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THE SUBJECT OF WHICH WAS PROPOSED, BY HIMSELF, AND TO WHICH THE

PREMIUM WAS ADJUDGED BT, THE DIOCESAN CHURCH UNION

SOCIETY, OVER WHICH HE SO WORTHILY PRESIDES,

IS

Most Respectfully Enscribed

BY HIS

OBLIGED AND OBEDIENT HUMBLE SERVANT,

THE AUTHOR.

Now Bishop of Salisbury. April 25, 1833.

MEM AOBK

ADVERTISEMENT.

ALTHOUGH free, in the eye of the law, to republish this celebrated treatise, without consulting the author, still, as the copyright had not expired, I considered I was not morally entitled to do so, unless with his knowledge. and approval. In order, therefore, to obtain the highest sanction, I ventured to apply by letter to the venerable author, requesting permission to reprint his work on the Western Continent, with his approbation, and, at the same time, to be informed if there existed a biography or autobiography, or an engraved portrait, of him, and, if so, how they might be procured, to render the edition as complete as possible. Here a difficulty presented itself; I was not even certain that he was still living, and I could get no clue whereby to find out his present local habitation. After due deliberation, I resolved to adopt the plan of a learned Oriental pundit, who is reported to have written to England's greatest philosopher, and, not knowing his whereabouts, addressed his communication simply thus: Sir Isaac Newton, With similar indefiniteness I endorsed the letter, Rev. George Stanley Faber, England; and, to my astonish

ment equally with my gratification, in less than two months I received a very obliging answer, which it gives me pleasure to insert in this place.

SHERBOURN HOUSE, Durham, June 14, 1852.

SIR, Your letter, from the vagueness of its direction, has been making a tour of England, and has only just reached me.

I very readily give my consent to your republishing of my "Difficulties of Infidelity," and sincerely hope, that, by God's blessing, it may be made useful on your side of the Atlantic.

I am not aware that any biography of me has been published, or that any portrait of me has ever been taken. But I can certainly say that no autobiography exists, or is likely to exist, as I am already on the verge of entering into my eightieth year. I shall the more rejoice if any beneficial effects should attend upon the American reprint of my book.

I have the honour to be, sir,

Your very humble servant,

G. S. FABER.

MR. WILLIAM GOWANS,

178 Fulton Street, New York,

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

As an appropriate pendant, Robert Hall's admirable treatise on Modern Infidelity has been introduced into this volume, which is also enriched with a list of Faber's other published writings, so far as known, and a catalogue, prepared with much care and research, of the principal writers on the evidence of revealed religion.

NEW YORK, May 2, 1858.

WILLIAM GOWANS.

PREFACE.

THE theological system of a Christian is that God, who, at sundry times and in divers manners, spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son; whom he hath appointed heir of all things, and by whom also he made the worlds; who, being the brightness of his glory and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high.*

The theological system of the infidel is: that All religions, claiming to be revelations from heaven, are alike impostures upon the blind credulity of mankind; that The only

*Heb. i. 1-3.

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