Priestley's History of the Corrujitions of Christianity led to the most exciting controversy in the latter half of the 18th century. His position may be easily de- fined. He writes as a Protestant, and, charging the papacy with corrupting tendencies, he pushes one step farther the arguments already familiar in the great controversy of the Protestant world of Christianity with Borne. He is by no means original in his position. Zwicker and Episcopius had anticipated his main the- ory. There is but a question of degree between Priest- ley and other Protestant writers upon the early ages of Christianity. He endeavors to draw the limits of the supernatural still more closely than his predecessors. All Protestants admitted that at some early period
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Christianity has been corrupted. Priestley includes among the corruptions the Trinitarian doctrines, which, as he argues, showed themselves, though in a compara- tively undeveloped state, among the earliest of the post- apostolic writers. He continues the attack upon the authority of the Church fathers, as begun by Daille, and which had then been recently carried on by Mid- dleton and Jortin. He makes Christ a mere man, and places the writers of the New Test, on the same level with Thucydides or Tacitus, while he still believes iu the miracles, and quotes texts alter the old unbistorical fashion. He is compelled, moreover, to accept the Prol - estant theory that there was in the earliest ages a body of absolutely sound doctrine, though, in the effort to identify this with LJnitarianism he i- driven to great straits, and forced to discover it in obscure sect-, and to make inferences from the negative argument of silence rather than from positive assertions. Though he makes free with the reasoning of the apostles, he cannot give up their authority : and. accepting without question the authenticity ot the Gospels, labors to interpret them in the Unitarian sense. He did not see that the real dif- ficult} i- the admission of supernatural agency, and that to call a miracle a very little one is only to encounter the whole weight of rationalist ic and of orthodox hostil- ity. His aim, as he explains in his Preface, is to show '•what circumstances in the state of things" (notice this slipshod style), -and especially of other prevailing opin- ions and prejudices," favored the introduction of new doctrines. He hopes that this "historical method will be found to he of the most satisfactory modes of ar- gumentation" (Corruptions, voL i. Preface, p. xiv).
Priestley asserts that corruptions appeared, but in practice seems to attribute them to perverse chances rather than to the influence of contemporary opinion, which he professes to trace. Thus in discussing theories of grace, he says, " li is not easy to imagine a priori what could have led men into such a train of thinking" (jbid. i, 284), as is exhibited in the speculations about grace, free will, and predestination. After some vague handling of the problem, he remembers that the "prin- cipal parts" of the system "were lirst suggested in the heal ol controversy" (ibid. p. 285) --an explanation which seem- to him to throw some light upon the question. Obvi m-ly. a writer thus incompetent to appreciate the bearings of the most vital doctrines of Christianity was not a very competent historian of thought. Priestley. however, perceives, what was indeed sufficiently palpable, that Platonism had played a great part in the develop- ment of Christian dogma. The Platonists, he tells us, •• pretended to be no more than the expositors of a more ancient doctrine:" which he traces through Parmenides, the Pythagoreans, and Orpheus, to -the secret lore of tin- Egyptian priests." Another stream of tradition had reached the Romans from " their Trojan ancestors." who had received it from Phrygia, where it had been planted by Dardanus"as early as the '.Mb century after Noah's Hood." Dardanus brought it from Samotbrace, where the "Three Mighty Ones" were worshipped under the name ot the Cabirim. Thus the Platonic Trinity, and the Roman Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, were shown to be simply faint reflections of an early revelation com- municated to the patriarchs before' the days of Moses (Horsley, Tracts, p. I.: 15). See. besides the works ferred to, Brougham, Lives of Philosophers «f ■•■'• III. p. 83 sq.; De Quincey, Philo- sophical Writers, ii. 262; Mackintosh, MiscelL Works, in. 170; Lond. Gentleman's Magazine, April, 1804, p. 375 sq.; / '../■•.■. ].-mi,;.|,. i.;,; .,,.: Norton, Views of Chris-
h, Piety, and Morality | Lond. L2mi Qu. Rev. Dec 1812, p. 430; Lindsey, Vindicia Priestlei- r88, 'J vols. 8vo); Christian Examiner, xii, 257 sq.; S vens, Hist, of English Thought In th< \*ih Cen- tury, i. 129 sq.; Leckey, Hist, of Rationalism, and his Bist. oftk lv/, Century; Moreil, Hist, of Modern Phi- losophy, p. 101 sq.; Taylor, Retrospect of Religious I [(< in England (1845); Hagenbacb, Hist, of Doctrines, ii.
Ill sq.; A". Y. Christian Advocate, 1*77: lVrrv. Hist, of the < hurch of England, iii. 432-434 ; Blakey, Hist. of the Philosophy of Mind, iii. 230 sip. 302 sq.; Cousin, Hist, of Modern Philosophy, lect. xiii. xiv.
Priestley, Thomas, an English divine of the In- dependent body, flourished near the close of (be last century. He was the brothi r of Joseph Priestley (q.v.), but their theological tenets differed widely. 1 nomas was the editor of the Christian Magazine, and pub- lished, Evangelical Bible, or Paraphrase, Exposition, and Commentary, with copious Notes and suitablt Re- flections (1791, Vol.i : /.', ,-. Mr. Scoffs Life and />,,,//, (1791, 8vo) :— a Funeral Sermon 1 1791, 8vo) : — Family Exercises (1792. 8vo; 17'.'