freedom of the human wili; and intro

move the difficulties attending the dectrines of predestination and liberty, and to reconcile the jarring opinions of Augustines, Thomists, Semi-Pelagians and other contentious divines. He affirmed that the decree of predestination to eternal glory was founded upon a previous knowledge and consideration of the merits of the elect; that the grace, from whose operation these merits are deri

will rejoice in the copious blessings, and feel the benign effects of civilization;duced a new kind of hypothesis to rethe ignorant idolater will be directed to offer up his prayers and praises to the true God, and learn the way of salvation through Jesus Christ. The habitations of cruelty will become the abodes of peace and security, while ignorance and superstition shall give way to the celestial blessings of intelligence, purity, and joy. Happy men, who are employed as instruments in this cause: who forego your personal comforts, re-ved, is not efficacious by its own intrinlinquish your native country, and voluntarily devote yourselves to the most noble and honourable of services! Peace and prosperity be with you! Miller's History of the Propagation of Christ Kennett's ditto; Gillies's Historical Collection. Carey's Enquiry respecting Missions. Loskiell's History of the Moravian Missions. Crantz's History of Greenland. Horne's Letters on Missions. Sermons and reports of the London Missionary Society,

sic power only, but also by the consent of our own will, and because it is administered in those circumstances in which the Deity, by that branch of his knowledge which is called scientia media, foresees that it will bo efficacious. The kind of prescience, denominated in the schools scientia media, is that foreknowledge of future contingents that arises from an acquaintance with the nature and faculties of rational beings, of the circumstances in which they shall be

MODERATION, the state of keep-placed, of the objects that shall be pre

ing a due mean between extremes: calmness, temperance, or equanimity. It is sometimes used with reference to our opinions, Rom xii. 3. but in general it respects our conduct in that state which comes under the description of ease or prosperity; and ought to take place in our wishes, pursuits, expectations, pleasures, and passions. See Bp. Hall on Moderation, ser. 16. Blair's Sermons, vol. iii. ser. 12. Toplady's Works, vol. iii. ser. 10.

MODESTY is sometimes used to denote humility, and sometimes to express chastity. The Greek word Keeps modestus, signifies neat or clean. Modesty, therefore, consists in purity of sentiment and manners, inclining us to abbor the least appearance of vice and indecency, and to fear doing any thing which will incur censure. An excess of modesty may be called bashfulness, and the want of it impertinence. There is a false or vicious modesty, which influences a man to do any thing that is ill or indiscreet; such as, through fear of of fending his companions he runs into their follies or excesses; or it is a false modesty which restrains a man from doing what is good or laudable; such as being ashamed to speak of religion, and to be seen in the exercises of piety and devotion.

MOLINISTS, a sect in the Romish church who follow the doctrine and sen. timents of the Jesuit Molina, relating to sufficient and efficacious grace. He taught that the operations of divine grace were entirely consistent with the

sented to them, and of the influence which their circumstances and objects must have on their actions.

MONARCHIANS, the same as the Patripassians; which see.

MONASTERY, a convent or house built for the reception of religious; whether it be abbey, priory, numery, or the like.

Monastery is only properly applied to the houses of monks, mendicant friars, and nuns: the rest are more properly called religious houses. For the origin of monasteries, see Monastic, and MONK..

The houses belonging to the several religious orders which obtained in England and Wales, were cathedrals, colleges, abbeys, priories, preceptories, commandries, hospitals, friaries, hermitages, chantries, and free chapelsThese were under the direction and management of various officers. The dissolution of houses of this kind began so cary as the year 1312, when the Templars were suppressed; and in 1325, their lands, churches, advowsons, and liberties, here in England, were given, by 17 Edw. II. stat. 3. to the prior and brethren of the hospital of St. John of Jerusalem. In the years 1390, 1437, 1441, 1459, 1497, 1505, 1508, and 1515, several other houses were dissolved, and their revenues settled on different colleges in Oxford and Cambridge. Soon after the last period, cardinal Wolsey, by licence of the king and pope, obtained a dissolution of above thirty religions houses for the founding

persons contained in the religious whole, that the dissolution of these houses.

If we suppose the colleges and hospitals to have contained a proportionable number, these will make about

If we reckon the number in the greater monasteries according to the proportion of their revenues, they will be about $5,000; but as probably they had larger allowances in proportion to their number than those of the lesser monasteries, if we abate upon that ac Count 5,000, they will then be

One for each chantry and free chapel,

10,000

houses was not an act of the church, but of the state, in the period preceding the reformation, by a king and parliaIment of the Roman Catholic communion in all points, except the king's supremacy; to which the pope himself, by his bulls and licences, had led the way.

As to the merits of these institutions, authors are much divided. While Isome have considered them as benefi5,347 cial to learning, piety, and benevolence, others have thought them very injurious. We may form some idea of them from the following remarks of Mr. Gilpin.

