tions which had been thrown on its theology | a victory, which is now generally adjudged to and morality. Pope received the services of his opponents. The object of "the Divine this voluntary champion with great gratitude; Legation," for instance, is to prove that the and Warburton having now discovered that mission of Moses was certainly from God.he was not only a great poet, but a very honest because his system is the only one which man, continued to cultivate his friendship with does not teach the doctrine of a future state great assiduity, and with very notable success: of rewards and punishments! And the obFor Pope introduced him to Mr. Murray, who ject of "the Alliance" is to show, that the made him preacher at Lincoln's Inn, and to church (that is, as he explains it, all the adMr. Allen of Prior Park, who gave him his herents of the church of England) is entitled niece in marriage, obtained a bishopric for to a legal establishment, and the protection of him, and left him his whole estate. In the a test law,-because it constitutes a separate mean time, he published his "Divine Lega- society from that which is concerned in the tion of Moses," the most learned, most arro- civil government, and, being equally sovereign gant, and most absurd work, which had been and independent, is therefore entitled to treat produced in England for a century; and his with it on a footing of perfect equality. The editions of Pope, and of Shakespeare, in which sixth book of Virgil, we are assured, in the he was scarcely less outrageous and fantas- same peremptory manner, contains merely tical. He replied to some of his answerers in the description of the mysteries of Eleusis; a style full of insolence and brutal scurrility; and the badness of the New Testament Greek and not only poured out the most tremendous a conclusive proof both of the eloquence and abuse on the infidelities of Bolingbroke and the inspiration of its authors. These fancies, Hume, but found occasion also to quarrel it appears to us, require no refutation; and, with Drs. Middleton, Lowth, Jortin, Leland, dazzled and astonished as we are at the rich and indeed almost every name distinguished and variegated tissue of learning and argufor piety and learning in England. At the ment with which their author has invested same time, he indited the most highflown their extravagance, we conceive that no man adulation to Lord Chesterfield, and contrived of a sound and plain understanding can ever to keep himself in the good graces of Lord mistake them for truths, or waver, in the least Mansfield and Lord Hardwicke ;-while, in degree, from the conviction which his own the midst of affluence and honours, he was reflection must afford of their intrinsic abcontinually exclaiming against the barbarity surdity. of the age in rewarding genius so frugally, and in not calling in the aid of the civil magistrate to put down fanaticism and infidelity. The public, however, at last, grew weary of these blustering novelties. The bishop, as old age stole upon him, began to doze in his mitre; and though Dr. Richard Hurd, with the true spirit of an underling, persisted in keeping up the petty traffic of reciprocal encomiums, yet Warburton was lost to the public long before he sunk into dotage, and lay dead as an author for many years of his natural existence.

We have imputed this rapid decline of his reputation, partly to the unsoundness of his general speculations, and chiefly to the of fensiveness of his manner. The fact is admitted even by those who pretend to regret it; and, whatever Dr. Hurd may have thought, it must have had other causes than the decay of public virtue and taste.

In fact, when we look quietly and soberly over the vehement and imposing treatises of Warburton, it is scarcely possible not to perceive, that almost every thing that is original in his doctrine or propositions is erroneous; and that his great gifts of learning and argumentation have been bestowed on a vain attempt to give currency to untenable paradoxes. His powers and his skill in controversy may indeed conceal, from a careless reader, the radical fallacy of his reasoning; and as, in the course of the argument, he frequently has the better of his adversaries upon incidental and collateral topics, and never fails to make his triumph resound over the whole field of battle, it is easy to understand how he should, for a while, have got the credit of

The case is very nearly the same with his subordinate general propositions; which, in so far as they are original, are all brought forward with the parade of great discoveries, and yet appear to us among the most futile and erroneous of modern speculations. We are tempted to mention two, which we think we have seen referred to by later writers with some degree of approbation, and which, at any rate, make a capital figure in all the fundamental philosophy of Warburton. The one relates to the necessary imperfection of human laws, as dealing in Punishments only, and not in Rewards also. The other concerns his notion of the ultimate foundation of moral Obligation.

