Joseph Priestley

“ But far more remarkable were the effects of the championship of French principles in the celebrated Dr. Joseph Priestley. Priestley was now nearly sixty years of age—a time of life when men rarely become great enthusiasts in any cause. He was a Unitarian minister, and was now the pastor of a congregation at Birmingham. He was well known for various theological writings, in which he had announced his doubts of the immateriality of the sentient principle in man, especially in his "Disquisition on Matter and Spirit." He had been tutor to Lord Shelburne, first Lord Lansdowne ”

“ PRIESTLEY, Sir WILLIAM OVEREND (1829–1900) , physician, the eldest son of Joseph Priestley and Mary, daughter of James Overend of Morley, was born at Morley Hall, near Leeds, on 24 June 1829; he was grand-nephew of Joseph Priestley [q. v.] , who discovered oxygen. Priestley was educated successively at Leeds, King's College, London, Paris, and the university of Edinburgh. ”

“ Birth—Parentage—Home Life—Early Education
“If,” says Mr Frederic Harrison, “we choose one man as a type of the intellectual energy of the eighteenth century we could hardly find a better than Joseph Priestley, though his was not the greatest mind of the century. His versatility, eagerness, activity and humanity; the immense range of his curiosity in all things, physical, moral or social; his place in science, in theology, in philosophy and in politics; his peculiar relation to the Revolution, and the pathetic story of his unmerited sufferings, may make him the hero of the eighteenth century.” ”

“ He received his religious impressions from James Scott (1710-1783) [q. v.] , who became minister of Upper Chapel, Heckmondwike, Yorkshire, in 1754. Scott in 1756 established an academy at Southfield, near Heckmondwike, and Timothy Priestley was the second who entered it as a student for the ministry. Joseph Priestley speaks of the course of studies as `an imperfect education;' it was efficient in training an influential succession of resolute adherents to the Calvinistic theology. Timothy Priestley distinguished himself as an assiduous pupil ”

“ At Congleton he saw much of Joseph Priestley, then at Nantwich, who speaks of him as ‘a good classical scholar and a very entertaining companion.’ From 1757 he associated also with John Taylor, D.D., who in that year became divinity tutor in the Warrington Academy ”

“ This book had a very considerable influence in directing attention to the doctrine of the Trinity, and in inducing inquiring men to study the subject critically for themselves. In 1797 Dr. Belknap became the minister of the Federal Street Church in Boston, and his preaching was from that time distinctly Unitarian. Dr. Joseph Priestley removed to Philadelphia in 1794, and he was at first listened to by large congregations. His humanitarian theology--that is, his denial of divinity as well as deity to Christ--probably had the effect of limiting the interest in his teachings. ”

“ My situation being well known to my friends, Mr. Gill, a distant relation by my mother, who had taken much notice of me before I went to the academy, and had often lent me books, procured me an invitation to preach as a candidate at Sheffield, on the resignation of Mr. Wadsworth. Accordingly I did preach as a candidate, but though my opinions were no objection to me there, I was not approved. But Mr. Haynes, the other minister, perceiving that I had no chance at Sheffield, told me that he could recommend me to a congregation at Nantwich in Cheshire, where he himself had been settled ”

“ The subjects of metaphysics, morals, and natural religion would be highly dangerous. There might be heresy, or the foundation of heresy, without coming near revelation, or any of the peculiar doctrines of christianity. We must only be allowed to think for ourselves, without having the liberty of divulging, or, in any form, publishing our thoughts to others, not even to our children. A mighty privilege indeed! and for which we might think ourselves obliged to Dr. Brown, if it were in the power of man to deprive us of it. ”

“ We see then, that when religion has once been established, all the ministers of it are to be considered as servants in her pay, and bound to fight for her and support her. The very proposal of a reformation by any member of an establishment, is contrary to the most evident principles of justice and honour; a maxim that shuts the door against all reformations that may not be called violent ones. Every disorder, how flagrant soever, must be winked at, so long as a person continues in the church ”

“ Indeed, in every age, and in every country, the priesthood have found it so powerful an engine of influence over the minds of the people, and in too many cases, so, fruitful a source of lucrative imposture, that its prevalence is not to be wondered at, wherever artificial theology has been engrafted on the simplicity of true religion, and supported by an established clergy. ”

“ Writers in defence of the church of England justify their separation from the church of Rome, but, with the most glaring inconsistency, call the protestant dissenters, schismatics; and many dissenters, forgetting the fundamental principles of their dissent, which are the same that are asserted by all christians and protestants in similar circumstances, discourage every degree of liberty greater than they themselves have taken, and have as great an aversion to those whom they are pleased to call heretics, as papists have for protestants, or as Laud had for the old puritans. ”

“ It is allowed by many, that christian churches, as such, and its officers, as such, have no right to inflict civil punishments; but they say the civil magistrate may embrace the christian religion, and enforce its precepts by civil penalties. But have civil magistrates, when they become christians, a power of altering, or new modelling the christian religion, any more than other members of the christian church? If not, its laws and sanctions remain just as they did before, such as Jesus Christ and his apostles left them ”

“ The people belonging to the established church, are like the vassals of the Polish nobility, or the mere live stock of a farm, delivered over, as parcel of the estate, to every successive incumbent.
As to the wisdom of choice among candidates for the ministry, we see, in fact, that the interest of the people is not at all considered in it. The same interest is openly made for church livings as for places, or emoluments of any other kind; and being procured by the same means, they are enjoyed in the same manner, without any idea of obligation to the people from whom their revenue arises. ”

