IS DEMONSTRATED BY INFALLIBLE PROOF, FROM FOUR OR CAN POSSIBLY BE. En a Letter to a Friend, BY THE REV. CHARLES LESLIE, M. A. NEW-YORK: NEW-YORK PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL TRACT SOCIETY; Depository, Printed at the Protestant Episcopal Press, No. 46 Lumber-Street. C1012.39 1862 Jirely 1. Rev. William Stevens Perry of Portland. (Class of 1854.). ADVERTISEMENT. This tract is a mere reprint from the pages of “Standard Works" in theology, now (1830) published annually by the New-York Protestant Episcopal Press, who have secured the copy right for the same, and have sold to the "NewYork Protestant Episcopal Tract Society" the stereotype plates of this portion of their First Volume. Of course it will be an infringement of the copy right to print from this, without a like permission. The notes appended to the tract which are marked with asterisks &c., are the original notes of the author; those marked with letters are by the Editor of the Standard Works, the Rev. William R. Whittingham. SHORT AND EASY METHOD WITH THE DEISTS. SIR, I. In answer to yours of the third instant, I much condole with you your unhappy circumstances, of being placed among such company, where, as you say, you continually hear the sacred Scriptures, and the histories therein contained, particularly of Moses, and of CHRIST, and all revealed religion, turned into ridicule by men who set up for sense and reason. And they say that there is no greater ground to believe in CHRIST, than in Mahomet; that all these pretences to revelation are cheats, and ever have been, among Pagans, Jews, Mahometans, and Christians: that they are all alike impositions of cunning and designing men, upon the credulity, at first, of simple and unthinking people, till, their numbers increasing, their delusions, grew popular, and came at last to be established by laws; and then the force of education and custom gives a bias to the judgments of after ages, till such deceits come really to be believed, being received upon trust from the ages foregoing, without examining into the original and bottom of them. Which these our modern men of sense, (as they desire to be esteemed,) say that they only do, that they only have their judgments freed from the slavish authority of precedents and laws, in matters of truth, which, they say, ought only to be decided by reason; though by a prudent compliance with popularity and laws, they preserve themselves from outrage, and legal penalties; for none of their complexion are addicted to sufferings or martyrdom. Now, Sir, that which you desire from me, is some short topic of reason, if such can be found, whereby, without running to authorities, and the intricate mazes of learn |