the Rev. W. Turner , Jun. , MA., Lives of the eminent Unitarians

[263] they were, however, abundantly sensible that their remaining grievances and disabilities were a trifle compared to the consequences which would probably ensue on the threatened restoration of the Stuart dynasty, and both their public principles and their regard to their own interest and security led them to deprecate so formidable a calamity.

In 1748 Mr. Chandler took a part in the controversy on the questions between the Church and the Dissenters, which were raised into activity at this period by the appearance of Mr. White's Letters to a Dissenting Gentleman. Our author's pamphlet is entitled, ‘The Case of Subscription to explanatory Articles of Faith, as a qualification for Admission into the Christian Ministry, calmly and impartially reviewed.’ It contains an able vindication of the general principles of free inquiry and individual judgment, and a judicious application of these principles to the particular case under discussion. His familiarity with the ancient fathers and with the early history of the church, are exhibited to great advantage in the refutation of an assertion of his opponent, that subscription to articles and creeds was countenanced by the practice of the primitive church. He shews, on the contrary, that no such claim was set up even by the apostles, who, if any, might be supposed to have a plausible right to assert such an authority; that what have been called creeds in the writings of the early fathers are nothing more than voluntary declarations of individual opinion; and that, in fact, the earliest attempts in this manner to lord it over the consciences