The very basis of his argument for the necessity of the doctrine of a future state to the well-being of society, is, that, by human laws, the conduct of men is only controlled by the fear of punishment, and not excited by the hope of reward. Both these sanctions, however, he contends, are necessary to regulate our actions, and keep the world in order; and, therefore, legislators, not finding rewards in this world, have always been obliged to connect it with a future world, in which they have held out that they would be bestowed on all deservers. It is scarcely possible, we believe, to put this most important doctrine on a more injudicious foundation; and if this were the only ground either for believing or inculcating the doctrine of a future state, we should tremble at the advantages which the infidel would have in the contest. We shall not detain our readers longer, than just to point out three obvious fallacies in this, the most vaunted and confident, perhaps, of all

on this account, imperfect or defective; or that human conduct is not actually regulated by the love of happiness, as much as by the dread of suffering. The doctrine of a future state adds, no doubt, prodigiously to both these motives; but it is a rash, a presumptuous, and, we think, a most shortsighted and narrow view of the case, to suppose, that it is chiefly the impossibility of rewarding virtue on Earth, that has led legislators to secure the peace of society, by referring it for its recompense to Heaven.

the Warburtonian dogmata. In the first place, |ishment, it evidently would not add to its perit is obvious that disorders in society can fection, to make it also the distributer of rescarcely be said to be prevented by the hope wards; unless it could be shown, that a simiof future rewards: the proper use of that doc- lar disorder was likely to arise from leaving trine being, not to repress vice, but to console these to the individuals affected. It is obaffliction. Vice and disorder can only be vious, however, not only that there is no likequelled by the dread of future punishment-lihood of such a disorder, but that such an whether in this world or the next; while it is interference would be absurd and impracticaobvious that the despondency and distress ble. It is true, therefore, that human laws which may be soothed by the prospect of do in general provide punishments only, and future bliss, are not disorders within the pur-not rewards; but it is not true that they are, view of the legislator. In the second place, it is obviously not true that human laws are necessarily deficient in the article of providing rewards. In many instances, their enactments have this direct object; and it is obvious, that if it was thought essential to the well-being of society, they might reward quite as often as they punish. But, in the third place, the whole argument proceeds upon a gross and unaccountable misapprehension of the nature and object of legislation;-a very brief explanation of which will show, both that the temporal rewards of virtue are just as sure as the temporal punishments of vice, and at the same time explain why the law has so seldom interfered to enforce the former. The law arose from human feelings and notions of justice; and those feelings and notions, were, of course, before the law, which only came in aid of their deficiency. The natural and necessary effect of kind and virtuous conduct is, to excite love, gratitude, and benevolence-the effect of injury and vice is to excite resentment, anger, and revenge. While there was no law and no magistrate, men must have acted upon those feelings, and acted upon them in their whole extent. He who rendered kindness, received kindness; and he who inflicted pain and suffering, was sooner or later overtaken by retorted pain and suffering. Virtue was rewarded therefore, and vice punished, at all times; and both, we must suppose, in the same measure and degree. The reward of virtue, however, produced no disturbance or disorder; and, after society submitted to regulation, was very safely left in the hands of gratitude and sympathetic kindness. But it was far otherwise with the punishment of vice. Resentment and revenge tended always to a dangerous excess,-were liable to be as- Why are we bound by the will of a supesumed as the pretext for unprovoked aggres- rior?-evidently for no other reason, than besion,—and, at all events, had a tendency to cause superiority implies a power to affect our reproduce revenge and resentment, in an in- happiness; and the expression of will assures terminable series of violence and outrage. us, that our happiness will be affected by our The law, therefore, took this duty into its own disobedience. An obligation is something hands. It did not invent, or impose for the which constrains or induces us to act ;-but first time, that sanction of punishment, which there neither is nor can be any other motive was coeval with vice and with society, and for the actions of rational and sentient beings, is implied, indeed, in the very notion of in- than the love of happiness. It is the desire jury-it only transferred the right of apply- of happiness-well or ill understood—seen ing it from the injured individual to the pub- widely or narrowly, that necessarily dictates lic; and tempered its application by more all our actions, and is at the bottom of all our impartial and extensive views of the circum-conceptions of morality or duty: and the will stances of the delinquency. But if the pun- of a superior can only constitute a ground of ishment of vice be not ultimately derived from obligation, by connecting itself with this sinlaw, neither is the reward of virtue; and al-gle and universal agent. If it were possible though human passions made it necessary for to disjoin the idea of our own happiness or law to undertake the regulation of that pun-suffering from the idea of a superior, it is ob

