Priestly’s Birth, Parentage, Brought up with Anti Trinity Thoughts:

Joseph Priestly was born in the little hamlet of Field head six miles south-west of Leeds in 1733.  He was the eldest child of a domestic cloth maker.  His mother died when he was six years old.  At home he was given a strict Calvinist upbringing, but at school his teachers were dissenting ministers, that is to say, priests who did not agree with all the doctrines of the Church of England.  With a view to becoming a minister, he became well-grounded in Latin, Greek and Hebrew.  The Elders of the Quakers refused to admit him, as he did not demonstrate sufficient repentance for Adam's sins.  The universities refused to accept anyone who did not subscribe to all the doctrines of the orthodox church. Instead, he was sent to a well-known academy where the teachers and students were divided between the orthodoxy of the established church and the "heresy" of belief in One God.  Here he began to doubt the truth of the fundamental dogmas of the Christian church in earnest, especially that of the Trinity.  The more he studied the Bible, the more convinced he was about his own views. The writings of Arius, Servetus, and Sozini left a profound impression on him.  Like them, he also came to the conclusion that the scriptures provided meager support for the doctrines of the Trinity and Atonement. The result was that on completion of this studies he left the Academy as a confirmed Arian.

He was appointed as an assistant to a minister on the salary of thirty pounds per annum. When it was discovered that he was an Arian, he was dismissed. In 1758 he succeeded in securing another appointment as a minister in Nantwich in Cheshire.  He served there for three years.  His income was small but he supplemented it by giving private tuition.  He soon acquired the reputation of being a good teacher.  The Arians had established an Academy at Warrington in 1757, and on leaving Nantwich, Priestly became a teacher there.  He used to visit London during the vacations, and it was on one of these visits that he met Benjamin Franklin for the first time.  In 1767 he came nearer his old home, becoming the minister in Mill Hill in Leeds.  He stayed there for six years.  In Leeds, Priestly printed a number of  tracts and soon became well-known as an outstanding and authorative spokesman of unitarianism.  In his spare time, he began to study chemistry with considerable success. He won recognition from the Royal Society, and in 1774 he made his crowning discovery of oxygen which made him famous.  In the research which followed, he discovered more new gases than all his predecessors had done before him. However, he was more interested in religion than in physical science and regarded these discovries as a theologian's pas-time. In his personal memoirs, he passes over these achievements in the space of about a page.  He once wrote, "I have made discoveries in some branches of Chemistry. I never gave much attention to the common routine of it, and know but little of the common processes."⁵⁵

He next joined the Earl of Shellburne as his librarian and literary companion.  He was given a generous salary and a life annuity with the freedom to do what he pleased.  He remained at this post for seven years, spending the summers in the Earl's country mansion and the winters in London.  He also accompanied the Earl on his journeys to Paris, Holland, Belgium and Germany.  This Earl found Priestly's friendship with Benjamin Franklin an embarrassment, since the latter was all in favour of the revolution taking place in France at this time, Priestly officially terminated his friendship with Franklin and shortly afterwards went to stay in Birmingham. His stay in this city lasted for eleven years, and although it ended in a crushing tragedy, it was perhaps the happiest period of his life.  His duties as a priest were confined to Sundays and so during the rest of the week he was free to work in his labmoratory and to write whatever he wished.  

It was Birmingham that Priestly produced his most important and finluential work, History of the Corruptions of Christianity, which  greatly angered the established church.  He not only denied the validity of the doctrine of Trinity, but also affirmed the humanity of Jesus. He said that the narratives of the birth of Jesus were inconsistent with one another.  He believed  that Jesus was a man, constitued in all respects like other men, subject to the same infirmities, the same ignorance, prejudices and fralties.  He was chosen by God to introduce a moral dispensation into the world. He was instructed in the nature of this mission, and invested with miraculous powers.  Jesus was sent to reveal the great knowledge of the next life in which men would be rewarded according to their acts in this life and not merely by virtue of their having been baptized.  These views were not liked either by the government or by the church.

