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    His perscverafice in support of his first bpinipris was astonishing . ** nmoved , he beheld their most able d e fenders successively joining the adverse party ; and when M . Kirwan had , after most of the others , abjured phlogiston , Priestley retnaining £ kmd on the field

    of battle , issued a nevnr challenge , in an address to the principal French ch ymists * By a fortunate chance , this was noticed immediatelyr and on the -spot / M . Adet , then Ambassador from France to the XTnited States , became at the same time the worthy representative of French chymisiry , and replied tp the newargu-Inents employed against it Those arguments were used fey Dr . Priestley because , though so ingenious , so skilful

    in the operations of that transcendent chymistry of which he was the creator ,, be had little practice in those of ocdjpary chymlstfy . For example , we drew fixed air frpni . substances in which he had not Imagined it to exist , and from that circumstance denied that it

    invariably ^ w ^ v ^^^ sp ^ . ^ o / ^ ' ^^ * * forming watiek' withpiygejie , and hydrogene , h eal ^ ijs foiiiid a small quantity of nitrous acid , and yet lie took no notice ojf the portion-of azatc by which it was produced . , , His new yvrltirigs Ibroughfc back none of those wl | o Jhad deserted his opinion . JLike many other meii who have

    endeavoured to stop the motions originally communicated by themselves ,. he found that ideas once thrown into the mind resemble seeds , whose . fruitfulness depends on the laws of nature , not on the will of them bf whom they were scattered ; and we may add , that when they have t ^ fceri root , no human power can tear theiri frotn their soil .

    I amhow , gentlemen , arrived at the xnost painful part of my task . You Jiave contemplated'Priestley proceeding from one stage of success to another in the Study of human science , to which , however , hie deyotejj merely ] his leisure moments . .,.. ' .. .

    ^ I must now point him out in 31 different career ; struggling against nature w ^ ith respect tp those things , the jlrst principles of which she h ^ f determined to keep concealed under a veil

    impenetrable to our reason ; endeavouring to subject the world to his suppositions ; consuming almost the whole of his life in these vain efforts , and thus precipir tating himself into an abyss of n ^ iiery . ' - Here I , like him , have need of all

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    your indulgence . Possibly the details I am about to give wil ^ to some persons , seem foreign to thfe place in which I speak ; but , in my opinion , it is in this place more especially that die dreadful example they hold forth ought to be regarded with interest , ^ ^

    Priestley , I have informed yon , was an ecclesiastic ; I must a 4 d > that he wasv successively pf three religions before he resolved to become a religious teacher . Brought up in all the rigor of the presbyterian , vrhich we call the calvinistic faith , whether the reason were that he found in that system too much _ to believe , or whether ,--even at that

    time , he was disposed to render to himseif a strict account of his belief , at the age q £ twenty years , he adopted the creed of the Arians ; a creed which . after having eftjang ^ red Christianity during , tfee reign of the successors of Constantine , now finds an aey 4 um in England alone ; but which , in modern times , is adorned , and in some measure

    indemnified for the los& of its former . power * by the names of Milton , of Clarke , of JLocke , and , even , -. as spnie say , o £ New ^ o / i . A rianism , although it represents the Christ as a created being , considers him a being -of superior nature ,, produced fcefore the creation of the world , and the

    instrument of the Creator in the productions of other beings ; . this is the doctrine which we find , invested with all the splendor of poetry , in the paradise JLost . JPriestley having long professed the Axian faith , abandoned it at length , and became an Unitarian , er , as we

    should say , a Socinian . Amongst those who hear me , there are , perhaps , few who have ever enquired into the difference between the two sects ,. It consists in tfcis ; the Socinians deny tjbe pre-e ^ istence of . the Christ , an 4 regard him as a mere man , although they revere in him the Saviour of the world .

    JDuring thirty years * this subtile distinction between two heresies occupied a mind formed to consider sthe most important subjects of scienqe , and occasioned Priestley to compose an incomparably greater number of volumes than he ever wrote on the different so its of

    air . His system is , that the primitive Church , like the Jew ^ , wai > of the Unitarian belief , but that it remained so 9 very short time ; that the first corjrup-

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    JSttWgy on Dr . Priestley * 32 S

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    vojl . 1 . v u

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1806, page 329, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1725/page/49/