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were these evils compensated by any present or possible benefits. 3. The kingdoms of Tr noxiana and Persia were the proper field which he laboured to cultivate and adorn, as the perpetual inheritance of his family. But his peaceful labours were often interrupted, and sometimes blasted, by the absence of the conqueror. While he triumphed on the Volga or the Ganges, his servants, and even his sons, forgot their master and their duty. The public and private injuries were poorly redressed by the tardy rigour of inquiry and puni hment; and we must be content to praise the institutions of Timour as the specious idea of a perfect monarchy. 4. Whatsoever might be the blessings of his administration, they evaporated with his life. To reign, rather than to govern, was the ambition of his children and grandchildren, the enemies of each other and of the people. A fragment of the empire was upheld with some glory by Sharokh, his youngest son; but after his decease, the scene was again involved in darkness and blood; and before the end of a century, Tra: soxiana and Persia were trampled by the Uzbeks from the north, and the Turkmans of the black and white sheep. The race of Timour would have been extinct, if a hero, his descendant in the fifth degree, had not fled before the Uzbek arms to the conquest of Hindostan. His successors-the great Moguls-extended their sway from the mountains of Cashmir to Cape Comorin, and from Candahar to the Gulf of Bengal. Since the reign of Aurungzebe, their empire has been dissolved; their treasures of Delhi have been rifled by a Persian robber; and the richest of their kingdoms is now possessed by a company of Christian merchants, of a remote island in the northern

ocean.

THEOLOGIANS AND METAPHYSICIANS.

Without much originality—excepting in one memorable instance— there was great acuteness, controversial ability, and learning displayed in the department of theology. The higher dignitaries of the Church of England are generally well fitted, by education, talents, and the leisure they enjoy, for vindicating revealed religion from the attacks of all assailants; and even when the standard of duty was low among the inferior clergy, there was seldom any want of sound polemical divines. It seems to be admitted that there was a decay of piety and zeal in the church at this period.

BISHOP BUTLER.

To animate this drooping spirit, and to place revelation upon the imperishable foundations of true philosophy, DR. JOSEPH BUTLER published his great work on the Analogy of Religion to the Course of Nature,' which appeared in 1736. Without entering on the question of the miracles and prophecies, Dr. Butler rested his evidence on the analogies of nature: 'he reasons from that part of the divine proceedings which comes under our view in the daily business of life, to that larger and more comprehensive part of these proceedings which is beyond our view, and which religion reveals.' His argument for a future life, from the changes which the human body undergoes at birth, and in its different stages of maturity, and from the instances of the same law of nature, in the change of worms into butterflies, and birds and insects bursting the shell, and entering into a new world, furnished with new powers, is one of the most conclusive pieces of

reasoning in the language. The same train of argument, in support of the immortality of the soul, has been followed up in two admirable lectures in Dr. T. Brown's 'Philosophy.'

The work of Butler, however, extends over a wide field-over the whole of the leading points, both in natural and revealed religion. The germ of his treatise is contained in a passage in Origen-one of the most eminent of the fathers, who died at Tyre in the year 254—— which Butler quotes in his introduction. It is to the effect that he who believes the Scripture to have proceeded from the author of nature, may well believe that the same difficulties exist in it as in the constitution of nature. Hence, Butler infers that he who denies the Scripture to have come from God, on account of difficulties found in it, may, for the same reason, deny the world to have been formed by him. Inexplicable difficulties are found in the course of nature; no sound theist can therefore be surprised to find similar difficulties in the Christian religion. If both proceed from the same author, the wonder would rather be, that, even on this inferior ground of difficulty and adaptation to the comprehension of man, there should not be found the impress of the same hand, whose works we can trace but a very little way, and whose world equally transcends on some points the feeble efforts of unassisted reason. All Butler's arguments on natural and revealed religion are marked by profound thought and sagacity. In a volume of sermons published by him, he shines equally as an ethical philosopher. In the first three, on human nature, he has laid the science of morals on a surer foundation than any previous writer. After shewing that our social affections are disinterested, he proceeds to vindicate the supremacy of the moral sentiments. Man is, in his view, a law to himself; but the intimations of this law are not to be deduced from the strength or temporary predominance of any single appetite or passion. They are to be deduced from the dictates of one principle, which is evidently intended to rule over the other parts of our nature, and which issues its mandates with authority. This master principle is conscience, which rests upon rectitude as its object, as disinterestedly as the social affections rest upon their appropriate objects, and as naturally as the appetite of hunger is satisfied with food. The ethical system of Butler has been adopted by Reid, Stewart, and Brown. Sir James Mackintosh-who acknowledged that Bishop Butler was his father in philosophy-made an addition to it; he took the principle of utility as a test or criterion of the rectitude or virtue which, with Butler, he maintained to be the proper object of our moral affections. Butler's writings derive none of their value or popularity from mere literary excellence: his style is dry and inelegant. The life of this eminent prelate affords a pleasing instance of talent winning its way to distinction in the midst of difficulties. He was born in 1692, the son of a shopkeeper at Wantage, in Berkshire. His father was a Presbyterian, and intended his son to be a minister of the same persuasion,