Priestly not only affirmed the humanity of Jesus, but also denied the immaculate conception.  He thus laid the foundation of the new thinking which resulted in unitarianism becoming like a voyage in a boat without a rudder riding on a turbulent sea.  A sense of direction is totally missing in the movement known as Unitarian Universalism.  This denial of the immaculate conception led to a totally unnecessary and bitter controversy that did more harm than good to those who affirmed the Divine Unity. A similar movement had contributed towards the French Revolution and its Reign of Terror.  These events on the other side of the Channel had unnerved many people in England.  The orthodox church made it appear that the teachings of Priestly would result in the same kind of tragedy in England.  Countless insulting and threatening letters began to arrive at his doorstep, and his effigy was burned in different parts of the country.  

On July the 14th 1791, a group of people were celecrating the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille in a Birmingham hotel.  A mob, whose leaders were the justices of the town, gathered outside and, thinking Priestly was taking part in the celebrations, smashed the hotel windows. Dr. Priestly was not there. The mob then went to his house which, Priestly writes in his memoirs, was "plundered and burnt without mercy."⁵⁶ His library, his laboratory and all his papers and manuscripts were destroyed in the fire.  Priestly, who had been forewarned by a friend, barely escaped with his life.  The next day, the house of all the important Unitarians were burnt, and in the two days which followed the mob began to burn the houses of those people who were not professed Unitarians, but who had given shelter and protection to the Unitarians who had been made homeless.  During this time the people of Birmingham were in a panic.  All the shops were closed, and people cried out and wrote on their houses "Church and King" to escape the fury of the mob.  It was not until the army was called in that the rioters melted away.

It was now too dangerous for Priestly to remain in Birmingham, and he left for London in disguise.  Writing about his experiences in Birmingham, he said, "Instead of flying from lawless violence, I had been flying from public justice.  I could not have been pursued with more rancour."⁵⁷ In London he was unable to openly walk on the streets lest he be recognised and the house of his host attacked and destroyed.  After a while he rented a house.  The landlord was afraid that not only this house, but also his own might be destroyed.

In 1794, Priestly sailed for America with Bengamin Franklin.  There they opened some of the first Unitarian churches in and around Philadelphia.  In the years that followed, the situation in England became more relaxed.  In 1802, Priestly's old congregation opened a chapel, and Bilsham, a leading Unitarian, was invited to preach the opening sermon.  Priestly, however, was content to remain in America where he died in 1804.

Joseph Priestly's main contribution to the unitarians in England was a comprehensive argument, both historical and philosophical, in support of the Unity of God.  It was drawn from the Scriptures and the writings of the old Christian fathers, interpreted by reason, and rigorously applied to the religious and political problems of his day. "Absurdity supported by power," he wrote, "will never be able to stand its ground against the efforts of reason."⁵⁸  Of all his religious works, the most influential was his "History of the Corruptions of Christianity", written in two volumes, in which he sought to show that true Christianity, embodied in the beliefs of the early Church, was unitarian, and that all departures from that faith were corruptions. The book infuriated the orthodox and delighted the liberals in both England and America.  It was publicly burned in Holland.  Here follows Priestly's own summary:

To consider the system of Christianity, one would think it very liable to corruption, or abuse.  The great outline of it is that the universal parent of mankind commissioned Jesus Christ to invite men to practice virtue, by the assurance of his mercy to the penitent, and of his purpose to raise to immortal life and happiness all the virtuous and good.  Here is nothing that any person could imagine would lead to much subtle speculation at least such as could excise almostly.  The doctrine itself is so plain, that one would think the learned and the unlearned were upon a level with respect to it.  And a person unacquainted with the state of things, at the time of its promulgation would look in vain for any probable source of the monstrous corruptions and abuses which crept into the system afterwards.  Jesus, however, and his apostles, foretold that there would be a great departure from the truth, and that something would arise in the Church altogether unlike the doctrine which they taught, and even subversive of it.

In reality, however, the causes of the succeeding corruptions did then exist, and accordingly, without anything more than their natural operation, all the abuses rose to their full height; and what is more wonderful still, by the operation of natural causes also, we see the abuses gradually corrected, and Christianity recovering its primitive beauty and glory.

The causes of the corruptions were almost wholly contained in the established opinions of the heathen world, and especially the philosophical part of it, so that when those healthens embraced Christianity, they mixed their former tenets and prejudices with it. Also, both Jews and heathens were so much scandalized at the idea of being disciples of a man who had been crucified as a common malefactor, that Chritians in general were sufficiently disposed to adopt any opinion that would most effectually wipe away this reproach.

