Joseph. Chandler followed A Vindication with his Defence of the Prime Ministry and Character of Joseph (1743). The debate also promoted a contribution from the deist Peter Annet, who in the same year published his The Resurrection of Jesus Considered (1744). Continuing on from the work of Thomas Woolston in the 1720s, it questioned the reliability of the gospel accounts of the Resurrection. Chandler's answer was contained in The Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus re-examined, and their testimony proved entirely consistent (London, 1744). John Leland, in his overview of deist writers, called it a 'very valuable treatise' that showed 'great clearness and judgement'. His apologetic, Plain Reasons for Being a Christian (London, 1730), was a more indirect reply to freethinking critiques of Christianity. It was advanced on the same grounds, however, making its appeal to 'the Truth and Reason of Things' arrived at by a 'free and rational Choice'. Like Clarke, he argued that human reason, which is capable of arriving at natural religion, needed to be supplemented by revelation. But the test of this revelation would be its consistency with reason. Roman Catholicism Chandler was vehement in his opposition to Roman Catholicism, and this was sharpened by events which seem to threaten the Protestant Revolution of 1688. In 1735 he took part in a series of controversial lectures organised by Dissenters at Salters' Hall in London, aimed at what they perceived to be the growing threat of "popery", particularly from missionaries. His contributions were published in Seventeen Sermons against Popery preached at Salter's Hall (London, 1735), as well as separately. These advanced a Protestant ecclesiology over and against claims of Roman supremacy, embodied in Bellarmine's fifteen Marks of the Church. As well as being accused by Richard Challoner of wilfully misrepresenting Roman Catholicism, Chandler's sermons were among those that drew criticism from Anglicans. While supportive of his purposes, they took issue with his remarks on the episcopacy ('The Mission of Bishops and Prelates is in itself a trifling Circumstance, of little or not importance...') and apostolic succession. Shortly afterwards Chandler joined John Eames and Jeremiah Hunt in talks with two Roman priests at the Bell tavern in Nicholas Lane, London. The debate ranged over issues such as the authority of the Pope, transubstantiation, and praying to saints and angels. An account of the second conference was written by Chandler and published by John Gray, his successor at the