William Warburton
William Warburton (1698-1779) was an English cleric and writer known for his contributions to literature and theology during the 18th century. Born in Newark, England, he faced early responsibility after his father's death, leading him to pursue a career in law rather than higher education. Warburton initially established a legal practice but shifted his focus to the church and literary pursuits, being ordained as a priest in 1727. His notable works include "The Divine Legation of Moses," which argued that the absence of references to an afterlife in Mosaic law demonstrated divine intervention, and "The Alliance Between Church and State." He was also known for his relationships with influential figures, including poet Alexander Pope, who appointed him as literary executor after his death. Warburton's later career saw him become the Bishop of Gloucester, and he published various sermons and critiques of contemporary thinkers, including a notable defense against John Wesley's theology. Despite his clerical success, his legacy is marked by a contentious reputation, with criticisms labeling him as a flawed scholar and a polarizing figure in literary circles.
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William Warburton
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- Born: December 24, 1698
- Birthplace: Newark, Nottinghamshire, England
- Died: June 7, 1779
Biography
William Warburton was born on December, 24, 1698, in Newark, England, the only surviving son of the town clerk, George Warburton, and his wife Elizabeth, née Holman. He attended school in Newark, but after his father’s death in 1706 it was necessary that he find a career quickly in order to support his mother and sisters, and he did not go to university. He was articled to an attorney, John Kirke, at East Markham, Nottinghamshire, in 1714.
Having completed his legal training in 1719, Warburton set up a law practice in Newark but only maintained it for four years. In 1723, he published Miscellaneous Translations in Prose and Verse, dedicated to Robert Sutton, a local member of Parliament who became Warburton’s patron. Warburton took deacon’s orders in 1723 was ordained a priest in 1727, when he published A Critical and Philosophical Enquiry into the Causes of Prodigies and Miracles, as Related by Historians. Sutton presented him with a living in Greasley, and then a much richer living in Brant Broughton, Lincolnshire; Sutton also obtained an M.A. for Warburton from Cambridge University in 1728.When Sutton was expelled from the House of Commons for corruption in 1732, Warburton leapt to his defense, but he quickly transferred his allegiance to another patron, Frances Hare, bishop of Chichester.
After publishing The Alliance Between Church and State in 1736, Warburton began work on The Divine Legation of Moses, which he never completed, although the volumes he issued between 1737 and 1741 were very widely read. The core of this remarkable work is a blithely paradoxical argument to the effect that the lack of any reference in Mosaic law to a future life is proof of Moses’s divine mission, because no merely human legislator would have scorned such a sanction. This was supplemented by an abundance of material that took up where A Critical and Philosophical Enquiry had left off, heaping prolific insults upon contemporary Deists and freethinkers, especially David Hume and Voltaire.
In the meantime, having earlier attacked writer Alexander Pope, Warburton undertook publicly to defend the orthodoxy of his Essay on Man, beginning a friendship that brought him several useful introductions. One was to Ralph Allen (the model for Squire Allworthy in Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones), whose niece, the heiress to a considerable fortune, became Warburton’s wife. Pope also introduced him to Lord Mansfield, who in 1764 obtained a position for Warburton as preacher of Lincoln’s Inn. When Pope died in 1744, Warburton was appointed his literary executor and heir to his copyrights.
Warburton’s subsequent literary endeavors, including a 1747 edition of William Shakespeare, drew sharp criticism but his clerical career thrived; by 1759, he was bishop of Gloucester. His sermons were collected in The Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion and he delivered a diatribe against theologian John Wesley in The Doctrine of Grace, but his labors were cut short in 1770 when he suffered a bad fall in his library. He never fully recovered and died on June 7, 1779, leaving behind a bitter legacy of hatred and contempt. He is described, with unusual bluntness, in Sir Paul Harvey’s Oxford Companion to English Literature as “a bad scholar, a literary bully, and a man of untrustworthy character.”