When Paley, in 1762, kept his act in the schools, previously to his
entering the senate-house, to contend for mathematical honours, it was
under the moderators, Dr. John Jebb, the famous physician and advocate
of reform in church and state, and the learned Dr. Richard Watson,
late Bishop of Llandaff. _Johnson's Questiones Philosophicæ_ was the
book then commonly resorted to in the university for subjects usually
disputed of in the _schools_; and he fixed upon two questions, in
addition to his mathematical one, which to his knowledge had never
before been subjects of _disputation_. The one was _against Capital
Punishments_; the other _against the Eternity of Hell Torments_. As
soon, however, as it came to the knowledge of the heads of the
university that Paley had proposed such questions to the moderators,
knowing his abilities, though young, lest it should give rise to a
controversial spirit, the master of his college, Dr. Thomas, was
requested to interfere and put a stop to the proceeding, which he did,
and Bishop Watson thus records the fact in his Autobiography:--"Paley
had brought me, for one of the questions he meant for his act,
_Æternitas pænarum contradicit Divinis Attributis_! The Eternity of
Hell Torments contrary to the Divine Attributes. I had accepted it. A
few days afterwards he came to me in a great fright, saying, that the
master of his college, Dr. Thomas, Dean of Ely, insisted on his not
keeping on such a question. I readily permitted him to change it, and
told him that, if it would lessen his master's apprehensions, he might
put a '_non_' before '_contradicit_;' making the question, The
Eternity of Hell Torments _not_ contrary to the Divine _Attributes_:
and he did so." In the following month of January he was senior
wrangler.