30,000

2,374

Total, 47,721

He is speaking of Glastonbury Abbey, which possessed the amplest revenues of any religious house in England. "Its fraternity," says he, "is said to have consisted of five hundred established monks, besides nearly as many retainers on the abbey. Above four hundred children were not only educated in it, but entirely maintained. Strangers from all parts of Europe were liberally received, classed according to their sex and nation, and might consider the hospitable roof under which they lodged as their own. Five hundred travellers, But as there were probably more than with their horses, have been lodged at one person to officiate in several of the once within its walls; while the poor free chapels, and there were other from every side of the country, waiting houses which are not included within the ringing of the alms bell; when they this calculation, perhaps they may be flocked in crowds, young and old, to the computed in one general estimate at gate of the monastery, where they reabout 50,000. As there were pensions ceived, every morning, a plentiful propaid to almost all those of the greater vision for themselves and their families: monasteries, the king did not imme--all this appears great and noble. diately come into the full enjoy ment of "On the other hand, when we contheir whole revenues; however, by sider five hundred persons bred up in means of what he did receive, he found-indolence and lost to the commoned six new bishoprics, viz. those of Westminster (which was changed by queen Elizabeth into a deanery, with twelve prebends and a school,) Peterborough, Chester, Gloucester, Bristol, and Oxford. And in eight other sees he founded deaneries and chapters, by converting the priors and monks into deans and prebendaries, viz. Canterbury, Winchester, Durham, Worcester, Rochester, Norwich, Ely, and Carlisle. He founded also the colleges of Christ Church in Oxford, and Trinity in Cambridge, and finished King's College there. He likewise founded professorships of divinity, law, physic, and of the Hebrew and Greek tongues in both the said Universities. He gave the house of Grey Friars and St. Bartholomew's Hospital to the city of London, and a perpetual pension to the poor knights of Windsor, and laid out great sums in building and fortifying many ports in the channel. It is observable, upon the

wealth; when we consider that these houses were the great nurseries of superstition, bigotry, and ignorauce; the stews of sloth, stupidity, and perhaps intemperance; when we consider that the education received in them had not the least tincture of useful learning, good manners, or true religion, but tended rather to vilify and disgrace the human mind; when we consider that the pilgrims and strangers who resorted thither were idle vagabonds, who got nothing abroad that was equivalent to the occupations they left at home; and when we consider, lastly, that indiscriminate alms-giving is not real charity, but an avocation from labour and industry, checking every idea of exertion, and filling the mind with abject notions, we are led to acquiesce in the fate of these foundations, and view their ruins, not only with a picturesque eye, but with moral and religious satisfaction." Gilpin's Observations on the Western

Parts of England, p. 133, 139; Bigland's Letters on Hist. p. 313.

MONASTIC, something bolonging to monks, or the monkish life.-The monastic profession is a kind of civil death, which in all worldly matters has the same effect with the natural death. The council of Trent, &c. fix sixteen years the age at which a person may be admitted into the monastical state.

St. Anthony is the person who, in the fourth century, first instituted the monastic life; as St. Pachomius, in the same century, is said to have first set on foot the cœnobite life, i. e. regular communities of religious. In a short time the deserts of Egypt became inhabited by a set of solitaries, who took upon them the monastic profession. St. Basil carried the monkish humour in the East, where he composed a rule which afterwards obtained through a great part of the West.

Christian, instances of this kind were numerous: and those whose security had obliged them to live separately and apart, became afterwards united into societies. We may also add, that the mystic theology, which gained ground towards the close of the third century, contributed to produce the same effect, and to drive men into solitude for the purposes of devotion.

The monks, at least the ancient ones, were distinguished into solitaries, canobites, and sarabites.

The solitaries are those who live alone, in places remote from all towns and habitations of men, as do still some of the hermits. The cenobites are those who live in community with several others in the same house, and under the same superiors. The sarabites were strolling monks, having no fixed rule or residence.

The houses of monks, again, were of two kinds, viz. monasteries and laure.

Those who are now called monks, are cœnobites, who live together in a convent or monastery, who make vows of living according to a certain rule established by the founder, and wear a habit which distinguishes their order.

In the eleventh century, the monastic discipline was grown very remiss. St. Oddo first began to retrieve it in the monastery of Cluny that monastery, by the conditions of its erection, was put under the immediate protection of the holy see; with a prohibition to all powers, both secular and ecclesiastical, to disturb the monks in the possession Those that are endowed, or have a of their effects or the election of their fixed revenue, are most properly called abbot. In virtue hereof they pleaded monks, monachi; as the Chartreux, Bean exemption from the jurisdiction of nedictines, Bernardines, &c. The Menthe bishop, and extended this privi- dicants, or those that beg, as the Capulege to all the houses dependent on chins and Franciscans, are more proCluny. This made the first congrega-perly called religious and friars, though tion of several houses under one chief immediately subject to the pope, so as to constitute one body, or as they now call it, one religious order. Till then, each monastery was independent, and subject to the bishop. See MONK.

the names are frequently confounded.

