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

[92] was in reply to a Dr. Wells, a clergyman in Leicestershire, who had published ‘A Letter to Mr. Donley,’ a dissenting minister, containing many unfounded statements and gross misrepresentations of the principles and character of the dissenters. This pamphlet being circulated with great activity, Mr. Peirce, in 1707, published ‘A Eight Letters to Dr. Wells,’ in which he convicted him, not only of various mistakes, but of gross and unjust calumnies. But his most remarkable and valuable work, in connexion with this controversy, was occasioned by the appearance of a Latin treatise by Dr. Nichols, Foreign Secretary to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and more particularly submitted to the judgment of divines in the foreign Protestant churches. As this work, from the quarter in which it originated, and the authority it appeared to assert, was likely to have an injurious effect in diffusing erroneous impressions of the character, doctrines, and discipline of the English dissenters among their foreign brethren, it was thought most desirable that a complete and full reply should be given by some one who was competent to appear to advantage in the same field. With this view Mr. Peirce, as the most suitable man for the task, was earnestly solicited to undertake it; and, after some hesitation, he consented, and prepared a well-written volume, entitled ‘Vindiciae Fratrum Dissentientium in Anglia, adversus V. C. Gulielmi Nicholsii, S. T. P., Defensionem Ecclesiae Anglicanae,’ 1710. To this work Dr. Nichols attempted no reply, and Mr. Peirce thought the controversy at an end, till, some years afterwards, another clergyman, after