octrine of Adam Smith, that religion like
other things should be left to the operation of the natural law of
supply and demand. In the department of natural theology and the
Christian evidences he ably advocated that method of reconciling the
Mosaic narrative with the indefinite antiquity of the globe which
William Buckland (1784-1856) advanced in his Bridgewater Treatise, and
which Dr Chalmers had previously communicated to him. His refutation of
Hume's objection to the truth of miracles is perhaps his intellectual
_chef-d'oeuvre_. The distinction between the laws and dispositions of
matter, as between the ethics and objects of theology, he was the first
to indicate and enforce, and he laid great emphasis on the superior
authority as witnesses for the truth of Revelation of the Scriptural as
compared with the Extra-Scriptural writers, and of the Christian as
compared with the non-Christian testimonies. In his _Institutes of
Theology_, no material modification is attempted on the doctrines of
Calvinism, which he received with all simplicity of faith as revealed in
the Divine word, and defended as in harmony with the most profound
philosophy of human nature and of the Divine providence.

For biographical details see Dr W. Hanna's _Memoirs_ (Edinburgh, 4
vols., 1849-1852); there is a good short _Life_ by Mrs Oliphant
(1893). (W. Ha.; D. Mn.)

CHALONER, SIR THOMAS (1521-1565), English statesman and poet, was the
son of Roger Chaloner, mercer of London, a descendant of the
Denbighshire Chaloners. No details are known of his youth except that he
was educated at both Oxford and Cambridge. In 1540 he went, as secretary
to Sir Henry Knyvett, to the court of Charles V., whom he accompanied in
his expedition against Algiers in 1541, and was wrecked on the Barbary
coast. In 1547 he joined in the expedition to Scotland, and was
knighted, after the battle of Musselburgh, by the protector Somerset,
whose patronage he enjoyed. In 1549 he was a witness against Dr Bonner,
bishop of London; in 1551 against Stephen Gardiner, bishop of
Winchester; in the spring of the latter year he was sent as a
commissioner to Scotland, and again in March 1552. In 1553 he went with
Sir Nicholas Wotton and Sir William Pickering on an embassy to France,
but was recalled by Queen Mary on her accession. In spite of his
Protestant views, Chaloner was still employed by the government, going
to Scotland in 1555-1556, and providing carriages for