Amortization

Amortization. SEE MORTMAIN Amory, Thomas, D.D. an English dissenting minister, born at Taunton, Jan. 28, 1701, and educated under the care of his uncle, Mr. H. Grove, who had an academy for training young ministers at Taunton. In 1730 he was ordained to the pastoral office. On the death of Mr. Grove, in 1738, Mr. Amory succeeded him as chief tutor in the academy at Taunton, where he was greatly esteemed, not only by his own congregation and sect, but by all the neighboring congregations and ministers, as well of the Independent and Baptist denominations as of the Church of England. In October, 1759, he removed to London, as afternoon preacher to the society in the Old Jewry, belonging to Dr. S. Chandler. In London he was not popular; his sermons, though practical and affecting to the attentive hearer, were rather too close, judicious, and philosophical for the common run of congregations. When the dissenting ministers, in 1772, formed a design of endeavoring to procure an enlargement of the Toleration Act, Dr. Amory was one of the committee appointed for that purpose. He died on the 24th of June, 1774. He was a good Biblical critic, and an excellent scholar. His principal works are, Sermons (5 vols.v. y.) — A Letter to a Friend on the Perplexities to which Christians are exposed: — A Dialogue on Devotion after the manner of Xenophon (Lond. 1746): — Forms of Devotion for the Closet. He also wrote the Life and edited the Writings of the Rev. Henry Grove (Lond. 1740); also edited the Sermons of Grove, and Grove's System of Moral Philosophy: he wrote the Life and edited the Writings of Dr. George Benson, and edited the Posthumous Sermons of Dr. Chandler. — Jones, Chr. Biog.