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necessary and eternal differences of things, and certain fitnesses or unfitnesses of the application of different things, or different relations one to another, not depending on any positive constitutions, but founded unchangeably in the nature and reason of things, and unavoidably arising from the differences of the things themselves.

DR WILLIAM LOWTH.

took up Hoadly's works with warmth, and passed a censure upon them, as calculated to subvert the government and discipline of the church, and to impugn and impeach the regal supremacy in matters ecclesiastical. The controversy was conducted with unbecoming violence, and several bishops and other grave divines (the excellent Sherlock among the number) forgot the dignity of their station and the spirit of Christian charity in the heat of party warfare. Pope alludes sarcastically to Hoadly's sermon in the Dunciad'

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DR WILLIAM LOWTH (1661-1732) was distinguished for his classical and theological attainments, and the liberality with which he communicated his Toland and Tindal, prompt at priests to jeer, stores to others. He published a Vindication of the Yet silent bowed to Christ's no kingdom here. Divine Authority and Inspiration of the Old and New The truth, however, is, that there was nothing Testaments (1692), Directions for the Profitable Read- whatever in Hoadly's sermon injurious to the esta ing of the Holy Scriptures, Commentaries on the Pro-blished endowments and privileges, nor to the disphets, &c. He furnished notes on Clemens Alex- cipline and government of the English church, even andrinus for Potter's edition of that ancient author, in theory. If this had been the case, he might have remarks on Josephus for Hudson's edition, and annotations on the ecclesiastical historians for Read-been reproached with some inconsistency in becoming's Cambridge edition of those authors. He also ing so large a partaker of her honours and emoluassisted Dr Chandler in his Defence of Christianity for open immoralities, though denying all church from the Prophecies. His learning is said to have been equally extensive and profound, and he accom-authority to oblige any one to external communion, panied all his reading with critical and philological condition of men with respect to the favour or disor to pass any sentence which should determine the remarks. Born in London, Dr Lowth took his de-pleasure of God. Another great question in this grees at Oxford, and experiencing the countenance and support of the bishop of Winchester, became the chaplain of that prelate, a prebend of the cathedral of Winchester, and rector of Buriton.

DR BENJAMIN HOADLY.

ments. He even admitted the usefulness of censures

without

tance, Reasonableness of Conformity, Treatise on the Sacrament, &c. A complete edition of his works was published by his son in three folio volumes; his sermons are now considered the most valuable portion of his writings. There can be no doubt that the independent and liberal mind of Hoadly, aided by his station in the church, tended materially

to stem the torrent of slavish submission which then prevailed in the church of England.

The first extract is from Hoadly's sermon on The Nature of the Kingdom or Church of Christ, preached before the king on 31st March, 1717, and which, as already mentioned, gave rise to the celebrated Bangorian controversy.

controversy was that of religious liberty as a civil another related to the much debated exercise of right, which the convocation explicitly denied. And private judgment in religion, which, as one party meant virtually to take away, so the other perhaps unreasonably exaggerated." The style of Hoadly's DR BENJAMIN HOADLY, successively bishop of controversial treatises is strong and logical, but Bangor, Hereford, Salisbury, and Winchester, was a any of the graces of composition, and hence prelate of great controversial ability, who threw the they have fallen into comparative oblivion. He was weight of his talents and learning into the scale of author of several other works,, as Terms of Accep Whig politics, at that time fiercely attacked by the Tory and Jacobite parties. Hoadly was born in 1676. In 1706,* while rector of St Peter's-le-Poor, London, he attacked a sermon by Atterbury, and thus incurred the enmity and ridicule of Swift and Pope. He defended the revolution of 1688, and attacked the doctrines of divine right and passive obedience with such vigour and perseverance, that, in 1709, the House of Commons recommended him to the favour of the queen. Her majesty does not appear to have complied with this request; but her successor, George I., elevated him to the see of Bangor. Shortly after his elevation to the bench, Hoadly published a work against the nonjurors, and a sermon preached before the king at St James's, on the Nature of the Kingdom or Church of Christ. The latter excited a long and vehement dispute, known by the name of the Bangorian Controversy, in which forty or fifty tracts were published. The Lower House of Convocation *Hoadly printed, in 1702, A Letter to the Rev. Mr Fleetwood, occasioned by his Essay on Miracles. In the preface to a volume of tracts published in 1715, in which that letter was reprinted, the eminent author speaks of Fleetwood in the following terms:- This contains some points, relating to the subject of miracles, in which I differed long ago from an excellent person, now advanced, by his merits, to one of the highest stations in the church. When it first appeared in the world, he had too great a soul to make the common return of resentment or contempt, or to esteem a difference of opinion, expressed with civility, to be an unpardonable affront. So far from it, that he not only was pleased to express some good liking of the manner of it, but laid hold on an opportunity, which then immediately offered itself, of doing the writer a very considerable piece of service. I think myself obliged, upon this occasion, to acknowledge this in a public manner, wishing that such a procedure may at length cease to be uncommon and singular.'

