sit, tempus est faciendi Domino: IRRITAM FECERUNT LEGEM TUAM, &c., secundo, eo quod sapientes nostri dicunt, omnia opera tua fiant ad gloriam Dei."

P. 195, H H H H H. The learned author of the elegant and useful Letter from Rome has here taken to himself what was meant in general of the numerous writers on the same subject; and so has done it the honour of a confutation, in a postscript to the last edition of that Letter. But the same friendly considerations which induced him to end the postscript with declaring his unwillingness to enter further into controversy with me, disposed me not to enter into it at all. This, and neither any neglect of him, nor any force I apprehended in his arguments, kept me silent. However, I owe so much both to myself and the public, as to take notice of a misrepresentation of my argument; and a change of the question in dispute between us: without which notice the controversy (as I agree to leave it where it is) can scarce be fairly estimated.—“A paragraph in Mr Warburton's Divine Legation of Moses obliges me," say Dr Middleton, "to detain the reader a little longer, in order to obviate the prejudices which the authority of so celebrated a writer may probably inject, to the disadvantage of my argument.-1 am at a loss to conceive what could move my learned friend to pass so severe a censure upon an argument which has hitherto been espoused by all protestants; admitted by many papists; and evaded rather than contradicted by any. But whatever was his motive, which, I persuade myself, was no unfriendly one, he will certainly pardon me, if, pursuing the full conviction of my mind, I attempt to defend an established principle, confirmed by strong and numerous facts, against an opinion wholly new and strange to me; and which, if it can be supposed to have any force, overthrows the whole credit and use of my present work.-He allows that the writers, who have undertaken to deduce the rites of popery from paganism, have shown an exact and surprising likeness between them in a great variety of instances. This, says he, one would think, is allowing every thing that the cause demands; it is every thing, I dare say, that those writers desire."* That it is every thing those writers desire, I can easily believe, since I see, my learned friend himself hath considered these two assertions, 1. The religion of the present Romans derived from that of their heathen ancestors; and, 2. An exact conformity, or uniformity rather of worship between popery and paganism: he hath considered them, I say, as convertible propositions: for, undertaking, as his titlepage informs us, to prove the religion of the present Romans derived from that of their heathen ancestors; and having gone through his arguments, he concludes them in these words, "But it is high time for me to conclude, being persuaded, if I do not flatter myself too much, that I have sufficiently made good WHAT I FIRST UnderTOOK TO PROVE, an exact conformity, or uniformity rather, of worship between popery and paganism." But what he undertook to prove, we see, was, The religion of the present Romans derived from their heathen ancestors: that I have therefore, as my learned friend observes, allowed every thing those writers desire, is very likely. But then whether I have allowed every thing that the cause demands, is another question: which I think can never be determined in the affirmative, till it be shown that no other probable cause can be assigned of this exact conformity between Papists and Pagans, but a borrowing or derivation from one to the other. And I guess, that now this is never likely to be done, since I myself have actually assigned another probable cause, namely, the same spirit of superstition operating in the like circumstances.

But this justly celebrated writer goes on-"This question according to his [the author of The Divine Legution] notion is not to be decided by facts, but by a principle of a different kind, a superior knowledge of human nature.”‡ Here I am forced to complain of a want of candour, a want not natural to my learned friend. For, whence is it, I would ask, that he collects, that, according to my notion, this question is not to be decided by facts, but a superior knowledge of human nature? From any thing I have said? Or from any thing I have omitted to say? Surely, not from any thing I have said (though he seems to insinuate so much by putting the words a superior knowledge of human nature in italic characters as they are called) because I leave him in possession of his facts, and give them all the validity he desires; which he himself observes; and, from thence, as we see, endeavours to draw some advantage to his hypothesis:-Nor from any thing I have omitted to say; for, in this short paragraph where I deliver my opinion, and, by reason of its evidence, offer but one single argument in its support, that argument arises from a FACT, viz. that the superstitious customs in question were many ages later than the conversion of the imperial city to the Christian faith: whence I conclude, that the ruling churchmen could have no motive in borrowing from pagan customs, either as those customs were then fashionable in themselves, or respectable for the number or quality of their followers. And what makes this the more extraordinary is, that my learned friend himself immediately afterwards quotes these words; and then tells the reader, that my argument consists of an HISTORICAL FACT, and of a consequence deduced from it. It appears therefore, that, according to my notion, the question is to be decided by facts, and not by a superior knowledge of human nature. Yet I must confess I then thought, and do so still, that a superior knowledge of human na* Postscript, p. 228. Postscript, p. 223.

