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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 unalterable experience; and that if, in certain 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.

every possible circumstance in which they could be placed, and have prepared consistent answers to every question that could be put to them by their most inveterate and most enlightened enemies; 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 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

"When they formed this design, either 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

"We need not waste time here in proving that the miracles, as they are represented in the writ-which is taught in the New Testaings of the New Testament, were ment, is as great a miracle as of such a nature, and performed human imagination can easily before so many witnesses, that no conceive. imposition could possibly be practised on the senses of those who affirm that they were present. From every page of the Gospels 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 bear-thing but that contempt, disgrace, ing 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 unani-impious deceivers, they could mously to appeal for its truth, it is plain, since they proved successful in their daring enterprise, that they must have clearly foreseen

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

have no hopes beyond the grave; and by determining to oppose all the religious systems, superstitions, and prejudices of the age in

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which they lived, they wilfully ex- Whence it follows, that when they posed themselves to inevitable mi-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

sery 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 mi-as not to admit of a possibility of sery, as the end of their mission, recompense to themselves, either that they made their own persecu- in this life or in that which is to tion a test of the truth of their come. But if there be a law of doctrines. They introduced the nature, for the reality of which Master from whom they pretend-we have better evidence than we ed to have received these doctrines have for others, it is, that no as telling them, that they were man can choose misery for its own sent forth as sheep in the midst of sake,' or make the acquisition of wolves; that they should be de- it the ultimate end of his pursuit. livered up to councils, and scourg- The existence of other laws of naed in synagogues; that they should ture we know by testimony, and be hated of all men for his name's our own observation of the regusake; that the brother should de- larity of their effects. The existliver up the brother to death, and ence of this law is made known the father the child; and that he to us not only by these means, who took not up his cross, and fol-but also by the still clearer and lowed after him, was not worthy more conclusive evidence of our of him.' The very system of re- own consciousness. ligion, therefore, which they invented and resolved to impose upon mankind, was so contrived, that the worldly prosperity of its first preachers, and even their ex-If the testimony of the first emption 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 man-other hand, if that testimony were kind 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.

"Thus, then, do miracles force themselves upon our assent in every possible view which we can take of this interesting subject.

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

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 gifts of

prescience, and have impelled of the latter is absolutely inconthem to fabricate a pretended re-sistent with wisdom and goodness, velation for the purpose of deceiv-which are demonstrably attributes ing the world, and involving them- of that Being by whom alone miselves in certain and foreseen de- racles can be performed. Whence struction. it follows, that the supposition of the apostles bearing false testi

"The power necessary to perform the one series of these mira-mony to the miracles of their cles may, for any thing known to Master, implies a series of devius, be as great as that which would ations from the laws of nature inbe requisite for the performance finitely less probable in themselves of the other; and, considered than those miracles: and theremerely as exertions of preternatu- fore, by Mr. Hume's maxim, we ral power, they may seem to bal- must necessarily reject the suppoance each other, and to hold the sition of falsehood in the testimomind in a state of suspence; but ny, 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 we have evidence as convincing miracles were wrought, the balance to the reflecting mind as those is instantly destroyed. The mira- had who were contemporary with cles recorded in the Gospels, if Christ and his apostles, and were real, were wrought in support of a actual witnesses to their mighty revelation which, in the opinion of works." 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 inevit-of importance. The controversy able 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 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

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. Chap-|| it with a steady and perpetual se man, Mr. Parker, Mr. Brooke, renity."

and others.

MISANTHROPIST, μropa

As to the miracles of the Ro-os, a hater of mankind; one that mish church, it is evident, as abandons society from a princiDoddridge observes, that many of ple of discontent. The considethem were ridiculous tales, ac-ration of the depravity of human cording to their own historians; nature is certainly enough to others were performed without raise emotions of sorrow in the any credible witnesses, or in cir- breast of every man of the least cumstances where the performer sensibility; yet it is our duty to had the greatest opportunity for bear with the follies of mankind; juggling and it is particularly re- to exercise a degree of candour markable, that they were hardly consistent with truth; to lessen, 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 church es- society; to add at least someteems of the highest importance. thing to the general interests See Fleetwood, Claparede, Cony- of mankind. The misanthropist, beare, Campbell, Lardner, Farmer, therefore, is an ungenerous and Adams, and Weston, on Miracles; dishonourable character. Disarticle Miracle, Enc. Brit.; Dodd- gusted with life, he seeks a reridge's Lect., lec. 101 and 135 treat from it: like a coward, he Leland's View of Deistical Writers, flees from the scene of action, letters 3, 4, 7; Hurrion on the while he increases his own misery Spirit, p. 299, &c. by his natural discontent, and leaves others to do what they can for themselves.

The following is his character more at large.

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 "He is a man," says Saurin, and transient; cheerfulness fixed" who avoids society only to free and permanent. "Those are of himself from the trouble of being ten raised into the greatest trans-useful to it. He is a man, who ports of mirth who are subject to considers his neighbours only on the greatest depressions of melan- the side of their defects, not knowcholy on the contrary, cheerful-ing the art of combining their virness, though it does not give suchtues with their vices, and of renan exquisite gladness, prevents us dering the imperfections of other from falling into any depths of sor- people tolerable by reflecting on row. Mirth is like a flash of light-his own. He is a man more emning, that breaks through a gloom ployed in finding out and inflicting of clouds, and glitters for a mo- punishments on the guilty than ment; cheerfulness keeps up a kind in devising means to reform them. of daylight in the mind, and fills He is a man, who talks of nothing

but banishing and executing, and is prudence which requires him to who, because he thinks his talents provide not only for his present are not sufficiently valued and em- wants, but for such as he may ployed by his fellow citizens, or have in future. Sometimes it is rather because they know his foi- charity which requires him not to bles, and do not choose to be sub- give society examples of prodigaject to his caprice, talks of quit-lity and parade. Sometimes it is ting cities, towns, and societies, parental love obliging him to save and of living in dens or de-something for his children. Someserts."

times it is circumspection, which MISER, a term formerly used requires him not to supply people in reference to a person in wretch- who make an ill use of what they edness or calamity; but it now de- get. Sometimes it is necessity, notes a parsimonious person, or which obliges him to repel artifice one who is covetous to extremity; by artifice. Sometimes it is cunwho denies himself even the com- science,which convinces him, good forts of life to accumulate wealth. man, that he hath already exceedAvarice,says Saurin, may be con- ed in compassion and alms-giving, sidered in two different points of and done too much. Sometimes light. It may be considered in it is equity, for justice requires those men, or rather those pub-that every one should enjoy the lic bloodsuckers, or, as the officers fruit of his own labours, and those of the Roman emperor Vespasian were called, those sponges of society, who, infatuated with this passion, seek after riches as the supreme good, determine to ac-OUSNESS. quire it by any methods, and consider the ways that lead to wealth legal or illegal, as the only road for them to travel.

Avarice, however, must be considered 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 mammon.

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

of his ancestors.-Such, alas! are the awful pretexts and subterfuges of the miser. Saurin's Ser., vol. v, ser. 12. See AVARICE, COVET

MISERY, such a state of wretchedness, unhappiness, or calamity, as 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 commentaries: so that the Gemara is, as it were, a glossary on the Mischna.

The Mischna consists of various traditions of the Jews, and of explatations of several passages of scripture: these traditions serving as an explication of the written law, and supplement to it, are said to have been delivered to

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