Virtue Motives to fphere of action, in which thofe latent capacities fhall have full play? The vaft variety and yet beautiful fymmetry and proportions of the feveral parts and organs with which the creature is endued, and their apt cohefion with and dependence on the curious receptacle of their life and nourishment, would forbid his concluding the whole to be the birth of chance, or the bungling effort of an unskilful artift; at leaft would make him demur a while at fo harsh a sentence. But if, while he is in this ftate of uncertainty, we fuppofe him to fee the babe, after a few fuccefsful ftruggles, throw ing off his fetters, breaking loose from his little dark prifon, and emerging into open day, then unfolding his reclufe and dormant powers, breathing in air, gazing at light, admiring colours, founds, and all the fair variety of nature; immediately his doubts clear up, the propriety and excellency of the workmanship dawn upon him with full luftre, and the whole mystery of the first period is unravelled by the opening of this new fcene. Though in this fecond period the creature lives chiefly a kind of animal-life, i. e. of fenfe and appetite, yet by various trials and obfervations he gains experience, and by the gradual evolution of the powers of imagination he ripens apace for an higher life, for exercifing the arts of defign and imitation, and of those in which strength or dexterity are more requifite than acuteness or reach of judgment. In the fucceeding rational or intellectual period, his understanding, which formerly crept in a lower, mounts into an higher fphere, canvaffes the natures, judges of the relations of things, forms fchemes, deduces confequences from what is paft, and from prefent as well as paft colle&s future events. By this fucceffion of states, and of correfpondent culture, he grows up at length into a moral, a focial, and a political creature. This is the laft period at which we perceive him to arrive in this his mortal career. Each period is introductory to the next fucceeding one'; each life is a field of exercife and improvement for the next higher one; the life of the fatus for that of the infant, the life of the infant for that of the child, and all the lower for the highest and beft $.-But is this the laft period of nature's progreffion? Is this the utmost extent of her plot, where The winds up the drama, and difmiffes the actor into eternal oblivion? Or does he appear to be invefted with fupernumerary powers, which have not full exercife and scope even in the laft fcene, and reach not that maturity or perfection of which they are capable; and therefore point to fome higher fcene where he is to fuftain another and more important character than he has yet fuftained? If any fuch there are, may we not conclude by analogy, or in the fame way of anticipa tion as before, that he is deftined for that after-part, and is to be produced upon a more auguft and folemn ftage, where his fublimer powers fhall have proportioned action, and his nature attain its completion? If we attend to that curiofity, or prodigious thirst of man which knowledge, which is natural to the mind in every pepoint to an riod of its progrefs, and confider withal the endlefs round of bufinefs and care, and the various hardships to which the bulk of mankind are chained down; it is evident, that in this present state it is impoffible to expect the gratification of an appetite at once fo infa. tiable and fo noble. Our fenfes, the ordinary organs by See Butler's Analogy, Part 1. 233 Powers in after-life. 234 Intellec tual. Soul. which knowledge is let into the mind, are always im- From the perfect, and often fallacious; the advantages of affift-Immortali ing or correcting them are poffeffed by few; the diffi- ty of the culties of finding out truth amidst the various and contradictory opinions, interefts, and paffions of mankind, are many; and the wants of the creature, and of thofe with whom he is connected, numerous and urgent: fo that it may be faid of moft men, that their intellectual organs are as much fhut up and fecluded from proper nourishment and exercife in that little circle to which they are confined, as the bodily organs are in the womb. Nay, thofe who to an afpiring ge. nius have added all the affiftances of art, leifure, and the moft liberal education, what narrow profpects can even they take of this unbounded feene of things from that little eminence on which they fland? and how eagerly do they still grafp at new difcoveries, without any fatisfaction or limit to their ambition? 235 But fhould it be faid, that man is made for action, Moral and not for fpeculation, or fruitless searches after know.powers. ledge, we afk, For what kind of action? Is it only for bodily exercises, or for moral, political, and religious ones? Of all these he is capable; yet, by the unavoid able circumftances of his lot, he is tied down to the former, and has hardly any leisure to think of the lat ter, or, if he has, wants the proper inftruments of exerting them. The love of virtue, of one's friends and country, the generous fympathy with mankind, and heroic zeal of doing good, which are all so natural to great and good minds, and fome traces of which are found in the loweft, are seldom united with proportioned means or opportunities of exercising them: fo that the mora fpring, the noble energies and impulfes of the mind, can hardly find proper fcope even in. the most fortunate condition; but are much depreffed in fome, and almoft entirely reftrained in the generality, by the numerous clogs of an indigent, fickly, or embaralfed life. Were fuch mighty powers, fuch god-like affections, planted in the human breaft to be folded up in the narrow womb of our prefent existence, never to be produced into a more perfect life, nor to expatiate in the ample career of immortality? 