weeks more, and published a good while before Christmas. I am, methinks, a little afraid it should disappoint the world, but the consciousness of a good intention, and the hope that it will be of some service to serious and humble Christians, greatly encourage me. I hope, Sir, the second volume will have the benefit of your corrections, which I shall esteem a very great happiness.

I am sorry that my other dear friends with you are mended no more by the waters, but hope they have found increasing benefit since the date of your last; for your health, I doubt not, is a cordial to them.

As for myself, I was never better, and find that rising earlier, and working harder than usual, agree very well with me; and I own the great goodness of God in giving me strength in proportion to my day.

I take my leave with entreating, that your prayers may be continued for him who is,

Dear and much honoured Sir,

Yours from his heart,

and, in some proportion to his many obligations,

P. DODDRIDge.

P. S. The people at Newport were so charmed with a gentleman who preached there the other day, that I believe they will join in a unanimous and pressing invitation. His name is Fordyce, a Scotchman, educated at Aberdeen, and a very learned and worthy person.

TO THE REV. SAMUEL CLARK, D. D.

REV. AND DEAR SIR,

Dec. 1738.

I AM very glad my last came to you before you left Bath, and thank you for the kind notice you take of it. The generality of mankind are not too sensible of the worth of those who are the excellent of the earth; but if your illness and recovery had not been taken a great deal of notice of, by all who had any opportunity of knowing your character, the world and the church would have appeared in a much worse state than I apprehended perhaps the uncommon concern which has expressed itself on the occasion may, in some measure, be owing to a proper sense of the great loss we have lately sustained, by the death of other very valuable persons. I heartily congratulate you, your good lady and family, and, indeed, all my friends at St. Albans, on your safe and comfortable return. I fear the effect of your applying to your work with too much eagerness, and a spirit superior to your strength. I beg you would spare yourself as much as possible, both in the length and accuracy of your compositions, and also in the pathos of your delivery; for, though all these things are very agreeable to your hearers, they may, in the present tender circumstances of your health, cost them and the public very dear. To see you at Northampton would be one of the greatest pleasures of my life, but I cannot urge it at present; allow me, however, to promise myself, that you will come and add new ornament and plea

sure to the spring. I thank you, Sir, for your condolencies on the death of Mrs. Wingate; she had lived many months in the daily expectation of death, and, I believe, few have been happy in greater degrees, both of habitual and actual preparation, for the final change. She was out twice the last Lord's day she lived, and expressed a high degree of delight in the public ordinances she attended; and, after violent agonies of pain on Monday and Tuesday, and a sweet tranquillity of soul on Wednesday, expired on Thursday morning, having lost her senses for about six hours, during which time she seemed as it were to talk in her sleep, and I doubt not, was most joyfully surprised to awake on a sudden in a state of perfection and glory. I used to be afraid of losing my understanding in my last hours, but I am now entirely resigned to it, if such should be the appointment of God: the tenderness of bidding farewell to some beloved friends, and the awful apprehensions of an immediate entrance on an unknown eternity, might perhaps be ready to overbear a mind to which, on the whole, death might be very welcome.

I thank you, dear Sir, for the encouragement you give me against those apprehensions which are so natural now my first volume is so near being published. I have, by her permission, dedicated it to the Princess of Wales, and not without some secret hope that God may bless it, as a means of awakening and confirming religious sentiments in her mind. I had not time to consult with many friends about it, because Mr. Littleton, with whom I corresponded on

aware.

the occasion, proposed it to her sooner than I was She accepted it with a great deal of condescension and pleasure. I purpose to wait on her some time or another, and to accept the honour of kissing her hand; but I choose rather to present my book by the clerk of the closet than in person, lest it should look like courting a present, which is a meanness that, in these circumstances, I have always despised, and could heartily wish the custom of giving or receiving money on such occasions were entirely disused, both by authors and patrons. I bless God I still continue in good health and spirits, excepting only, that I have now a little cough. I am much afraid I shall be forced to take a journey to Berkshire in a few days, which, if I am, my engagements at home will prevent my indulging myself in the pleasure of seeing you at St. Albans. I earnestly beg the continuance of your prayers for me, and conclude with our united and most affectionate respects to yourself, lady, and family, and our hearty congratulations to Dr. Cotton and his very agreeable lady. I am,

Reverend and Dear Sir,

Your most affectionate and obliged humble Servant, PHILIP DODDRIDGE.

P.S. Since I wrote this I have been at Cookham, near Maidenhead; and on my journey, read Leland's excellent answer to Morgan, which I number among the best books our age has produced. I cannot say

quite so much of Dr. Pemberton's Observations on Leonidas; but there are some curious things in the book. Nothing can be more ignorant and stupid than the remarks on Mr. Whitfield's Journal. Tovey's Angliæ Judaica contains some remarkable facts not commonly known; and there are a thousand curiosities in Dr. Shaw's Tracts, though most of them are such as few are concerned in, especially in the two former parts.

Mr. Throgmorton, of Aylesbury, has in his hands an excellent manuscript of your worthy grandfather's, about justification, containing some accurate and judicious remarks on Mr. Troughton's Lutherus Re

divivus.

FROM THE REV. W. WARBURTON, D. D.

DEAR SIR,

Newark upon Trent, Feb. 12, 1739. I AM much indebted for your last kind letter, and I heartily wish I could make the same excuse for not acknowledging it sooner, which you have done on the same occasion. But I live in a much less comfortable neighbourhood, and at a greater distance from the few friends whose acquaintance is worth cultivating. But the knowledge of my friends' happiness always relieved my own unhappiness. The kind obliging things you say to me would, from a courtier, very much disgust me; but coming from one whose virtues and parts I have so great an opinion of, must needs be highly agreeable to me,