8S4 OBI 
leShing eafily on it ih the grinding, left the putty ftiould 
fcfatch it. Newton's Opticks. 
OB'JECT-PLATE, f. The plate in an optical inftru- 
ritent in which the objeft is placed. 
OBJEC'TABLE, adj. That may he oppofed. The 
■word is now objectionable. —It is as objeCfhble againft all 
thofe things, which either native beauty or art afford. Bp. 
Taylor's Artif. Handfom. 
OBJECTION, f. [Fr. from objeClio, Lat.] The aft of 
prefenting any thing in oppofition. Criminal charge.—I 
dare your word objections. Shakefpeare’s Hen. VIII.—Ad- 
verfe argument.—There is ever between all eftates a fe- 
cret war. I know well this fpeech is the objection, and 
riot the decifion ; and that it is after refuted. Bacon's War 
with Spain. —Fault found.—I have fhown yourverfesto 
fome, who have made that objection to them. Waljh's Lett. 
OBJECTIONABLE, adj. Expofed or liable to ob- 
•jeftion. 
OBJECTIVE, adj. [objeCtif, Fr. objeCtus, Lat.] Be¬ 
longing to the objeft; contained in the objeft.—Cer¬ 
tainty, according to the fchools, is dillinguifhed into ob¬ 
jective and fubjeftive. Objective certainty is, when the pro- 
pofition is certainly true in itfelf; and fubjeftive, when we 
are certain ot the truth of it. The one is in things, the 
other in our minds. Watts's Logieh. —Made an objeft ; 
propofed as an objeft ; redding in objefts.—If this one 
•final 1 piece of nature ftill affords new matter for our dif- 
ccivery, when ftiould we be able to fearch out the vaft 
t re a'furies of objective knowledge that lie within the corn- 
pals of the univerfe ? Hale's Orig. of Mankind. —[In gram¬ 
mar.] A cafe which follows the verb aftive, or the pre- 
polition, anfwers to the oblique cafes in Latin, and may 
be properly enough called the objective cafe. Howtli. 
OBJECTIVELY, ado. In manner of an objeft.—This 
may fitly be called a determinate idea, wdien, fuch as it 
is at any time objectively in the mind, it is annexed, and 
without variation determined to an articulate found, 
which is to be fteadily the fign of that lame objeft of the 
mind. Locke. —In the ftate of an objeft.—The bafililk 
ftiould be deftroyed, in regard he firft receiveth the rays 
of his antipathy and venomous emiflion, which objectively 
move his fenfe. Brown. 
OBJEC'TIVENESS, J'. The ftate of being an objeft.— 
Is there fuch a motion or objeClivenejs of external bodies, 
which produceth light ? The faculty of light is fitted to 
receive that impreflion or objeftivenefs, and that objec- 
tivenefs fitted to that faculty. Hale's Orig. of Mankind. 
OBJECTOR, J’. One who offers objeftions; one who 
raifes difficulties.—Let the objeClcrs confider, that thefe 
irregularities rnuft have come from the laws of mechanifm. 
Bentley. 
But thefe objectors muft the Caufe upbraid. 
That has not mortal mar. immortal made. Blachnore. 
O'BIL, [Heb. one that weeps.] A man’s name. 
OB'ILA, a province of the interior part of Africa. 
OBIO'NE, /! in botany. See Atrirlex Sibirica. 
O'BIT, J\ [obit, old Fr. a corruption of the Lat. obiit, 
or obivit, he died.] Funeral folem.nity ; anniverfary fer- 
vice for the foul of the deceafed, on the day of bis death. 
>—Homar, his fucceffor, enlhrined him there; appointed 
an obit and anniverfary for him there. Mountap it’s App. 
to Ccef. —In this chapel of St. George were heretofore fe- 
veral anniverfaries or obits held and celebrated. Ajhmolc. 
The obit was a funeral folemnity, or office for the dead, 
moll commonly performed while the corpfe lay in the 
church uninterred. .The anniverfary of any perfon’s 
death was alfo called the obit; and to obferve fuch day 
with prayers and alms, or other commemoration, was 
the “ keeping of the obit.” In religious houfes they had 
a regifter, wherein they entered the obits or obitual days 
of their founders or benefaftors; which was thence 
termed the obituary. The tenure of obit orchantry lands 
is taken away and extindl by i Edw. VI. c. 14. and 15 
Car. II. c. 9. 
