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conscience, Gen. iv, 13, 15, 23, In respect to the mysteries of 24. Such are followed with many religion, divines have run into two instances of Divine vengeance, extremes. "Some," as one ob2d Sam. xii, 9, 10; their lives are serves, have given up all that often shortened, Psal. lv, 23; was mysterious, thinking that they and judgments for their sin are of-were not called to believe any tentimes transmitted to posterity, Gen. xlix, 7. 2d Sam. xxi, 1. MUSSULMAN, or MUSYLMAN, a title by which the Mahometans distinguish themselves; signifying, in the Turkish language, "true believer, or orthodox."

thing but what they could comprehend. But if it can be proved that mysteries make a part of a religion coming from God, it can be no part of piety to discard them, as if we were wiser than he." And besides, upon this principle, a man must believe nothing: the various works of nature, the growth of plants, instincts of brutes, union of body and soul, properties of matter, the na

There are two kinds of Mussulmen very averse to each other; the one called Sonnites, and the other Shiites. The Sonnites follow 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 MAHO

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 without mystery. "The other extreme lies in an attempt to explain the mysteries of revelation, so as to free them from all obscurity.To defend religion in this man

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

MYSTERY, μustgion, secret (from XUELY TO STOμa, to shut the mouth). It is taken, 1. for a truth revealed by God which is above the power of our natural reason, or 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.

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 Dis-
sertation to the Gospels, vol. i, p.
383; Sillingfleet's Origines sacra,
vol. ii, c. 8; Ridgley's Div., qu.
11; Calmet's Dict.; Cruden's Con-
cordance; South's Serm., ser. 6,
vol. iii.

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 pre-dominant. 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. 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 carefully concealed from the knowledge of the vulgar.

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 of the world.

Mosheim was of opinion that the mysteries were entirely commemorative; that they were instituted 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.

A a

All

to dispose them to a dark and mysterious system of religion. Besides, the Egyptians were a gloomy race of men; they delighted in darkness and solitude. Their 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.

MYSTICS, asect distinguished by their professing pure, sublime, and perfect devotion, with an entire disinterested love of God, free 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

The number of the Mystics increased in the fourth century, under the influence of the Grecian fanatic, who gave himself out for Dionysius the Areopagite, disciple of St. Paul, and probably lived about this period; and by

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 vigour of the mind, was an emanation from God into the human soul, and comprehended in it the principles and elements of all truth, human and divine, They denied that men could, by labour 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, and cially in the eastern provinces, in profound speculations, endeavour- the fifth century. A copy of the ed 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 mysticlity, repose, and solitude, accom-ism 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 which the hidden and internal word was excited to produce its latent virtues, and to instruct men in the knowledge of Divine things. For thus they reasoned :-Those who behold with a noble contempt all human affairs; who turn away their eyes from terre-propagated their tenets almost in strial 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 pięty ments that prevented that happy subsisted under the despotic empire union; and in this blessed frame of superstition, they were only to they not only enjoyed inexpressi-be found among the Mystics. The ble raptures from their commu- celebrated Madam Bourignon, and nion with the Supreme Being, but the amiable Fenelon, archbishop also invested with the inestimable of Cambray, were of this sect,

religion. In the twelfth century these Mystics took the lead in their method of expounding the scrip tures. In the thirteenth century they were the most formidable antagonists of the schoolmen; and, towards the close of the fourteenth, many of them resided and

Dr. Haweis, in speaking of the || ences and operations of the Spirit Mystics, Church History, vol. of God upon him, as we die to the iii, p. 47, thus observes: "Among influences of this world when the those called Mystics, I am per- soul leaves the body; and all the suaded some were found who lov-influences and operations of the ed God out of a pure heart fer- elements of this life were open in vently; and though they were ri-him, as they are in any animal, at diculed and reviled for proposing his birth into this world: he bea disinterestedness of love without came an earthly creature, subother motives, and as professing to ject to the dominion of this outfeel in the enjoyment of the tem-ward world, and stood only in the per itself an abundant reward, highest rank of animals. But the their holy and heavenly conversa- goodness of God. would not leave tion will carry a stamp of real re- man in this condition; redempligion upon it." tion from it was immediately granted, and the bruiser of the serpent brought the life, light, and spirit of heaven, once more into the human nature. All men, in consequence of the redemption of Christ, have in them the first spark, or seed, of the Divine life, as a treasure hid in the centre of our souls, to bring forth, by degrees, a new birth of that life which was lost in paradise. No son of Adam can be lost, only by turning away from the Saviour within him. The only religion which can save us, must be that which can raise the light, life, and spirit of God in our souls. Nothing can enter into the vegetable kingdom till it have the vegetable life in it, or be a member of the animal kingdom till it have the animal life. Thus all nature joins with the Gospel in affirming that no man can enter into the kingdom of heaven till the heavenly life is born in him. Nothing can be our righteousness or recovery but the divine nature of Jesus Christ derived to our souls. Law's

