An History of the Corruptions of Christianity, in Two Volumes by Joseph Priestley - 1782

Bermingham: Printed by Piercy and Jones for J. Johnson, 1782. First. Very Good. Contemporary 1/4 black cloth spines on brown paper boards with titles on paper labels on spines Covers show moderate soiling and scuffing and are age darkened with minor edge wear Hinges all cracked, and front board of vol 1 is loose, but bindings are otherwise intact Slight age toning to text, but no foxing some pages slightly creased and there are occasional minor pencil annotations, but text is overall very good The personal bookplate of Basil Jacobs is affixed to the ffep of both volumes
vol 1 xxvii, [2], 426; vol 2 vii, [2], 489 [1] 6 p Priestley catalogue
Both volumes 205 cm x 12 cm [Norton, letters pp 563 and ff; Crook, TR/108-9]


Joseph Priestley FRS (1733--1804) was an English chemist, natural philosopher, separatist theologian, grammarian, multi-subject educator, and liberal political theorist He published over 150 works, and conducted experiments in electricity and other areas of science He was a close friend of, and worked in close association with Benjamin Franklin involving electricity experiments
Priestley's science was integral to his theology, and he consistently tried to fuse Enlightenment rationalism with Christian theism In his metaphysical texts, Priestley attempted to combine theism, materialism, and determinism, a project that has been called "audacious and original" He believed that a proper understanding of the natural world would promote human progress and eventually bring about the Christian millennium Priestley, who strongly believed in the free and open exchange of ideas, advocated toleration and equal rights for religious Dissenters, which also led him to help found Unitarianism in England The controversial nature of Priestley's publications, combined with his outspoken support of the American Revolution and later the French Revolution, aroused public and governmental contempt; eventually forcing him to flee in 1791, first to London and then to the United States, after a mob burned down his Birmingham home and church He spent his last ten years in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania

An History of the Corruptions of Christianity, published in 1782, was the fourth part of Priestley's Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion
Priestley's major argument in the Institutes is that the only revealed religious truths that can be accepted are those that also conform to the truth of the natural world Because his views of religion were deeply tied to his understanding of nature, the text's theism rests on the argument from design Many of Priestley's arguments descended from 18th-century deism and comparative religion The Institutes shocked and appalled many readers, primarily because it challenged basic Christian orthodoxies, such as the divinity of Christ and the miracle of the Virgin Birth He wanted to return Christianity to its "primitive" or "pure" form by eliminating the "corruptions" which had accumulated over the centuries The fourth part of the Institutes, An History of the Corruptions of Christianity, became so long that he was forced to issue it separately Priestley believed that the Corruptions was "the most valuable" work he ever published
Volume 2 contains Priestley's attach on Gibbon, which led to the celebrated letters between the two 426, 489 pp.