The other dogma to which we alluded, is advanced with equal confidence and pretensions; and is, if possible, still more shallow and erroneous. Speculative moralists had been formerly contented with referring moral obligation, either to a moral sense, or to a perception of utility;-Warburton, without much ceremony, put both these together: But his grand discovery is, that even this tie is not strong enough; and that the idea of moral obligation is altogether incomplete and imperfect, unless it be made to rest also on the Will of a Superior. There is no point in all his philosophy, of which he is more vain than of this pretended discovery; and he speaks of it, we are persuaded, twenty times, without once suspecting the gross fallacy which it involves. The fallacy is not, however, in stating an erroneous proposition-for it is certainly true, that the command of a superior will generally constitute an obligation: it lies altogether in supposing that this is a separate or additional ground of obligation, and in not seeing that this vaunted discovery of a third principle for the foundation of morality, was in fact nothing but an individual instance or exemplification of the principle of utility.

vious, that we should no longer be under any in the fields of controversy. Fortunately, obligation to conform to the will of that supe- their example has not been generally follow. rior. If we should be equally secure of hap-ed; and the sect itself, though graced with piness-in mind and in body-in time and in mitres, and other trophies of worldly success. eternity, by disobeying his will, as by com- has perished, we think, in consequence of the plying with it, it is evidently altogether incon- experiment. ceivable, that the expression of that will should impose any obligation upon us: And although it be true that we cannot suppose such a case, it is not the less a fallacy to represent the will of a superior as a third and additional ground of obligation, newly discovered by this author, and superadded to the old principle of a regard to happiness, or utility. We take these instances of the general unsoundness of all Warburton's peculiar doctrines, from topics on which he is generally supposed to have been less extravagant than on any other. Those who wish to know his feats in criticism, may be referred to the Canons of Mr. Edwards; and those who admire the originality of his Dissertation on the Mysteries, are recommended to look into the Eleusis of Meursius.

A second, and perhaps, a still more formi dable mischief, arose from the discredit which was brought on the priesthood, and indeed upon religion in general, by this interchange of opprobrious and insulting accusations amorg its ministers. If the abuse was justifiable, then the church itself gave shelter to foliy and wickedness, at least as great as was to be found under the banners of infidelity;—if it was not justifiable, then it was apparent, that abuse by those holy men was no proof of demerit in those against whom it was directed; and the unbelievers, of course, were furnished with an objection to the sincerity of those invectives of which they themselves were the objects.

This applies to those indecent expressions Speculations like these could never be pop- of violence and contempt, in which Warburto ular; and were not likely to attract the atten- and his followers were accustomed to indulge. tion, even of the studious, longer than their when speaking of their Christian and clerical novelty, and the glare of erudition and orig- opponents. But the greatest evil of all, we inality which was thrown around them, pro- think, arose from the intemperance, coarsetected them from deliberate consideration.ness, and acrimony of their remarks, even on But the real cause of the public alienation from the works of this writer, is undoubtedly to be found in the revolting arrogance of his general manner, and the offensive coarseness of his controversial invectives. These, we think, must be confessed to be somewhat worse than mere error in reasoning, or extravagance in theory. They are not only offences of the first magnitude against good taste and good manners, but are likely to be attended with pernicious consequences in matters of much higher importance. Though we are not disposed to doubt of the sincerity of this reverend person's abhorrence for vice and infidelity, we are seriously of opinion, that his writings have been substantially prejudicial to the cause of religion and morality; and that it is fortunate for both, that they have now fallen into general oblivion.