235 Let it be confidered, at the fame time, that no pof- Unfarisfied feffion, no enjoyment, within the round of mortal defires of things, is commenfurate to the defires, or adequate to existence and happi the capacities, of the mind. The moft exalted condi- nefs. tion has its abatements; the happiest conjuncture of fortune leaves many wishes behind; and, after the highest gratifications, the mind is carried forward in pursuit of new ones without end. Add to all, the fond defire of immortality, the fecret dread of non-existence, and the high unremitting pulfe of the foul beating for perfection, joined to the improbability or the impoffibility of attaining it here; and then judge whether this elaborate ftructure, this magnificent apparatus of inward powers and organs, does not plainly point out an hereafter, and intimate eternity to man? Does nature give the finishing touches to the leffer and ignobler inftances of her skill, and raise every other creature to the maturity and perfection of his being ;. and fhall fhe leave her principal workmanship unfi nifhed? Does the carry the vegetative and animal life in man to their full vigour and highest destination; and fhall the fuffer his intellectual, bis moral, his divine life, light and virtue, without which life, nay, immortality it- From the felf, were not worth a fingle with? Motives to to fade away, and be for ever extinguished? Would Virtue fuch abortions in the moral world be congruous to that perfection of wisdom and goodness which upholds and a 237 Therefore man immortal. dorns the natural? We must therefore conclude from this detail, that the present flate, even at its beft, is only the WOMB of man's being, in which the nobleft principles of his nature are in a manner fettered, or fecluded from a correfpondent sphere of action; and therefore deftined for a future and unbounded ftate, where they fhall emancipate themselves, and exert the fulness of their ftrength. The moft accomplished mortal, in this low and dark apartment of nature, is only the rudiments of what he fhall be when he takes his ethereal flight, and puts on immortality. Without a reference to that itate, man were a mere abortion, a rude unfinish ed embryo, a monster in nature. But this being once fuppofed, he still maintains his rank of the mafter piece of the creation; his latent powers are all fuitable to the harmony ane progreffion of nature; his noble afpirations, and the pains of his diffolution, are his efforts towards a fecond birth, the pangs of his delivery into light, liberty, and perfection; and death, his difcharge from gaol, his feparation from his fellow-prifoners, and introduction into the affembly of those heroic fpirits who are gone before him, and of their great eternal Parent. The fetters of his mortal coil being loofened, and his prifon walls broke down, he will be bare and open on every fide to the admiffion of truth and virtue, and their fair attendant happiness; every vital and intellectual fpring will evolve itfelf with a divine elasticity in the free air of heaven. He will not then peep at the universe and its glorious Author through a dark grate or a grofs medium, nor receive the reflections of his glory through the ftrait openings of fenfible organs; but will be all eye, all ear, all ethe* Vide Reli-real and divine feeling *. Let one part, however, of gion of Na- the analogy be attended to: That as in the womb we ture, § 9. receive our original conftitution, form, and the effential ftamina of our being, which we carry along with us into the light, and which greatly affect the fucceeding periods of our life; fo our temper and condition in the future life will depend on the conduct we have obferved, and the character we have formed, in the prefent life. We are here in miniature what we fhall be at full length hereafter. The first rude sketch or out-lines of reafon and virtue must be drawn at prefent, to be afterwards enlarged to the flature and beauty of angels. 238 Immorta- This, if duly attended to, must prove not only a lity a guard guard, but an admirable incentive to virtue. For he and incen- who faithfully and ardently follows the light of knowtive to vir- ledge, and pants after higher improvements in virtue, will be wonderfully animated and inflamed in that purfuit by a full conviction that the scene does not clofe with life-that his ftruggles, arifing from the weakness of nature and the ftrength of habit, will be turned into triumphs-that his career in the tract of wisdom and goodness will be both fwifter and smoother--and those generous ardours with which he glows towards heaven, i. e. the perfection and immortality of virtue, will find their adequate object and exercife in a sphere proportionably enlarged, incorruptible, immortal. On the other