but the latter conformed to the establishment, took orders, and was successively preacher at the Rolls Chapel, prebendary of Rochester, clerk of the closet to the queen, bishop of Bristol (1738), dean of St. Paul's (1740), and bishop of Durham (1750). He owed much to Queen Caroline, who had a philosophical taste, and valued his talents and virtues. Butler died on the 16th of June 1752.

BISHOP WARBURTON.

No literary man of this period engrossed in his own time a larger share of attention than WILLIAM WARBURTON, bishop of Gloucester (1698-1779). Great powers of application and copious expression, a bold and original way of thinking, and indomitable self-will and arrogance, were the leading characteristics of this fortunate churchman. He was eager to astonish and arrest the attention of mankind, and his writings, after passing like a splendid meteor across the horizɔn of his own age, have sunk into all but oblivion. He was the son of an attorney at Newark, and entered life in the same profession, and at the same town. A passion for reading led Warburton in his twenty-fifth year to adopt the clerical profession. He took deacon's orders, and by a dedication to a volume of translations published in 1723, obtained a presentation to a small vicarage. He now threw himself amidst the literary society of the metropolis, and sought for subsistence and advancement by his pen. On obtaining from a patron the rectory of Brand Broughton, in Lincolnshire, he retired thither, and devoted himself for a long series of years to study. His first work of any note was published in 1736, under the title of "The Alliance between Church and State; or the Necessity and Equity of an Established Religion and a Test Law.' This treatise, though scarcely calculated to please either party in the church, was extensively read, and brought the author into notice. His next work was "The Divine Legation of Moses, demonstrated on the Principles of a Religious Deist, from the Omission of the Doctrine of a Future State of Rewards and Punishments in the Jewish Dispensation' (1738-1741). In this celebrated work, the gigantic scholarship of Warburton shone out in all its vastness. It had often been objected to the pretentions of the Jewish religion, that it presented nowhere any acknowledgment of the principle of a future state of rewards and punishments. Warburton, who delighted in paradox, instead of attempting to deny this or explain it away, at once acknowledged it, but asserted that therein lay the strongest argument for the divine mission of Moses. To establish this point, he ransacked the whole domains of pagan antiquity, and reared such a mass of curious and confounding argument, that mankind might be said to be awed by it into a partial con cession to the author's views. He never completed the work; he became, indeed, weary of it; and perhaps the fallacy of the hypothesis was first secretly acknowledged by himself. If it had been consecrated to truth, instead of paradox, it would have been by far the

most illustrious book of its age. As it is, we only look into it to wonder at its endless learning and misspent ingenuity.

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The merits of the author, or his worldly wisdom, brought him preferment in the church: he rose through the grades of prebend of Gloucester, prebend of Durham, and dean of Bristol, to be (1759), bishop of Gloucester-a remarkable transition for the Newark attorney, though many English prelates have risen from a much humbler origin. Warburton early forced himself into notice by his writings, but one material cause of his advancement was his friendship with Pope. He had secured the poet's favour by defending the ethical principles enunciated in the Essay on Man,' and by writing commentaries on that and other poetical essays of Pope; in return for which the latter left him the property or copyright of his works, the value of which Johnson estimated at £4000; but Pope had also introduced him to Ralph Allen, one of the wealthiest and most benevolent men of his day, the Squire Allworthy of Fielding's 'Tom Jones;' and Warburton so far improved upon this introduction that he secure 1 the hand of Allen's niece, and thus obtained a large fortune. Pope he was also indebted for an acquaintance with Murray, Lord Mansfield, whom he propitiated by flattering attentions, and through whose influence he was made preacher of Lincoln's Inn (1746). Among the various theological works of Warburton are The Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion,' and a 'View of Bolingbroke's Philosophy' (1755). He attacked Hume's Natural History of Religion.' In 1747, he issued an edition of Shakspeare. The arrogance and dogmatism of Warburton have become almost proverbial. His great learning was thrown away on paradoxical speculations, and none of his theological or controversial works have in the slightest degree benefited Christianity. His notes and commentaries on Shakspeare and Pope are devoid of taste and genius, but often display curious erudition and ingenuity. His force of character and various learning, always ostentatiously displayed, gave him a high name and authority in his own day; but his contemporary fame has failed to receive the impartial award of posterity. Gibbon speaks of the Divine Legation' as a brilliant ruin. The metaphor may be applied to Warburton's literary character and reputation. The once formidable fabric is now a ruin-a ruin not venerable from cherished associations, but great, unsightly, and incongruous.

