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terity an ample collection of productions in defence of this branch of the Christian faith.-The first course of these lectures was preached by Dr. Waterland, on the Divinity of Christ, and are well worthy of perusal.

MOURNING, a particular dress or habit worn to signify grief on some melancholy occasion, particularly the death of friends, or of great public characters. The modes of mourning are various in various countries; as also are the colours that obtain for that: MUFTI, the chief of the ecend. In Europe the ordinary co- clesiastical order, or primate of lour for mourning is black; in the Mussulman religion. The auChina, it is white; in Turkey, blue thority of the Mufti is very great or violet; in Egypt, yellow; in in the Ottoman empire; for even Ethiopia, brown. Each people the sultan himself, if he will prepretend to have their reasons for serve any appearance of religion, the particular colour of their cannot, without first hearing his mourning. White is supposed to opinion, put any person to death, denote purity; yellow, that death or so much as inflict any corporal is the end of human hopes, as punishment. In all actions, and leaves when they fall, and flowers especially criminal ones, his opiwhen they fade, become yellow; nion is required by giving him a brown denotes the earth, whither writing, in which the case is stated the dead return; black the priva- under feigned names, which he tion of life, as being the privation subscribes with the words Olur, or of light; blue expresses the happi-Olmaz, i. e. he shall or shall not ness which it is hoped the deceas-be punished. ed enjoys; and purple or violet, sorrow on the one side, and hope on the other, as being a mixture of black and blue. For an account of the mourning of the Hebrews, see Lev. xix and xxi. Jer. xvi, 6. Numbers xx. Deuteronomy xxxiv, 8.

Such outward honour is paid to the Mufti, that the grand seignior himself rises up to him, and advances seven steps towards him when he comes into his presence. He alone has the honour of kissing the sultan's left shoulder, whilst the prime vizier kisses only the hem of his garment.

MOYER'S LECTURES, a course of eight sermons preached When the grand seignior adannually, set on foot by the bene- dresses any writing to the Mufti, ficence of Lady Moyer, about he gives him the following titles: 1720, who left by will a rich le-" To the esad, the wisest of the gacy, as a foundation for the "wise; instructed in all knowsame. A great number of Eng-"ledge; the most excellent of exlish writers having endeavoured,"cellents; abstaining from things in a variety of ways, to invalidate" unlawful; the spring of virtue the doctrine of the Tinity, this "and true science; heir of the opulent and orthodox lady was" prophetic doctrines; resolver of influenced to think of an institu-" the problems of faith; revealer tion which should produce a pos-" of the orthodox articles; key

"of the treasures of truth; the "light to doubtful allegories; strengthened with the grace of "the Supreme Legislator of Man"kind. May the Most High God แ perpetuate thy virtues."

The election of the Mufti is solely in the grand seignior, who presents him with a vest of rich sables, and allows him a salary of a thousand aspers a day, which is about five pounds sterling. Besides this, he has the disposal of certain benefices belonging to the royal mosques, which he makes no scruple of selling to the best advantage; and, on his admission to his office, he is complimented by the agents of the bashaws, who make him the usual presents, which generally amount to a very considerable sum.

appear previous to the final destruction of the world. They affirmed that there was no devil at all without the body of man or woman; that the devil is man's spirit of unclean reason and cursed imagination; that the ministry in this world, whether prophetical or ministerial, is all a lie and abomination to the Lord; with a variety of other vain and inconsistent tenets.

MURDER, the act of wilfully and feloniously killing a person upon malice or forethought. Heart murder is the secret wishing or designing the death of any man; yea, the scripture saith, "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer," 1st John iii, 15. We have instances of this kind of murder in Ahab, 1st Kings xxii, Whatever regard was formerly 9. Jezebel, 2d Kings xix, 2. the paid to the Mufti, it is now be- Jews, Mark xi, 18. David, 1st come very little more than form. Samuel xxv, 21, 22. Jonah, ch. If he interprets the law, or gives iv, 1, 4. Murder is contrary to sentence contrary to the sultan's the authority of God, the sopleasure, he is immediately dis-vereign disposer of life, Deut. placed, and a more pliant person put in his room. If he is convicted of treason, or any very great crime, he is put into a mortar kept for that purpose in the seven towers of Constantinople, and pounded to death.

