such a deviation is possible in another; and in such a case as this, it is the witness of God to the truth of a man. deliver a sublime divine system of natural and moral science, and establish it upon the common basis of experiment and demonstration: but what foundation Miracles, then, under which we incould they lay for those truths which clude prophecy, are the only direct eviunassisted reason cannot discover, and dence which can be given of divine inwhich, when they are revealed, appear || spiration. When a religion, or any reto have no necessary relation to any ligious truth, is to be revealed from thing previously known? To a bare heaven, they appear to be absolutely affirmation that they had been imme- necessary to enforce its reception among diately received from God, no rational men; and this is the only case in which being could be expected to assent. The we can suppose them necessary, or beteachers might be men of known vera-lieve for a moment that they ever have city, whose simple assertion would be been or will be performed. admitted as sufficient evidence for any "The history of almost every relifact in conformity with the laws of na-gion abounds with relations of prodigies ture; but as every man has the evidence and wonders, and of the intercourse of of his own consciousness and experience men with the gods; but we know of no that revelations from heaven are devia-religious system, those of the Jews and tions from these laws, an assertion so Christians excepted, which appealed to apparently extravagant would be re- miracles as the sole evidence of its truth jected as false, unless supported by some and divinity. The pretended miracles better proof than the mere affirination mentioned by Pagan historians and of the teacher. In this state of things poets, are not said to have been publicwe can conceive no evidence sufficiently wrought to enforce the truth of a new to make such doctrines be received as the truths of God, but the power of working miracles committed to him who taught them. This would, indeed, be fully adequate to the purpose: for if there were nothing in the doctrines themselves impious, immoral, or contrary to truths already known, the only thing which could render the teacher's assertion incredible, would be its implying such an intimate communion with God as is contrary to the established course of things, by which men are left to acquire all their knowledge by the exercise of their own faculties. Let us now suppose one of those inspired teachers to tell his countrymen, that he did not desire them, on his ipse dixit, to believe that he had any preternatural communion with the Deity, but that, for the truth of his assertion, he would give them the evidence of their own senses; and after this declaration, let us suppose him immediately to raise a person from the dead in their presence, merely by calling upon him to come out of his grave. Would not the only possible objection to the man's veracity be removed by this miracle? and his assertion that he had received such and such doctrines from God be as fully credited as if it related to the most common occurrence? Undoubtedly it would; for when so much preternatural power was visibly communicated to this person, no one could have reason to question his having received an equal portion of preternatural knowledge. A palpable deviation from the known laws of nature in one instance, is a sensible proof that religion, contrary to the reigning idolatry. Many of them may be clearly shown to have been mere natural events; others of them are represented as having been performed in secret on the most trivial occasions, and in obscure and fabulous ages long prior to the era of the writers by whom they are recorded; and such of them as at first view appear to be best attested, are evidently tricks contrived for interested purposes, to flatter power, or to promote the prevailing superstitions. For these reasons, as well as on account of the immoral character of the divinities by whom they are said to have been wrought, they are altogether unworthy of examination, and carry in the very nature of them the completest proofs of falsehood and imposture. "But the miracles recorded of Moses and of Christ bear a very different character. None of them are represented as wrought on trivial occasions. The writers who mention them were eye-witnesses of the facts; which they affirm to have been performed publicly, in attestation of the truth of their re spective systems. They are, indeed, so incorporated with these systems, that the miracles cannot be separated from the doctrines; and if the miracles be not really performed, the doctrines cannot possibly be true. Besides all this, they were wrought in support of revelations which opposed all the religious systems, superstitions, and prejudices, of the age in which they were given; a circumstance which of itself sets them, in point of authority, infinitely above the Pagan prodigies, as well as the lying wonders of the Romish church. is the sole foundation of the evidence of testimony, as far from being uniform, and can therefore never preponderate against that experience which admits of no exception.' This boasted and plausible argument has with equal candour and acuteness been examined by Dr. Campbell, in his Dissertation on Miracles, who justly observes, that so far is experience from being the sole foundation of the evidence of testimony, that, on the contrary, testimony is the sole foundation of by far the greater part of what Mr. Hume calls firm and unalter It is indeed, we believe, universally admitted, that the miracles mentioned in the book of Exodus, and in the four Gospels, might, to those who saw them performed, be sufficient evidence of the divine inspiration of Moses and of Christ; but to us it may be thought that they are no evidence whatever, as we must believe in the miracles themselves, if we believe in them at all, upon the bare authority of human testimony. Why, it has been sometimes asked, are not miracles wrought in all ages and coun-able experience; and that if, in certain tries? If the religion of Christ was to be of perpetual duration, every generation of men ought to have complete evidence of its truth and divinity. circumstances, we did not give an implicit faith to testimony, our