The History of Persecution
From the Patriarchal Age to the Reign of George II
9781465640888
281 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
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.