MUGGLETONIANS, the followers of Ludovic Muggleton, a journeyman tailor, who, with his companion Reeves (a person of equal obscurity), set up for great prophets, in the time of Cromwell. They pretended to absolve or condemn whom they pleased; and gave out that they were the two last witnesses spoken of in the Revelations, who were to

xxxii, 39; to the goodness of God, who gives it, Job x, 12; to the law of nature, Acts xvi, 28; to the love a man owes to himself, his neighbour, and society at large. Not but that life may be taken away, as in lawful war; 1st Chron. v, 22; by the hands of the civil magistrate for capital crimes, Deut. xvii, 8, 10; and in self-defence. See SELF-DEFENCE.

According to the Divine law, murder is to be punished with death, Deut xix, 11, 12. 1st Kings ii, 28, 29. It is remarkable that God often gives up murderers to the terrors of a guilty

conscience, Gen. iv, 13, 15, 23,|| 24. Such are followed with many instances of Divine vengeance, 2d Sam. xii, 9, 10; their lives are often shortened, Psal. iv, 23; and judgments for their sin are oftentimes transmitted to posterity, Gen. xlix, 7. 2d Sam. xxi, 1.

In respect to the mysteries of religion, divines have run into two extremes. "Some," as one observes, "have given up all that was mysterious, thinking that they were not called to believe any thing but what they could comprehend. But if it can be proved that MUSSULMAN, or MUSYL- mysteries make a part of a religion MAN, a title by which the Maho- coming from God, it can be no part metans distinguish themselves; of piety to discard them, as if we signifying, in the Turkish lan-were wiser than he." And besides, guage, true believer, or ortho- upon this principle, a man must bedox." There are two kinds of lieve nothing: the various works of Mussulmen very averse to each nature, the growth of plants, inother; the one called Sonnites, and stincts of brutes, union of body and the other Shiites. The Sonnites soul, properties of matter, the nafollow the interpretation of the Al-ture of spirit, and a thousand coran given by Omar; the Shiites are the followers of Ali. The subjects of the king of Persia are Shiites, and those of the grand seignior Sonnites. See MAHо

METANS.

other things, are all replete with mysteries. If so in the common works of nature, we can hardly suppose that those things which more immediately relate to the Divine Being himself can be withMYSTERY, MUGTngiov, secret out mystery. "The other extreme (from XVELY TO Grou, to shut the lies in an attempt to explain the mouth). It is taken, 1. for a truth mysteries of revelation, so as to revealed by God which is above free them from all obscurity.the power of our natural reason, To defend religion in this manor which we could not have disco-ner, is to expose it to contempt. vered without revelation; such as the call of the Gentiles, Eph. i, 9; the transforming of some without dying, &c., 1st Cor. xv, 51.-2. The word is also used in reference to things which remain in part incomprehensible after they are re-authority of him who reveals it, vealed; such as the incarnation of Christ,the resurrection of the dead, &c. Some critics, however, observe that the word in the scripture does not import what is incapable in its own nature of being understood, but barely a secret; any thing not disclosed or published to the world.

The following maxim points out the proper way of defence, by which both extremes are avoided. Where the truth of a doctrine. depends not on the evidence of the things themselves, but on the

there the only way to prove the doctrine to be true is to prove the testimony of him that revealed it to be infallible." Dr. South observes, that the mysteriousness of those parts of the Gospel called the credenda, or matters of our faith, is most subservient to the great and important ends

of religion, and that upon these accounts: First, because religion in the prime institution of it was designed to make impressions of awe and reverential fear upon men's minds.-2. To humble the pride and haughtiness of man's reason.-3. To engage us in a closer and more diligent search into them.-4.That the full and entire knowledge of divine things may be one principal part of our felicity hereafter. Robinson's Claude, vol. ii. p. 113, 119, 304, 305; Campbell's Preliminary Dissertation to the Gospels, vol. i, p. 383; Silling fleet's Origines sacra, vol. ii, c. 8; Ridgley's Div., qu. 11; Calmet's Dict.: Cruden's Concordance; South's Serm., ser. 6,

