Lord Bolingbroke has seldom been found instrumental in correcting theological theological mistakes, and yet nothing can be more apposite in reply to

impure, and his sentences are unmeasured."-Johnson's Life of Pope.

For a view of the character more favourable, but not more just, I would refer to that which Bishop Hurd, the uniform admirer and panegyrist of Warburton, has given in the life he has written of that prelate. His encomiums, on The Divine Legation especially, are overcharged; and the recollection that the cause of truth and of religion, no less than the reputation of his friend, was involved in the estimation of that important work, should have rendered his panegyric more qualified.

My friend Doctor Graves, in his late excellent work on the Pentateuch, has sketched a portrait, which for likeness of feature and justness of colouring, seems to me to merit a place in the neighbourhood of that which has been drawn by Johnson.-Speaking of the Divine Legation, and having observed, that "While its author lived, his splendid talents and extensive learning, raised in his followers and defenders such enthusiastic admiration, that they could not perceive, or at least would not allow, that he had been in the smallest point erroneous: while the keenness of his controversial asperity, the loftiness of his literary pretensions, and the paradoxical form in which he too frequently chose to clothe his opinions, roused in his answerers a zeal of opposition, which would sometimes yield him no credit for the discovery of any truth :" he then proceeds: "Time should now enable us to view him in his true light; in reasoning, sagacious yet precipitate; in criticism, ingenious but not unprejudiced; his comprehensive view sometimes embraced in the process of his enquiries too wide an extent; while his quick imagination sometimes led him to

these dangerous notions of Tillotson, Spencer, and Warburton, than his observations upon this very subject. For the weighty reasons assigned by these writers, he says, (alluding to such as held the opinions of Spencer)-" The God of truth chose to indulge error, and suited his institutions to the taste of the age: he contented himself also to take ordinary and natural means, in a case to which they were not adequate and whilst miracles and divine interpositions were displayed in great abundance before the eyes of the Israelites, yet Moses, under the direction of the Almighty, chose to make use of superstitions which he did not want, and which defeated instead of securing his intent; insomuch, that if the apostasies of the Israelites, after such manifestations of the one true God, can be any way accounted for, it must be by the effect of the very expedient which had been employed to prevent these apostasies." In short, he says, the whole plan of Providence seems to

combine his arguments with too slight a connexion. But when he directed, to any one grand point, his undivided and unprejudiced attention, he frequently diffused over it the radiance of genius, and discovered the recesses of truth. Happy, had his humility been equal to his talents, and had his temper been as calm and tolerant, as his understanding was luminous and penetrating. His researches would then have been conducted with more caution and impartiality, would have produced more unexceptionable conclusions, and been attended with happier success." Dr. Graves's Lectures on the Pentateuch, vol. ii. p. 209-211.

have been," to destroy idolatry by indulgence to the very superstitions out of which it grew.' -Bolingbroke's Phil. Works, vol. i.

319.

p. 313

What the noble Sophist had intended with no better will to Revealed Religion itself, than to those of its advocates whom he professes to rebuke, I have, in this extract, taken such liberties in modifying, as will permit the argument to bear, only where truth would have directed it; namely, upon those mistaken interpreters of revelation, who depart from the written word of God, to follow the guidance of their own fancies in explaining the grounds and motives of the divine dispensations. Such it is impossible not to pronounce Tillotson, Spencer and Warburton, to have been on the particular subject now be fore us.

*On the same subject, this writer, in another place, thus pointedly, (though as his custom is, irreverently) expresses himself. In order to preserve the purity of his worship, the deity is représented, as prescribing to the Israelites, a multitude of rites and ceremonies, founded in the supersti tions of Egypt from which they were to be weaned, and he succeeded accordingly. They were never weaned entirely from all these superstitions: and the great merit of the law of Moses was teaching the people to adore one God, much as the idolatrous nations adored several. This may be called sanctifying Pagan rites and ceremonies, in theological language: but it is profaning the pure worship of God, in the language of common sense.-Phil. Works, vol. v. p. 375.

In how very different a manner, we ought to pursue our enquiries, from that which these writers would propose, I have already endeavoured to enforce, p. 45-60 of vol. i. also Number XLVII. and pp. 262, 263. 271-273 of this volume. And how fully we are justified in so doing, will yet more satisfactorily appear, on consulting Dr. Graves's Lectures on the Pentateuch, (especially the two sections of Lect. vi. part iii.) and the Eight Discourses on the Connexion between the Old and New Testament; in which latter work, the unity of the scheme of Redemption pervading the entire series of the divine dispensations, has been treated with much ability by Archdeacon Daubery; whose opinions, upon so many important points, I am happy to find perfectly coincident with those, which I have submitted to the public, throughout these pages, on the nature of the atonement.

To such as may be desirous to investigate more deeply, the opinions of the three distinguished writers against whom I have found it necessary to contend in discussing the subject of the present Number, I recommend an attentive perusal of the tenth book of Eusebius's Præparatio Evangelica: -Book III. chap. v. of Stilling fleet's Origines Sacræ:-Bochart's Geographia Sacra :-Witsius's Egyptiaca :-Winder's History of Knowledge-Ellis's Knowledge of Divine Things from Revelation (especially p. 122—129): Nichols's Conference with a Theist, (particularly

vol. i. p. 290-308, and pp. 319, 320.): Faber's Hora Mosaicæ: and Dr. Woodward's Discourse on the Antient Egyptians,* (Archæolog. vol. iv.) The Bishop of Lincoln, in his excellent Elements of Christian Theology, (Part. I. chap. i. p. 37-48.) has admirably summed up the

* An extract from this discourse I here subjoin, as particu larly worthy of attention, in reply to the favourite theory of Spencer." Whatever might be the bent and dispositions of the Israelites, it was Moses's proper business to rectify them. He was not to indulge them in their fancies, but inform them of their duties, and direct them to what was fit, reasonable and consistent with good morals and piety, though that happened to be never so much against their gusts and inclinations, which accordingly he every where did: and there are numerous instances of it through all his government of them. His doing otherwise might, indeed, have shown a great deal of policy, but not near so much probity and goodness, as are discoverable through his whole conduct of this great people. I can very easily allow Dr. Spencer, that this was the method that Mahomet, Apollonius Tyanææus, and some politicians have taken: nor will I enter into any contest with him, whether the Devil makes use of the same in order to seduce mankind from the worship of God; all which he gives, I think, surely with a little too much looseness, as parallel instances in confirmation of his notion: but this I am mighty sure, Moses was on all occasions very far from it." pp. 281, 282.— Spencer had justified these observations by his strange asser. tions. "In eo enim eluxit sapientia divina, quod antidotum e veneno faceret, et illis ipsis ceremoniis ad populi sui utilitatem, quibus olim Diabolus ad hominum perniciem uteretur." And again he cites this political axiom, το κακον ευ κείμενον εκ

και κινητεον.