[The Kingdom of Christ not of this World.]

If, therefore, the church of Christ be the kingdom of Christ, it is essential to it that Christ himself be the sole lawgiver and sole judge of his subjects, in all points relating to the favour or displeasure of Almighty God; and that all his subjects, in what station soever they may be, are equally subjects to him; and that no one of them, any more than another, hath authority either to make new laws for Christ's subjects, or to impose a sense upon the old ones, which is the same thing; or to judge, censure, or punish the servants of another master, in matters relating purely to conscience or salvation. If any person hath any other notion, either through a long use of words with inconsistent meanings, or through a negligence of thought, let him but ask himself whether the church of Christ be the kingdom of Christ or not; and if it be, whether this notion of it doth not absolutely exclude all other legislators and judges in matters relating to conscience or the favour of God, or whether it can be his king.

*Hallam's Constitutional History of England.

dom if any mortal men have such a power of legislation and judgment in it. This inquiry will bring us back to the first, which is the only true account of the church of Christ, or the kingdom of Christ, in the mouth of a Christian; that it is the number of men, whether small or great, whether dispersed or united, who truly and sincerely are subjects to Jesus Christ alone as their lawgiver and judge in matters relating to the favour of God and their eternal salvation.

contrary to the interests of true religion, as it is plainly opposite to the maxims upon which Christ founded his kingdom; who chose the motives which are not of this world, to support a kingdom which is not of this world. And indeed it is too visible to be hid, that wherever the rewards and punishments are changed from future to present, from the world to come to the world now in possession, there the kingdom founded by our Saviour is, in the nature of it, so far changed, that it is become, in such a degree, what he professed his kingdom was not—that is, of this world; of the same sort with other common earthly kingdoms, in which the rewards are worldly honours, posts, offices, pomp, attendance, dominion; and the punishments are prisons, fines, banishments, galleys and racks, or something less of the same sort.

[Ironical View of Protestant Infallibility.] [From the Dedication to Pope Clement XI., prefixed to Sir ligion throughout the World."]

The next principal point is, that, if the church be the kingdom of Christ, and this kingdom be not of this world,' this must appear from the nature and end of the laws of Christ, and of those rewards and punishments which are the sanctions of his laws. Now, his laws are declarations relating to the favour of God in another state after this. They are declarations of those conditions to be performed in this world on our part, without which God will not make us happy in that to come. And they are almost all general appeals to the will of that God; to his nature, known by the common reason of mankind, and to the imita-R. Steele's Account of the State of the Roman Catholic Retion of that nature, which must be our perfection. The keeping his commandments is declared the way to life, and the doing his will the entrance into the kingdom of heaven. The being subjects to Christ, is to this very end, that we may the better and more effectually perform the will of God. The laws of this kingdom, therefore, as Christ left them, have nothing of this world in their view; no tendency either to the exaltation of some in worldly pomp and dignity, or to their absolute dominion over the faith and religious conduct of others of his subjects, or to the erecting of any sort of temporal kingdom under the covert and name of a spiritual one.