As the late Reverend William Law, who was born in 1687, makes a distinguished figure among the modern Mystics,' a brief account of the outlines of his system may, perhaps, be entertaining to some readers. He supposed that the material world was the very region which originally belonged to the fallen angels. At length the light and spirit of God entered into the chaos, and turned the angels' ruined kingdom into a paradise on earth. God then created man, and placed him there. He was made in the image of the Triune God, a living mirror of the Divine nature, formed to enjoy communion with Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and live on earth as the angels do in heaven. He was endowed with immortality, so that the elements of this outward world could not have any power of acting on his body; but by his fall he changed the light, life, and spirit of God for the light, life, and spirit of the world. He died the very day of his transgression to all the influ-Life; Law's Spirit of Prayer and

Appeal; Law's Spirit of Love, and succeeding generations, either by on Regeneration. written records or by oral tradition. MYTHOLOGY, in its origi-See articles HEATHEN, PAGA

nal import, signifies any kind of fabulous doctrine. In its more appropriated sense, it means those fabulous details concerning the objects of worship, which were invented and propagated by men who lived in the early ages of the world, and by them transmitted to

NISM, and Gale's Court of the Gentiles, a work calculated to shew that the pagan philosophers derived their most sublime sentiments from the scriptures. Bryant's System of Ancient Mythology.

N.

NAME OF GOD. By this, Bethlehem, Mic. v, 2. Matt. ii, 4, term we are to understand, 1. God himself, Ps. xx, 1.-2. His titles peculiar to himself, Exod. iii, 13, 14.-3. His word, Ps. v, 11. Acts. ix, 15.-4. His works, Ps. viii, 1.-5. His worship, Exod. xx, 24.-6. His perfections and excellencies, Exod. xxxiv, 6. John xvii, 26. The properties or qualities of this name are these: 1. A glorious name, Ps. lxxii, 17. -2. Transcendent and incomparable, Rev. xix, 16.-3. Powerful, Phil. ii, 10.-4. Holy and reverend, || Ps. cxi, 9.-5. Awful to the wicked.-6. Perpetual, Is. lv, 13. Cruden's Concordance; Hannam's Anal. Comp., p. 20.

6. where his parents were wonderfully conducted in providence, Luke ii, 1, 7. The time of his birth was foretold by the prophets to be before the sceptre or civil government departed from Judah, Gen. xlix, 10. Mal. iii, 1. || Hag. ii, 6, 7, 9. Dan. ix, 24; but the exact year of his birth is not agreed on by chronologers, but it was about the four thousandth year of the world; nor can the season of the year, the month, and day in which he was born, be ascertained. The Egyptians placed it in January; Wagenseil, in February; Bochart, in March; some, mentioned by Clement of Alexandria, in April; others, in May; Epiphanius speaks of some who

NATIVITY OF CHRIST. The birth of our Saviour was exactly as predicted by the prophe-placed it in June, and of others cies of the Old Testament, Isa. vii, 14. Jer. xxxi, 22. He was born of a virgin of the house of David, and of the tribe of Judah, Matthew i. Luke i, 27. His coming into the world was after the manner of other men, though his generation and conception were extraor dinary. The place of his birth was

who supposed it to have been in July; Wagenseil, who was not sure of February, fixed it probably in August; Lightfoot, on the fifteenth of September; Scaliger, Casaubon, and Calvisius, in October; others in November; and the Latin church in December. It "does not, however, appear proba

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