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PLEA FOR RELIGION

AND THE

SACRED WRITINGS;

ADDRESSED TO

THE DISCIPLES OF THOMAS PAINE,

AND

WAVERING CHRISTIANS OF EVERY PERSUASION.

WITH

AN APPENDIX;

CONTAINING THE AUTHOR'S DETERMINATION

TO HAVE RELINQUISHED HIS CHARGE IN THE ESTABLISHED CHURCH,

AND THE REASONS

ON WHICH THAT DETERMINATION WAS FOUNDED.

BY THE LATE REV. DAVID SIMPSON, M. A.

MINISTER OF CHRIST CHURCH, MACCLESFIELD,

He that believeth shall be saved: but he that believeth not shall be damned.

SIXTH EDITION:

JESUS CHRIST.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR W. BAYNES, PATERNOSTER ROW,

By W. Nicholson, Warner Street.

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PREFACE.

IT hath been said by the late excellent Bishop HORNE, that, "in times when erroneous and noxious tenets are diffused, all men should embrace some opportunity to bear their testimony against them." It will be allowed by every dispassionate observer, that, if erroneous and noxious tenets were ever dif fused among men in any age, they are eminently so in the present. I am so far, however, from considering this in the light of a misfortune to the general cause of truth, that I am persuaded purposes of the most important nature are to be answered by it, in the course of DIVINE PROVIDENCE. But notwithstanding this persuasion, I have thought it my duty, in the following pages, to bear a decided testimony against some of the most pernicious of those errors which prevail among us, and to stand forward as an advocate in behalf of Religion in general, and the Sacred Writings in particular. If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?

One might suppose, prior to experience, Infidelity was thing of so gloomy and uncomfortable a nature, that no man of the least decency of character could be found who would em bark in the desperate scheme. But when we consider the many awful threatenings recorded in the Bible against persons of a certain description, the numerous passages apparently liable to very serious objections, the natural darkness of the human understanding, the perverseness of the human will, and the imperious calls of contending passions, we need not be surprized that a large proportion of irreligious characters, who have little to hope from divine mercy, and much to fear from divine justice, should be induced to embark in any scheme,

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