hand, what an inexpreffible damp muft it be to the good man, to dread the total extinction of that t Immor:ali Soul. 239 Proof from. the inequa Many writers draw their proofs of the immortality ty of the of the foul, and of a future flate of rewards and punifhments, from the unequal distribution of these here. It cannot be diffembled that wicked men often escape the outward punifament due to their crimes, and do ity of pie not feel the inward in that measure their demerit seems fent duti to require, partly from the calloufnt is induced upon butions.their nature by the habits of vice, and partly from the diffipation of their minds abroad by pleasure or business-and fometimes good men do not reap all the natural and genuine fruits of their virtue, through the many unforeseen or unavoidable calamities in which they are involved. To the fmalleft reflection, however, it is obvious, that the natural tendency of virtue is to produce happiness; that if it were univerfally practifed, it would, in fact, produce the greatest sum of happiness of which human nature is capable; and that this tendency is defeated only by numerous individuals, who, forfaking the laws of virtue, injure andopprefs those who fteadily adhere to them. But the natural tendency of virtue is the refult of that conftitution of things which was established by God at the creation of the world. This being the cafe, we musteither conclude, that there will be a future ftate, in which all the moral obliquities of the prefent fhal be made ftraight; or else admit, that the defigns of infinite wifdom, goodness, and power, can be finally defeated by the perverfe conduct of human weaknefs.But this laft fuppofition is fo extravagantly abfurd, that the reality of a future ftate, the only other pos fible alternative, may be pronounced to have the evi-dence of perfect demonftration. 240 port amidst -trials. Virtue has prefent rewards, and vice prefent punish- Belief of ments annexed to it; fuch rewards and punishments as immortali make virtue, in most cafes that happen, far more eli. ty, &c. a gible than vice: but, in the infinite variety of human great fup contingencies, it may fometimes fall out, that the inflexible practice of virtue hall deprive a man of confiderable advantages to himfelf, his family, or friends, which he might gain by a well-timed piece of roguery; fuppofe by betraying his truft, voting against his confcience, felling his country, or any other crime where the fecurity against discovery shall heighten the temp tation. Or, it may happen, that a ftrict adherence to his honour, to his religion, to the caufe of liberty. and virtue, fhall expofe him, or his family, to the lofs of every thing, nay, to poverty, flavery, death itself, or to torments far more intolerable. Now what shall fecure a man's virtue in circumftances of such trial?.. What shall enforce the obligations of confcience against the allurements of fo many interefts, the dread of fo many and fo terrible evils, and the almost unfurmountable averfion of human nature to exceffive pain! The conflict is the greater, when the circumftances of the crime are fuch as easily admit a variety of alleviations from neceffity, natural affection, love to one's family. or friends, perhaps in indigence: thefe will give it even the air of virtue. Add to all, that the crime may be thought to have few bad confequences,-may. be easily concealed,-or imagined poffible to be re trieved in a good measure by future good conduct. It is obvious to which fide moft men will lean in fuch a cafe; and how much need there is of a balance in. the Motives to the oppofite fcale, from the confideration of a God, of a Providence, and of an immortal fate of retribution, to keep the mind firm and uncorrupt in thofe or like in ftances of fingular trial or diftrefs. Virtue 241 In the ge of life. But without fuppofing fuch peculiar inftances, a neral course fenfe of a governing Mind, and a perfuafion that virtue is not only befriended by him here, but will be crowned by him hereafter with rewards fuitable to its nature, vaft in themfelves, and immortal in their du ration, mutt be not only a mighty support and incentive to the practice of virtue, but a strong barrier against vice. The thoughts of an Almighty Judge, and of an impartial future reckoning, are often alarming, inexpreffibly fo, even to the ftouteft offenders. On the other hand, how fupporting muft it be to the good man, to think that he acts under the eye of his feiend, as well as judge! How improving, to confider the prefent fate as connected with a future one, and every relation in which he ftands as a fchool of difcipline for his affections; every trial as the exercife of fome virtue; and the virtuous deeds which refult from both, as introductory to higher fcenes of action and enjoyment! Finally, how transporting is it to view death as his difcharge from the warfare of mortality, and a triumphant entry into a ftate of freedom, fecurity, and perfection, in which knowledge and wifdom fhall break upon him from every quarter; where each faculty fhall have its proper object; and his virtue, which was often damped or defeated here, fhall be enthroned in undisturbed and eternal empire! On reviewing this fhort fyftem of morals, and the motives which fupport and enforce it, and comparing