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Herstood it. But, 3, I made no wonder, with regard to Arnobius, at all. His case and Lactantius's were brought only by way of similitude to Modern Writers, who write about it before they understand it. These indeed I blame, because no one who does not understand it can write a good defence of it against Modern Pagans. But I blamed not the ancient Apologists, because they might, and did, write good defences without understanding it. You see the reason, p. 291, note (u).—So this was an unlucky stroke of this Critic. But what think you of his defence of the contested passage of Josephus? for that is against me too. Did you ever see such an interpretation put upon poor AYTOY before? Do you now think the world will lose much when Bentley and Hare are gone '—but observe how the latter end of his criticism has forgot the beginning. At first he says, To insist upon it stiffly as a testimony unquestionable might be thought no great argument of modesty, wisdom, or impartiality.' But at last he says, I think with all this evidence we might join [or agree with] the great Js. C. G. I. V. & L, in ascribing it POSITIVELY to Josephus.' But, I believe, you will not so easily pardon an insinuation against me, in this note, contained in these words: To give it up entirely as spurious-CHIEFLY, because it speaks so strongly in our favour-seems to be a degree of COMPLAISANCE TO OUR ENEMIES and UNKINDNESS TO OUR FRIENDS by no means necessary by the true principles of FREETHINKING or the laws of INGENUITY.' You see what follies the writing for any men, or any cause but Truth, makes people commit against honesty and charity. But all this in your ear as a friend; for I dare say the Author thinks me under much obligation to him for his civilities; and I never love to stifle the smoaking flax, or the least disposition towards peace and friendship. I have seen an abstract of Mr. Leland's Answer, and it seems exactly to correspond with the character you gave of it.

*

"Your Eight Sermons were extremely acceptable to me on many accounts. I have a favourite Nephew, to whose use I particularly design them. It is my way, after I have read a book, to give the general character of it in some celebrated lines or other of ancient or modern Writers. I have characterized the Author and his Sermons, in these two lines on the blank leaf before the title-page:

'O Friend! to dazzle let the vain design;

To mend the heart, and raise the thought, be thine .' "Now we are upon Poetry, my Mother desires her best respects to you and Mrs. Doddridge, and thanks you for the charming little Hymn you sent her. She has got it transcribed, I do not know how often, into a larger hand. It is not only the language of the heart, but the language of a poetic heart.

"You cannot oblige me more than communicating to me the "Sermons to Young People." T. S.

+"Ah, Friend! to dazzle let the vain design;

To raise the thought, or touch the heart, be thine." Pope.-T. S.

most

most plausible objections against my scheme; which I shall be glad of, not for your instruction, but for my own. They will be of use to me. I have seen Mr. Leland's reasons, against Morgan, for the Jews having a Future State. They are the common arguments employed for that purpose. Divines have a strange confused conception of this matter which I do not doubt to clear up to your satisfaction.

"I make no doubt but you have seen Mr. De Crousaz's Critique on Pope's Essay on Man.' I have defended our great Poet, as you will see, in some of the late Numbers of the History of the Works of the Learned;' but my name is a secret. I thought Mr. De Crousaz maliciously mistaken; and I thought it of service to Religion, to shew our Libertines that so noble a Genius was not of their party; which delusion they have affectedly embraced. "I have nothing particular to remark to you about the texts you refer to; only as to John vii. 22. Moses therefore gave you circumcision (not because it is of Moses, but of the Fathers); and ye on the Sabbath-day circumcise a man.' It may be asked, why Jesus used the words in the parenthesis to the Jews, who well knew that God ordered all Abraham's posterity should be circumcised at eight days old! I reply, it was to obviate an objection that might be urged, to this effect :- How came circumcision to be ordered on a certain day, which must needs occasion a violation of that strict rest enjoined on the Sabbath? Here the answer is admirable. Had Moses enjoined both one and the other, he probably would not have fixed the day of circumcision: but it was ordered by another covenant, which Moses could not disannul, St. Paul (Gal. iii. 17.) considers these as two different covenants. This raises our idea of the wisdom of God's providence. Had Circumcision and the Sabbath been both enjoined by Moses, it would have seemed fit, in order not so apparently to contradict the law about the rest of the Sabbath, to have relaxed the law about circumcision on the eighth day but that relaxation would have been productive of great mischiefs; therefore circumcision was given by another covenant, and confirmed only by this. You see, I suppose, the Sabbath to be entirely a Mosaical Rite. I do so as a day of rest, not as a day of devotion †. I am going on, as fast as my health will permit, with my Work. I desire your prayers for me, not only on this account, but for my general welfare. You never want mine. I wish that you would give so large a liberty of correction at the press. When I see your book, the reading of it may perhaps awaken some hints in me that may be worth while communicating to you against a Second Edition. "I am, dear Sir, your most affectionate friend and brother, W. WARBURTON." "DEAR SIR, Cambridge, April 4, 1739. "I write to you amongst a strange mixture of entertainments and study, between the College-Halls and Libraries. The necessity * Professor of Philosophy and Mathematicks in the Academy of Lausanne. T. S.

