Butler Joseph

Butler, Joseph, English divine, was born in 1692 at Wantage, Berkshire. Though brought up a Dissenter, he yet joined the Church, taking orders in 1718. He was the appointed preacher at the Rolls Chapel, where he preached the sermons which he subsequently published in 1726, and which still hold a high place in moral science. After a period spent in retirement as rector of Stanhope, Durham, where he is believed to have written his Analogy, he was in 1733 appointed chaplain to Lord Chancellor Talbot, in 1736 a prebendary, of Rochester, in 1738 Bishop of Bristol, in 1740 Dean of St. Paul's, and in 1750 Bishop of Durham. His great work, the Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature, was published in 1736. He died in 1752 at Bath, and was buried in Bristol cathedral.