Joseph Priestley’s Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion is a systematic exposition of Protestant Dissenting theology, composed while he served the congregation at Mill-Hill in Leeds and published in the early 1770s. The work falls into three principal parts: the first treats the being and attributes of God as discoverable by reason; the second examines the rule of right and wrong and the proper conduct of human life; the third addresses the future expectations of mankind. A prefatory essay on the best method of communicating religious knowledge, together with a dedication to the young people of his congregation, frames the whole as a course of instruction for youth—an attempt to establish them in rational religion before enthusiasm or infidelity can claim them.
Priestley writes as a philosopher of the Enlightenment who is also a minister, and the book’s central claim is that natural religion, rightly pursued, leads the honest inquirer to the threshold of revelation, where the character of God and the duties of man become clear. Reason alone, he argues, can demonstrate God’s existence, power, wisdom, and goodness from the frame of the world; but the moral perfections of God, and the certainty of a future state, come chiefly from revelation. The two are not rivals but stages of one education.
From the Works of Nature to the Rule of Right
A Dedication to the Young at Mill-Hill
Priestley opens his Institutes with a dedication to the younger members of his congregation at Mill-Hill in Leeds, dated March 1772. He wrote the work for them, he says, because he wants their minds settled in religious knowledge, and because nothing else provides a sufficient foundation for virtuous conduct or for a good hope in death. A mind without knowledge is like an uncultivated field that yields rank weeds; since the mind is never wholly barren, it will acquire bad principles if it does not acquire good ones, and the young risk becoming useless burdens or pests of society. He urges them to make reason the guide of life, to check passion, and warns that a life given over to animal appetite ranks them with the brutes—without the brutes’ untroubled enjoyment. Their conduct, he hopes, will not disgrace the rational and liberal sentiments they have absorbed, and he asks gratitude that religion is no longer lost in the gloom and darkness of former ages. The scriptures he calls a treasury of divine knowledge and the only proper authority in matters of faith; magistrates deserve respect, but if they prescribe in matters of faith they must be resisted, for Christians have one Father, even God, and one Master, even Christ. He quotes a member of the House of Commons during the debate on the act of William and Mary—which imposed confiscation and life imprisonment for denying the Trinity—who declared: have nothing to do with a parliamentary religion, or a parliamentary God. He praises the ancestors who suffered for religious liberty and asks the young to hand that zeal on unimpaired.
The Preface: System, Difficulty, and the Use of Hartley
No branch of knowledge, Priestley observes, can be taught well except by a regular, systematical method, and succinct elements help both teacher and learner. The Institutes began as instruction for young men of his own congregation formed into a class, and were then enlarged for publication. He avoided metaphysical and abstruse speculation, confining himself to considerations suited to convince people unused to close reflection, and aiming at clarity and precision in a plan unlike any treatise he had seen. He admits there are inexplicable difficulties in contemplating God’s being, perfections, and providence, and that we may find reason to acquiesce in that darkness, which tends to impress reverence, humility, and submission. He did not conceal the difficulties attending any demonstration of God’s attributes and moral government, so that the value of revelation might appear, since revelation clears up many of them. Unbelievers boast of nature’s clearness and exploit the diversity of opinion among Christians; but there has been equal diversity among believers and unbelievers about natural religion, while Christians are unanimous on its most important doctrines—doctrines on which unbelievers never reached certainty. To reject all religion involves one in greater perplexity, contradicts the plainest appearances in nature, and is irrational and absurd; true philosophy leads a person to acquiesce in the scheme with the fewest difficulties, and a good man embraces the system that tends most to virtue and happiness. In the later parts he makes great use of Dr. Hartley’s Observations on Man, wishing that work more generally studied, and especially that Hartley’s sketch of the evidences of Christianity be published separately.