They have produced, in the first place, all the mischief of a conspicuous, and, in some sense, a successful example of genius and learning, associated with insolence, intolerance, and habitual contumely and outrage. All men who are engaged in controversy are apt enough to be abusive and insulting, and clergymen, perhaps, rather more apt than others. It is an intellectual warfare, in which, as in other wars, it is natural, we suspect, to be ferocious, unjust, and unsparing; but experience and civilisation have tempered this vehemence, by gentler and more generous maxims, and introduced a law of honourable hostility, by which the fiercer elements of our nature are mastered and controlled. No greater evil, perhaps, can be imagined, than the violation of this law from any quarter of influence and reputation;-yet the Warburtonians may be said to have used their best endeavours to introduce the use of poisoned weapons, and to abolish the practice of giving quarter,

those who were enemies to revelation. There is, in all well-constituted minds, a natural feeling of indulgence towards those errors of opinion, to which, from the infirmity of human reason, all men are liable, and of compassion for those whose errors have endangered their happiness. It must be the natural tendency of all candid and liberal persons, therefore, to regard unbelievers with pity, and to reason with them with mildness and forbearance. Infidel writers, we conceive, may generally be allowed to be actual unbelievers; for it is difficult to imagine what other motive than a sincere persuasion of the truth of their opin ions, could induce them to become objects of horror to the respectable part of any community, by their disclosure. From what vices of the heart, or from what defects in the understanding, their unbelief may have originat ed, it may not always be easy to determine: but it seems obvious that, for the unbelief itself, they are rather to be pitied than reviled; and that the most effectual way of persuading the public that their opinions are refuted out of a regard to human happiness, is to treat their author (whose happiness is most in danger) with some small degree of liberality and gentleness. It is also pretty generally taken for granted, that a very angry dispitant is usually in the wrong; that it is not a sign of much confidence in the argument, to take advantage of the unpopularity or legal danger of the opposite doctrine; and that, when an unsuccessful and unfair attempt is made to discredit the general ability or personal worth of an antagonist, no great reliance is understood to be placed on the argument by which he may be lawfully opposed.

It is needless to apply these observations to the case of the Warburtonian controversies. There is no man, we believe, however he may

We have had occasion, oftener than once, to trace an effect like this, from this fierce and overbearing aspect of orthodoxy;—and we appeal to the judgment of all our readers, whether it be not the very effect which it is calculated to produce on all youthful minds of any considerable strength and originality. It is to such persons, however, and to such only, that the refutation of infidel writers ought to be addressed. There is no need to

use of the learned and orthodox part of the English clergy. Such works are necessarily supposed to be intended for the benefit of young persons, who have either contracted some partiality for those seductive writers, or are otherwise in danger of being misled by them. It is to be presumed, therefore, that they know and admire their real excellences;

and it might consequently be inferred, that they will not listen with peculiar complacency to a refutation of their errors, which sets out with a torrent of illiberal and unjust abuse of their talents and characters.