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Others, however, suppose that the mysteries were the offspring of bigotry and priestcraft, and that they originated in Egypt, the native land of idolatry. In that country the priesthood ruled predominant. The kings were engrafted into their body before they could ascend the throne. They were possessed of a third part of all the land of Egypt. The sacerdotal function was confined to one tribe, and was transmitted unalienably from father to son. All the orientals, but more especially the Egyptians delighted in mysterious and allegorical doctrines. Every maxim of morality, every tenet of theology, every dogma of philosophy, was wrapt up in a veil of allegory and mysticism. MYSTERIES, a term used to This propensity, no doubt, condenote the secret rites of the Pa-spired with avarice and ambition gan superstition, which were care- to dispose them to a dark and fully concealed from the know-mysterious system of religion. ledg of the vulgar. Besides, the Egyptians were a gloomy race of men; they delighted in darkness and solitude. Thsir sacred rites were generally celebrated with melancholy airs, weeping, and lamentation. This gloomy and unsocial bias of mind must have stimulated them to a congenial mode of worship..

vol. iii.

The learned Bishop Warburton supposed that the mysteries of the Pagan religion were the invention of legislators and other great personages whom fortune or their own merit had placed at the head of those civil societies which were formed in the earliest ages in different parts the world.

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MYSTICS, a sect distinguished by their professing pure, sublime, and perfect devotion, with an en

Mosheim was of opinion that the mysteries were entirely commemorative; that they were in-tire disinterested love of God, free stituted with a view to preserve the remembrance of heroes and great men who had been deified in consideration of their martial exploits, useful inventions, public virtues, and especially in consequence of the benefits by them conferred on their contemporaries. VOL. II.

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from all selfish considerations.— The authors of this mystic science, which sprung up towards the close of the third century, are not known; but the principles from which it was formed are manifest. Its first promoters proceeded from the known doctrine of the

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Platonic school, which was also || privilege of contemplating truth adopted by Origen and his disci- undisguised and uncorrupted in ples, that the Divine nature was its native purity, while others bediffused through all human souls; hold it in a vitiated and delusive or that the faculty of reason, form. from which proceed the health and The number of the Mystics invigour of the mind, was an ema- creased in the fourth century, unnation from God into the humander the influence of the Grecian soul, and comprehended in it the fanatic, who gave himself out for principles and elements of all Dionysius the Areopagite, discitruth, human and divine. They ple of St. Paul, and probably denied that men could, by labour lived about this period; and by or study excite this celestial ||pretending to higher degrees of flame in their breasts; and there- perfection than other Christians. fore they disapproved highly of and practising greater austerity, the attempts of those, who, by their cause gained ground, espedefinitions, abstract theorems,cially in the eastern provinces, in and profound speculations, endea- the fifth century. A copy of the voured to form distinct notions of pretended works of Dionysius truth, and to discover its hidden was sent by Balbus to Lewis the nature. On the contrary, they Meek, in the year 824, which maintained that silence, tranquil-kindled the only flame of mystility, repose, and solitude, accom- cism in the western provinces, and panied with such acts as might filled the Latins with the most entend to extenuate and exhaust thusiastic admiration of this new the body, were the means by religion. In the twelfth century which the hidden and internal these Mystics took the lead in word was excited to produce its their method of expounding the latent virtues, and to instruct men scriptures. In the thirteenth cenin the knowledge of Divine things.tury they were the most formidaFor thus they reasoned:-Those ble antagonists of the schoolmen; who behold with a noble con- and, towards the close of the fourtempt all human affairs; who teenth, many of them resided and turn away their eyes from terres-propagated their tenets almost in trial vanities, and shut all the ave- every part of Europe. They had, nues of the outward senses against in the fifteenth century, many the contagious influences of a ma-persons of distinguished merit in terial world must necessarily re- their number; and in the sixteenth turn to God when the spirit is century, previous to the reformathus disengaged from the impedi- tion, if any sparks of real piety ments that prevented that happy subsisted under the despotic emunion; and in this blessed frame pire of superstition, they were onthey not only enjoyed inexpressi-ly to be found among the Mystics. ble raptures from thir commu-The celebrated Madam Bourignion with the Supreme Being, but non, and the amible Fenelon, archalso invested with the inestimable bishop of Cambray, were of this

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