O B L 
OBITERE'A, one of the Society illands, in the South 
Pacific Ocean. Lat. 22. 40. S. Ion. 209.10. E. 
OBIT'UARY, f. [obituaire, Old Fr.] A lift of the 
dead ; a regifter of burials. 
To OBJUR'GATE, v.a. [objurgo , Lat.] To chide; to 
reprove. 
OBJURGA'TION, f. Reproof; reprehenfion.—If there 
be no true liberty, but all things come to pafs by inevi¬ 
table neceffity, then what are all interrogations and ob¬ 
jurgations, and reprehenfions and expoftulations ? Bram - 
hall. —Our Saviour replies ffiortly by way of objurgation 
or exprobation, as it were upbraiding his incredulity 
with indignation. KuatckbuU's Ann. N. TeJi.Tr. 
OBJUR'G ATORY, adj. Reprehenfory ; culpatory; 
chiding.—Letters, though they be capable of any fubjeft, 
yet commonly they are either narratory, objurgatory, con¬ 
dolatory, monitory, or congratulatory. Howell. —The con¬ 
cluding fentence brings backthe whole train of thoughts 
to the objurgatory queftion of the Piiarifees. Paley's Evi'd. 
of the C/tr. Lid. 
OB'LAT, or Ob'late,/ [ obldtus, Lat. offered.] A 
fecular perfon, who bellowed himfelf and his ellate on 
fome monaftery, and was admitted as a lay-brother. 
There were fome of the oblati, properly called donati, 
who gave their perlons, their families, and eftefts ; and 
even entered into a kind of fervitude themfelves, and 
their defeendants. They were admitted by putting the 
bell-rope of the church round their necks; and, as a mark 
of fervitude, a few pence on their heads. The donati 
took religious habits, but different from thofe of the 
monks. 
In the archives of the abbey of St. Paul de Verdun is 
a permiilion, given in 1360, to a man of that abbey to 
marry a wife ; on condition, that, of the children arifing 
from the marriage, one half ftiould belong to the abbey, 
in quality of oblati, the other half to the biftiop. This 
kind of oblati, are laid to have taken their firft rife in the 
eleventh century. In the earlier times, thofe only are 
called oblati, whom their parents engaged from their 
infancy to the monaftic iife. Thofe who embraced it 
themfelves, when at an age capable of choice, were 
called converts, converfi. The oblati made no profeffion; 
yet kept the celibate, lived in obedience to the fuperior, 
and did the drudgery of the monaftery : but they differed 
from the fervants of the houfe, who were allowed to 
marry. The oblati and donati were, properly, fervants 
by devotion, as the others were by condition. 
Oblati were alfo, in France, a kind of lay-monks, an¬ 
ciently placed by the king in all the abbeys and priories 
in his nomination ; to whom the religious were obliged 
to give a monk’s allowance, on account of their ringing 
the bells, and fweeping the church and the court. 
Thefe offices were ufually filled with lame foldiers and 
invalids, fome of whom had penfions on benefices, with¬ 
out any duty. But thefe oblati, with their penfions, were 
afterwards removed to the Hotel of the Invalids at Paris. 
OBLA'TA, j'. A word ufed by fomeauthors to exprefs 
a fort of purging-tablet, made of fine flour and fugar, 
with fome purging ingredients. Oblatce is alfo ufed to 
fignify the confecrated wafers, or bolls, diftributed to the 
communicants in the mafs or facrament of the altar; and 
fometimes the cuftomary treats in religious houfes have 
been called by the name of oblatw. 
OBLA'TE, adj. [ oblatus , Lat.] Flatted at the poles. 
Ufed of a fpheroid.—By gravitation bodies on this globe 
will prefs towards its centre, though not exaftly thither, 
by reafon of the oblate fpheroidical figure of the earth, 
arifing from its diurnal rotation about its axis. Cheync's 
Phil. Prin. 
OBLA'TION, f [oblation, Fr. oblatus, Lat.] An offer¬ 
ing; a facrifice ; any tiling offered as an aft of worlhip or 
reverence.—Many conceive in the oblation of Jephtha’s 
daughter, not a natural but a civil kind of death, and a 
feparation from the world. Brown. —The will gives 
worth to the oblation, as to God’s acceptance; and fets 
