to Jesus Christ; for Melchizedeck, they said, was the intercessor and mediator of the angels; and Jesus Christ was only so for man, and his priesthood only a copy of that of Melchizedeck. MELCHITES, the name given to the Syriac, Egyptian, and other Christians of the Levant. The Melchites, excepting some few points of little or no importance, which relate only to ceremonies and ecclesiastical discipline, are, in every respect, professed Greeks; but they are governed by a particular patriarch, who assumes the title of Patriarch of Antioch. They celebrate mass in the Arabian language. The religious among the Melchites follow the rule of St. Basil, the common rule of all the Greek monks. MELETIANS, the name of a considerable party who adhered to the cause of Meletius, bishop of Lycopolis, in Upper Egypt, after he was deposed, about the year 306, by Peter, bishop of Alexandria, under the charge of his having sacrificed to the gods, and having been guilty of other heinous crimes; though Epiphanius makes his only failing to have been an excessive severity against the lapsed. This dispute, which was at first a personal difference between Meletius and Peter, became a religious controversy; and the Meletian party subsisted in the fifth century, but was condemned by the first council of Nice. MELCHIZEDEZIANS, a denomination which arose about MEMORY, a faculty of the the beginning of the third century. mind, which presents to us ideas They affirmed that Melchizedeck or notions of things that are past, was not a man, but a heavenly accompanied with a persuasion nature or in the sound of the word.-6. We should think of it before we go to sleep at night, and the first thing in the morning, when the faculties are fresh.-7. Method and regularity in the things we commit to the memory are necessary.-8. Often thinking, writing, or talking, on the subjects we wish to remember.-9. Fervent and frequent prayer. See Watts on the Mind, chap. 17; Grey's Memoria Technica; Rogers's Pleasures of Memory; Reid's Intell. Powers of Man, 303, 310, 338, 356. that the things themselves were formerly real and present. When we remember with little or no effort, it is called remembrance simply, or memory, and sometimes passive memory. When we endeavour to remember what does not immediately and of itself occur, it is called active memory, or recollection. A good memory has these several qualifications: 1. It is ready to receive and admit with great ease the various ideas, both of words and things, which are learned or taught. 2. It is large and copious to treasure up these ideas in great number and variety. -3. It is strong and durable to retain for a considerable time those words or thoughts which are committed to it.-4. It is faithful and active to suggest and recollect, upon every proper occasion, all those words or thoughts which it hath treasured up, As this faculty may be injured by neglect and slothfulness, we will here subjoin a few of the best rules which have been given for the improvement of it. 1. We should form clear and distinct apprehension of the things which we commit to memory. 2. Beware of every sort of intemperance, for that greatly impairs the faculties. -3. If it be weak, we must not overload it, but charge it only with the most useful and solid no-gions, to succour the souls that tions. 4. We should take every opportunity of uttering our best thoughts in conversation, as this will deeply imprint them.-5. We should join to the idea we wish to remember, some other idea that is more familiar to us, which bears some similitude to it, either in its MENANDRIANS, the most ancient branch of Gnostics; thus called from Menander their chief, said by some, without sufficient foundation, to have been a disciple of Simon Magus, and himself a reputed magician. He taught, that no person could be saved unless he were baptized in his name; and he conferred a peculiar sort of baptism, which would render those who received it immortal in the next world; exhibiting himself to the world with the phrenzy of a lunatic more than the founder of a sect as a promised saviour; for it appears by the testimonies of Irenæus, Justin, and Tertullian, that he pretended to be one of the æons sent from the pleroma, or ecclesiastical re lay groaning under bodily oppression and servitude; and to maintain them against the violence and stratagems of the dæmons that hold the reigns of empire in this sublunary world. As this doctrine was built upon the same foundation with that of Simon Magus, the ancient writers looked upon orders that had sprung up after him as the instructor of Menander. See SIMONIANS. MENDICANTS, or BEGGING FRIARS, several orders of religious in popish countries, who, having no settled revenues, are supported by the charitable contributions they receive from others. This sort of society began in the thirteenth century, and the members of it, by the tenor of their institution, were to remain entirely destitute of all fixed revenues and possessions; though in process of time their number became a heavy tax upon the people. Innocent III was the first of the popes who perceived the necessity of instituting such an order; and accordingly he gave such monastic societies as made a profession of poverty the most distinguishing marks of his protection and favour. They were also encouraged and patronized by the succeeding pontiffs, when experience had demonstrated their public and extensive usefulness. But when it became generally known that they had such a peculiar place in the esteem and protection of the rulers of the church, their number grew to such an enormous and unwieldy multitude, and swarmed so prodigiously in all the European provinces, that they became a burden not only to the people, but to the church itself. The great inconvenience that arose from the excessive multiplication of the Mendicant orders was remedied by Gregory X, in a general council, which he assembled at Lyons, in 1272; for here all the religious the council held at Rome, in 1215, under the pontificate of Innocent III, were suppressed; and the extravagant multitude of Mendicants, as Gregory called them, were reduced to a smaller number, and confined to the four following societies or denominations, viz. the Dominicans, the Franciscans, the Carmelites, and the Augustins, or hermits of St. Augustin. As the pontiffs allowed these four Mendicant orders the liberty of travelling wherever they thought proper, of conversing with persons of every rank, of instructing the youth and multitude wherever they went; and as those monks exhibited, in their outward appearance and manner of life, more