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+ See Doddridge's " Family Expositor," note (g) on John vii. 22. T. S.

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of consulting books only to be met with here, has brought me to Cambridge; but my long nights in company make my mornings by myself so very short, that I am likely to return as wise as I came; which will be in a few days. Before I left the country, I had the pleasure of receiving your Family Expositor.' My Mother and I took it by turns. She, who is superior to me in every thing, aspired to the divine learning of the Improvements, while I kept groveling in the human learning in the Notes below. The result of all was, that she says she is sure you are a very good man, and I am sure you are a very learned one. I sat down to your Notes with a great deal of malice, and a determined resolution not to spare you; and, let me tell you, a man who comments on the Bible affords all the opportunity a caviler could wish for. But your judgment is always so true, and your decision so right, that I am as unprofitable a reader to you as the least of your flock. A friend of mine, Dr. Taylor of Newark, (M. D.) who has seen your book, desires to be a subscriber. If you will be so good to order a book to be left for him at Mr. Gyles's, he has orders to pay for it. I have taken the liberty to inclose two or three papers of Proposals, just now offered to the publick by my friend Dr. Middleton for his Life of Tully.' "I am, dear Sir, your very affectionate friend and brother, W. WARBURTON." "DEAR SIR, Brent-Broughton, Aug. 13, 1739. "I have the favour of yours of the 19th of May to acknowledge. I will take it as Tully did the Roman History (who wanted to be at his dear Consulship) at the wrong end: and for Tully's reason, because there is something there more interesting; and that is the agreeable news you are so good as to give me of the birth of a son, and of good Mrs. Doddridge's being in a fine way of recovery. Providence blesses you, as it blessed its prime favourites the Patriarchs: for he knows' you, as he knew Abraham, that you will command your children and your household after you to keep the way of the Lord.' To such, and only to such, children are a blessing. I am sorry to hear you have been ill since I wrote my last; but am glad I heard not of it till I heard of your recovery along with it. What you say of your success in your ministry and academical capacity gives me infinite pleasure on your account. And it is impossible the Author of the "Free Thoughts," &c. should meet with less; or, he who observes the directions there laid down. As for that blasphemous fellow Morgan *, he is, I think, below my notice, any farther than to shew my great contempt of him occasionally. Besides, I ought to leave him to those who are paid for writing against him.

"You judge right that the next volume of The Divine Legation' will not be the last. I thought I had told you, that I had divided the work into three parts. The first gives a view of Pa

* Author of "The Moral Philosopher." See the various passages referred to in the "Literary Anecdotes,” vol. VII. p. 276.

VOL. II.

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ganism;

ganism; the second of Judaism; and the third of Christianity. You will wonder how this last inquiry can come into so simple an argument as that which I undertake to inforce. I have not room at present to tell you more than this-that, to leave neither doubt nor obscurity in the argument, after I have proved a future state not to be in fact in the Mosaic dispensation, I next shew that, if Christianity be true, it could not possibly be there. And this necessitates me to explain the nature of Christianity, with which the whole ends. But this inter nos. If it be known, I should possibly have somebody writing against this part too before it appears.

