DEISM REFUTED: OR, THЕ TRUTH OF CHRISTIANITY DEMONSTRATED, BY Infallible PROOF from FOUR RULES Which are incompatible to any Imposture that can In a LETTER to a Friend. By a LOVER OF TRUTH. Magna eft Veritas, & Prevalebit. LONDON: Printed in the Year MDCCLV. 1224.f.6. ! I. SIR, I N answer to yours of the third instant, I much condole with your unhappy Circumstances of being placed amongst such Company, where, as you say, you continually hear the Sacred Scriptures, and the Histories therein contained, particularly of Mofes and of Christ, and all revealed Religion, turned into Ridicule, by Men who fet 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 defigning Men, upon the Credulity, at first, of fimple and unthinking People; till, their Numbers increasing, their Delusions grew popular, came at last to be establish'd by Laws; and then the Force of Education and Custom gives a Bias to the Judgments of After-Ages, till fuch Deceits come really to be believ'd, being receiv'd upon Truft 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 esteem'd) fay, that they only do; that they only have their Judgments freed from the flavish Authority of Precedents and Laws in Matters of Truth, which, they say, ought only to be decided by Reason: Tho', by a prudent Compliance with Popularity and Laws, they preferve themselves from Outrage and legal Penalties; for none of their Complexion are addicted to Sufferings or Martyrdom. Now, Sir, that which you defire from me, is some short Topic of Reason, if such can be found, whereby, without running to Authorities, and the intricate Mazes of Learning, which breed long Disputes, and which these Men of Reason deny by wholesale, tho' they can give no Reason for it, only suppose that Authors have been Az |