LELAND, John, a distinguished writer in defence of Christianity, was born at Wigan in Lancashire in 1691, of eminently pious and virtuous parents. They took the earliest care to season his mind with proper instructions; but, in his sixth year, the smallpox deprived him of his understanding and memory, and expunged all his former ideas. He continued in this deplorable state near a twelvemonth, when his faculties seemed to spring up anew; and though he did not retain the least traces of any impressions made on him before the distemper, yet he now discovered a quick apprehension and strong memory. In a few years after, his parents settled in Dublin, which situation gave him an easy introduction to learning and the sciences. When he was properly qualified by years and study, he was called to be pastor to a congregation of Protestant dissenters in that city. He was an able and acceptable preacher, but his labours were not confined to the pulpit.
pit. The many attacks made on Christianity, and by some writers of no contemptible abilities, engaged him to consider the subject with the exactest care, and the most faithful examination. Upon the most deliberate inquiry, the truth and divine original, as well as the excellence and importance of Christianity, appearing to him with great lustre, he published answers to several authors who appeared successively in that cause. He was indeed a master in this controversy; and his history of it, styled "A View of the Deistical Writers that have appeared in England in the last and present Century," &c. is very greatly and deservedly esteemed. In the decline of life he published another laborious work, entitled "The Advantage and Necessity of the Christian Revelation, shown from the State of Religion in the ancient Heathen World, especially with respect to the Knowledge and Worship of the One true God; a Rule of Moral Duty, and a State of Future Rewards and Punishments: to which is prefixed, a long and preliminary Discourse on Natural and Revealed Religion," 2 vols. 4to. This noble and extensive subject, the several parts of which have been slightly and occasionally handled by other writers, Leland has treated at large with the greatest care, accuracy, and candour. And, in his "View of the Deistical Writers," his cool and dispassionate manner of treating their arguments, and his solid confutation of them, have contributed more to depress the cause of atheism and infidelity, than the angry zeal of warm disputants. But not only his learning and abilities, but also his amiable temper, great modesty, and exemplary life, recommended his memory to general esteem and affection. He died in 1766.