For by this means Christians were enabled to give to the soul of Christ what rank they pleased in the heavenly region before he was born.  On this principle went the Gnostics, deriving their doctrine from the received oriental philiosphy.  Afterwards, the philosophising Christians went upon another principle, personifying the wisdom, or logos of God of Father, equal to God the Father Himself...

The abuses of the positive institutions of Christianity, monstrous as they were, naturally arose from the opinion of the purifying and sanctifying virtues of rites and ceremonies, which was the very basis of all the worships of the heathens! And they were also similar to the abuses of the Jewish religion. We likewise see the rudiments of all the monkish austerities in the opinions and practices of the heathens, who thought to purify and exalt the soul by mascerating and morifying the body.

  As to the abuses of the government of the Church, they are as easily accounted for as abuses in civil government; wordly-minded men being always ready to lay hold of every opportunity of increasing their power; and in the dark ages too many circumstances concurred to give the Christian clergy peculiar advantages over the laity in this respect.

Upon the whole, I flatter myself that, to an attentive reader of this work, it will appear, that the Corruption of Christianity, in every article of faith or practice, was the natural consequence of the circumstances in which it was promulgated; and also that its recovery from these corruption is the natural consequence of different circumstances.

To bring the whole (false Christian position) into a short compass.

1)The General Council gave the Son the same nature with the Father.

2)Admitted the Holy Spirit into the Trinity.

3)Consigned to Christ a human soul in conjunction with the Logos.

4)Settled the hypothetical union of the divine and human nature of Christ, and

5)Affirmed, that in consequence of this union, the two natures constituted only one person.

It requires a pretty good memory to retain these distinctions. it being a business of words only, and ideas are not concerned in it.⁵⁹

Priestly also wrote another book called "The History of Jesus Christ", some of which is reprinted here:

When we inquire into the doctrine of any book, or set of books, concerning any subject, and particular passages are alleged in favour of different opinions, we should chiefly consider what is the general tenor of the whole work with respect to it, or what impression the first careful perusal of it would make upon an impartial reader...

If we consult Moses' account of the creation, we shall find that he makes no mention of more than one God, who made the heavens and the earth, who supplied the earth with plants and animals, and who also formed man.  The plural number, indeed, is made use of when God is represented as saying, Genesis 1.26. "Let us make man"; but that this is mere phrasology is evident from its being said immediately after, in the singular number. Genesis 5.27, "God created man in HIs own image", so that the creator was still One Being.  Also, in the account of the building of the Tower of Babel, we read, Genesis 11.7, that "God said let us go down and there confound their language", but we find, in the very next verse, that it was one being only who actually effected this.

In all the intercourse of God with Adam, Noah, and the other patriarchs, no mention is made of more than one being who addressed them under that character.  The name by which he is distinguished is sometimes "Jehova", and at other times, "the God of Abraham", etc., but no doubt can be entertained that this was the same being who is first mentioned under the general title of God, and to whom the making of the heavens and the earth is ascribed.

Frequent mention is made in the scriptures of "angels", who sometimes speak in the name of God, but then they are always represented as the creatures and the servants of God...On no account, however, can these angels be considered as "Gods"' rivals of the supreme being, or of the same rank with Him.  

The most express declarations concerning the unity of God, and of the importance of the belief of it, are frequent in the Old Testament.  The first commandment is, Exodus 20.3, "Thou shalt have no other gods before Me." This is repeated in the most emphatical manner, Deutronomy 5.4, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord they God is one Lord." Ihave no occasion to repeat what occurs on this subject in the later prophets.  It appears, indeed, to have been the great object of the religion of the Jews, and of their being distinguished from other nations by the superior presence and superintendence of God, to preserve among them the knowledge of the divine unity, while the rest of the world were failing into idolatry. And by means of this nation, and the discsp;           Had there been any distinction of persons in the divine nature, such as the doctrine of the Trinity supposes, it is at least so like an infringment of the fundamental doctrine of the Jewish religion, that it certainly required to be explained, and the obvious inference from it to be guarded against.  Had the eternal Father had a Son, and also a Spirit, each of them equal in power and glory to Himself, though there should have been a sense in which each of them was truly God, and yet there was, properly speaking, only One God; at least the more obvious inference would have been, that if each of the three persons was properly God, they would all together make three Gods. Since, therefore, nothing of this kind is said in the Old Testament, as the objection is never made, nor answered, it is evident that the idea had not then occurred.  No expression, or appearance, had at that time even suggested the difficulty.