The Essay on Communicating Religious Knowledge
The extreme ignorance of youth in religion is justly complained of, Priestley writes; many fall prey to enthusiasm or infidelity for want of establishment in rational religion. He names causes. The moderation of the times means no one is questioned about religion, so the subject is never canvassed and the young never study it. Parents take little care with religious instruction, condemning the severity they themselves received and throwing off the tutor and almost the master, secretly influenced by regard to their own ease, and thinking the provision of masters sufficient. Priestley suspects the present age has gone to an opposite extreme more dangerous than the strictness of their forefathers: restraint formed habits of sobriety and moderation and precluded licentiousness, whereas greater indulgence gives liberty but not real enjoyment and is generally fatal to virtue, since passions are strong and reason weak at that critical time. At best it makes youth mere men of the world, without vice perhaps, but also without virtue. Superficial education leaves them without enlarged sentiments of religious liberty, so the slightest inducement makes them abandon the dissenting interest and conform to the established religion of this or any other country with sufficient temporal encouragement. With the disuse of family prayer, regular scripture reading is laid aside, and in opulent families the young hardly meet the Bible’s contents at all. A false taste and pretended reverence for the scriptures has banished them from many schools, so many would live and die utterly ignorant of their Bibles but for detached portions read in public worship. Neglect of church discipline has concurred; catechising is laid aside with nothing substituted, and the minister is seldom seen but in the pulpit, so instruction is confined to miscellaneous discourses on practice while the theory of religion and its evidences are almost wholly neglected. Common sense is a sufficient guard against many errors but not a sufficient instructor; without positive instruction men would be savages in religion as in arts and sciences, for common sense is only a judge, which needs evidence and materials.
The remedy must be twofold: a revival of discipline in churches and private families, and more attention to morals and religious instruction. If the severity of the forefathers is too harsh for modern manners, relax the severity but lay aside nothing useful. He proposes three classes for instruction, with a middle class of persons aged fourteen to eighteen or twenty; members of the higher class insufficiently acquainted with the scriptures may at first be added to it, and he hopes many above twenty will not think themselves too old to learn, since the exercise improves the most knowing as well as instructs the most ignorant. Three classes, he thinks, are sufficient, and he invites other ministers sensible of the evil he complains of to propose remedies, so each may adopt what is approved in the others’ schemes.
To make room for such lectures, he wishes the weekly and other periodical preaching lectures, especially that preparatory to the Lord’s supper, were laid aside. The latter, whatever good it does, unquestionably promotes superstition, suggesting that attendance on this ordinance requires more particular preparation than any other—an idea that never occurs from the New Testament alone, and is nothing but the remains of the popish doctrine of transubstantiation. Other weekly or monthly sermons are seldom attended except by a few, chiefly the aged and those who least need them, and are often a burden to the minister. One day in seven is sufficient for rest and public worship; beyond this scriptural directory worship has no bounds, and has founded much superstition and occasioned criminal neglect of the business of life. He does not condemn occasional acts of public worship, as on days of fasting and thanksgiving or annual solemnities.
He hopes it will not be deemed arrogant to give advice on communicating religious knowledge, since all Christians are brethren commanded to exhort one another. His schemes he recommends from trial, and thinks them practicable in the country; in the city the connection between minister and people is so slight that schemes supposing personal respect and affectionate concern can hardly succeed. The practice of a London minister preaching to one congregation in the morning and another in the afternoon sinks him into a mere lecturer, excluding everything but a stipulated sum of money and stipulated duty; in such congregations the epistles to Timothy and Titus seem never read, and ordination must be a mere form or farce. He closes with an exhortation: since so unequal a share of the burden falls on ministers, let them not think themselves excusable in attempting nothing. If they cannot warn all the unruly, comfort all the feeble-minded, instruct all the ignorant, confirm all the doubting, and save all in danger of being lost, let them do all they can in each branch. Since admonition can seldom succeed, let them do more by instruction, instilling principles that may prevent vice and communicating rational and useful knowledge, the only solid foundation of virtuous practice. If every man is a steward according to ability and opportunity, much more ministers, and it is required of stewards that they be faithful. Their master is the great shepherd and bishop of souls, Christ Jesus; their instructions are to feed his lambs and his sheep, that none committed to their care perish for lack of knowledge; if they die in their iniquity, their blood may not be required at the ministers’ hands, that they may at least save their own souls. When the Lord returns and takes account of his servants, let it appear they have improved their talents—of two made other two, of five other five—and then only shall they not be ashamed before him at his coming.
The Plan of the Work
A contents list follows. Part I treats the being and attributes of God, with sections on God’s existence and attributes deduced from his being uncaused and the cause of all things, from his being the original cause, from his works, from power, wisdom, and goodness jointly, the properties of divine goodness, and the moral perfections of God. Part II treats the duty and future expectations of mankind: the rule of right and wrong; the different objects of pursuit and corresponding passions; the ruling passion and estimate of pursuits, with subsections on pleasures of sense, imagination, self-interest, passions from our social nature, sympathetic affections, relative duties, theopathetic affections, and the obligation of conscience; and the means of virtue. Part III treats the future expectations of mankind.