Your holiness is not perhaps aware how near the churches of us Protestants have at length come to those privileges and perfections which you boast of as peculiar to your own so near, that many of the most quick-sighted and sagacious persons have not been able to discover any other difference between us, as to the main principle of all doctrine, government, worship, and discipline, but this one, namely, that you cannot err in anything you determine, and we never do: that is, in other words, that you are infallible, and we always in the right. We cannot but esteem the advantage to be exceedingly on our side The sanctions of Christ's law are rewards and punish-in this case; because we have all the benefits of inments. But of what sort? Not the rewards of this world; not the offices or glories of this state; not the pains of prisons, banishments, fines, or any lesser and more moderate penalties; nay, not the much lesser negative discouragements that belong to human society. He was far from thinking that these could be the instruments of such a persuasion as he thought acceptable to God. But, as the great end of his kingdom was to guide men to happiness after the short images of it were over here below, so he took his motives from that place where his kingdom first began, and where it was at last to end; from those rewards and punishments in a future state, which had no relation to this world; and to show that his kingdom was not of this world,' all the sanctions which he thought fit to give to his laws were not of this world at all.

St Paul understood this so well, that he gives an account of his own conduct, and that of others in the same station, in these words: Knowing the terrors of the Lord, we persuade men:' whereas, in too many Christian countries since his days, if some who profess to succeed him were to give an account of their own conduct, it must be in a quite contrary strain: Knowing the terrors of this world, and having them in our power, we do not persuade men, but force their outward profession against their inward persuasion.'

Now, wherever this is practised, whether in a great degree or a small, in that place there is so far a change from a kingdom which is not of this world, to a kingdom which is of this world. As soon as ever you hear of any of the engines of this world, whether of the greater or the lesser sort, you must immediately think that then, and so far, the kingdom of this world takes place. For, if the very essence of God's worship be spirit and truth, if religion be virtue and charity, under the belief of a Supreme Governor and Judge, if true real faith cannot be the effect of force, and if there can be no reward where there is no willing choice then, in all or any of these cases, to apply force or flattery, worldly pleasure or pain, is to act

fallibility without the absurdity of pretending to it, and without the uneasy task of maintaining a point so shocking to the understanding of mankind. And you must pardon us if we cannot help thinking it to be as great and as glorious a privilege in us to be always in the right, without the pretence to infalli bility, as it can be in you to be always in the wrong, with it.

Thus, the synod of Dort (for whose unerring decisions public thanks to Almighty God are every three years offered up with the greatest solemnity by the magistrates in that country), the councils of the reformed in France, the assembly of the kirk of Scotland, and (if I may presume to name it) the convocation of England, have been all found to have the very same unquestionable authority which your church claims, solely upon the infallibility which resides in it; and the people to be under the very same strict obligation of obedience to their determinations, which with you is the consequence only of an absolute infallibility. The reason, therefore, why we do not openly set up an infallibility is, because we can do without it. Authority results as well from power as from right, and a majority of votes is as strong a foundation for it as infallibility itself. Councils that may err, never do: and besides, being composed of men whose peculiar business it is to be in the right, it is very immodest for any private person to think them not so; because this is to set up a private corrupted understanding above a public uncorrupted judgment.

Thus it is in the north, as well as the south; abroad, as well as at home. All maintain the exercise of the same authority in themselves, which yet they know not how so much as to speak of without ridicule in others.

In England it stands thus: The synod of Dort is of no weight; it determined many doctrines wrong. The assembly of Scotland hath nothing of a true authority; and is very much out in its scheme of doctrines, worship, and government. But the church

of England is vested with all authority, and justly challengeth all obedience.

If one crosses a river in the north, there it stands thus: The church of England is not enough reformed; its doctrines, worship, and government, have too much of antichristian Rome in them. But the kirk of Scotland hath a divine right from its only head, Jesus Christ, to meet and to enact what to it shall seem fit, for the good of his church.

