Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 33.djvu/86

 and ears, may be judges of it. 2. That it be done publicly in the face of the world. 3. That not only public monuments be kept up in memory of it, but some outward actions to be performed. 4. That such monuments and such actions or observances be instituted, and do commence from the time that the matter of fact was done.’ The argument in its original shape is very loosely stated; a few of the Old Testament miracles only are discussed in detail, and the Christian miracles are merely referred to in general terms. He argues in a circle at every turn, and the monumental and ceremonial evidence which he adduces to prove the authenticity of the scriptures really presupposes their authenticity.

The vicious circle latent in the original draft of the ‘Method’ became patent in a ‘Vindication’ of it, published in answer to some criticisms by Leclerc and Defoe (see Bibliothèque Choisie, viii. 394–6, and A Detection of the True Meaning and Wicked Design of a Book intitul'd A Plain [sic] and Easie Method with the Deists, London, 1711, 8vo). In the ‘Vindication’ Leslie explicitly assumes the authenticity of the records, and even treats them as the principal part of the ‘monumental’ evidence. Even so, however, he fails to bring more than a few, and those not the most important, of the miracles under all the four rules. With this important modification, and the addition of the substance of the ‘Method with the Jews,’ he republished the arguments in the shape of a dialogue, under the title ‘The Truth of Christianity demonstrated,’ London, 1711, 8vo; 2nd edition, 1726, 8vo. An appended ‘Dissertation concerning Private Judgment’ is an argument for the via media, afterwards expanded in ‘The Case stated between the Church of Rome and the Church of England,’ London, 1713, 8vo (see infra).

Notwithstanding its inconclusiveness, the ‘Method with the Deists’ sufficed to convert Charles Gildon [q. v.], whom Leslie congratulated upon the event in a letter dated July 1704, and first published in Gildon's ‘Deist's Manual’ (1705). It has since been reprinted in some of the numerous later editions and abridgments of the ‘Method’ and ‘The Truth of Christianity demonstrated.’

The question of the true relations of church and state, raised in its most acute form by the consecration of the nonjuring bishops, was discussed by Leslie in ‘The Case of the Regale and of the Pontificat (sic) stated,’ New-year's day, 1700. His theory, which marks the culminating point of English sacerdotalism, represents the episcopate and episcopally ordained clergy as a spiritual power co-ordinate with the temporal power, and associated with it in a federal union, the regal supremacy in matters ecclesiastical being treated as a mere derivative from the papal usurpation. It was answered in an anonymous tract entitled ‘The Regal Supremacy in Ecclesiastical Affairs asserted,’ to which Leslie replied by republishing ‘The Case,’ with a supplementary defence of it, broaching a project for a union of the Anglican and Gallican churches, and a preface, ‘wherein is shewed that there is no Danger in asserting the divine and inherent rights of the Church,’ London, 1702, 8vo. ‘The Case’ thus restated was examined by Matthew Tindal [q. v.] in ‘The Rights of the Christian Church,’ 1706, to which Leslie rejoined in various numbers of ‘The Rehearsal’ (Nos. 155 et seq.). During the tractarian movement ‘The Case’ was reprinted, with the omission of the preface and supplement, London, 1838, 8vo. By way of counterblast to Dennis's reply to Sacheverell's sermon on ‘Political Union’ [see ], Leslie published ‘The New Association of those called Moderate-Church-Man (sic) with the Modern Whigs and Fanatics to undermine and blow up the present Church and Government. With a Supplement on occasion of the New Scotch Presbyterian Covenant,’ London and Westminster, 1702, 4to; 4th edit. 1705. This violent attack upon the dissenters and their sympathisers helped to bring Defoe into the field with his ‘Shortest Way.’ Leslie replied in ‘The New Associations. Part II.,’ London and Westminster, 1703, 4to, in which he denounced as a new ‘presbyterian covenant’ some resolutions of provincial Scottish synods, reasserting presbyterian principles on occasion of the accession of Queen Anne, and censured Burnet for a passage, which he professed to have seen, in his as yet unpublished ‘History of my own Time.’ An appendix, entitled ‘A Short Account of the Original of Government,’ is a first and very rough sketch of Leslie's political philosophy, afterwards elaborated in ‘The Rehearsal.’ To an anonymous critic who demurred to the doctrine of passive obedience he replied in ‘Cassandra (but I hope not) telling what will come of it,’ London, 1704, 4to.

Amidst this turmoil of political controversy Leslie still found time to demonstrate the wickedness and disastrous consequences of mixed marriages in ‘A Sermon preached in Chester against Marriages in different Communions,’ London, 1702, 8vo; to contribute to Samuel Parker's abridged translation of the ‘Historia Ecclesiastica’ of Eusebius Pamphili (1703) ‘A Dissertation concerning the Use and Authority of Ecclesiastical History,’ and