The Divine Legation of Mofes. In Nine Books. The Third Edition, corrected and enlarged. By W. Warburton, D. D. Dean of Bristol. The Second Volume, in Two Parts. 8vo. 10s. bound. Millar.

S this new edition of the Divine Legation, fo far as it is

A yet compleated, is confiderably enlarged and improved,

our Readers, especially fuch of them as have purchased the first edition, will naturally expect that we fhould give an account of what Improvements and Additions the learned Author has made;" we fhall, therefore, proceed directly upon this talk, without any farther introduction *.

Each of the parts makes a distinct volume; to the firft of which is prefixed, a Dedication to Lord Mansfield, written in fo fpirited a ftrain, that we imagine our Readers will have no objection to our giving them a fhort view of it.

To live in the voice and memory of men,' fays the Doctor, is the flattering dream of every Adventurer in Letters: and for me, who boaft the rare felicity of being honoured with the friendship of two or three fuperior Characters, men endowed with virtue to atone for a bad age, and of abilities to make a bad age a good one, for me not to afpire to the best mode of this ideal existence, the being carried down to remote ages along with those who will never die, would be a ftrange infenfibility to human glory.

For our account of the two former parts, or fit volume, of this edition, fee Review, Vol. XIII. p 294.

VOL. XIX.

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But as the protection I feek from your Lordfhip, is not like thofe blind afylums founded by fuperftition, to fcreen iniquity from civil vengeance, but of the nature of a temple of Juftice, to vindicate and fupport the innocent, you will expect to ⚫ know the claim I have to it; and how, on being seized with that epidemic malady of idle, vifionary men, the projecting to reform the public, I came to ftand in need of it.

I had lived to fee-it is a plain and artless tale I have to tell -I had lived to fee what Law-givers have always feemed to dread, as the certain prognoftic of public defolation, that fatal crifis, when Religion hath loft its hold on the minds of a people.

• I had obferved almoft the rife and origin, but furely ve< ry much of the progrefs of this evil: for it was neither fo rapid to elude a diftinct view, nor fo flow as to endanger one's forgetting or not obferving the relation its feveral parts bore 'to one another. And, to trace the fteps of this evil, may "not be altogether ufelefs to thofe, whoever they may be, who < are deftined, as the inftruments of Providence, to counterwork its bad effects.

The only mortifying circumftance your Lordfhip will find in this relation is, that the mischief began amongst our friends; by men who loved their country; but were too eagerly intent on one part only of their truft, the fecurity of its civil Liberty. To trace up this affair to its fource, we need go no farther back than to the happy acceffion of that illuftrious House to whom we owe all which is in the power of grateful Monarchs, at the head of a free people, to bestow; I mean, the full enjoyment of the common rights of fubjects.'

It happened at this time, the Doctor obferves, that fome warm friends of the acceffion, newly got into power, had too haftily, perhaps, fufpected that the Church, (or at least that party of Churchmen which had ufurped the name) was become inaufpicious to the facred Era from whence we were to date the eftablishment of our civil happiness; and therefore deemed it good policy to abate and leffen the credit of a body of men, who had been long in high reverence with the people, and who, had fo lately, and fo fcandaloufly, abused their influence in the, opprobrious affair of Sacheverell. To this end, they invited, fome learned men, who in the preceding reign had ferved the common caufe, to take up the pen once more against these its molt peftilent enemies, the Jacobite Clergy. They affumed the tafk, and did it fo effectually, that under the profeffed defign. of confuting and decrying the ufurpations of a popifh Hierarchy, they virtually deprived the Church of every power and privilege which, as a fimple fociety, the might claim; and, on the mat

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ter, delivered her up, gagged and bound, as the rebel-creature of the state.

Their fuccefs,' continues he, (with the prejudice of power, and what is ftill ftronger, the power of prejudice, on their fide) was yet the eafier, as the Tory Clergy, who oppofed thefe Eraftian notions, fo deftructive to the very effence of a • Church, reafoned and difputed against the Innovators, on the principles commonly received, but indeed fupported on no founder a bottom, than the authority of papal, or (if they like it better) of puritanical ufurpations: principles, to speak without referve, ill founded in themfelves, and totally inconfiftent with the free adminiftration of civil government.

In this then, that is, in humbling difaffected Churchmen, the friends of Liberty and the Acceffion carried their point. But in conducting a purpofe fo laudable at any time, and fo < neceffary at that time, they had, as we obferve, gone much too far; for instead of reducing the Church within its native bounds, and thereby preferving it from its two greatest dishonours, the becoming factious, or the being made the tool of • faction, which was all that true Politics required, and all, perhaps, that these Politicians then thought of; their inftruments, by ftripping it of every right it had, in a little time brought it into contempt.