The Institutes then begin, proposing to explain the principles of natural and revealed religion, or to assign reasons why we acknowledge ourselves subject to God’s moral government and profess ourselves Christians and confident Protestants. Such knowledge is most important, being most nearly connected with present and future happiness. If there is a God and we are accountable to him, it is highly interesting to know his character and government, what he requires, and what we may expect. If a person pretending to be sent from God has assured us of a future life, we should examine his pretensions, and if admitted, inform ourselves of his instructions and what behaviour secures future happiness. If our religion is divine and corrupted by ignorance or artifice, it should be restored to primitive purity, since its efficacy depends on it; and if men have usurped power in religion not given them, their unjust claims should be exposed and resisted.
To give the most distinct view, he will first explain what we learn from nature, then what further lights we receive from revelation. But in delineating natural religion he delivers what might have been known by the light of nature, not what was actually known by any of the human race—very different things. Many things are attainable in their own nature which are never attained; so finding little knowledge of God and his providence in nations without revelation does not mean nature did not teach those lessons and men lacked means of learning them had they made the most of their light and powers.
The Perils and Uses of Refined Taste
Priestley turns first to the cultivation of taste, and his verdict is double-edged. Excellence in the arts, he warns, is the parent of an excessive vanity that exposes a man to mortification and disappointment; it breeds envy, jealousy, peevishness, and malice—dispositions uneasy to oneself and disqualifying one for contributing to the pleasure of others. The danger sharpens when a man’s excellence lies chiefly in a single thing, which he then imagines to be of extraordinary consequence while undervaluing every other kind. For many, such refinement brings the same inconveniences as an addiction to sensual pleasure: it leads into expense, makes them despise plain honest industry, and so brings poverty, artificial wants, and no means to gratify them. Yet the taste for the pleasures of imagination has its proper place. It ought particularly to be indulged in younger life, in the interval between mere animal nature in a child and the serious pursuits of manhood; it relaxes the mind from too close attention to business through life, promoting innocent amusement, cheerfulness, and good humour. Best of all, a taste for natural and artificial propriety, beauty, and sublimity connects with a taste for moral propriety, moral beauty, and dignity, and when properly cultivated enables us to take more pleasure in contemplating the works, perfections, and providence of God—where such taste finds its highest and most perfect gratification.
The Middle Rank of Self-Interest
Regard to our greatest happiness was allowed as one of the proper rules of conduct, but only one of four. Priestley argues that our greatest happiness as individuals is most effectually gained when it is not itself the immediate scope of our actions—when we are actuated by disinterested regard to the good of others, the commands of God, and the dictates of conscience. Keeping up regard to ourselves can never exclude the anxiety and jealousy of others that make us unhappy; experience shows that none have such true, unallayed enjoyments as those who lose sight of themselves in higher pursuits. Though interest, perfectly understood, is best promoted by actions dictated by regard to others’ good, it requires great comprehension of mind to see this and more to act on it; if the bulk of mankind pursued their own happiness as the ultimate end, they would do many things injurious to others, not seeing how otherwise to provide for themselves. The unperverted dictates of our minds, moreover, feel a kind of meanness in acting from a view to one’s own interest only: a person known to have no higher motive, even if never misled and always acting rightly, would not be allowed moral worth, esteem, or love—only that he was prudent, not virtuous. No conduct is right in the highest sense unless influenced by regard to the Will of God, the good of others, or the dictates of conscience. This principle of regard to highest interest holds a middle rank between vices and virtues; its principal use is to raise us above lower vicious pursuits to higher, praiseworthy ones. From self-love we become sensible that gratifying the senses or the imagination as life’s chief business injures ourselves, and are convinced it is wisdom to regard supremely the will of our maker, to do good to others, and to obey conscience. That persuasion leads us to do what we know agreeable to higher principles though we cannot immediately see it to be for our interest, and by degrees we acquire a habit of acting piously, generously, and conscientiously without having our own happiness in view. It seems better, Priestley concludes, not to consider any kind of self-interest as an ultimate rule, but to think ourselves obliged conscientiously to do right and disinterestedly pursue others’ good, though to all appearance we sacrifice our own—conforming to the will of our maker, who stands in equal relation to all his offspring, must will their good, cannot approve our consulting our own happiness at others’ expense, and takes pleasure in our acting on his own generous benevolence. We may depend that this great, righteous, good being will not suffer us to be losers on the whole.