Thus, we left you for your enormous unjustifiable claim to an unerring spirit, and have found out a way, unknown to your holiness and your predecessors, of claiming all the rights that belong to infallibility, even whilst we disclaim and abjure the thing itself.

As for us of the church of England, if we will believe many of its greatest advocates, we have bishops in a succession as certainly uninterrupted from the apostles, as your church could communicate it to us. And upon this bottom, which makes us a true church, we have a right to separate from you; but no persons living have a right to differ or separate from us. And they, again, who differ from us, value themselves upon something or other in which we are supposed defective, or upon being free from some superfluities which we enjoy; and think it hard, that any will be still going further, and refine upon their scheme of worship and discipline.

Thus we have indeed left you; but we have fixed ourselves in your seat, and make no scruple to resemble you in our defences of ourselves and censures of others whenever we think it proper.

We have all sufficiently felt the load of the two topics of heresy and schism. We have been persecuted, hanged, burned, massacred (as your holiness well knows) for heretics and schismatics. But all this hath not made us sick of those two words. We can still throw them about us, and play them off upon others, as plentifully and as fiercely as they are dispensed to us from your quarter. It often puts me in mind (your holiness must allow me to be a little ludicrous, if you admit me to your conversation), it often, I say, puts me in mind of a play which I have seen amongst some merry people: a man strikes his next neighbour with all his force, and he, instead of returning it to the man who gave it, communicates it, with equal zeal and strength, to another; and this to another; and so it circulates, till it returns perhaps to him who set the sport agoing. Thus your holiness begins the attack. You call us heretics and schismatics, and burn and destroy us as such; though, God knows, there is no more right anywhere to use heretics or schismatics barbarously, than those who think and speak as their superiors bid them. But so it is. You thunder out the sentence against us. We think it ill manners to give it you back again; but we throw it out upon the next brethren that come in our way; and they upon others: and so it goes round, till some perhaps have sense and courage enough to throw it back upon those who first began the disturbance by pretending to authority where there can be none.

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law in London, but afterwards turned his attention to divinity, and in 1680 took orders. As chancellor of the cathedral of Connor, he distinguished himself by several disputations with Catholic divines, and by the boldness with which he opposed the pro-popish designs of King James. Nevertheless, at the revolution, he adopted a decisive tone of Jacobitism, from which he never swerved through life. Removing to London, he was chiefly engaged for several years in writing controversial works against quakers, Socinians, and deists, of which, however, none are now remembered, besides the little treatise of which the title has been given, and which appeared in 1699. He also wrote many occasional and periodical tracts in behalf of the house of Stuart, to whose cause his talents and celebrity certainly lend no small lustre. Being for one of these publications obliged to leave We have not indeed now the power of burning the country, he repaired in 1713 to the court of the heretics, as our forefathers of the Reformation had. Chevalier at Bar le Duc, and was well received. The civil power hath taken away the act which con- James allowed him to have a chapel fitted up for tinued that glorious privilege to them, upon the re- the English service, and was even expected to lend monstrance of several persons that they could not a favourable ear to his arguments against popery, sleep whilst that act was awake. But then, every- but this expectation proved vain. It was not posthing on this side death still remains untouched to sible for an earnest and bitter controversialist like us: we can molest, harass, imprison, and ruin any Leslie to remain long at rest in such a situation, man who pretends to be wiser than his betters. And and we are not therefore surprised to find him rethe more unspotted the man's character is, the more turn in disgust to England in 1721. He soon after necessary we think it to take such crushing methods. died at his house of Glaslough, in the county of Since the toleration hath been authorised in these Monaghan. The works of this remarkable man nations, the legal zeal of men hath fallen the heavier have been collected in seven volumes (Oxford, 1832), upon heretics (for it must always, it seems, be exer- and it must be allowed that they place their author cised upon some sort of persons or other); and amongst very high in the list of controversial writers, the inthese, chiefly upon such as differ from us in points ingenuity of the arguments being only equalled by the

keenness and pertinacity with which they are on all occasions followed out; but a modern reader sighs to think of vivid talents spent, with life-long perseverance, on discussions which have tended so little to benefit mankind.

