BUTLER, Joseph, Bishop of Durham, a prelate distinguished by his piety and learning, as well as by the depth and originality of his metaphysical and ethical views, was the youngest son of Mr Thomas Butler, a respectable shopkeeper at Wantage, in Berkshire, where he was born in the year 1692. His father, who was a Presbyterian, observing that he had a strong inclination to learning, sent him from a grammar-school where he had been placed, to an academy in Gloucestershire, in order to qualify him for a dissenting minister; and while there he wrote some remarks on Dr Clarke's first sermon at Boyle's lecture. Afterwards, resolving to conform to the established church, he studied at Oriel College, where he contracted an intimate friendship with Mr Edward Talbot, son of the Bishop of Durham, and brother to the lord chancellor, who laid the foundation of his subsequent advancement. Soon after his admission into the university he took orders, and in 1718 he was appointed preacher at the Rolls Chapel. He held this situation for about eight years, when he published a volume of sermons delivered in that chapel, which elevated him to great reputation as a profound and original thinker. The Bishop of Durham bestowed upon him the rectory of Haughton, and afterwards that of Stanhope, where he resided a considerable time, entirely devoted to the duties of his pastoral functions. Through the recommendation of his friend and fellow-student Secker, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, he was in 1733 nominated chaplain to the Lord Chancellor Talbot; and a prebend in the church of Rochester followed this appointment. He now took the degree of LL.D., and in 1736 was appointed clerk of the closet to the queen, whom he attended every day by her majesty's special command, from seven till nine in the evening. In the same year he published his celebrated work The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature, which is allowed to be the most original and profound work in any language on the philosophy of religion, and has accordingly placed the author in the first rank of deep and comprehensive thinkers. In 1738 Dr Butler was promoted to the bishopric of Bristol, on the recommendation of Queen Caroline, who had a philosophical taste, and highly esteemed this distinguished philosopher. Two years afterwards he was made Dean of St Paul's, when he resigned the living of Stanhope. In the year 1746 he was appointed clerk of the closet to the king, and in 1750 he obtained his highest preferment, the bishopric of Durham. This rich benefice he, however, enjoyed but a short time; for he died at Bath on the 16th of June 1752. His corpse was interred in the cathedral at Bristol, where there is a monument, with an inscription, erected to his memory. Dr Butler died a bachelor. His profound and comprehensive mind appears sufficiently in his Sermons at the Rolls Chapel, and in his celebrated work on the Analogy of Religion. An account of his character as a philosopher has been drawn with great ability and discrimination by Sir James Mackintosh, in his Dissertation on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, prefixed to this work. See vol. i. p. 343.