Sir Joseph Banks had especially invited him.

But the clergy of Oxford and Cambridge interfered.

Priestley was considered unsound in his views of the Trinity; it was evidently suspected that this might vitiate his astronomical observations; he was rejected, and the expedition crippled.
The orthodox view of astronomy lingered on in other branches of the Protestant Church.

In Germany even Leibnitz attacked the Newtonian theory of gravitation on theological grounds, though he found some little consolation in thinking that it might be used to support the Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation.
In Holland the Calvinistic Church was at first strenuous against the whole new system, but we possess a comical proof that Calvinism even in its strongholds was powerless against it; for in 1642 Blaer published at Amsterdam his book on the use of globes, and, in order to be on the safe side, devoted one part of his work to the Ptolemaic and the other to the Copernican scheme, leaving the benevolent reader to take his choice.( 69) (69) For the attitude of Leibnetz, Hutchinson, and the others named toward the Newtonian theory, see Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, chap.ix.For John Wesley, see his Compendium of Natural Philosophy, being a Survey of the Wisdom of God in the Creation, London, 1784.

See also Leslie Stephen, Eighteenth Century, vol.ii, p.413.For Owen, see his Works, vol.xix, p.310.For Cotton Mather's view, see The Christian Philosopher, London, 1721, especially pp.