The Theological Repository was a periodical founded and edited from 1769 to 1771 by the eighteenth-century British polymath

Polymath

A polymath is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas. In less formal terms, a polymath may simply be someone who is very knowledgeable...

 Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley

Joseph Priestley, FRS was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works...

. Although ostensibly committed to the open and rational inquiry of theological questions, the journal became a mouthpiece for Dissenting

English Dissenters

English Dissenters were Christians who separated from the Church of England in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.They originally agitated for a wide reaching Protestant Reformation of the Established Church, and triumphed briefly under Oliver Cromwell....

, particularly Unitarian

Unitarianism

Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....

 and Arian

Arianism

Arianism is the theological teaching attributed to Arius , a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt, concerning the relationship of the entities of the Trinity and the precise nature of the Son of God as being a subordinate entity to God the Father...

, doctrines.

Priestley promised to print all viewpoints, but only like-minded authors ever submitted articles. He was therefore forced to provide much of the journal's content himself. After only a few years, due to a lack of funds, he was forced to cease publishing the journal. About a decade later, in 1784, Priestley revived the Theological Repository, but he again became responsible for much of the journal's content and again the journal became insolvent after several issues (1784, 1786, 1788).

Joseph Johnson

Joseph Johnson (publisher)

Joseph Johnson was an influential 18th-century London bookseller and publisher. His publications covered a wide variety of genres and a broad spectrum of opinions on important issues...

, Priestley's close friend and publisher, was responsible for issuing the journal. Dedicated to the Unitarian cause, he bore much of the financial burden of the enterprise.

Contributors

Those contributing to the Repository included:

• Samuel Badcock
  Samuel Badcock
  Samuel Badcock was an English nonconformist minister, theological writer and literary critic.-Life:He was born at South Molton, Devon on 23 February 1747. His parents were dissenters, and he was educated in a school at Ottery St. Mary, for the sons of those opposed to the Church of England...
  
  
• Samuel Bourn the Younger
  Samuel Bourn the Younger
  -Life:He was the second son of Samuel Bourn the elder, born at Calne, Wiltshire. He was taught classics at Bolton, and trained for the ministry in the Manchester dissenting academy of John Chorlton and James Coningham. His first settlement was at Crook, near Kendal, in 1711...
  
   (posthumous publication of correspondence with Philip Doddridge
  Philip Doddridge
  Philip Doddridge DD was an English Nonconformist leader, educator, and hymnwriter.-Early life:...
  
  )
• John Brekell
  John Brekell
  John Brekell was an English presbyterian minister and theological writer.-Life:Brekell was born at North Meols, Lancashire, in 1697, and was educated for the ministry at Nottingham, at the dissenting academy of John Hardy. His first known settlement was at Stamford, Lincolnshire, apparently as...
  
  , writing as Verus
• Joseph Bretland
  Joseph Bretland
  Joseph Bretland , was an English dissenting minister.-Life:He was the son of Joseph Bretland, an Exeter tradesman, was born at Exeter 22 May 1742. He was for several years a day scholar at the Exeter grammar school, and was placed in business in 1757, but shortly after left it for the ministry...
  
  , writing as Philander and under other names in the second series.
• John Cameron
  John Cameron (Reformed Presbyterian)
  -Life:He was born near Edinburgh. Having served an apprenticeship to a bookseller there, he entered the university and took his M.A. degree. He belonged to the ‘reformed presbyterians,’ or ‘covenanters,’ and was admitted a probationer....
  
  , writing as Philander in the first series.
• Paul Cardale
  Paul Cardale
  -Life:He was educated at the dissenting academy of Ebenezer Latham, M.D., at Findern, Derbyshire, from 1720. Early in life he became an assistant minister for the Presbyterians at Kidderminster, and preached there in 1726...
  
  
• James Duchal
  James Duchal
  James Duchal, D.D. was an Irish Presbyterian divine.-Life:Duchal is said to have been born in 1697 at Antrim. The year is probably correct, but the place mistaken; his baptism is not recorded in the presbyterian register of Antrim...
  
  
• William Hazlitt, father of the essayist, writing as Philalethes and Rationalis
• Joseph Mottershead
  Joseph Mottershead
  -Life:The son of Joseph Mottershead, yeoman, he was born near Stockport, Cheshire, on 17 August 1688. He was educated at Attercliffe Academy under Timothy Jollie, and afterwards studied for a year under Matthew Henry at Chester....
  
  , writing as Theophilus
• John Palmer
  John Palmer (Unitarian, 1742–1786)
  John Palmer was an English Unitarian minister.-Life:The son of John Palmer, wig-maker, he was born at Norwich. He was a protégé of John Taylor, who began his education, and, on becoming divinity tutor at Warrington Academy, placed Palmer at school in Congleton, Cheshire, under Edward Harwood...
  
  , who wrote in the first series as G.H., but in the second series as Christophilos, Symmachus, and Erasmus.
• Thomas Fyshe Palmer
  Thomas Fyshe Palmer
  Thomas Fyshe Palmer was an English-born Unitarian minister, political reformer and political exile.-Early life:Palmer was born in Ickwell, Bedfordshire, England, the son of Henry Fyshe who assumed the added name of Palmer because of an inheritance, and Elizabeth, daughter of James Ingram of...
  
  , writing as Anglo-Scotus
• William Turner, writing as Vigilius
• John Wiche
  John Wiche (Baptist)
  -Life:He was born at Taunton, Somerset, on 24 April 1718. His parents were Baptists; his elder brother, George Wiche , originally a mechanic, became steward of the assembly rooms in Taunton, where his portrait, by Thorn, was placed by the subscribers...
  
  , writing as Nazaraeus