Wonder, connected with a principle of rational curiosity, is the source of all knowledge and discover, and it is a principle even of piety; but wonder which ends in wonder, and is satisfied with wonder, is the quality of an idiot.

In 1768 he attended the son and heir of the 3rd Earl of Aylesford to Oxford as private tutor; and after receiving through the earl and Bishop of London various minor preferments which by dispensations he combined with his first living he was installed in 1781 as archdeacon of St Albans. Horsley now entered on his controversy with Joseph Priestley who denied that the early Christians held the doctrine of the Trinity. B.

B. With the see of Rochester he held the deanery of Westminster.