knowledge of events would be confined to those which had fallen under the immediate observation of our own senses. "We need not waste time here in proving that the miracles, as they are presented in the writings of the New Testament, were of such a nature, and performed before so many witnesses, that no imposition could possibly be practised on the senses of those who affirm that they were present. From every page of the Gospel this is so evident, that the philosophical adversaries of the Christian faith never suppose the apostles to have been themselves deceived, but boldly accuse them of bearing false witness. But if this accusation be well founded, their testimony itself is as great a miracle as any which they record of themselves, or of their Master. For if they sat down to fabricate their pretended revelation, and to contrive a series of miracles to which they were unanimously to appeal for its truth, it is plain, since they proved suc "To the performance of miracles in every age and in every country, perhaps the same objections lie, as to the immediate inspiration of every individual. Were those miracles universally received as such, men would be so overwhelmed with the number rather than with the force of their authority, as hardly to remain masters of their own conduct; and in that case the very end of all miracles would be defeated by their frequency. The truth, however, seems to be, that miracles so frequently repeated would not be received as such, and of course would have no authority; because it would be difficult, and in many cases impossible, to distinguish them from natural events. If they recurred regularly at certain intervals, we could not prove them to be deviations from the known laws of nature, because we should have the same experience for one series of events as for the other; for the regular succession of preterna-cessful in their daring enterprise, that tural effects, as for the established constitution and course of things. they must have clearly foreseen every possible circumstance in which they "Be this, however, as it may, we could be placed, and have prepared shall take the liberty to affirm, that for consistent answers to every question the reality of the Gospel miracles, we that could be put to them by their most have evidence as convincing to the re-inveterate and most enlightened eneflecting mind, though not so striking to vulgar apprehension, as those had who were contemporary with Christ and his apostles, and actually saw the mighty works which he performed. Mr. Hume, indeed, endeavoured to prove, that 'no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle; and the reasoning employed for this purpose is, that a miracle being a violation of the laws of nature, which a firm and unalterable experience has established, the proof against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can be: whereas our experience of human veracity, which (according to him) mics; by the statesman, the lawyer, the philosopher, and the priest. That such foreknowledge as this would have been miraculous, will not surely be denied: since it forms the very attribute which we find it the most difficult to allow even to God himself. It is not, however, the only miracle which this supposition would compel us to swallow. The very resolution of the apostles to propagate the belief of false miracles in support of such a religion as that which is taught in the New Testament, is as great a miracle as human imagmation can easily conceive. "When they formed this design, ei ther they must have hoped to succeed, or they must have foreseen that they should fail in their undertaking; and, in either case, they chose evil for its own sake. They could not, if they foresaw that they should fail, look for any thing but that contempt, disgrace, and persecution, which were then the inevitable consequences of an unsuccessful endeavour to overthrow the established religion. Nor could their prospects be brighter upon the supposition of their success. As they knew themselves to be false witnesses, and impious deceivers, they could have no hopes beyond the grave; and by determining to oppose all the religious systems, superstitions, and prejudices of the age in which they lived, they wilfully exposed themselves to inevitable misery in the present life, to insult and imprisonment, to stripes and death. Nor can it be said that they might look forward to power and affluence, when they should through sufferings have converted their countrymen; for so desirous were they of obtaining nothing but misery, as the end of their mission, that they made their own persecution a test of the truth of their doctrines. They introduced the Master from whom they pretended to have received these doctrines as telling them, that they were sent forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: that they should be delivered up to councils, and scourged in synagogues; that they should be hated of all men for his name's sake; that the brother should deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child; and that he who took not up his cross, and followed after him, was not worthy of him.' The very system of religion, therefore, which they invented and resolved to impose upon mankind, was so contrived, that the worldly prosperity of its first preachers, and even their exemption from persecution, was incompatible with its success. Had these clear predictions of the Author of that religion, under whom the apostles acted only as ministers not been verified, all mankind must have instantly perceived that their pretence to inspiration was false, and that Christianity was a scandalous and impudent imposture. All this the apostles could not but foresee when they formed their plan for deluding the world. Whence it follows, that when they resolved to support their pretended revelation by an appeal to forged miracles, they wilfully, and with their eyes open, exposed themselves to inevitable misery, whether they should succeed or fail in their enterprise; and that they concerted their measures so as not to admit of a possibility of recompence to themselves, either in this life or in that which is to come. But if there be a law of nature, for the reality of which we have better evidence than we have for others, it is, that no man can