Memoirs of Dr. Joseph Priestley : $b To the year 1795, written by himself: with a continuation, to the time of his decease, by his son, Joseph Priestley: and observations on his writings, by Thomas Cooper, President Judge of the 4th. district of Pennsylvania: and the Rev. William Christie.Priestley, Joseph
Religion
Memoirs of Dr. Joseph Priestley : $b To the year 1795, written by himself: with a continuation, to the time of his decease, by his son, Joseph Priestley: and observations on his writings, by Thomas Cooper, President Judge of the 4th. district of Pennsylvania: and the Rev. William Christie.
Priestley, Joseph
Chemists -- Great Britain -- Biography; Priestley, Joseph, 1733-1804
Besides congratulatory addresses, I received much pecuniary assistance
from various persons, and bodies of men, which more than compensated
for my pecuniary losses, though what was awarded me at the Assizes
fell two thousand pounds short of them. But my brother-in-law, Mr.
John Wilkinson, from whom I had not at that time any expectation, in
consequence of my son’s leaving his employment, was the most generous
on the occasion. Without any solicitation, he immediately sent me
five hundred pounds, and afterwards transferred to me ten thousand
pounds which he had deposited in the French funds, and until that be
productive, he allows me two hundred pounds per annum.
After the riots, I published my _Letters to the Swedenborgian Society_,
which I had composed, and prepared for the press just before.
Mr. Wakefield living in the neighbourhood of the College, and
publishing at this time his objections to _public worship_, they made
a great impression on many of our young men, and in his Preface he
reflected much on the character of Dr. Price. On both these accounts
I thought myself called upon to reply to him, which I did in a series
of _Letters to a young man_. But though he made several angry replies,
I never noticed any of them. In this situation I also answered Mr.
Evanson’s _Observations on the dissonance of the Evangelists_ in
a _second set of Letters to a young man_. He also replied to me,
but I was satisfied with what I had done, and did not continue the
controversy.
Besides the _sermon_ which I delivered on my acceptance of the
invitation to the meeting at Hackney, in the preface to which I gave a
detailed account of my _system of catechizing_, I published two _Fast
sermons_ for the years 1793 and 1794, in the latter of which I gave my
ideas of antient prophecies compared with the then state of Europe, and
in the preface to it I gave an account of my reasons for leaving the
country. I also published a _Farewell sermon_.[24]
But the most important of my publications in this situation were a
series of _Letters to the Philosophers and Politicians of France on the
subject of Religion_. I thought that the light in which I then stood
in that country gave me some advantage in my attempts to enforce the
evidence of natural and revealed religion. I also published a set of
_sermons on the evidences of revelation_, which I first delivered by
public notice, and the delivery of which was attended by great numbers.
They were printed just before I left England.
[24] These reasons, as shewing the progress and state of his mind that
induced this new æra of his life, will be inserted hereafter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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