striking marks of gravity and holiness than were observable in the other monastic societies, they rose all at once to the very summit of fame, and were regarded with the utmost esteem and veneration through all the countries of Europe. The enthusiastic attachment to these sanctimonious beggars went so far, that, as we learn from the most authentic records, several cities were divided or cantoned out into four parts, with a view to these four orders; the first part being assigned to the Dominicans, the second to the Franciscans, the third to the Carmelites, and the fourth to the Augustins. The people were unwilling to receive the sacraments from any other hands than those of the Mendicants, to whose churches they crowded to perform their devotions while living, and were ex tremely desirous to deposite there | claimed with ostentation the su perior efficacy and virtue of their indulgences; and vaunted beyond measure their interest at the court of heaven, and their familiar connexions with the Supreme Being, the Virgin Mary, and the saints in glory. By these impious wiles they so deluded and captivated the miserable, and blinded the multitude, that they would not intrust any other but the Mendi also their remains after death. Nor did the influence and credit of the Mendicants end here; for we find in the history of this and of the succeeding ages that they were employed not only in spiritual matters, but also in temporal and political affairs of the greatest consequence, in composing the differences of princes, concluding treaties of peace, concerting alliances, presiding in cabinet coun-cants with the care of their souls. cils, governing courts, levying They retained their credit and intaxes, and other occupations not fluence to such a degree towards only remote from but absolutely the close of the fourteenth ceninconsistent with the monastic tury, that great numbers of both character and profession. How- sexes, some in health, others in a ever, the power of the Domini- state of infirmity, others at the cans and Franciscans greatly sur- point of death, earnestly desired to passed that of the other two or- be admitted into the Mendicant ders, insomuch that these two or-order, which they looked upon as ders were, before the reformation, a sure and infallible method of what the Jesuits have been since that happy and glorious period; the very soul of the hierarchy, the engines of the state, the secret springs of all the motions of the one and the other, and the authors and directors of every great and important event, both in the religious and political world. By very quick progression their pride and confidence arrived at such a pitch, that they had the presumption to declare publicly, that they had a divine impulse and commission to illustrate and maintain the religion of Jesus. They treated with the utmost insolence and contempt, all the different orders of the priesthood; they affirmed, without a blush, that the true method of obtaining salvation was revealed to them alone; pro rendering heaven propitious.Many made it an essential part of their last wills, that their bodies after death should be wrapped in old ragged Dominican or Franciscan habits, and interred among the Mendicants. For such was the barbarous superstition and wretched ignorance of this age, that people universally believed they should readily obtain mercy from Christ at the day of judgment, if they appeared before his tribunal associated with the Mendicant friars. About this time, however, they fell under an universal odium ; but, being resolutely protected against all opposition, whether open or secret, by the popes, who regarded them as their best friends and most effectual supports, they suffered little or nothing from the || the same with those in other places called Anabaptists. They had their rise in 1536, when Menno Simon, a native of Friesland, who had been a Romish priest, and a notorious profligate, resigned his rank and office in the Romish church, and publicly embraced the communion of the Anabaptists. efforts of their numerous adversaries. In the fifteenth century, besides their arrogance, which was excessive, a quarrelsome and litigious spirit prevailed among them, and drew upon them justly the displeasure and indignation of many. By affording refuge at this time to the Beguins in their order, they became offensive to the bishops, and were hereby involved in difficulties and perplexities of various kinds. They lost their credit in the sixteenth century by their rustic impudence, their ridiculous superstitions, their ignorance, cruelty, and brutish manners. They discovered the most barbarous aversion to the arts and sciences, and expressed a like abhorrence the snares that were daily laid for of certain eminent and learned his ruin, took him, with certain men, who endeavoured to open the paths of science to the pursuits of the studious youth, recommended the culture of the mind, and attacked the barbarism of the age in their writings and discourses. Their general character, together with other circumstances, concurred to render a reformation desirable, and to accomplish this happy event. Among the number of Mendicants are also ranked the Capuchins, Recollects, Minims, and others, who are branches or derivations from the former. Menno was born at Witmarsum, a village in the neighbourhood of Bolswert, in Friesland, in the year 1505, and died in 1561, in the dutchy of Holstein, at the country seat of a certain nobleman not far from the city of Oldesloe, who, moved with compassion by the view of the perils to which Menno was exposed, and of his associates, into his protection, and gave him an asylum. The writings of Menno, which are almost all composed in the Dutch language, were published in folio at Amsterdam, in the year 1651. About the year 1537, Menno was earnestly solicited by many of the sect with which he connected himself to assume among them the rank and functions of a public teacher; and, as he looked upon the persons who made this proposal to be exempt from the fanatical phrenzy of their brethren at Munster(though according to other accounts they were originally of the same stamp, only rendered somewhat wiser by their suffer Buchanan tells us, the Mendicants in Scotland, under an appearance of beggary, lived a very luxurious life; whence one witti-ings), he yielded to their entreaties. ly called them not Mendicant, but Manducant friars. MENNONITES, a sect in the United Provinces, in most respects From this period to the end of his life he travelled from one country to another with his wife and children, exercising his ministry, |