choose misery for its own sake,' or make the acquisition of it the ultimate end of his pursuit. The existence of other laws of nature we know by testimony, and our own observation of the regularity of their effects. The existence of this law is made known to us not only by these means, but also by the still clearer and more conclusive evidence of our own consciousness. "Thus, then, do miracles force themselves upon our assent in every possible view which we can take of this interesting subject. If the testimony of the first preachers of Christianity were true, the miracles recorded in the Gospel were certainly performed, and the doctrines of our religion are derived from heaven. On the other hand, if that testimony were false, either God must have miraculously effaced from the minds of those by whom it was given, all the associations formed between their sensible ideas and the words of language, or he must have endowed those men with the gift of 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. "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 suspense; but when we take into consideration the different purposes for which 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 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 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 testimony, and admit the reality of the miracles. So true it is, that for the reality of the Gospel miracles 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." dridge's Lect. lec. 101 and 135; Leland's View of Deistical Writers, letter 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 lightning, that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of day light in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity." Mirth is sinful, 1. When men rejoice in that which is evil. 2. When unreasonable. 3. When tending to commit sin. 4. When a hindrance to duty. 5. When it is blasphemous and profane. MISANTHROPIST, vegomos, 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, if possible, by our exertions, the sum of moral and natural evil; and by con 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 connecting ourselves with society, to add troversy 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 suppose that miracles ceased with the apostles. On the contrary side appeared Dr. Stebbing, Dr. Chapman, Mr. Parker, Mr. Brooke, and others. at least something to the general interests 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. 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 his- "He is a man," says Saurin, "who torians; others were performed with- avoids society only to free himself from out any credible witnesses, or in circum- the trouble of being useful to it. He is stances where the performer had the a man, who considers his neighbours greatest opportunity of juggling; and it only on the side of their defects, not is particularly remarkable, that they knowing the art of combining their virwere hardly ever wrought where they tues with their vices, and of rendering seem most necessary, i. e. in countries the imperfections of other people tolewhere those doctrines are renounced rable by reflecting on his own. He is a which that church esteems of the high- man more employed in finding out and est importance. See Fleetwood, Clara-inflicting punishments on the guilty than pede, Conybeare, Campbell, Lardner, in devising means to reform them. He Farmer, Adams, and Weston, on Mira- is a man, who talks of nothing but bacles, article Miracle, Enc. Brit. Dod-nishing and executing, and who, because he thinks his talents are not sufficiently valued and employed by his fellow-citízens, or rather because they know his foibles, and do not choose to be subject to his caprice, talks of quitting cities, towns, and societics, and of living in dens or deserts." renders a person an object of compassion. MISCHNA, or MISNA (from iteravit,) a part of the Jewish Talmud. The Mischna contains the text; and the Gemara, which is the second part of the Talmud, contains the commentaMISER, a term formerly used in re-ries: so that the Gemara is, as it were, ference to a person in wretchedness or a glossary on the Mischna. calamity; but now denotes a parsimo-|| The Mischna consists of various tranious person, or one who is covetous to ditions of the Jews, and of explanations extremity; who denies himself even the of several passages of Scripture: these comforts of life to accumulate wealth. traditions serving as an explication of Avarice, says Saurin, may be considered the written law, and supplement to it, in two different points of light. It may are said to have been delivered to Mobe considered in those men, or rather ses during the time of his abode on the those public blood-suckers, or, as the Mount; which he afterwards communiofficers of the Roman emperor Vespa-cated to Aaron, Eleazar, and his sersian were called, those sponges of socie- vant Joshua. By these they were transty, who, infatuated with this passion, seckmitted to the seventy elders; by them after riches as the supreme good, deter-to the prophets, who communicated mine to acquire it by any methods, and them to the men of the great sanheconsider the ways that lead to wealth, drim, from whom the wise men of Jelegal or illegal, as the only road for rusalem and Babylon received them. them to travel. According to Prideaux's account, they Avarice, however, must be consi-passed from Jeremiah to Baruch, from dered 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 mammen. 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 is prudence which requires him to provide not only for his present wants, but for such as he may have in future. Sometimes it is charity which requires him not to give society examples of prodigality and parade. Sometimes it is parental love obliging him to save something for his children. Sometimes 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, COVETOUS NESS. MISERY, such a state of wretchedness, unhappiness, or calamity, as 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 had been dissolved, and their learned men cut off; and therefore the usual method of preserving their traditions had failed. Rabbi Judah on this occasion being rector of the school of Tiberias, and 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 |