both with the CHRISTIAN fcheme, what light and vigour Soul. Chriftian do they borrow from thence! How clearly and fully From the does CHRISTIANITY lay open the connections of our na- Immortali ture, both material and immaterial, and future as well 1y of the prefent! What an ample and beautiful detail does it prefent of the duties we owe to God, to fociety, and 242 ourselves, promulgated in the moft fimple, intelligible, Advanta and popular manner; divefted of every partiality of ges of the fect or nation; and adapted to the general flate offcheme, mankind! With what bright and alluring examples does and its conit illuftrate and recommend the practice of thofe du- necti n ties; and with what mighty fanctions does it enforce with natu that practice! How ftrongly does it defcribe the cor- or morality ral religion ruptions of our nature; the deviations of our life from the rule of duty, and the causes of both! How marvellous and benevolent a plan of redemption does it unfold, by which thofe corruptions may be remedied, and our nature reftored from its deviations to tranfcen dent heights of virtue and piety! Finally, what a fair and comprehenfive profpect does it give us of the alminiflration of God, of which it rrefents the prefent flate only as a small period, and a period of warfare and trial! How folemn and unbounded are the scenes which it opens beyond it! the refurrection of the dead, the general judgment, the equal diftribution of rewards and punishments to the good and the bad; and the full completion of divine wifi and goodness in the final eftablishment of order, perfection, and happiness! How glorious then is that SCHEME OF RELIGION, and how worthy of affection as well as of admiration, which, by making fuch difcoveries, and affording fuch afiflances, has difclofed the unfading fruits and triumphs of viaTUE, and fecured its intereits beyond the power of TIME and CHANCE. Moral Morant. MOR MORAL Senfe, that whereby we perceive what is good, virtuous, and beautiful, in actions, manners, and characters. See MORAL Philofophy. MORALITY. See MORAL Philofophy. MORANT (Philip), a learned and indefatigable antiquary and biographer, fon of Stephen Morant, was born at St Saviour's in the isle of Jersey, October 6. 1700; and, after finishing his education at Abingdon fchool, was entered December 16th, 1717 at Pembroke college Oxford, where he took the degree of B. A. June 10th, 1721, and continued till midfummer 1722; when he was preferred to the office of preacher of the English church at Amfterdam, but never went to take poffeffion. He took the degree of M. A. in 1724, and was prefented to the rectory of Shellow Bowells, April 20th 1733; to the vicarage of Bromfield, January 17th 1733-4; to the rectory of Chicknal Smeley, September 19th, 1735; to that of St Mary's, Colchefter, March 9th, 1737; to that of Wickham Bishop's, January 21ft, 1742-3; and to that of Aldham, September 14th, 1745. All thefe benefices are in the county of Ef In 1748 he publifhed his Hiftory of Colchefter, of which only 200 copies were printed. In 1751 he was elected F. S. A.; and in February 1768 he was appointed by the lords fub-committees of the houfe of peers to fucceed Mr Blyke in preparing for the prefs a copy of the rolls of parliament; a fervice to MOR Morat. which he diligently attended till his death, which Morant happened November 25th, 1770. Befides the above work, and many useful translations, abridgements, and compilations, &c. he wrote, all the Lives in the Biographia Britannica marked C; alfo the life of Stillingfleet, which has no mark at the end: The History of Effex, 1760, 1768, 2 vols folio: The life of King Edward the Confeffor, and about 150 fermons. He prepared the rolls of parliament as far as the 16th of Henry IV. The continuation of the task devolved upon Thomas Aftle, Efq; who had married his only daughter. MORANT-Point, the moft eafterly point or promontory of the island of Jamaica, in America. W. Lon. 75. 56. N. Lat. 17. 56. MORASS, a marfh, fen, or low moift ground, which receives the waters from above without having any defcent to carry them off again. Somner derives the word from the Saxon merfe, "lake;" Salmafius from mare, "a collection of waters;" others from the Geman maraft, "a muddy place;" and others from marefc, of maricetum, à marifcis, i. e. rushes. BOG, FEN, and DRAINING. See In Scotland, Ireland, and the north of England, they have a peculiar kind of moraffes called moes or peat-moffes, whence the country people dig their peat or turf for firing. See Moss. MORAT, or MURTEN, a rich trading, and con Mora, brother with her, whom the inftructed in the Latin Moravia. ] fiderable town of Swifferland, capital of a bailiwick Morata. of the fame name, belonging to the cantons of Bern and Friberg, with a cattle, where the bailiff refides. It is feated on the lake Morat, on the road from Avenche to Bern, 10 miles weft of Bern and 10 miles north-east of Friburg. The lake is about fix miles long and two broad, the country about it being plea. fant and well cultivated. The lakes of Morat and Neufchatel are parallel to each other, but the latter is more elevated, difcharging itself by means of the river Broye into the lake of Neufchatel. According to M. de Luc, the former is 15 French feet above the level of Neufchatel lake; and