“
after this letter to him, the subject being in my mind I wrote the one to D
r. Rush. the letter to D
r. Priestley it seems he communicated to his friend D
r. Lindsay in Eñgland, who dying, a m
(
~
r)
Belsham has published memoirs of him, & in them my letters to D
r. Priestley. of this m
(
~
r)
Adams gave me the first notice in a letter recieved on the 9
th. inst. these will probably soon find their way into the newspapers, and the whole kennel of priests will open upon me. my
letter to D
r. Rush, written more in detail than that to D
r. Priestly would much enlarge the field of their declamations, and that it whould not get into their hands cannot but be a
subject of some anxiety. tranquility is now my object, and that my mind may not be harrowed up by the renewal of contentions,
which while I was young I met with the zeal of youth . . .
”
Relative to the above letter, one week later, on June 24, Jefferson ordered from N. G. Dufief of Philadelphia: “
Memoirs of Theophilus Lindsay by Belsham. a new work in 2. v. 8
vo. just pub
d.
”
Dufief replied on July 10 that “
Il m’a été impossible de trouver à Philadelphie . . . The Memoirs of Theophilus Lindsay . . .”
For Priestley’s
Doctrines of Heathen Philosophy compared with those of Revelation
, see no. 1528.
Richard Rush, 1780-1859, the second son of Benjamin Rush, was a lawyer, diplomat, and statesman. He was for a time Secretary of State, and later was Ambassador at the Court of St. James.
[1661]
4
Priestley to Linn in defence of Socrates & Jesus compared.
PRIESTLEY,
Joseph.
A Letter to the Reverend John Blair Linn, A.M. Pastor of the First Presbyterian Congregation in the City of Philadelphia.
In Defence of the Pamphlet, intitled, Socrates and Jesus compared. By Joseph Priestley, L.L.D. F.R.S.
Northumberland: Printed by
Andrew Kennedy, for
P. Byrne,
Philadelphia,
1803.
First Edition. 8vo. 32 leaves including the first blank; collates in fours; the last page has the list of contents, the errata,
and a publisher’s announcement:
Printed, and nearly ready for publication, dedicated to Thomas Jefferson, President of the United States,
A General History of the Christian Church, from the Fall of the Western Empire to the present Time, in four volumes, octavo . . .
Fulton and Peters, page 13.
Sent to Jefferson by the author, who wrote from Northumberland on June 25, 1803: “As you were pleased to think favourably of my pamphlet intitled
Socrates and Jesus compared, I take the liberty to send you a
defence of it. My principal object, you will perceive, was to lay hold of the opportunity, given me by M
r Blair Linn, to excite some attention to doctrines which I consider as of peculiar importance in the christian system, and
which I do not find to have been discussed in this country . . .”
A copy of the book advertised in this work,
A General History of the Christian Church, was not in the Jefferson collection sold to Congress in 1815.
Priestley sent Jefferson a copy as soon as it was published. On June 25, 1803, he wrote to him: “The
Church History is, I hope, by this time in the hands of the bookseller at Philadelphia, so that you will soon, if my directions have been
attended to, receive a copy of the work which I have the honour to dedicate to you . . .”
Priestley had previously consulted Jefferson concerning the dedication, in which the latter had made some corrections. On
October 29, 1802, Priestley wrote: “. . . I take the liberty to send . . . a copy of my
dedication, with the correction that you suggested, and a
Note from the letter with which you favoured me concerning what you did with respect to the
constitution, and which is really more than I had ascribed to you. For almost everything of importance to political liberty in that instrument
was, as it appears to me, suggested by you; and as this was unknown to myself, and I believe is so to the world in general,
I was unwilling to omit this opportunity of noticing it . . .
"P.S. I send a copy of the
Preface as well as of the
Dedication, that you may form some idea of the work you are pleased to patronize.”
[1662]