WILLIAM WHISTON.

WILLIAM WHISTON (1667-1752) was an able but eccentric scholar, and so distinguished as a mathematician, that he was made deputy professor of mathematics in the university of Cambridge, and afterwards successor to Sir Isaac Newton, of whose principles he was one of the most successful expounders. Entering into holy orders, he became chaplain to the bishop of Norwich, rector of Lowestoffe, &c. He was also appointed Boyle lecturer in the university, but was at length expelled for promulgating Arian opinions. He then went to London, where a subscription was made for him, and he delivered a series of lectures on astronomy, which were patronised by Addison and Steele. Towards the close of his life, Whiston became a Baptist, and believed that the millennium was approaching, when the Jews would all be restored. Had he confined himself to mathematical studies, he would have earned a high name in science; but his time and attention were dissipated by his theological pursuits, in which he evinced more zeal than judgment. His works are numerous. Besides a Theory of the Earth, in defence of the Mosaic account of the creation, published in 1696, and some tracts on the Newtonian system, he wrote an Essay on the Revelation of St John (1706), Sermons on the Scripture Prophecies (1708), Primitive Christianity Revived, five volumes, (1712), Memoirs of his own Life, (1749-50), &c. An extract from the last mentioned book is subjoined :

[Anecdote of the Discovery of the Newtonian Philosophy.]

fall downward, and which we call gravity? taking this postulatum, which had been thought of before, that such power might decrease in a duplicate proportion of the distances from the earth's centre. Upon Sir Isaac's first trial, when he took a degree of a great circle on the earth's surface, whence a degree at the distance of the moon was to be determined also, to be sixty measured miles only, according to the gross measures then in use, he was in some degree disappointed; and the power that restrained the moon in her orbit, measured by the versed sines of that orbit, appeared not to be quite the same that was to be expected had it been the power of gravity alone by which the moon was there influenced. Upon this disappointment, which made Sir Isaac suspect that this power was partly that of gravity and partly that of Cartesius's vortices, he threw aside the paper of his calculation, and went to other studies. However, some time afterward, when Monsieur Picart had much more exactly measured the earth, and found that a degree of a great circle was sixty-nine and ahalf such miles, Sir Isaac, in turning over some of his former papers, lighted upon this old imperfect calculation, and, correcting his former error, discovered that this power, at the true correct distance of the moon from the earth, not only tended to the earth's centre, as did the common power of gravity with us, but was exactly of the right quantity; and that if a stone was carried up to the moon, or to sixty semi-diameters of the earth, and let fall downward by its gravity, and the moon's own menstrual motion was stopped, and she was let fall by that power which before retained her in her orbit, they would exactly fall towards the same point, and with the same velocity; which was therefore no other power than that of gravity. And since that power appeared to extend as far as the moon, at the distance of 240,000 miles, it was but natural, or rather necessary, to suppose it might reach twice, thrice, four times, &c., the same distance, with the same diminution, according to the squares of such distances perpetually: which noble discovery proved the happy occasion of the invention of the wonderful Newtonian philosophy.

DR PHILIP DODDRIDGE.