The first monks were those of St. Anthony, who, towards the close of the fourth century, formed them into a ||regular body, engaged them to live in society with each other, and prescribed to them fixed rules for the direction of their conduct. These regulations, which Anthony had made in Egypt, were soon

MONK anciently denoted, "a person who retired from the world to give himself wholly to God, and to live in solitude and abstinence." The word is de-introduced into Palestine and Syria by rived from the Latin monachus, and that from the Greek us, "solitary;" of moroc solus, "alone."

his disciple Hilarion. Almost about the same time, Aones, or Eugenius, with their companions Gaddanas and The original of monks seems to have Azyzas, instituted the monastic order been this: The persecutions which at-in Mesopotamia, and the adjacent countended the first ages of the Gospel forced some Christians to retire from the world, and live in deserts and places most private and unfrequented, in hopes of finding that peace and comfort among beasts, which were denied them among men; and this being the case of some very extraordinary persons, their example gave such reputation to retire ment, that the practice was continued when the reason of its commencement | God and angels. ceased. After the empire became

tries; and their example was followed with such rapid success, that in a short time the whole east was filled with a lazy set of mortals, who abandoning all human connexions, advantages, pleasures, and concerns, wore out a languishing and miserable existence amidst the hardships of want and various kinds of suffering, in order to arrive at a more close and rapturous communication with

From the East this gloomy disposi

tion passed into the West, and first in-highest esteem; and nothing could equal to Italy and its neighbouring islands; the veneration that was paid about the though it is uncertain who transplanted close of the ninth century to such as deit thither. St. Martin, the celebrated voted themselves to the sacred gloom bishop of Tours, erected the first mo- and indolence of a convent. This ve nasteries in Gaul, and recommended neration caused several kings and emthis religious solitude with such power perors to call them to their courts, and and efficacy both by his instructions to employ them in civil affairs of the and his example, that his funeral is said greatest moment. Their reformation to have been attended by no less than was attempted by Louis the Meek, but two thousand monks. From hence the the effect was of short duration. In the monastic discipline extended gradually eleventh century they were exempted its progress through the other provin- by the popes from the authority esces and countries of Europe. There tablished; insomuch, that in the council were, besides the monks of St. Basil (call-of Lateran that was held in the year ed in the East Cologeri, from xzxos regar, 1215, a decree was passed, by the ad"a good old man,") and those of St.vice of Innocent III. to prevent any Jerome, the hermits of St. Augustine, and afterwards those of St. Benedict and St. Bernard: at length came those of St. Francis and St. Dominic, with a legion of others; all which see under their proper heads.

fined to opulence, idleness, and pleasure. However, the reformation had a manifest influence in restraining their excesses, and rendering them more circumspect and cautious in their external conduct.

Monks are distinguished by the colour of their habits into black, white, grey, &c. Among the monks, some are called monks of the choir, others professed monks, and others lay monks ; which last are destined for the service of the convent, and have neither clericate nor literature.

Cloistered monks are those who ac

new monastic institutions; and several were entirely suppressed. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it appears, from the testimony of the best writers, that the monks were generally lazy, illiterate, profligate, and licentious Towards the close of the fifth centu-epicures, whose views in life were conry, the monks, who had formerly lived only for themselves in solitary retreats, and had never thought of assuming any rank among the sacerdotal order, were now gradually distinguished from the populace, and endowed with such opulence and honourable privileges, that they found themselves in a condition to claim an eminent station among the pillars and supporters of the Christian community. The fame of their piety and sanctity was so great, that bishops and presbyters were often chosen out of their order; and the passion of erecting edifices and convents, in which the monks and holy virgins might|tually reside in the house : in opposition serve God in the most commodious to extra-monks, who have benefices demanner, was at this time carried beyond pending on the monastery. all bounds. However, their licentious- Monks are also distinguished into reness, even in this century, was become formed, whom the civil and ecclesiastia proverb; and they are said to have cal authority have made masters of anexcited the most dreadful tumults and cient converts, and put in their power seditions in various places. The mo- to retrieve the ancient discipline, which nastic orders were at first under the im- had been relaxed; and ancient, who remediate jurisdiction of the bishops, from main in the convent, to live in it acwhich they were exempted by the Ro- cording to its establishment at the man pontiff about the end of the seventh time when they made their vows, withcentury; and the monks, in return, de-out obliging themselves to any new revoted themselves wholly to advance the form. interests and to maintain the dignity of Anciently the monks were all laymen, the bishop of Rome. This immunity and were only distinguished from the which they obtained was a fruitful rest of the people by a peculiar habit, source of licentiousness and disorder, and an extraordinary devotion. Not and occasioned the greatest part of the only the monks were prohibited the vices with which they were afterwards priesthood, but even priests were exso justly charged. In the eighth cen- pressly prohibited from becoming tury the monastic discipline was ex- monks, as appears from the letters of tremely relaxed, both in the eastern St. Gregory. Pope Siricius was the first and western provinces, and all efforts to who called them to the clericate, on restore it were ineffectual. Neverthe-occasion of some great scarcity of priests less, this kind of institution was in the that the church was then supposed to