But this was not the worst. These enemies of obnoxious • Churchmen found a powerful affiftant in the forward carriage of the enemies of religion in general; who, at this time, under pretence of feconding the views of good Patriots, and ferving the state against the encroachments of Church-power, ⚫ took all occafions to vent their malice against Revelation itself: and paffion, inflamed by oppofition, mixing with politics throughout the course of this affair, thefe Lay-Writers were ⚫ connived at; and, to mortify rebellious Churchmen ftill more, even cried up for their free reafonings against Religion, juft as the other had been, for their exploits against Church-government. And one man in particular, the Author of a wellknown book called the Independent Whigg, early a favourite, and to the last a place-man, carried on, in the most audacious and infulting manner, these two feveral attacks, together: a measure fupported, perhaps, in the execution by its coinciding with fome mens private opinions; tho' the most trite maxims of government might have taught them, to separate their private from their public character. However, certain it is, ⚫ that the attack never ceased operating till all these various kinds of free-writing, were gotten into the hands of the People.

And now the business was done: and these friends of the • Government were become, before they were aware, the dupes of their own policy. In their endeavours to take off the influence of a Church, or rather of a party of Churchmen in• aufpicious to a free State, they had occafioned, at leaft, the loofening all the ties which, till then, Religion had on the minds of the populace: and which till then, Statesmen had ever thought were the beft fecurity the Magistrate had for their obedience. For tho' a rule of right may direct to a principle • of action amongst Philofophers; and the point of honour may keep up the thing called Manners amongst Gentlemen; yet nothing but Religion can ever fix a fober standard of behaviour amongst the common people.

But these bad effects not immediately appearing, our Poli ticians were fo little apprehenfive that the matter had already gone too far, that they thought of nothing but improving fome collateral advantages they had procured by the bargain; which, amongst other, ufes, they faw likewife, would be fure to keep things in the condition to which they were reduced. For now Religion having loft its hold on the people, the Minifters of Religion were of no further confequence to the State; nor were Statefmen any longer under the hard neceffity of feeking out the most eminent, for the honours of their profeffion; and without neceflity, how few would fubmit to fo uneafy a burthen! For Statefmen of a certain pitch, are naturally apprehenfive of a little fenfe, and not eafily brought to form • ideas of a great deal of gratitude. All went now according to their wishes. They could now employ Church-honours more directly to the ufe of Government or of themfelves, by conferring them on fuch fubjects as beft gratified their taste or huC mour, or most served to ftrengthen their connexions with the great. This would of courfe give the finishing ftroke to their fyftem. For tho' the ftripping religious Society of all power 6 and authority, and expofing it naked and defenceless to its • enemies, had abated men's reverence for the Church; and the < detecting Revelation of impofture, at beft ferving but for a ftate-engine, had deftroyed all love for Religion; yet they were the intrigues of Church promotion, which would make people defpife the whole ordinance.

Nor did the profpect of things future give much confolation or relief to good mens prefent fears or teelings. The people had been reasoned out of their Religion, by fuch logic as it < was: and if ever they were to be reduced to a fober fenfe of their condition, it was feen, they must be reafoned into it again. Little thought, and lefs learning, were fufficient to perfuade men of what their vicious paffions inclined them to

• believe;

believe; but it must be no ordinary fhare of both, which, in oppofition to thofe paffions, fhall be able to bring them to "themfelves. And where is fuch a fhare to be expected, or likely to be found? In the courfe of forty or fifty years (for I am not fpeaking of the tranfactions of the prefent race of 'men) a new generation or two are fprung up; and thofe, whom their profeffion has dedicated to this fervice, experience has taught, that the talents requifite for pushing their fortune, lie very remote from what enables men to figure in a fuccessful defence of Revelation. And it is very natural to think that, in general, they will be chiefly bent to cultivate thofe qualities on which they fee their Patrons lay the greatest stress.

I have, my Lord, been the longer and the plainer in deducing the causes of an inveterate evil, for the fake of doing justice to the English Clergy; who, in this inftance, as in many others, have been forced to bear the blame of their Betters. How common is it to hear the irreligion of the times a• fcribed to the vices, or the indifcretions of Churchmen! Yet how provoking is the infult! When every child knows, that this accufation is only an echo from the lewd clamours of thofe very Scribblers whofe flagitious writings have been the 'principal cause of thefe diforders.

In this difaftrous ftate of things, it was my evil fortune to • write. I began, as thefe Politicians had done, with the Church. My purpose, I am not afhamed to own, was to re"pel the cruel inroads made upon its rights and privileges; but, 'I thank God, on honefter principles than thofe which had ⚫ been employed to prop up, with Gothic buttreffes a Jacobite Hierarchy. The fuccefs was what I might expect. I was read; and by a few indifferent Judges, perhaps, approved. But as I made the Church neither a flave nor a tyrant (and under one or other of thefe ideas of it, aloft all men had now taken party) the alliance between Church and State, tho' formed upon a model actually exifting before our eyes, was confidered as an Utopian refinement. It is true, that fo far as my own private fatisfaction went, I had no great reason to complain. I had the honour to be told by the Heads of one Party, that they allowed my principles; and by the Heads of the other, that they efpoufed my conclufion: which, however, amounted only to this, that the one was for Liberty, however they would chufe to employ it; and the other for Power, however they could come at it.

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I had another important view in writing this book.-Tho' no body had been fo fhameless to deny the ufe of Religion to civil Government, yet certain friends of Liberty, under the

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