not be the
_last_. I thought I had told you that I had divided the work
into three parts: the first gives you a view of Paganism; the
second, of Judaism; and the third, of Christianity. _You will
wonder_ how this last inquiry can come into _so simple an
argument_ as that which I undertake to enforce. I have not
room to tell you more than this--that after I have proved a
future state not to be, _in fact_ in the Mosaic dispensation,
I next show that, if Christianity be true, _it could not
possibly be there_; and this necessitates me to explain the
nature of Christianity, with which the whole ends. But this
_inter nos_. If it be known, I should possibly have somebody
writing against _this part too_ before it appears."--Nichols's
"Literary Anecdotes," vol. v. p. 551.

Thus he exults in the true tone, and with all the levity of a
sophist. It is well that a true feeling of religion does not
depend on the quirks and quibbles of human reasonings, or,
what are as fallible, on masses of fanciful erudition.

[162] Warburton lost himself in the labyrinth he had so ingeniously
constructed. This work harassed his days and exhausted his
intellect. Observe the tortures of a mind, even of so great a
mind as that of Warburton's, when it sacrifices all to the
perishable vanity of sudden celebrity. Often he flew from his
task in utter exhaustion and despair. He had quitted the
smooth and even line of truth, to wind about and split himself
on all the crookedness of paradoxes. He paints his feelings in
a letter to Birch. He says--"I was so disgusted with an old
subject, that I had deferred it from month to month and year
to year." He had recourse to "an expedient;" which was, "to
set the press on work, and so oblige himself to supply copy."
Such is the confession of the author of the "Divine Legation!"
this "encyclopaedia" of all ancient and modern lore--all to
proceed from "a simple argument!" But when he describes his
sufferings, hard is the heart of that literary man who cannot
sympathise with such a giant caught in the toils! I give his
words:--"Distractions of various kinds, inseparable from human
life, joined with a naturally melancholy habit, contribute