"Your kind and friendly advice to mind my business is very seasonable, when one naturally grows tired of an old subject, and has not met with that return from one's friends which one might expect. But I would not have you think that any of the Letters against Crousaz cost me more than two or three hours in an evening. Mr. Pope has desired they may be collected, and printed together. I have therefore complied with the Bookseller, who is now reprinting them in the size of Mr. Pope's duodecimo volumes, and I suppose they will come out in Michaelmas Term.

"I desire you would put down the Rev. Mr. Philip Yonge *, Fellow of Trinity College in Cambridge, a subscriber to your Family Expositor;' and to contrive that he may have the first volume sent him, either from Northampton or London. It need only be directed as above, for he is well known, being the principal Tutor in his College.-A passage in St. Luke comes into my head, which I hope will not come too late for your use; in which, I think, we have one of the most illustrious instances of the divine address of Jesus in his disputings with the Priests; and which I do not find the Commentators take notice of; (Chapter xx.) As Jesus taught in the Temple, the chief priests and the scribes came to him with their elders, and asked him by what authority he did those things? To this Jesus replies by another question, Was the baptism of John of heaven, or of men?' They answered they could not tell whence it was. Neither,' says Jesus, tell I you by what authority I do these things. This is generally esteemed a mere evading the question, and taking advantage of their inability of answering him to refuse to answer them; a shift quite below the dignity of his divine character. It had been more decent to have denied answering at first. But the fine address seems not to be taken. The answer was a satisfactory one on the Chief Priest's own principles. Observe how the case stands: "The Chief Priests and the Scribes came to him as he was teaching in the Temple." They were, without all question, a deputation from the Sanhedrim, who either had, or were then universally allowed to have, the right of inquiring into the credentials of all who pretended to come from God: or, to try the spirits of the Prophets. Here then

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* Afterwards Bishop of Norwich. See the "Literary_Anecdotes,” vol. IX. p. 487.

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was the dilemma. Jesus professed to submit to the established authority, and yet it was too early to own his Messiahship. What was to be done? Why, with an address and presence of mind altogether divine, he asked them about the authority of John, who pretended to be a messenger from God, and his forerunner. But they, not owning his authority, and yet, for fear of the people not daring expressly to disclaim it, they answered 'they could not tell whence his authority was.' This was the point Jesus watched for; and we are to suppose him answering them in this convincing manner: If you come from the Sanhedrim, whose authority I acknowledge, to inquire into my mission, I apprehend that there is no necessity, even on the principles of the Sanhedrim, for that body to come to a determination in the point; for the mission of John, who was before me, is, it seems, a question yet undetermined in that body; why then should not mine? Besides, John professed himself the forerunner of me. Order and equity therefore require, that his pretensions be first examined, if the examination be necessary; and till these two objections be removed, I may, without any disobedience to the authority of the Sanhedrim, decline telling you by what authority I do these things*."

"I received your excellent Sermon on the Fire at Wellingborough. With my humble service to Mrs. Doddridge, I am, dear Sir, your most affectionate friend and humble servant, W. WARBURTON." July 1, 1740.

"DEAR SIR, "I have been long a debtor for your obliging favour of the 16th of February past. But I have been about two months in London since that time, where I was in a constant hurry; and this threw me so much back that I have been as busy since I came home. The truth is, you and I are not on the foot of ceremony; therefore I trespass upon you in a manner I would not do to a common acquaintance. I hold myself peculiarly unlucky. We were within a very little of one another this spring at Oakham ; where your person and talents drew the particular regard of strangers, and by that means I accidentally heard you had just then been there. But Mr. Pope and I have laid a kind of scheme for meeting at Oxford the latter end of the summer; and, if that holds, I shall be wise enough not to neglect taking Northampton in my way.—I should say, were I not part of the subject of the Epigram, that it was as good a one as ever was made; and why may I not say it though I am?

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"The second volume of The Divine Legation' goes slowly on; but I hope to have it out next winter. I am impatient, and my Mother is more so, for the Second Volume of your Expositor. She has read your first three or four times over; yet was very unwilling to lend it lately for a month to a gentleman, whom she thinks ought rather to have bought one. But those who take up their Religion on trust are generally for borrowing * See Doddridge's "Family Expositor,” note (ƒ) on Luke xx. 8. T.'S. their

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