Joseph Priestley Quotes
As I conceive this doctrine to be a gross misrepresentation of the character and moral government of God, and to affect many other articles in the scheme of Christianity, greatly disfiguring and depraving it; I shall show, ... that it has no countenance whatever in reason, or the Scriptures; and, therefore, that the whole doctrine of atonement, with every modification of it, has been a departure from the primitive and genuine doctrine of Christianity.
Priestley, Joseph. An History of the Corruptions of Christianity. Vol. 1, J. Johnson, 1782, p. 153.
Even in free America, Allen had a very difficult time getting this work printed because it was so controversial culturally and religiously. However, there was a large population of Unitarians in America at the time and Allen’s view was not that unusual. Some of the founding fathers like Adams and Jeffersion were deists who not only did not believe in the trinity but questioned the divinity of Christ.
A century later, it would be very difficult if not impossible for anyone with these religious beliefs to obtain the Republican Presidential Nomination, as the Republican Party was controlled by conservatives and fundamentalist and evangelical Christians. However, in 1899, the fundamentalist Christians were aligned with the Democratic Party, and they referred to the Republicans as “Godless Republicans”. Taft belonged to the Unitarian Church and did attend church unlike the later President Eisenhower. See {626401}.
Joseph Priestley FRS was an English chemist, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator, and liberal political theorist who published over 150 works. He has historically been credited with the discovery of oxygen, having isolated it in its gaseous state, although Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Antoine Lavoisier also have strong claims to the discovery, Scheele having discovered it in 1772, two years before Priestley.