† Letter, p. 224.

ture would do no harm, as it might enable men to judge better of facts than we find they are generally accustomed to do. But will this excuse a candid representer for saying, that the question, according to my notion, was not to be decided by facts, but a superior knowledge of human nature? However, to do my learned friend all justice, I must needs say, that, as if these were only words of course, that is, words of controversy, he goes on, through the body of his postscript, to invalidate my argument from fact; and we hear no more of a superior knowledge of human nature than in this place where it was brought in to be laughed at. As to the argument, it must even shift for itself. It has done more mischief already than I was aware of: and forced my learned friend to extend his charge from the modern to the ancient church of Rome. For my argument, from the low birth of the superstitions in question, coming against his hypothesis, after he had once and again declared the purpose of his letter to be the exposing of the heathenish idolatry and superstition of the PRESENT church of Rome; he was obliged, in support of that hypothesis, to show that even the early ages of the church were not free from the infection. Which hath now quite shifted the subject with the scene, and will make the argument of his piece from henceforth to run thus, The religion of the present Romans derived from their early Christian ancestors; and theirs, from the neighbouring pagans. To speak freely, my reasoning (which was an argument ad hominem, and, as such, I thought, would have been reverenced) reduced the learned writer to this dilemma; either to allow the fact, and give up his hypothesis; or to deny the fact, and change his question. And he has chosen the latter as the lesser evil. As to the fact; that the churches of the first ages might do that on their own heads, which Moses did upon authority, i. e. indulge their pagan converts with such of their customs as could not be easily abused to superstition, may be safely acknowledged. My learned friend has produced a few instances of such indulgence, which the censure of some of the more scrupulous of those times hath brought to our knowledge. But the great farraginous body of popish rites and ceremonies, the subject of my learned friend's Letter from Rome, had surely a different original. They were brought into the church when paganism was in part abhorred and in part forgotten; and when the same spirit of sordid superstition which had overspread the gentile world, had now deeply infected the Christian.

END OF THE FOURTH BOOK.

THE

DIVINE LEGATION OF MOSES

DEMONSTRATED.

BOOK V.-SECT. I.

HAVING now examined the CHARACTER of the Jewish people, and the TALENTS of their lawgiver, I come next to consider the NATURE of that policy, which by his ministry was introduced amongst them. For in these two inquiries I hope to lay a strong and lasting foundation for the support of the third general proposition, That the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments is not to be found in, nor did make part of the Mosaic dispensation.

We find amongst this people a policy differing from all the institutions of mankind: in which the two societies, civil and religious, were perfectly incorporated, with GOD ALMIGHTY, AS A TEMPORAL GOVERnor, at the head of both.

The peculiar administration attending so singular a frame of government hath always kept it from the knowledge of superficial observers. Christian writers, by considering Judaism as a religious policy only, or a church; and deists, as a civil policy only, or a state; have run into infinite mistakes concerning the reason, the nature, and the end of its laws and institutions. And, on so partial a view of it, no wonder that neither have done justice to this amazing economy. Let us suppose, the famous picture of the female centaur by Zeuxis, where two different natures were so admirably incorporated, that the passage from one to the other, as Lucian tells us, * became insensible; let us, I say, suppose this picture to have been placed before two competent judges, yet in such different points of view, that the one could see only the brutal, the other the human part; would not the first have thought it a beautiful horse, and the second, as beautiful a woman; and would not each have given the creature supposed to be represented such functions as he judged proper to the species in which he ranked it? But would not both of them have been mistaken; and would not a sight of the whole have taught them to rectify their wrong judgments as well knowing

* Τὴν θήλειαν δὲ ἵππου γε τῆς καλλίστης, οἵαι μάλιστα αἱ Θετταλαί εἰσιν, ἀδμῆτες, ἔτι καὶ ἄβατοι· τὸ δ' ἄνω ἡμίτομον, γυναικός, πάγκαλον,—καὶ ἡ μίξις δὲ, καὶ ἡ ἁρμογὴ τῶν σωμάτων, καθο συνάπτεται καὶ συνδεῖται τῷ γυναικένῳ τὸ ἱππικὸν, κρέμα, καὶ οὐκ ἀθρόως μεταβαίνουσα, καὶ ἐκ προσαγωγῆς τρεπομένη, λανθάνει τὴν ὄψιν ἐκ θατέρου, εἰς τὸ ἕτερον ὑπατομένη.—Ζxis, cap. 6. t. i. p. 843, edit. Reitzii, Amst. 4to, 1743.

ร

that the functions of such a compounded animal, whenever it existed, must be very different from those of either of the other, singly and alone. From such partial judges of the LAW therefore little assistance is to be expected towards the discovery of its true nature.