The Grecian Mythology—The Various Lights in which it was regarded.— From the Divine Legation.'

Here matters rested; and the vulgar faith seems to have remained a long time undisturbed. But as the age grew refined, and the Greeks became inquisitive and learned, the common mythology began to give offence. The speculative and more delicate were shock d at the absurd and immoral stories of their gods, and scandalised to find such things make an authentic part of their story. may, indeed, be thought matter of wonder how such tales, taken up in a barbarous age, came not to sink into oblivion as the age grew more knowing, from mere abhorrence of their indecencies and shame of their absurdities. Without doubt, this had been their for

tune, but for an unlucky circumstance. The great poets of Greece, who had most contributed to refine the public taste and manners, and were now grown into a kind of sacred authority, had sanctified these silly legends by their writings, which time had now consigned to immortality.

Vulgar paganism, therefore, in such an age as this, lying open to the attacks of curious and inquisitive men, would not, we may well th nk, he long at rest. It is true, freethinking then lay under great difficulties and discouragements. To insult the religion of one's country, which is now the mark of learned distinction, was branded in the ancient world with public infamy. Yet freethinkers there were, who, as is their wont, together with the public worship of their country, threw off all reverence for religion in general. Amongst these was Euhemerus, the Messenian, and, by what we can learn, the most distinguished of this tribe. This man, in mere wantonness of h art, began his attacks on religion by divulging the secret of the mysteries. But as it was capital to do this directly and professedly, he contrived to cover his perfidy and malice by the intervention of a kind of Utopian romance. He pretended that in a certain city, which he came to in his travels, he found this grand secret, that the gods were dead men deified, preserved in their sacred writings, and confirmed by monumental records inscribed to the gods themselves, who were there said to be interred.' So far was not amiss; but then, in the genuine spirit of his class, who never cultivate a truth but in order to graft a lie upon it, he pretended that dead mortals were the first gods, and that an imaginary divinity in these carly heroes and conquerors created the idea of a superior power, and introduced the practice of religious worship amongst men.' Our freethinker is true to his cause, and endeavours to verify the fundamental principle of his sect, that fear first made gods, even in that very instance where the contrary passion seems to have been at its height, the time when men made gods of their deceased benefactors. A little matter of address hides the shame of so perverse a piece of malice. He represents those founders of society and fathers of their country under the idea of destructive conquerors, who, by mere force and fear, had brought men into subjection and slavery. On this account it was that indignant antiquity concurred in giving Euhemerus the proper name of atheist, which, however, he would hardly have escaped, though he had done no more than divulge the secret of the mysteries, and no. poisoned his discovery with this impious and foreign addition, so contrary to the true spirit of that secret.

This detection had been long dreaded by the orthodox protectors of pagan worship; and they were provided of a temporary defence in their intricate and properly perplexed system of symbolic adoration. But this would do only to stop a breach for the present, till a better could be provided, and was too weak to stand alone against so violent an attack. The philosophers, therefore, now took up the defence of pag.."ism where the priests had left it, and to the others' symbols added their own allegories, for a second cover to the absurdities of the ancient mythology; for all the genuine sects of philosophy, as we have observed, were steady patriots, legislation making one essential part of their philosophy; and to legislate without the foundation of a national religion, was, in their opinion, building castles in the air. So that we are not to wonder they took the alarm, and opposed these insulters of public worship with all their vigour. But as they never lost sight of their proper character, they so contrived that the defence of the national religion should terminate in a recommendation of their philosophic speculations. Hence, their support of the public worship, and their cvasion of Euhemerus's charge, turned upon this proposition. That the whole ancient mythology was no other than the vehicle of physical, moral, and divine knowledge.' And to this it is that the learned Eusebius refers, where he says: That a new race of men refined their old gross theology, and gave it an honester look, and brought it nearer to the truth of things.'

However, this proved a troublesome work, and after all, ineffectual for the secur ty of men's private morals, which the example of the licentious story according to the letter would not fail to infinence, how well soever the allegoric interpretation was calculated to cover the public honour of religion; so that the more ethical of the philosophers grew peevish with what gave them so much trouble, and answered so little to the interior of religious practice. This made them break out, from time to time, into hasty resentments against their capital poets; unsuitable. one would th nk, to the dignity of the authors of such noble recondite truths as they would persuade us to believe were treasured up in their writings. Hence it was that

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