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thing happened at Jerusalem, Julian was in Persia. But I think επι Πέρσας γλαυνε (though Valesius translates it ad bellum contra Persas proficiscitur) does not signify he forthwith began his march, as if it had been επι Πέρσας πορευεται - but that he began the war against them, which he might do before he left Antioch, that is, put every thing into hostile motion. Pray give me your opinion on this head.

Mr. Allen is much your servant and admirer, and desires his best compliments. He has been got home some time. Sure you might make an excursion for two or three days at a time (now and then, to see and increase the number of your friends, which is done in seeing you), at that season when people are in town. I set forward in a day or two. Let me know how you relish the noble project I propose to put you upon.-And believe me to be, dear Sir, with the truest esteem, your most affectionate servant, W. WARBURTON.

LETTER IV.

To the Rev. Mr. FORSTER.

DEAR SIR,

Prior Park, Dec. 13, 1749. I am just got home; and am to acknowledge the favour of yours, which I had in London.

You will laugh when I tell you my work grows upon my hands, and yet goes on slower at the press: for my perpetual dissipation, while I was in town, prevented me from getting above four sheets from the press, two of which I here inclose. I have now thought that, as the first part of my scheme will make a reasonable volume of more than 300 pages, it may be as well to publish it separately, with some such advertisement as this:

That the two things which seemed to be wanting in this new controversy, to obviate the conclusions

which licentious men are apt to draw from Dr. Middleton's book, against Revelation, are to prove a miracle recorded in Ecclesiastical History: and to shew that these miracles stand on a different footing from those recorded in the Gospel. The first I have done, in shewing the defeat of Julian to be miraculous; and the other, in an examination into the nature of that evidence which will claim the assent of a reasonable man to a miraculous fact. The first is now offered to the publick, the second will follow. Pray what think you of this?-Who is Dr. Hodges * who is about to publish something on the book of Job? Dear Sir, your most faithful humble servant, W. WARBURTON.

LETTER V.+

To the Rev. Mr. FORSTER.

DEAR SIR, Bedford-row, Feb. 28, 1748-9. I have the favour of your obliging Letter. In mine to you, I expressed myself much short of the advantageous opinion I have of your fine piece of critique. I have seen nothing like it since I was capable of making any observations of this kind. But, as there never was a good writer but had his apes, so you have yours. One of the most grotesque of this sort is a man, I forget his name, who wrote about Astronomy to M. Folkes, and something on the Book of Job. I had the curiosity to look into them; for I always think an Oxford Author a good one till I find the contrary; just as I do a Town Author a bad one, till then.

Pray give me your thoughts on the following question: Do you think one can logically infer, from the words of the predictions of the destruction of the Temple by Titus, that a final destruction must needs. be understood, or such a one that opposes a re-edifi

* See hereafter, p. 166.

†This, and the two following Letters, should have preceded that of Oct. 8, 1749, in p. 152.

Rev. J. Garnet.

VOL. II.

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cation? I have turned this thing about; and think (though the affirmative has been taken for granted both by the ancients and moderns) that we must take in the nature and genius of the two dispensations, to determine solidly on the question. Be so good to give me your opinion. By this way, and only by this, I think I can prove the final destruction to be predicted. And now I must let you into a kind of secret, which I have told to no one here (because, in this dissipated life here, I write but by fits), which is, that I am composing a Defence of the Miracle which opposed Julian's attempt to rebuild the Temple. I think it a subject of great importance to the Christian cause; and I think it has never been thoroughly examined. Pray give me your thoughts about the usefulness and expediency of a sober and well-weighed discourse on this subject, that will keep as clear of controversy as possible; for Dr. Middleton need not, unless he will, give the exclusion to this miracle upon his general scheme, as he has laid it down in general.

