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moved to a Dissenting Academy in London . On his arrival in the metropolis , his journey to which had been performed in the humblest manner , he was admitted into the seminary founded by Mr . Coward , of
which Mr . Eames was the principal tutor , and lodged by his uncle ( at . whose expense he was chiefly maintained ) in one of the closest parts of the city . His health suffered in consequence : nor was it till after a summer s residence in his native country
that he was capable of resuming his studies . When he had completed his education at the Academy , he removed to Stoke Newington , where he resided , for nearly thirteen years ,
in the family of Mr . Sneatfield , as his chaplain and companion . Afterwards he was chosen to be the morning preacher at Newington Green : and by the death of his patron and also of his ancle his circumstances were
considerably improved . Hence he determined on changing ' his condition in life ; and accordingly , in June , 1757 , he was married to Miss Sarah Blundell , then of Hackney , in which village Mr . Price resided during the first year after his marriage . It was while he lived there that he
published his treatise On the joundatiou of Morals , a work which introduced him to an acquaintance with the late excellent Dr . Adams , of Pembroke College , and also with Mr . Hunife , some of whose doctrines it controverts with exemplary candour , modesty and benevolence .
In 1758 he moved to Newington Green , and during the first years of his residence 011 it devoted himself almost wholly to the composition of sermons . At this period , with the exception of Dr . Franklin , Mr . Canton and two or three other philosophical friends , his acquaintance was chiefly con find to the members of his
° wn congregation . His spirits suffered from the want of some diversity ° f pursuit and scene- In the beginning of 1762 Mrs . Price was attacked p disorder of which she never perfect ! y recovered : and this affliction * nd his own infirmity of health confuted yet further to depress his mind .
irom the hope of Jbeing more exfensivdy useful as a minister , he was ^ uced to accept an invitation , in
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Dec . 1762 , to succeed Dr . Benson as evening preacher in Poor Jewry . Lane-But neither there nor at Newingtou Green had he the encouragement of addressing a numerous auditory . Regarding himself therefore as incapable
of giving effect to his moral instructions by delivering them from the pulpit , he formed the sermons which he had preached on private prayer into a dissertation 011 that subject , and in the year 1767 published it , with three other Dissertations , on Providence—on the Junction of Virtuous
Men in the Heavenly State—and on Historical Evidence and miracles . This work had occupied him , at intervals , for more than seven years ; and it was not without great diffidence and hesitation that he was at last prevailed upon to send it into the world .
On the death of his friend Mr * Bayes , of Tunbridge Wells , in 1761 , he was requested to examine the papers of that truly ingenious man , among which he found an imperfect solution of * one of the most difficult problems in the doctrine of chances , for determining from the number of times in which an unknown event
has happened and failed , the chance that the probability of its happening in a single trial lies somewhere between any two degrees of probability that can be named . " This investigation Mr . Price pursued and finished : and the paper was published fi rst in
the Royal Society ' s Transactions , in 1763 , and the following year in the American Philosophical Transactions . A supplement to it was published by him in the Royal Society ' s Transactions in 1764 . He had the honour ,
too , of being admitted a member of that learned body a few months afterwards . It appears that he had previously declined to become one of the tutors in Coward ' s Academy , and also to succeed Mr . Richards as
minister to the congregation in Lewin ' s Mead , Bristol . Nearly about this time a proposal was made to him by the booksellers to publish a complete edition of all Sir Isaac Newton ' s works . But his
diffidence of his own abilities , his want of spirits to engage in so arduous an undertaking , and possibly his reluctance to bestow too much of his time and attention on subjects not
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Review * —Morgan ' s Life of Price . 505
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Aug. 2, 1815, page 505, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1763/page/41/
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