but
illusion which required as much genius and learning as his own
to dissipate. His spells were to be disturbed only by a magician,
great as himself. Conducted by this solitary principle, Warburton
undertook, as it were, a magical voyage into antiquity. He passed
over the ocean of time, sailing amid rocks, and half lost on
quicksands; but he never failed to raise up some _terra incognita_;
or point at some scene of the _Fata Morgana_, some earthly spot,
painted in the heaven one knows not how.

In this secret principle of resolving to _invent_ what no other had
before conceived, by means of _conjecture_ and _assertion_, and of
maintaining his theories with all the pride of a sophist, and all the
fierceness of an inquisitor, we have the key to all the contests by
which this great mind so long supported his literary usurpations.

The first step the giant took showed the mightiness of his stride. His
first great work was the famous "Alliance between Church and State."
It surprised the world, who saw the most important subject depending
on a mere _curious_ argument, which, like all political theories, was
liable to be overthrown by writers of opposite principles.[158] The
term "Alliance" seemed to the dissenters to infer that the _Church_
was an independent power, forming a contract with the _State_, and not
acknowledging that it is only an integral part, like that of the
_army_ or the _navy_.[159] Warburton had not probably decided, at that
time, on the principle of ecclesiastical power: whether it was
paramount by its divine origin, as one party asserted; or whether, as
the new philosophers, Hobbes, Selden, and others, insisted, the
spiritual was secondary to the civil power.[160]

The intrepidity of this vast genius appears in the plan of his greater
work. The omission of a future state of reward and punishment, in the
Mosaic writings, was perpetually urged as a proof that the mission was
not of divine origin: the ablest defenders strained at obscure or
figurative passages, to force unsatisfactory inferences; but they were
looking after what could not be found. Warburton at once boldly
acknowledged it was not there; at once adopted all the objections of
the infidels: and roused the curiosity of both parties by the hardy
assertion, that this very _omission_ was a _demonstration_ of its
divine origin.[161]

The first idea of this new project was bold and delightful, and the
plan magnificent. Paganism, Judaism, and C