topics. His patron, Sir Robert Sutton, was in 1732 expelled from the House of Commons on account of the corrupt practices of the ‘Charitable Corporation,’ of which he was a director (Parl. Hist. viii. 1162). Warburton is supposed to have been part author of ‘An Apology for Sir R. Sutton,’ published in that year. He afterwards persuaded Pope to remove two sarcastic allusions to Sutton (in the third ‘Moral Essay’ and the first Dialogue of 1738), and in a later note to Pope's ‘Works’ declared his full conviction of Sutton's innocence.
Warburton contemplated an edition of Velleius Paterculus, and a specimen of his work was sent to Des Maizeaux and published in the ‘Bibliothèque Britannique’ in the autumn of 1736. It was addressed to Bishop Hare, who, as well as Conyers Middleton, hinted to Warburton that he was not well qualified for the office of classical critic. Warburton had the sense to take the hint, and soon afterwards showed his powers in the ‘Alliance between Church and State,’ also published in 1736. This book has often been considered his best. He accepts in the main the principles of Locke; and from the elastic theory of a social contract deduces a justification of the existing state of things in England. The state enters into alliance with the church for political reasons, and protects it by a test law and an endowment. In return for these benefits the church abandons its rights as an independent power. The book, representing contemporary ideas and vigorously written, went through several editions. It was highly praised afterwards by Horsley (Case of Protestant Dissenters, 1787); by Whitaker in the ‘Quarterly’ for 1812; and has some affinity with the doctrine of Coleridge in his ‘Church and State’ (see preface by H. N. Coleridge). Warburton showed some of the sheets before publication to Bishops Sherlock and Hare. Hare admired the book sufficiently to recommend Warburton to Queen Caroline, who had inquired (according to Hurd) for a person ‘of learning and genius’ to be about her. Her death in 1737 was fatal to any hopes excited by this recommendation.
Warburton had meanwhile been composing his most famous book, from which he considered the Alliance to be a kind of corollary. The first part of his ‘Divine Legation of Moses demonstrated’ appeared in 1737. The second part was published in 1741. A third part was never completed, though a fragment was published by Hurd after Warburton's death. The argument, which Warburton considered to be a ‘demonstration’ of the divine authority of the Jewish revelation, is summed up at starting. The doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments, he says, is necessary to the well-being of society; no such doctrine is to be found in the Mosaic dispensation: ‘therefore the law of Moses is of divine original.’ As the Jewish religion, that is, does not contain an essential doctrine, it must have been supported by an ‘extraordinary providence.’ The absence of any distinct reference to a future life in the Old Testament had been admitted, as Warburton afterwards said (Works, xi. 304), by various orthodox divines, such as Grotius, Episcopius, and Bishop Bull; and Warburton's ingenuity was intended to turn what to them seemed a difficulty into a demonstration. The English deists, whom he professed to be answering, had certainly not laid much stress on the point. It seems rather to have been suggested to Warburton by Bayle's argument in the ‘Pensées sur la Comète’ for the possibility of a society of atheists. Warburton warmly admired Bayle, who had ‘struck into the province of paradox as an exercise for the unwearied vigour of his mind’—a phrase equally applicable to his panegyrist (Warburton, Works, 1811, i. 230). The book, whatever its controversial value, was at least calculated to arouse attention. Warburton's dogmatic arrogance and love of paradox were sufficiently startling, while his wide reading enabled him to fill his pages with a great variety of curious disquisition; and his rough vigour made even his absurdities interesting. The ‘Divine Legation’ provoked innumerable controversies, though, for the most part, with writers of very little reputation. According to Warburton himself, the London clergy, encouraged by Archbishop Potter, ‘took fire,’ and resolved to ‘demolish the book’ (Letters of an Eminent Prelate, p. 116). Their scheme came to nothing, but Warburton found critics enough to assail. His first opponent was William Webster [q. v.], author of the ‘Weekly Miscellany,’ in which appeared ‘A Letter from a Country Clergyman.’ Hare and Sherlock advised Warburton to reply to this paper, which had been attributed to Waterland. Its real sting was the insinuation that Warburton had been complimentary to Conyers Middleton, who was generally suspected of covert infidelity. Warburton published a ‘Vindication’ (1738) in which he still spoke highly of Middleton, though guarding against the suspicion of complicity in his friend's views. Hurd says that at this time Warburton was trying earnestly to soften Middleton's prejudices against
