These sentiments were chiefly advanced among them by one Warburton,[1] a very forward licentious fellow. I have glanced at some of the poor author's MSS., which heaven grant may not one day be printed. Warburton pretends that Moses did not believe in the immortality of the soul, because he never speaks of it, and considers that to be the only proof of his divine mission. This absurd conclusion leads to the supposition that the religion of the Jews is false. Infidels thence argue that ours, being founded thereon, is false also; and _ours_, which is the best of all, being false, all others are, if possible, still more false: therefore there is no religion. Hence some conclude that there is no God. Let us add to these conclusions, that this little Warburton is an intriguing, slandering fellow. See what peril! But worse than all, John was head over ears in debt, and had a strange way of paying. One of his creditors came to him with a claim for a hundred guineas, while we were in the house. John, who always appeared polite and gentle, fought his creditor, and paid him with a sword-wound. It was apprehended the wounded man would die; and John, notwithstanding lord Peterborough's protection, ran the risk of imprisonment and hanging. [1] In 1737 Bishop Warburton published his famous work, _The Divine Legation of Moses_, in which he asserted, "that the doctrine of a future state of reward and punishment was omitted in the books of Moses," and then proceeded to demonstrate "from that very omission, that a system which could dispense with a doctrine, the very bond and cement of human society, must have come from God, and that the people to whom it was given must have been placed under His immediate superintendence." In other words, the divine origin of the Mosaic "system" is demonstrated, because Moses did not teach to the chosen people the doctrine of a future life beyond the grave. Voltaire clearly saw the fallacy of this fantastic argument, and has not failed to severely satirize the right reverend author. Robert Carruthers, Esq., in his _Life of Alexander Pope_ styles Bishop Warburton "a learned, turbulent, ambitious adventurer"--"an indefatigable and unscrupulous divine," and says of _The Divine Legation of Moses_, that it was "so learned, so novel, so paradoxical, so arrogant and absurd, that it took the world as it were by storm, and challenged universal attention." Dr. Johnson says that Warburton's "diction is coarse and impure, and his sentences are unmeasured;" and a writer in the seventh volume of the _Quarterly Review_ (as quoted by George Godfrey Cuningham, Esq., in his _Lives of Eminent and illustrious Englishmen_) says: "the rudeness and vulgarity of his manners as a controvertist, removed all restraints of decency or decorum in scattering his jests about him. His taste seems to have been neither just nor delicate." He combined "the powers of a giant with the temper of a ruffian."