On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    references in the Acts , and the Epistles , that independently of all collateral testimony , their-un * designed . coincidence affords the strongest proof of their genuine * - , ness , and of the reality of the transactions to which they relate . In the year 1794 , he publi&Iied " A view of the Evidences of Christianity , " in three volumes I 2 mo . which he republished in a few months in two yolumes f 8 vo . and which is unquestionably one of the ablest defences of Christianity that has ever appeared ; and

    it has been as popular as it is really excellent . This work , it is supposed , obtained for him the prebend of Pancras , in the cathedral of St . Pauls , presented by

    Dr . Porteus , bishop of London ; and the sub-deanery of Lincoln , worth about 7001 - per annum , conferred on him by Dr . Prettyman , bishop of that diocese . As soon , as he was installed in the

    cathedral church of Lincoln , he vrent to Camhritige to take his degree of D . D . and before he left the University , he was surprised by a letter from Dr .

    Barrington , bishop of Durham , offering him , in the handsomest man - ner , the valuable rectory of Bjsh ' op Wearmouth , estimated at 12001 . a year . This was in the year 179 & 9 and from that time Dr . Paley resided alternately at Bish

    op Wearmouth and Lincoln , but be did not live many years in the f ^ ffjoymerut of affluen ce . He was in 1800 attacked by a violent nepforalgicx complaint , which obliged him to forego the active discharge © f r brs professional duties , and he employed himself in his last admirable work , entitled " Natural Theology ; " but the compaction of that * great under *

    Untitled Article

    taking was frequently interrupted by severe accessions . of a . very painful disorder , which in the end proved fatal . " iVfcen it is con . side red /* says a person A ^ hp wit . nessed his patience and fortitude 6

    on these -trying occasions * C that the twenty-sixth chapter of liis work was written under these circumstances , what he has said of the alleviations of pain acquires additional weight . It is not a

    philosopher in the full enjoyment of health , who talks lightly of an evil which he may suppose at a distance . When Dr . Paley speaks of the power which pain has of ' ' shedding a satisfaction over

    intervals of ease which few enjoyment exceed , * and assures Us * that a man resting from severe pain , is , for the time , in possession of feelings which undisturbed health cannot impart , ' the send * ments flowed from his own

    feelings . He was himself that man , and it is consolatory , amidst the numerous diseases to which the human frame is liable , to find how compatible theystie with a certain degree of enjeymerit . " -,

    In the year 1 &O 2 , this ; work was published , the object of which was to point out the evidences of the existence and attrilyutes of the Deity from the appearances of nature . It was dedicated to his

    last patron the bishop of Durham , at whose suggestion it was undertaken , a ^ id in order that he might repair in his stiidy , his unavoidable deficiencies in the churchy aod make up his works into a comprehensive system of religion and morality . Analyses of this work and of that on the Evidences of Christianity were published by the Rev , J . Joyce ; and an analysis pf the Moral and

    Untitled Article

    ! $ & Memoirs of the Rev . William Paley , D . D .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1809, page 182, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1735/page/6/