A very miserable scrap of answering is just come out against him by Jackson: and a much more scholar-like thing, called, A Letter to Dr. Middleton, occasioned by his late Free Inquiry; and this is by John Wesley the Methodist. Perhaps you would expect more temper and less reasoning from this modern Apostle. What I said above, of my project, is inter nos. What I say below, I would have known to every body-namely, that I am, dear Sir, Your very affectionate and faithful humble servant, W. WARBURTON.

LETTER VI.

To the Rev. Mr. FORSTER.

DEAR SIR, [Prior Park, Aug..., 1749.] I have many acknowledgments to make to you your last favours in calling on me as you went by in your last expedition, which we all took extremely kind. I am left here alone, to amuse myself as I can;

for

and,

and, having nothing better to do at present, I am persecuting the Apostate, whom I attack at much disadvantage. He had his legions to second him; mine, I mean my books, are all at a great distance. Mr. Pope's and Mr. Allen's are but a kind of civil militia, and unused to this service: so that I am forced to have recourse to you, who are at the head of innumerable legions, though, like Cæsar, you depend only on your select troops. To speak like a man of this world, I must beg the favour of you to look me out a passage in St. Jerom. I believe it may be in his Commentary on Daniel, perhaps in the 4th Chapter, where, speaking of the Jews of his time, he says, they had a tradition that 430 years after their dispersion they should be restored, sell their enemies for slaves, re-build Jerusalem, &c.; and that, Julianmaking his offer, they embraced it on this accountwith great eagerness.

Another passage I want is, the Greek of Chrysostome, where he says, some of the Jews turned Pagans on the defeat. I see the place in my papers is marked thus, Chrys. in Matt. p. 491. but what edition I remember not.

Again, what Cassiodorus says of the matter in his Hist. Tripart. lib. vi. cap. 43; and a transcript of that, senseless lie of Theophanes, that the mark of the Cross was found at the same time on the books and holy vestments at Antioch.

Will you pardon me for giving you this trouble?, I shall take notice of the strange cavils of an excellent person (James Basnage) to this Miracle. Pray do you know any other, of name, who has caviled at it? I would speak with all such. But your little low rascals, who make it their trade, I shall not turn aside upon.

Have you seen Whiston's Memoirs? or did you ever see any thing equal to the folly, the madness, and the ingratitude, of the composition, the doctrine, and the scandal?—That poor Publican, Mrs. Pil

M 2

kington

kington*, will find favour in the eyes of the candid before this outrageous Pharisee. She abuses only those who would not relieve her wants; he only those who did,—and, from Dr. Rundle, who invited him to eat cheesecake, to Dr. Hare and Dr. Cannon, without whose generous defence of it he would have had nothing to eat at all, he lays them on without mercy, and, in some instances, I can say, without truth-though I could forgive a great deal for his ingenuity, in telling us that Whitby called him a madman, and that Sir Isaac Newton, rather than have him in the Royal Society, would throw up the Presidentship. To complete this, which, in my opinion, has completed the disgrace that Learning and Religion have fallen into in this blessed age, he has given us his Latin Dissertation on the Fall, that drops down as ab

LETTER VII.

To the Rev. Mr. FORSTER.

DEAR SIR, [Sept. 28, 1749.] I should have made my acknowledgments for your last kind Letter before now, but that I waited till I could send the inclosed along with them. These six sheets, which are all I have been yet able to get from the press, censure and criticise freely, like a friend. You have an absolute power over all, but one observation § in p. 93.

When I examined Basnage's objections to this Miracle in the Sixth Book of his History of the

* Mrs. Letitia Pilkington, wife of the Rev. Matthew Pilkington. She published "Memoirs" of her own Life in 1749.

+ The remainder, and probably date, of this Letter is torn off. The six sheets were sent on the same day to Mr. Hurd.

§ Bp. Warburton, in his "Julian," speaking of Ammianus Marcellinus's recording the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem as a natural and not a miraculous event, says, "His reserve is so far from depriving us of the benefit of his testimony, that it is that which supports it. Had we found a Pagan speaking like a

Christian

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