Covetousness and the Absurdity of Means Turned into Ends
Beyond a certain degree, the lower self-interest of love of money deserves censure. As a means of procuring purchasable gratification, it is the same in nature as fondness for the pleasure purchasable with it: if a man uses wealth only for sensual pleasure, love of money is another name for love of pleasure; if for taste in the refined arts, it is love of the arts; if he intends others’ good in amassing riches, he is actuated by benevolence. Pursued directly as a means to something else, its rank keeps pace with the end proposed. But in the pursuit of riches men commonly forget money’s use as a means and desire it without further end, even sacrificing the appetites it was subservient to—and then covetousness is evidently absurd and wrong. This gross self-interest sometimes makes a man abridge himself of natural enjoyments, engage in laborious pursuits with painful anxiety, steel his heart against humanity and compassion, and fill him with envy, jealousy, and resentment against imagined competitors and rivals. It admits none of the pleasures from consciousness of God’s approbation, our fellow creatures’, or our own minds—depriving him of genuine pleasures and involving him in perplexity and distress whose immediate cause, though often absurd and imaginary, is serious to himself and makes him ridiculous to others. The same observations hold of love of power, or anything originally desirable as a means but becoming an ultimate end; they are largely true even of love of knowledge or learning, chiefly useful as a means and valuable in proportion to the end it answers, but absurd and to be condemned when pursued as an end or for its own sake only.
Superstition, Enthusiasm, and the Office of Conscience
Superstition is the most abject and pernicious quality; just and manly piety the most valuable. Superstition and enthusiasm are called the two extremes of religion but are closely connected—persons commonly pass from one to the other, or live under both alternately or constantly, without any generous or useful devotion. The enthusiast’s presumption and rapture rest on some external observance or internal feeling that cannot claim a reasonable being’s solid approbation. To govern conduct by true interest, the good of mankind, or God’s will, we must use reason—think and reflect before acting. Another principle was therefore needed to dictate on sudden emergencies and prompt right action without reasoning: conscience, the natural substitute for the other three rules, with the same title to regard. Being variable, it must be corrected by recurring to the principles from which it was formed; otherwise conscience may dictate things injurious to our own good or others’, or dishonourable to God—impurities, ridiculous penances, villainies and cruelties done to render oneself acceptable to the object of supreme worship. One well educated in a Christian and Protestant country, living under good impressions, will generally have right dictates of conscience. It is very dangerous to slight the real dictates of our own minds—to do what we feel as wrong, or forbear what appears right—for if we disregard even an erroneous conscience, we may come to disregard conscience in general, the surest guardian of virtue. Well-formed conscience, as the result of rational self-interest, benevolence, and piety jointly, is the quintessence and perfection of our rational natures; to act because a thing is right is nobler than acting from any single principle, since it unites every just principle, and may correct and overrule any of them when they clash. A papist may believe he does good to souls by tormenting bodies and that it is no sin to deceive heretics; but if he feels inward reluctance and cannot tell a deliberate falsehood without compunction, he would do well to forbear, till he has carefully compared conscience with what he imagined to be God’s command. Conscience’s satisfaction is solid and permanent, consoling under all troubles; the pangs of a guilty conscience are the most intolerable of evils—one villainous action imbitters a whole life, and no riches, honours, or luxury ease the mind that condemns itself. This mechanical determination, connate or arising necessarily from our constitution, must be intended as the monitor and guide of life; it is felt as God’s representative, its sentence the forerunner of divine judgment—hence the dread of future judgments, and the heart’s approbation as a certificate of divine approbation and foretaste of future favour.
The Means of Virtue
The book closes with practical directions for acquiring virtue. First, if inferior passions have gained ascendancy and bad habits formed, a man should weigh the considerations about the nature and tendency of passions, convincing himself how foolish, injurious, displeasing to his maker, and shameful his conduct is; men abandon themselves through want of timely reflection—no man knowingly lays aside regard to true interest when free of temptation; all wish to be happy, none voluntarily choose misery; vice sacrifices health, reputation, worldly interest, and peace of mind. Second, take care on entering the world to contract no bad habits, since habits are hard to break even when one is unhappy in them; youth is the time requiring greatest attention, the mind then being susceptible of new impressions; once connections and mode of life settle, generally by about thirty, the bent of mind is formed and little change follows, barring a total revolution in affairs or uncommon calamity. New principles, views, and expectations may equal such a revolution—many would have more virtue with more knowledge; thus the doctrines of a resurrection and future retribution produced a great and speedy change in the heathen world at Christianity’s first promulgation. Third, to break bad habits, resolutely avoid every associated circumstance, especially former company; he who confides in fortitude and runs into temptation is almost sure to be overcome—safety lies in flying from danger through wise distrust of ourselves. Fourth, resolutely do what is right whether or not we immediately take pleasure in it; duty becomes habitual satisfaction, love of virtue for its own sake; even the most selfish person, by custom of generosity, would act from pure benevolence. Fifth, contemplating virtuous characters inspires love of virtue; studying vicious lives to be deterred is not equally advisable, since familiarity kills horror and we may come to interest ourselves in a villain’s schemes, especially if he has good qualities—vice joined with wit, or with real virtues like courage and humanity, is exceedingly dangerous. Sixth, for piety, frequently meditate on God’s works, attributes, character, and benefits, on his universal presence and providence, till every object introduces the idea of God as creator, preserver, benefactor, moral governor, and judge—the strongest preservative against vice.