be convinced of the fallacy and danger of the | ness, he disables both the judgment and the principles maintained by Lord Bolingbroke, candour of his instructor, and conceives a by Voltaire, or by Hume, who has not felt in- strong prejudice in favour of the cause which dignation and disgust at the brutal violence, has been attacked in a manner so unwarthe affected contempt, and the flagrant unfair- rantable. ness with which they are treated by this learned author,-who has not, for a moment, taken part with them against so ferocious and insulting an opponent, and wished for the mortification and chastisement of the advocate, even while impressed with the greatest veneration for the cause. We contemplate this scene of orthodox fury, in short, with something of the same emotions with which we should see a heretic subjected to the torture, or a freethinker led out to the stake by a zeal-write books against Hume and Voltaire for the ous inquisitor. If this, however, be the effect of such illiberal violence, even on those whose principles are settled, and whose faith is confirmed by habit and reflection, the consequences must obviously be still more pernicious for those whose notions of religion are still uninformed and immature, and whose minds are open to all plausible and liberal impressions. Take the case, for instance, of a young man, who has been delighted with the eloquence of Bolingbroke, and the sagacity and ingenuity of Hume;-who knows, moreover, that the one lived in intimacy with Pope, and Swift, and Atterbury, and almost all the worthy and eminent persons of his time; and that the other was the cordial friend of Robertson and Blair, and was irreproachably correct and amiable in every relation of life; -and who, perceiving with alarm the tendency of some of their speculations, applies to Warburton for an antidote to the poison he may have imbibed. In Warburton he will then read that Bolingbroke was a paltry drivellerVoltaire a pitiable scoundrel-and Hume a puny dialectician, who ought to have been set on the pillory, and whose heart was as base and corrupt as his understanding was contemptible! Now, what, we would ask any man of common candour and observation, is the effect likely to be produced on the mind of any ingenious and able young man by this style of confutation? Infallibly to make him take part with the reviled and insulted literati, -to throw aside the right reverend confuter with contempt and disgust,-and most probably to conceive a fatal prejudice against the cause of religion itself-thus unhappily associated with coarse and ignoble scurrility. He must know to a certainty, in the first place, that the contempt of the orthodox champion is either affected, or proceeds from most gross ignorance and incapacity;-since the abilities of the reviled writers is proved, not only by his own feeling and experience, but by the suffrage of the public and of all men of intelligence. He must think, in the second place, that the imputations on their moral worth are false and calumnious, both from the fact of their long friendship with the purest and most exalted characters of their age, and from the obvious irrelevancy of this topic in a fair refutation of their errors;-and then, applying the ordinary maxims by which we judge of a disputant's cause, from his temper and his fair

We are convinced, therefore, that the bullying and abusive tone of the Warburtonian school, even in its contention with infidels, has done more harm to the cause of religion, and alienated more youthful and aspiring minds from the true faith, than any other error into which zeal has ever betrayed orthodoxy. It may afford a sort of vindictive delight to the zealots who stand in no need of the instruction of which it should be the vehicle; but it will, to a certainty, revolt and disgust all those to whom that instruction was necessary,-enlist all the generous feelings of their nature on the side of infidelity,-and make piety and reason itself appear like prejudice and bigotry. We think it fortunate, therefore, upon the whole, that the controversial writings of Warburton have already passed into oblivion,-since, even if we thought more highly than we do of the substantial merit of his arguments, we should still be of opinion that they were likely to do more mischief than the greater part of the sophistries which it was their professed object to counteract and discredit.

These desultory observations have carried us so completely away from the book, by the title of which they were suggested, that we have forgotten to announce to our readers, that it contains a series of familiar letters, addressed by Warburton to Doctor (afterwards Bishop) Hurd, from the year 1749, when their acquaintance commenced, down to 1776, when the increasing infirmities of the former put a stop to the correspondence. Some little use was made of these letters in the life of his friend, which Bishop Hurd published, after a very long delay, in 1794; but the treasure was hoarded up, in the main, till the death of that prelate; soon after which, the present volume was prepared for publication, in obedience to

"I am strongly tempted, too, to have a stroke at Hume in parting. He is the author of a little book, called Philosophical Essays; in one part of which he argues against the being of a God, and in another (very needlessly you will say) against the possibility of miracles. He has crowned the liberty of the press. And yet he has a considerable post under the Government! I have a great mind to do justice on his arguments against miracles, which I think might be done in few words. But does he deserve notice? Is he known amongst you? Pray answer me these questions; for if his own weight keeps him down, I should be sorry to contribute to his advancement—to any place but the Pillory.”—p. 11.

