s evoked more
criticism and opposition from the orthodox than this doughty champion of
orthodoxy. But Warburton was in his element when engaged in controversy.
He was quite ready to meet combatants from whatever side they might
come; and, wielding his bludgeon with a vigorous hand, he dealt his
blows now on the orthodox, now on the heterodox, with unsparing and
impartial force. Judged, however, from a literary point of view, 'The
Divine Legation' is too elaborate and too discursive a work to be
effective for the purpose for which it was written;[164] and most
readers will be inclined to agree with Bentley's verdict, that the
writer was 'a man of monstrous appetite but bad digestion.'

Of a very different character is the next work to be noticed, as one of
enduring interest on the Deistical controversy. Bishop Berkeley's
'Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher,' is one of the few exceptions to
the general dreariness and unreadableness of controversial writings in
the dialogistic form. The elegance and easiness of his style, and the
freshness and beauty of his descriptions of natural scenery by which the
tedium of the controversy is relieved, render this not only a readable,
but a fascinating book, even to the modern reader who has no present
interest in the controversial question. It is, however, by no means free
from the graver errors incident to this form of writing. Like Tindal, he
makes his adversaries state their case far too weakly. But, worse than
this, he puts into their mouths arguments which they would never have
used, and sentiments which they never held and which could not be fairly
deduced from their writings. Not that Bishop Berkeley ever wrote with
conscious unfairness. The truly Christian, if somewhat eccentric
character of the man forbids such a supposition for one moment. His
error, no doubt, arose from the vagueness with which the terms Deist,
Freethinker, Naturalist, Atheist, were used indiscriminately to
stigmatise men of very different views. There was, for example, little
or nothing in common between such men as Lord Shaftesbury and
Mandeville. The atrocious sentiment of the 'Fable of the Bees,' that
private vices are public benefits, was not the sentiment of any true
Deist. Yet Shaftesbury and Mandeville are the two writers who are most
constantly alluded to as representatives of one and the same system, in
this dialogue. Indeed the confusion here spoken of is apparent in
Berkeley's own advertisemen