“ For every effect must have some adequate cause, and therefore the odium that I have incurred must have been owing to something in my declared sentiments, or conduct, that has exposed me to it. In my opinion, it cannot have been any thing but my open hostility to the doctrines of the established church, and more especially to all civil establishments of religion whatever. This has brought upon me the implacable resentment of the great body of the clergy; and they have found other methods of opposing me besides argument, and that use of the press which is equally open to us all. ”

“ If every man who doth not in his conscience believe the articles he has subscribed, would magnanimously throw up the emoluments he enjoys in consequence of his subscription, it can hardly be doubted, but that a reformation of, at least, the capital abuses in the ecclesiastical system would take place the very next session of parliament. This nation would never suffer all her pulpits to be filled by such clergymen, as would then remain in the church.
In the mean time, let the friends of liberty by no means give way to impatience. ”

“ The writer, in studying the lives of early American chemists, encountered the name of Joseph Priestley so frequently, that he concluded to institute a search with the view of learning as much as possible of the life and activities, during his exile in this country, of the man whom chemists everywhere deeply revere. ”

“ Church livings must not be touched, and they may, if any thing else be meddled with. This makes the situation of sensible and conscientious men, in all establishments, truly deplorable. Before I had read that excellent work, intitled the Confessional, but much more since, it has grieved me to see the miserable shifts that such persons (whether in the church of England, or of Scotland) are obliged to have recourse to, in order to gild the pill, which they must swallow or starve ”

“ It is imagined by some, that christianity could not have subsisted without the aid of the civil powers, and that the dissolution of its establishment would endanger its very being. The Bishop of Gloucester, says, that "the state was induced to seek an alliance with the church, as the necessary means of preserving the being of religion;" ”

“ But happily for us, there have always been men of generous and enlarged minds, who, having no civil power to contend with, have had courage to stem the torrent; and now, among those who are called the more rational part of the dissenters, things are not, upon the whole, to be complained of. No subscriptions to any articles of faith, or even to the new testament, is now required; and ministers are excused, if they chuse not to give any confession of their own. To have preached and behaved like a christian, is deemed sufficient to recommend a man to the christian ministry. ”

“ Also great numbers of the best farmers and artizans in England have been dismissed because they would not go to the established church. Defoe’s Shortest Way with the Dissenters [28] would have taught the friends of the church a more effectual method still. And yet this Mr. Foley, whom I never saw, and who could not have had any particular cause of enmity to me, had, like Mr. Madan of Birmingham, a character for liberality. What, then, have we to expect from others, when we find so much bigotry and rancour in such men as these? ”

“ Not that I would insinuate, that the belief of a separate soul, like some other opinions that might be mentioned, has been generally taught by professors who disbelieve it; for plausible arguments are not wanting, to give it that currency which it has so long received among the wisest and the best of men: nor that an established priesthood of any age or country, or of any religion, is a mere compound of fraud and imposture, for I well know that the wise and the good are abundant in this class of society, as well as in others. ”

“ Priestley, the natural philosopher, never forgot that he was a minister of religion, and that to him theology was the greatest and most important of all the sciences, and he cannot forbear even, in what he intended to be a scientific disquisition on purely natural phenomena, from inculcating his belief in the divine origin of Christianity and his opinion concerning the doctrine of purgatory and the worship of the dead. ”

“ I doubt not, the wisest and the most worthy of the English prelates would rather see the privileges of the dissenters enlarged than abridged, in any important article; for, allowing their dissent to be ever so unreasonable, there is no man who has the least knowledge of history or of human nature, but must be sensible, that the very distinguished reputation which the body of the English clergy enjoy at present is, not a little, owing to the existence and respectable figure of the protestant dissenters. ”

“ It is not to my good friend’s heresy that I impute his honesty. On the contrary ’tis his honesty that has brought upon him the character of heretic.”
In 1780, at the suggestion of his brother-in-law, John Wilkinson, one of his truest friends, Priestley was led to take up his residence in Birmingham. There were many circumstances which made this step desirable. In Birmingham he had friends prepared to welcome him and society in every way sympathetic and congenial. ”

“ A few among the inferior clergy may wish the extinction of the dissenting interest, and might be ready to gratify their zeal, by persecuting those of their brethren whose consciences are, more tender than their own ”

“ Priestley set out on his career with the highest ideal of his calling; indeed to him the office of a Christian minister was the most honourable of any on earth, and he had no other ambition than to distinguish himself by his application to the studies proper to that profession. That he laboured unselfishly and with no idea of place and preferment is certain from the circumstance that he suffered from a physical disability which he must have recognised could not but tell strongly against his chance of worldly success. ”

“ The nomination to church livings, except by the members of the church themselves, is a thing so absurd that the idea of it never occurred for many centuries in the christian world; and we may venture to say, that it never could have entered into the head of any man, had not the revenues of the church grown so considerable, as to become worth the notice of the civil magistrate, who took advantage of them to oblige his creatures and dependents. ”

“ From this combination he expects, p. 11, 12, more wisdom, and uniformity, a greater variety of candidates for church officers, and a better choice of them. "These societies," he well observes, "must necessarily act by deputies, so that, at least, either single men, or small bodies of men, must be authorized to govern the church. There is no necessity," says he, "that the ministers of religion should be appointed by the people, and much expedience in a different method of appointment." ”

“ The reason which the Bishop of Gloucester gives for the propriety of making the civil magistrate the supreme head of the church, "whereby he becomes possessed of the sole right of ordering and decreeing every thing that the ministers and officers of the church had before a power of doing, (so that even all matters of opinion are out of the jurisdiction of the church) " [1] is really curious. "The church," it seems, "wants protection from external violence. ”