both thefe lakes, as well as that of Bienne, feem formerly to have extended confiderably beyond their prefent limits, and from the pofition of the country appear to have been once united. Formerly the large fish named filurus glanis, or the faluth, frequented thefe lakes, but has not been caught in them for a long time past. The environs of this town and lake were carefully examined by Mr Coxe during his refidence in Switzerland, who made feveral excursions across the lake to a ridge of hills fituated betwixt it and Neufchatel. Here are many delightful profpects; particularly one from the top of mount Vuilly, which, he fays, is perhaps the only central. spot from which the eye can at once comprehend the vaft ampitheatre formed on one fide by the Jura ftretching from the environs of Geneva as far as Bafle, and, on the other, by that ftupendous chain of fnowy Alps which extend from the frontiers of Italy to the confines of Germany, and is loft at each extremity in the horizon. Morat is celebrated for the obftinate defence it made against Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy, and for the battle which afterwards followed on the 22d of June 1476, where the dake was defeated, and his army almoft entirely deftroyed. Not far from the town, and adjoining to the high-road, there ftill remains a monument of this victory. It is a fquare building, filled with the bones of Burgundian foldiers, who were flain at the fiege and in the battle; the number of which appears to have been very confiderable. There are feveral infcriptions in the Latin and German languages commemorating the victory. See HiBory of France. MORATA (Olympia Fulvia), an Italian lady, di. ftinguished for her learning, was born at Ferrara, in 1526. Her father, after teaching the belles lettres in feveral cities of Italy, was made preceptor to the two young princes of Ferrara, the fons of Alphonfus I. The uncommon abilities he discovered in his daughter determined him to give her a very extraordinary education. Meanwhile the princefs of Ferrara ftudying polite literature, it was judged expedient that the hould have a companion in the fame purfuit; and Mo. rata being called, fhe was heard by the aftonished courtiers to declaim in Latin, to speak Greek, and to explain the paradoxes of Cicero. Her father dying, fhe was obliged to return home to take upon her the management of family-affairs, and the education of her brother and three fifters; both which the executed with the greatest diligence and fuccefs. In the mean time Andrew Grunthler, a young German, who had ftudied phyfic, and taken his doctor's degree at Ferrara, fell in love with her, and married her. She now went with her husband to Germany, taking her little MORAVIA, a river of Turky in Europe, which rifes in Bulgaria, runs north through Servia by Niffa, and falls into the Danube at Semendria, to the eatward of Belgrade. MORAVIA, a marquifate of Germany, derives the name of Mahern, as it is called by the Germans, and of Moraza, as it is called by the natives, from the river of that name which rifes in the mountains of the county of Gatz, and paffes through the middle of it. It is bounded to the fouth by Auftria, to the north by Glatz and Silefia, to the weft by Bohemia, and to the east by Silefia and Hungary; being about 120 miles in length and 100 in breadth. A great part of this country is over-run with wood. and mountains, where the air is very cold, but much wholefemer than in the low grounds, which are full of bogs and lakes. The mountains, in general, are barren; but the more champaign parts tolerably fertile, yielding corn, with plenty of hemp and flax, good. faffron, and pafture. Nor is it altogether deftitute of wine, red and white, fruits, and garden-tuff. Moravia alfo abounds in horfes, black cattle, sheep, and goats. In the woods and about the lakes there is plenty of wild fowl, game, venifon, bees, honey, hares, foxes, wolves, beavers, &c. In this country are likewife quarries of marble, baftard diamonds, amethyfts, alum, iron, fulphur, falt-petre, and vitriol, with wholefome mineral-waters, and warm fprings; but falt is imported. Its rivers, of which the March, Morawa, or Morau, are the chief, abound with trout, crayfish, barbels, eels, perch, and many other forts of fish. The language of the inhabitants is a dialect of the Sclavonic, differing little from the Bohemian; but the nobility and citizens fpeak German and French. Moravia was anciently inhabited by the Quadi, who were driven out by the Sclavi. Its kings, who were once powerful and independent, afterwards became dependent on, and tributary to, the German emperors and kings. At laft, in the year 908, the Moravian kingdom was parcelled out among the Germans, Poles, 7. and Morbus. affembled in comitia upon public bufinefs, any perfon Morbus MITIA. MORBUS Regius, the fame with the JAUNDICE. See Moravia and Hungarians. In 1086, that part of it properly Chriftianity was planted in this country in the 5th The commerce of this country is inconfiderable. Of The inhabitants of Moravia in general are open- MORAVIAN BRETHREN. See HERNHUTTERS, MORAW, or MORAVA, a large river of Germany, MORBID, among phyficians, fignifies "difeafed MORBUS COMITIALIS, a name given to the epi- MORBUS, or Difeafe, in botany. See VARIETAS. 8 Mordaunt. |