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account , for I am extremely solicitous about you , perhaps even to a fault . When I am alone , in the intervals of business , I cannot forbear reflecting upon the pleasure and advantage I have enjoyed in your company and friendship , and the loss I should sustain if it should please God to remove you : this thought makes me excessively melancholy , and in a great measure unfits me either for business or diversion . Indeed , I am now in a violent fit of weeping , and can say nothing but what is very doleful , and so will defer writing more till a brighter day . *'—Vol . I . p . 262 .
The reply is as follows : " I hope by this time you are pretty well settled , and more easy in your solitude ; yet I could heartily wish you a little good company ; though I doubt not but that you have that best companion , the peace of God , in your own bosom ; and besides , you have so many good gentlemen , old and young , in leathern jackets , to converse with when alone , that you will find your solitude both pleasant and profitable . —I am extremely obliged to one of the best of brothers for his tender concern for me , particularly for the share I have in
your prayers , which I assure you I prize at a high rate , and hope through mercy I am the better for . I give my dear brother many thanks for his kind present , and shall continue to take the remedy as long as it agrees with me , until at least , if it please God , that I am better . I question not the continuance of your prayers on my behalf , and hope that you will never forget to beg for me an entire resignation to the Divine Will , a fitness for heaven , and living comforts in dying moments . —I pray that God may make and continue you long a glorious instrument in his hands of much good to many souls . "P . 266 .
Our extracts have been made with a view rather of illustrating those parts of Dr . Doddridge ' s character which were least known before , than of shewing how deep was his love of God and man , and how he excelled in the expression of that love . We could extract various passages remarkable for their piety ; but our readers are acquainted with his " Rise and Progress , " &c . We could quote some luminous and interesting commentaries on scripture ; but his Expositor is open to every reader . We could shew how
fearlessly he could admonish and reprove ; but every one knows how strict was his guardianship of the souls of his pupils and of his flock . We could delight our readers with specimens of the exquisite address and tenderness with which he was accustomed to administer consolation ; but his well-known letter to a lady on the loss of her brother , given in his Life by Orton , is a sufficient example . The most important purpose , perhaps , which these volumes will answer , and certainly that from which they derive their
principal charm , is the corrohoration which they afford of the truth that gaiety is the companion of innocence , and that religion is entertained in its proper character onjy when it is made conducive to the happiness of this world as well as the r ^ ext ; that it is designed to promote and protect the health of both body and mind , by equalizing the emotions , restraining undue excitements , and Encouraging an alternation of the objects of pursuit , and the
universal development of the manifold affections of the heart . It is very well to ascend occasionally above the tumults of the world , and to gaze into heaven from a more exalted point than the path of daily life ; but to strive with the ambitious piety of a Simeon to pass a whole life on a pinnacle which was never designed for an abode , is an effort which is forbidden by duty and totally irreconcileable with wisdom and happiness .
The public will await with much interest the appearance of the promised Diary , which will probably lay open recesses hitherto unexplored of a mind whose ingenuousness has not yet revealed all its treasures of wisdom and of beauty .
Untitled Article
26 Doddridge ' v Cvfrespondeftce and Diary .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1830, page 26, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2580/page/26/
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