The History of Persecution: From the Patriarchal Age to the Reign of George II

The Rev. Dr. Samuel Chandler was descended from ancestors heartily engaged in the cause of Nonconformity, and great sufferers for liberty of conscience. His paternal grandfather was a respectable tradesman at Taunton, in Somersetshire. He was much injured in his fortune by the persecutions under Charles the Second, but “he took joyfully the spoiling of his goods, knowing in himself that he had in heaven a better and an enduring substance.”

The father of Dr. Chandler was a dissenting minister of considerable worth and abilities, who spent the greater part of his life in the city of Bath, where he maintained an honourable name.

Our author was born at Hungerford, in Berkshire, in the year 1693; his father being at that time the pastor of a congregation of protestant dissenters in that place. He early discovered a genius for literature, which was carefully cultivated; and being placed under proper masters, he made a very uncommon progress in classical learning, and especially in the Greek tongue. As it was intended by his friends to bring him up for the ministry, he was sent to an academy at Bridgewater, under the care of the Rev. Mr. Moore: but he was soon removed from thence to Gloucester, that he might become a pupil to Mr. Samuel Jones, a dissenting minister of great erudition and abilities, who had opened an academy in that city. This academy was soon transferred to Tewkesbury, at which place Mr. Jones presided over it for many years with very high and deserved reputation. Such was the attention of that gentleman to the morals of his pupils, and to their progress in literature, and such the skill and discernment with which he directed their studies, that it was a singular advantage to be placed under so able and accomplished a tutor. Mr. Chandler made the proper use of so happy a situation; applying himself to his studies with great assiduity, and particularly to critical, biblical, and oriental learning. Among the pupils of Mr. Jones were Mr. Joseph Butler, afterwards Bishop of Durham, and Thomas Secker, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. With these eminent persons he contracted a friendship that continued to the end of their lives, notwithstanding the different views by which their conduct was afterwards directed, and the different situations in which they were placed.

Mr. Chandler, having finished his academical studies, began to preach about July, 1714; and being soon distinguished by his talents in the pulpit, he was chosen, in 1716, minister of the Presbyterian congregation at Peckham, near London, in which station he continued some years. Here he entered into the matrimonial state, and began to have an increasing family, when, by the fatal South-sea scheme of 1720, he unfortunately lost the whole fortune which he had received with his wife. His circumstances being thereby embarrassed, and his income as a minister being inadequate to his expences, he engaged in the trade of a bookseller, and kept a shop in the Poultry, London, for about two or three years, still continuing to discharge the duties of the pastoral office. It may not be improper to observe, that in the earlier part of his life, Mr. Chandler was subject to frequent and dangerous fevers; one of which confined him more than three months, and threatened by its effects to disable him for public service. He was therefore advised to confine himself to a vegetable diet, which he accordingly did, and adhered to it for twelve years. This produced so happy an alteration in his constitution, that though he afterwards returned to the usual way of living, he enjoyed an uncommon share of spirits and vigour till seventy.

While Mr. Chandler was minister of the congregation at Peckham, some gentlemen, of the several denominations of dissenters in the city, came to a resolution to set up and support a weekly evening lecture at the Old Jewry, for the winter half year. The subjects to be treated in this lecture were the evidences of natural and revealed religion, and answers to the principal objections against them. Two of the most eminent young ministers among the dissenters were appointed for the execution of this design, of which Mr. Chandler was one, and Mr. afterwards Dr. Lardner, who is so justly celebrated for his learned writings, was another. But after some time this lecture was dropped, and another of the same kind set up, to be preached by one person only; it being judged that it might be thereby conducted with more consistency of reasoning, and uniformity of design; and Mr. Chandler was appointed for this service. In the course of this lecture, he preached some sermons on the confirmation which miracles gave to the divine mission of Christ, and the truth of his religion; and vindicated the argument against the objections of Collins, in his “Discourse of the grounds and reasons of the Christian Religion.” These sermons, by the advice of a friend, he enlarged and threw into the form of a continued treatise, and published, in 8vo. in 1725, under the following title: “A Vindication of the Christian Religion, in two parts: I. A Discourse of the nature and use of miracles. II. An Answer to a late book, entitled, A Discourse of the grounds and reasons of the Christian Religion.” Dr. Leland observes, that in this work our author “clearly vindicates the miracles of our Saviour, and shews, that, as they were circumstanced, they were convincing proofs of his divine mission.” But though Mr. Chandler refuted the arguments of Collins against Christianity, he was not unwilling to do justice to his merit, and therefore candidly said, in the preface to his own book, “The preface to the Discourse of the grounds and reasons is, in my judgment, an excellent defence of the liberty of every one’s judging for himself, and of proposing his opinions to others, and of defending them with the best reasons he can, which every one hath a right to, as a man and a Christian.” Our author also zealously opposed any interference of the civil magistrate in the defence of Christianity: “Though the magistrate’s sword,” says he, “may very fitly be employed to prevent libertinism, or the breach of the public peace by men’s vices, yet the progress of infidelity must be controuled another way, viz. by convincing men’s consciences of the truth of Christianity, and fairly answering their objections against it. Is it not surprising, that men, who take their religion upon trust, and who therefore can know but little of the intrinsic worth of Christianity, or of that strong evidence that there is to support it, should be in pain for it, when they find it attacked by any new objections, or old ones placed in a somewhat different view from what they were before; or that they should call out aloud to the magistrate to prevent the making them, because they know not how otherwise to answer them? But that men of learning and great abilities, whose proper office it is to defend Christianity, by giving the reasons for their faith, and who seem to have both ability and leisure thus to stand up in the behalf of it, should make their appeal to the civil power, and become humble suitors to the magistrate to controul the spirit of infidelity, is strangely surprising. It looks as if they suspected the strength of Christianity; otherwise, one would think they would not invite such strange and foreign aids to their assistance, when they could have more friendly ones nearer at home, that would much more effectually support and protect it; or at least, as though they had some other interest to maintain than the cause of common Christianity; though at the same time they would willingly be thought to have nothing else in view, but the service and honour of it. If the scheme of our modern deists be founded in truth, I cannot help wishing it all good success; and it would be a crime in the civil magistrate, by any methods of violence, to prevent the progress of it: but if, as I believe, Christianity is the cause of God, it will prevail by its own native excellence, and of consequence needs not the assistance of the civil power.” A second edition of this work was published in 1728. Having presented a copy of it to Archbishop Wake, his grace expressed his sense of the value of the favour in the following letter, which is too honourable a testimony to Mr. Chandler’s merit to be omitted. It appears from the letter, that the Archbishop did not then know that the author was any other than a bookseller.