After I had taken holy orders, I returned to the college, and went on with my own studies there, particularly the mathematics and the Cartesian philosophy, which was alone in vogue with us at that time. But it was not long before I, with immense pains, but DR PHILIP DODDRIDGE, a distinguished nonconno assistance, set myself with the utmost zeal to the study of Sir Isaac Newton's wonderful discoveries in formist divine and author, was born in London, June his Philosophie Naturalis Principia Mathematica,' 26, 1702. His grandfather had been ejected from one or two of which lectures I had heard him read in the living of Shepperton, in Middlesex, by the act the public schools, though I understood them not at of uniformity in 1662; and his father, a man engaged all at that time--being indeed greatly excited thereto in mercantile pursuits in London, married the only by a paper of Dr Gregory's, when he was professor in daughter of a German, who had fled from Prague to Scotland, wherein he had given the most prodigious escape the persecution which raged in Bohemia, commendations to that work, as not only right in all after the expulsion of Frederick, the Elector Palathings, but in a manner the effect of a plainly divine tine, when to abjure or emigrate were the only altergenius, and had already caused several of his scholars natives. The pious parents of Doddridge early into keep acts, as we call them, upon several branches structed him in religious knowledge. I have heard of the Newtonian philosophy; while we at Cambridge, him relate,' says his biographer, Mr Job Orton, poor wretches, were ignominiously studying the fic-that his mother taught him the history of the Old titious hypotheses of the Cartesian, which Sir Isaac Newton had also himself done formerly, as I have heard him say. What the occasion of Sir Isaac Newton's leaving the Cartesian philosophy, and of discovering his amazing theory of gravity was, I have heard him long ago, soon after my first acquaintance with him, which was 1694, thus relate, and of which Dr Pemberton gives the like account, and somewhat more fully, in the preface to his explication of his philosophy. It was this: an inclination came into Sir Isaac's mind to try whether the same power did not keep the moon in her orbit, notwithstanding her projectile velocity, which he knew always tended to go along a straight line the tangent of that orbit, which makes stones and all heavy bodies with us

and New Testaments, before he could read, by the assistance of some Dutch tiles in the chimney in the room where they commonly sat; and her wise and pious reflections upon the stories there represented were the means of making some good impressions upon his heart, which never wore out; and therefore this method of instruction he frequently recommended to parents.' In 1712, Doddridge was sent to school at Kingston-upon-Thames; but both his parents dying within three years afterwards, he was removed to St Albans, and whilst there, was solemnly admitted, in his sixteenth year, a member of the nonconforming congregation. His religious impressions were ardent and sincere; and when, in 1718, the Duchess of Bedford made him an offer to

educate him for the ministry in the church of England, Doddridge declined, from conscientious scruples, to avail himself of this advantage. A generous friend, Dr Clarke of St Albans, now stepped forward to patronise the studious youth, and in 1719 he was placed at an academy established at Kibworth, Leicestershire, for the education of dissenters. Here he resided three years, pursuing his studies for the ministry, and cultivating a taste for elegant literature. To one of his fellow-pupils who had condoled with him on being buried alive, Doddridge writes in the following happy strain:- Here I stick close to those delightful studies which a favourable providence has made the business of my life. One day passeth away after another, and I only know that it passeth pleasantly with me. As for the world about me, I have very little concern with it. I live almost like a tortoise shut up in its shell, almost always in the same town, the same house, the same chamber; yet I live like a prince-not, indeed, in the pomp of greatness, but the pride of liberty; master of my books, master of my time, and, I hope I may add, master of myself. I can willingly give up the charms of London, the luxury, the company, the popularity of it, for the secret pleasures of rational employment and self-approbation; retired from applause and reproach, from envy and contempt, and the destructive baits of avarice and ambition. So that, instead of lamenting it as my misfortune, you should congratulate me upon it as my happiness, that I am confined in an obscure village, seeing it gives me so many valuable advantages to the most important purposes of devotion and philosophy, and, I hope I may add, usefulness too.' The obscure village had also further attractions. It appears from the correspondence of Doddridge (published by his great-grandson in 1829), that the young divine was of a susceptible temperament, and was generally in love with some fair one of the neighbourhood, with whom he kept up a constant and lively interchange of letters. The levity or gaiety of some of these epistles is remarkable in one of so staid and devout a public character. His style is always excellent-correct and playful like that of Cowper, and interesting from the very egotism and carelessness of the writer. To one of his female correspondents he thus describes his situation :