If we guide ourselves by the sense in which the Jews understood their own sacred books, we cannot but conclude that they contained no such doctrine as that of the Christian Trinity.  For it does not appear that any Jew, of ancient or modern times, ever deduced such a doctrine from them.  The Jews always interpreted their scriptures as teaching that God is simply One, without distinction of persons, and that the same being who made the world, did also speak to the patriarchs and the prophets without the intervention of any other beings besides angels.

Christians have imagined that the Messiah was to be the secoknd person in the divine trinity, but the Jews themsleves, great as were their expectations from the Messiah, never supposed any such thing.  And if we consider the prophecies concerning this great personage, we shall be expect any other than a man in that character.  The Messiah is supposed to be announced to our first parents under the title of "the seed of the woman", Genesis 3.15...  

God promised to Abraham, Genesis 12.3, that "in his seed all the families of the earth should be blessed." This, if it relate to the Messiah at all, can give us no other idea than that one of his seed or posterity, should be the means of conferring great blessings on mankind.  What else, also, could be suggested by the description which Moses is supposed to give of the Messiah, when he said.  Deutronomy 18.18, "I will raise them up a prophet, from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him."?  Here is nothing like a second person in the trinity, a person equal to the Father, but a mere prophet, delivering in the name of God, whatever he is ordered to do...

In the New Testament we find the same doctrine concerning God that we do in the Old.  To the scribe who inquired which was the first and the greatest commandment, our Saviour answered, Mark 12.29, "The first of all the commandmants is, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord," etc., and the scribe answered to him, "Well, Master, thou hast said the truth; for there is one God, and there is none other but He," etc.e discipline which it underwent, that great doctrine was effectually preserved among men, and continues to be so to this day.

Had there been any distinction of persons in the divine nature, such as the doctrine of the Trinity supposes, it is at least so like an infringment of the fundamental doctrine of the Jewish religion, that it certainly required to be explained, and the obvious inference from it to be guarded against.  Had the eternal Father had a Son, and also a Spirit, each of them equal in power and glory to Himself, though there should have been a sense in which each of them was truly God, and yet there was, properly speaking, only One God; at least the more obvious inference would have been, that if each of the three persons was properly God, they would all together make three Gods. Since, therefore, nothing of this kind is said in the Old Testament, as the objection is never made, nor answered, it is evident that the idea had not then occurred.  No expression, or appearance, had at that time even suggested the difficulty.

If we guide ourselves by the sense in which the Jews understood their own sacred books, we cannot but conclude that they contained no such doctrine as that of the Christian Trinity.  For it does not appear that any Jew, of ancient or modern times, ever deduced such a doctrine from them.  The Jews always interpreted their scriptures as teaching that God is simply One, without distinction of persons, and that the same being who made the world, did also speak to the patriarchs and the prophets without the intervention of any other beings besides angels.

Christians have imagined that the Messiah was to be the secoknd person in the divine trinity, but the Jews themsleves, great as were their expectations from the Messiah, never supposed any such thing.  And if we consider the prophecies concerning this great personage, we shall be expect any other than a man in that character.  The Messiah is supposed to be announced to our first parents under the title of "the seed of the woman", Genesis 3.15...

God promised to Abraham, Genesis 12.3, that "in his seed all the families of the earth should be blessed." This, if it relate to the Messiah at all, can give us no other idea than that one of his seed or posterity, should be the means of conferring great blessings on mankind.  What else, also, could be suggested by the description which Moses is supposed to give of the Messiah, when he said.  Deutronomy 18.18, "I will raise them up a prophet, from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him."?  Here is nothing like a second person in the trinity, a person equal to the Father, but a mere prophet, delivering in the name of God, whatever he is ordered to do...

In the New Testament we find the same doctrine concerning God that we do in the Old.  To the scribe who inquired which was the first and the greatest commandment, our Saviour answered, Mark 12.29, "The first of all the commandmants is, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord," etc., and the scribe answered to him, "Well, Master, thou hast said the truth; for there is one God, and there is none other but He," etc.