The Argument from Design and Its Limits
The first part builds its case on what Priestley takes to be the plain evidence of nature. The world exhibits a fitness of means to ends that cannot be ascribed to accident: the distribution of light and heat by the earth’s rotation, the adaptation of animals to their climates, the provision against the extinction of species, the contrivance of the human body. From these works he deduces God’s power, wisdom, and goodness as primary attributes, and from these in turn derives omniscience, omnipresence, providence, and unity. The argument is cumulative rather than deductive, and Priestley is candid about its limits. We know God only through his works, and those works we cannot fully comprehend; the light of nature, he concedes, gives us only a very imperfect idea of God’s moral character. It is revelation, he says, that supplies what nature leaves obscure—the declarations and specimens of divine conduct that let us form a distinct conception of benevolence as God’s ruling principle.
Conscience as the Guide of Life
The second part turns from speculation to practice. Priestley identifies four rules of human conduct: obedience to the will of God, regard to our own real happiness, regard for the good of others, and the dictates of conscience. These are not competing authorities but convergent clues, since all lead to the same end—the happiness of the creation, which is God’s design. Conscience he treats as a substitute for the other three, a set of maxims formed from reason, education, and the opinions of others, ready for emergencies when reflection is impossible. Because conscience varies with upbringing, it must be corrected by recurring to the principles from which it was formed; yet even an erroneous conscience must not be slighted, since disregarding it in small matters breeds a habit of disregarding it altogether. The satisfaction of a well-formed conscience is, for Priestley, the most solid of pleasures, and its pangs the most intolerable of evils.
The Estimate of Human Pursuits
Much of the second part is a moral psychology of the passions. Priestley ranks the pleasures of sense, imagination, self-interest, social affection, and devotion, and asks which should rule. Refinement of taste he praises as an innocent amusement and a ladder to moral beauty, while warning that it breeds vanity and envy when made a man’s chief excellence. Self-interest he allows a middle rank between virtue and vice: it is useful for lifting men above grosser pursuits, but no conduct is virtuous in the highest sense unless it springs from regard to God, to others, or to conscience. The love of money and the love of power he condemns when pursued as ends rather than means, since they narrow the mind and shut out the pleasures of benevolence. The means of virtue he sets out practically—reflection before action, the formation of good habits in youth, flight from temptation, the contemplation of virtuous characters, meditation on God’s works, and prayer.
Revelation Completing Nature
The third part turns to the future expectations of mankind, where Priestley’s argument culminates. The doctrines of a resurrection and a future retribution, he holds, are the great engine of moral reformation; the prospect of judgment gives conscience its authority as God’s representative, and the heart’s approbation becomes a foretaste of divine favour. Throughout, Priestley writes as a rational Dissenter for whom liberty of conscience is inseparable from religious truth. The dedication’s warning against parliamentary religion, and its praise of ancestors who suffered for religious liberty, place the book within the long Protestant struggle against civil interference in matters of faith.
A Rational Dissenter’s Legacy
The Institutes belongs to a tradition of rational theology that sought to make Christianity credible to educated minds without surrendering its supernatural claims. Priestley’s heavy reliance on David Hartley’s Observations on Man—which he wished more generally studied—marks the book as an early attempt to ground religion in associationist psychology. Its confidence that reason and revelation form a single system, and its insistence that the young be taught the evidences of religion rather than left to pick up fragments in the pulpit, made it a practical manual as much as a treatise. For readers today it offers a clear window into the mind of eighteenth-century Dissent: optimistic about reason, suspicious of enthusiasm and superstition alike, and convinced that the happiness of God’s creatures is the end toward which both nature and scripture point.