In another place, he is pleased to say, under date of 1757, when Mr. Hume's reputation for goodness, as well as genius, was fully es tablished:

"There is an epidemic madness amongst us; today we burn with the feverish heat of Superstition: to-morrow we stand fixed and frozen in Atheism. Expect to hear that the churches are all crowded next Friday; and that on Saturday they buy up Hume's new Essays; the first of which (and please you is The Natural History of Religion, for which I will trim the rogue's jacket, at least sit upon his find his margins scribbled over. In a word, the skirts, as you will see when you come hither, and Essay is to establish an Atheistic naturalism, like Bolingbroke; and he goes upon one of B.'s capita arguments, that Idolatry and Polytheism were before the worship of the one God. It is full of absurdities; and here I come in with him; for they to do their business, is to show them fools. They show themselves knaves: but, as you well observe, say this man has several moral qualities. It may be so. But there are vices of the mind as we as body; and a Wickeder Heart, and more determined to do public Mischief, I think I never knew.”

p. 175.

The tenor of this note, as well as the name and the memory of Warburton, excited in us no small curiosity to peruse the collection and, for a moment, we entertained a hope of finding this intractable and usurping author softened down, in the gentler relations of private life, to something of a more amiable and engaging form: and when we found his right reverend correspondent speaking of the playfulness of his wit, and the partiality of his friendships, we almost persuaded ourselves, that we should find, in these letters, not only many traits of domestic tenderness and cordiality, but also some expressions of regret for the asperities with which, in the heat and the elation of controversy, he had insulted all who were opposed to him. It seems natural, too, to expect, that along with the confessions of an author's vanity, we should meet with some reflections on his own good fortune, and some expressions of contentment and gratitude for the honours and dignities which had been heaped upon him. In all this, however, we have been painfully disappointed. The arrogance and irritability of Warburton was never more conspicuous than in these Letters,-nor It is natural and very edifying, after all this. his intolerance of opposition, and his prepos- to find him expressing the most unmeasured terous estimate of his own merit and import- contempt, even for the historical works of this ance. There is some wit-good and bad-author, and gravely telling his beloved friend. scattered through them; and diverse fragments of criticism: But the staple of the correspondence is his own praise, and that of his friend, whom he magnifies and exalts, indeed, in a way that is very diverting. To him, and his other dependants and admirers, and their patrons, he is kind and complimentary to excess; but all the rest of the world he regards with contempt and indifference. The age is a good age or a bad age, according as it applauds or neglects the Divine Legation and the Commentary on Horace. Those who write against these works are knaves and drivellers,—and will meet with their reward in the contempt of another generation, and the tortures of another world! - Bishoprics and Chancellorships, on the other hand, are too little for those who extol and defend them; -and Government is reviled for leaving the press open to Bolingbroke, and tacitly blamed for not setting Mr. Hume on the pillory.

The natural connection of the subject with the general remarks which we have already premised, leads us to begin our extracts with a few specimens of that savage asperity towards Christians and Philosophers, upon which we have felt ourselves called on to pass a sentence of reprobation. In a letter, dated in 1749, we have the following passage about Mr. Hume,

who was hammering out a puny dialogue or the English constitution, "As to Hume's History, you need not fear being forestalled by a thousand such writers. But the fear is naturai. as I have often felt, and as often experienced to be absurd!" We really were not aware. either that this History was generally looked upon as an irreligious publication; or that there was reason to suspect that Dr. Robertson had no warm side to religion, more than his friend. Both these things, however, may be learned from the following short paragraph.

"Hume has outdone himself in this new history. in showing his contempt of religion. This is one of those proof charges which Arbuthnot speaks of in his treatise of political lying, to try how much the public will bear. If this history be well received. tence to religion. But I should think it will not: I shall conclude that there is even an end of all prebecause I fancy the good reception of Robertson's proceeded from the decency of it."-p. 207.

The following is the liberal commentary which this Christian divine makes upon Mr.

Hume's treatment of Rousseau.

"It is a truth easily discoverable from his wrtings, that Hume could have but one motive in bringing him over (for he was under the protection of Lord Mareshal) and that was, cherishing a man whose writings were as mischievous to society as his own. The merits of the two philosophers are soot adjusted. There is an immense distance between