1813.] 



Dr. Joseph Vrkstley, 



9$ 



in other respects their knowledge did not exceed that of the age 

 in which they lived. The Old and New Testaments contain the 

 history of the Jewish and Christian dispensations, W'ritten by 

 different persons, who had good information relative to the 

 particulars related. The writers were not influenced by divine 

 inspiration, but precisely in the same circumstances as other 

 historians : liable, like them, to mistakes; and to be judged of 

 by the same rules as those which we use in examining the 

 writings of common historians. They occasionally contradict 

 each other in a few things of minor importance, and in some 

 cases relate circumstances in v/hich they seem to have been 

 misinformed; but upon the whole, the evidence for their 

 veracity and fidelity is so strong, that it would be a greater 

 miracle to admit the possibility of their accounts being forgeries^ 

 than to admit the truth of the Christian religion. 



Christ was a mere man, commissioned by God, and capable 

 of working miracles ; but possessed of no superior knowledge to 

 other men, except what related to his mission. The same 

 remark applies to the Apostles, who sometimes reason illogically 

 and inconclusively, especially the Apostle Paul, though in other 

 respects a wonderful man. The account of the immaculate 

 conception, and several other particulars in the history of our 

 Saviour, were rejected as fabulous : and much of the reasoning 

 of the Apostle Paul, in some of his most remarkable epistles, 

 was rejected as inaccurate. The doctrine of original sin, of 

 the atonement, of election and reprqbation, and of the 

 eternity of a future punishment, were rejected as absurd and 

 unscriptural. The object of the mission of Christ was merely to 

 teach the immortality of the soul, and to propagate a more 

 perfect system of morality, and a more accurate estimate of the 

 Divine attributes than mankind had possessed before. From his 

 peculiar opinions respecting the materiality of the soul, Dr, 

 Priestley refused to admit the doctrine of an intermediate state. 

 Every man continues insensible till the time of the resurrection, 

 when he rises as if from sleep, and is not sensible of the interval 

 that has elapsed since his death. 



Such is a very short outline of Dr. Priestley's ultimate creed. 

 To enter into farther particulars would lead us into too wide a 

 field. Hence I omit his historical disquisitions on the corruptions 

 of Christianity, and the opinions of the early Christians ; books 

 ■which must be admitted to be inaccurate in several particulars, 

 but v^hich nevertheless contain much curious and valuable 

 matter, not easily to be found any where else. Neither shall I 

 attempt to point cut the inconsistencies visible between some of 

 his religious opinions, nor the danger of the liberty which he 

 assumed of blotting out of the Scriptures every thing which 

 appeared to him to be absurd or inconsistent with his peculiar 



