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PREFACE

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MR. LESLIE'S

SHORT METHOD WITH THE DEISTS.

MANY ANY attempts have lately been made upon the people of England, to seduce them from the Christian faith, and to lead them to destruction, temporal and eternal; something should be done to secure them against profligate writers, the declared apostles of atheism. I therefore rejoice to find that the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge has resolved. to print and disperse Mr. Leslie's Short Method with the Deists. The world affords nothing so effectual on the Christian evidences; and I pray God to give his blessing to their pious endeavours, by opening the hearts of those, who are in error, to receive the light of truth and it is here so represented to them, that they will receive it; unless a spirit of infatuation be gone forth among them; which may God Almighty avert !

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In this Tract the argument is so short and clear, that the meanest capacity may understand it; and so forcible, that no man has yet been found able to resist it. When it was first published, some attempts were made; but they soon came to nothing. The argument in brief is this; the Christian religion

consists of facts and doctrines, each depending on the other; so that, if the facts are true, the doctrines must be true. Thus for example, the resurrection of Jesus Christ is a fact; our resurrection is a doctrine. Admit the fact; and the doctrine cannot be denied. The ascension of Jesus Christ is another fact; his return to judge the world is a doctrine; if the fact be true, the doctrine must be so likewise. For, argues the apostle, if the doctrine be not true, the fact must be false; if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised.

The truth of a matter of fact may be certainly known, if it be attended with certain marks, such as no false fact can possibly have. These marks are four. It is required, first, that the fact be a sensible fact, such as men's outward senses can judge of; secondly, that it be notorious, performed publicly in the presence of witnesses; thirdly, that there be memorials of it, or monuments and actions kept up in memory of it; fourthly, that such monuments and actions begin with the fact. It is the design of Mr. Leslie's book to show, how these four marks do all meet in the facts of Christianity.

Every reader, to whom the Short Method is new, will be induced to think more highly of it, if I tell him its history, as I received it from Doctor Delany, Dean of Down in Ireland; who told me he had it from Captain Leslie a son of the author. It was the fortune of Mr. Leslie to be acquainted with the Duke of

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