LELAND, John, D.D., an eminent Christian apologist, was born at Wigan, Lancashire, in 1691; but soon afterwards removed, along with his family, to Dublin. At an early age, he was appointed minister of a congregation of Presbyterian Dissenters in Dublin. He received the degree of D.D. from the University of Aberdeen. In 1733 he published a pamphlet in reply to Tindal's Christianity as Old as the Creation. In 1737 he answered The Moral Philosopher of Dr Thomas Morgan; and in 1742 Dodwell's Christianity not founded upon Argument. His remarks on Bolingbroke's Letters on History appeared in 1753. In the following year, his calm scrutiny of objections, his learning, and solidity of argument, were shown to advantage in his View of the Principal Deistical Writers that have appeared in England. Towards the close of his life he wrote an elaborate treatise on The Advantage and Necessity of the Christian Revelation, shown from the state of Religion in the ancient Heathen World. Leland died in 1766, leaving behind him a reputation for charity and candour, unembittered by a long life of controversy and dispute.