'You know I love a country life, and here we have it in perfection. I am roused in the morning with the chirping of sparrows, the cooing of pigeons, the lowing of kine, the bleating of sheep, and, to complete the concert, the grunting of swine and neighing of horses. We have a mighty pleasant garden and orchard, and a fine arbour under some tall shady limes, that form a kind of lofty dome, of which, as a native of the great city, you may perhaps catch a glimmering idea, if I name the cupola of St Paul's. And then, on the other side of the house, there is a large space which we call a wilderness, and which, I fancy, would please you extremely. The ground is a dainty green sward; a brook runs sparkling through the middle, and there are two large fish-ponds at one end; both the ponds and the brook are surrounded with willows; and there are several shady walks under the trees, besides little knots of young willows interspersed at convenient distances. This is the nursery of our lambs and calves, with whom I have the honour to be intimately acquainted. Here I generally spend the evening, and pay my respects to the setting sun, when the variety and the beauty of the prospect inspire a pleasure that I know not how to express. I am sometimes so transported with these inanimate beauties, that I fancy I am like Adam in Paradise; and it is my only misfortune that I want an Eve,

and have none but the birds of the air, and the beasts of the field, for my companions.'

To another lady, whom he styles aunt,' he addressed the following complimentary effusion, more like the epistle of a cavalier poet than of a nonconformist preacher :

You see, madam, I treat you with rustic simplicity, and perhaps talk more like an uncle than a nephew. But I think it is a necessary truth, that ought not to be concealed because it may possibly disoblige. In short, madam, I will tell you roundly, that if a lady of your character cannot bear to hear a word in her own commendation, she must rather resolve to go out of the world, or not attend to anything that is said in it. And if you are determined to indulge this unaccountable humour, depend upon it, that with a thousand excellent qualities and agreeable accomplishments, you will be one of the most unhappy creatures in the world. I assure you, madam, you will meet with affliction every day of your life. You frown when a home-bred unthinking boy tells you that he is extremely entertained with your letters. Surely you are in a downright rage whenever you converse with gentlemen of refined taste and solid judgment; for I am sure, let them be ever so much upon their guard, they cannot forbear tormenting you about an agreeable person, a fine air, a sparkling wit, steady prudence, and unaffected piety, and a thousand other things that I am afraid to name, although even I can dimly perceive them; or, if they have so much humility as not to talk of them to your face, you will be sure to hear of them at second hand. Poor aunt! I profess I pity you; and if I did but know any one circumstance of your character that was a little defective, I would be sure to expatiate upon it out of pure good nature.'

From his first sermon, delivered at the age of twenty, Doddridge became a marked preacher among the dissenters, and had calls to various congregations. In 1729 he settled at Northampton, and became celebrated for his abilities, diligence, and zeal. Here he undertook to receive pupils, and was so successful, that in a few years he engaged an assistant, to whom he assigned the care of the junior pupils, and the direction of the academy during his absence. He first appeared as an author in 1730, when he published a pamphlet on the Means of Reviving the Dissenting Interest. He afterwards applied himself to the composition of practical religious works. His Sermons on the Education of Children (1732), Sermons to Young People (1735), and Ten Sermons on the Power and Grace of Christ, and the Evidences of his Glorious Gospel (1736), were all well received by the public. In 1741 appeared his Practical Discourses on Regeneration, and in 1745 The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. The latter forms a body of practical divinity and Christian experience which has never been surpassed by any work of the same nature. In 1747 appeared his still popular work, Some Remarkable Passages in the Life of Colonel James Gardiner, who was slain by the Rebels at the Battle of Prestonpans, Sept. 21, 1745. Gardiner was a brave Scottish officer, who had served with distinction under Marlborough, and was aid-decamp to the Earl of Stair on his embassy to Paris. From a gay libertine life he was suddenly converted to one of the strictest piety, by what he conceived to be a supernatural interference, namely, a visible representation of Christ upon the cross, suspended in the air, amidst an unusual blaze of light, and accompanied by a declaration of the words, Oh, sinner! did I suffer this for thee, and are these the returns?' From the period of this vision till his death, twentysix years afterwards, Colonel Gardiner maintained

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