"That therefore the law of Moses is of divine origin;
"Which one or both of the two following syllogisms will evince:
"I. Whatever religion and society have no future state for their support must be supported by an extraordinary Providence.
"The Jewish religion and society had no future state for their support;
"Therefore the Jewish religion and society were supported by an extraordinary Providence.
"And again,
"II. The ancient lawgivers universally believed that such a religion could be supported only by an extraordinary Providence.
"Moses, an ancient lawgiver, versed in all the wisdom of Egypt, purposely instituted such a religion; Therefore Moses believed his religion was supported by an extraordinary Providence."
What is most extraordinary, is this assertion of Warburton, which he has put in large characters at the head of his work. He has often been reproached with his extreme temerity and dishonesty in daring to say that all ancient lawgivers believed that a religion which is not founded on rewards and punishments after death cannot be upheld but by an extraordinary Providence: not one of them ever said so. He does not even undertake to adduce a single instance of this in his enormous book, stuffed with an immense number of quotations, all foreign to the subject. He has buried himself under a heap of Greek and Latin authors, ancient and modern, that no one may reach him through this horrible accumulation of coverings. When at length the critic has rummaged to the bottom, the author is raised to life from among all those dead, to load his adversaries with abuse.
It is true, that near the close of the fourth volume, after ranging through a hundred labyrinths, and fighting all he met with on the way, he does at last come back to his great question from which he has so long wandered. He takes up the Book of Job, which the learned consider as the work of an Arab; and he seeks to prove, that Job did not believe in the immortality of the soul. He then explains, in his own way, all the texts of Scripture that have been brought to combat his opinion.