DANIEL, a learned divine, was born at Rushden in Northamptonshire in the year 1638. In 1653 he was admitted of Trinity College, Oxford, and was elected a scholar in 1655. He took the degree of A.B. in 1657, and of A.M. in 1660. In 1664 he was elected a fellow of his college, and about the same time began to distinguish himself by the publication of some controversial works against the papists. The credit which he thus obtained recommended him to Dr Ward, bishop of Salisbury, who appointed him his chaplain, and in 1668 collated him to two different prebends in that cathedral. In 1672 he was admitted precentor of the same church, and about the same time took the degree of D.D. He was likewise preferred to the rectory of St Edmund's at Salisbury; but his next publication had no tendency to advance him in the church. It appeared anonymously, under the title of The Protestant Reconciler, Lond. 1683, 8vo. The churchmen of that period were unprepared for the reception of such doctrines; and the author was immediately exposed to a storm of controversial abuse. The bishop obliged him to make a formal retraction; and in a second part of the Protestant Reconciler, he endeavoured in some measure to recover the good opinion of his more bigoted brethren. He now sent to the press a treatise on a less hazardous subject; Ethicus Compendium, in usuum academicae juventutis, Oxon. 1684, 8vo. His most important work, the principal labour of fifteen years, was his Paraphrase and Commentary on the New Testament, published in 1700, in two volumes folio. He afterwards published additional annotations, and an Examen variarum Lectionum Johannis Millii in Novum Testamentum. Among the other works which he produced, are The Necessity and Usefulness of the Christian Revelation, Lond. 1705, 8vo. In 1710 he published two works against Calvinism. One of these, a discourse with a long title, is commonly described as "Whitby on the five Points." In 1711 he published a Latin treatise on original sin. According to Bishop Tomline, he confuted Calvinism almost to a demonstration; but the bishop was himself a very slender and superficial theologian. He likewise wrote Dissertatio de Scripturarum Interpretatione secundum Patrum Commentarios, Lond. 1714, 8vo. The scope of this dissertation is to evince, by copious examples, that the fathers are for the most part very incompetent and unsafe guides in matters of theological controversy. Dr Whitby had now become a decided Arian; and to these opinions, apparently derived from Dr Clarke, he adhered till the time of his death. Having preached at St Edmund's church on the preceding day, he died on the 24th of March 1726, at the age of eighty-eight. Of the changes in his creed he left an account in The last Thoughts of Dr Whitby, &c., Lond. 1727, 8vo. This posthumous publication was accompanied with an account of his life by Dr Sykes.