Much less are we to expect from the Jewish doctors: who, though they still keep sheltered, as it were, in the ruins of this august and awful fabric; yet patch it up with the same barbarity of taste, and impotence of science, that the present Greeks are wont to hide themselves amongst the mouldering monuments of Attic power and politeness. Who, as our travellers inform us, take a beggarly pride in keeping up their claim to these wonders of their ancestors' magnificence, by white-washing the Parian marble with chalk, and incrusting the porphyry and granite with tiles and potsherds.

But least of all shall we receive light from the fantastic visions of our English Cocceians; who have sublimed the crude nonsense of the cabalists, so long busied in the dull amusement of picking mysteries out of letters, into a more spiritual kind of folly; a quintessence well defecated from all the impurities of sense and meaning.

Therefore, to understand the nature of the Jewish economy, we must begin with this truth, to which every page of the five books of Moses is ready to bear witness, That the separation of the Israelites was in order to preserve the doctrine of the UNITY, amidst an idolatrous and polytheistic world. The necessity of this provision shall be shown at large hereafter. At present we only desire the deist would be so civil as to suppose there might possibly be a sufficient cause.

But now, because it is equally true, that this separation was fulfilling the promise made to ABRAHAM their father; these men have taken occasion to represent it as made for the sake of a FAVOURITE PEOPLE.‡ And then again, supposing such a partial distinction to be inconsistent with the divine attributes, have ventured to arraign the LAW itself of imposture. But this representation of the fact is both unjust and absurd. They cannot deny but it might be God's purpose, at least, that it became his goodness, to preserve the doctrine of the UNITY amidst an idolatrous world. But this (we know by the event) could never be effected but by a separation of one part from the rest. Nor could such a separation be made any otherwise than by bringing that part under God's peculiar protection: the consequence of which were GREAT TEMPORAL BLESSNow as some one people must needs be selected for this purpose, it seems most agreeable to our ideas of divine wisdom, which commonly effects many ends by the same means, to make the blessings attendant on such a selection, the reward of some high exalted virtue in the progenitors of the chosen people. But therefore to object that they were chosen as FAVOURITES, is both unjust and absurd. The separation was made for the sake of mankind in general; though one people became In the ninth book.

INGS.

*The followers of Hutchinson.

See the first volume of The Divine Legation.

the honoured instrument, in reward of their forefathers' virtues. And this is the language of those very scriptures which, as they pretend, furnish the objection. Where God, by the prophet Ezekiel, promises to restore the Israelites, after a short dispersion through the countries, to their own land, he declares this to be the end of their separation : "Therefore say unto the house of Israel, Thus saith the LORD GOD, I Do not THIS FOR YOUR SAKES, O HOUse of Israel, BUT FOR MINE HOLY NAME'S SAKE, which ye have 'profaned among the heathen whither ye went. And I will sanctify my great name which was profaned amongst the heathen, which ye have profaned in the midst of them; and the heathen shall know that I am the LORD, saith the LORD GOD, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes." What God himself says of the PEOPLE, St Paul says of their LAW: "Wherefore then serveth the law? It was ADDED BECAUSE OF TRANSGRESSIONS; till the seed should come, to whom the promise was made." It was added, says the apostle. To what? To the patriarchal religion of the UNITY. To what end? Because of transgressions, i. e. the transgressions of polytheism and idolatry; into which the rest of mankind were already absorbed, and the Jews at that time hastening apace; and from which there was no other means of restraining them, than by this ADDITION; an addition that kept them separate from all others, and preserved the doctrine of the UNITY till the coming of the promised seed.

But another thing offends the deists: they cannot understand, let the end of this choice be what it would, why GoD should prefer so perverse and sottish a people, to all others. One reason hath been given already; that it was for the sake of their forefathers, and to fulfill the promise made to the patriarchs. But others are not wanting; and those very agreeable to the ideas we have of infinite wisdom; such, for instance, as this, that the EXTRAORDINARY PROVIDENCE, by which they were blessed and protected, might become the more visible and illustrious. For had they been endowed with the shining qualities of the more polished nations, the effects of that providence might have been ascribed to their own power or wisdom. Their impotence and inability, when left to themselves, is finely represented in the prophet Ezekiel, by the similitude of the vine-tree: Son of man, what is the vine-tree more than any tree, or than a branch which is amongst the trees of the forest? Shall wood be taken thereof to do any work? or will men take a pin of it to hang any vessel thereon?-Therefore thus saith the Lord God, As the vine-tree amongst the trees of the forest,§ &c. For as the vine, which, with cultivation and support, is the most valuable of all trees, becomes the most worthless, when left neglected in its own natural state: so the Jews, who made so superior a figure under the particular protection of GOD, when, for their sins, that protection was withdrawn, became the weakest and most contemptible of all tributary nations.

Ezek. xxxvi. 22, 23. † Gal. iii. 19.
Chap. xv. ver. 3.

See note A, at the end of this book.