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i € I would g ive the kind and generous Lord Halifax no trouble I could properly avoid . When 1 considered how zealously he had always asserted our liberties , I thought he had an undoubted right to know what is now passing ; and I Matter myself so far as to believe that , as the natural greatness of your Lordship ' s soul inclines you to protect the meanest of your countrymen from injury and oppression , so the friendship with which you are pleased to honour me will give you a peculiar pleasure in assisting if Your Lordship ' s , &c . &c , " Phili p Doddridge . "—P . 109 .
The noblest champions of liberty , and commonly the most successful , are the lovers of peace ; and those who discern a moral beauty in this fact , will rejoice that an occasion was once afforded to Doddridge of proving that his religion had inspired a love of freedom , and that his profession of it involved an obligation to defend the civil rights which are protected by its spirit . The strong light of sudden calamity is that in which character is brought out in the fullest relief , whatever be its form and hue . There is a letter of
Robert Robinson ' s , written inamediately after the death of a favourite daughter , which presents the man so decidedly , so faithfully , as to stand in the place of a volume of memoirs . There is one in the book before us , which might serve the same purpose almost as completely , though , save in a spirit
of piety , it is as unlike Robinson ' s as the men were unlike . Robinson ' s is short , graphic , singular in the mode of expression , insomuch that careless readers take it to be unfeeling , while tears start to the eyes of every parent who reads it . Doddridge ' s is—but we will give it . It relates to a child of his , who , with her brothers and sisters , was apparently recovering from the
small pox ; Mrs . Doddridge , to whom the letter is addressed , having been some time absent . " Northampton , Aug . 26 , 1740 . 4 < Our Heavenly Father is wisely training us up in a sensible dependence upon him ; and I hope we cordially consent to it . As dear Cecilia is yet living , and I hope rather likely to recover than to die of this disease , though we still rejoice with trembling , I will give you the history of our anxieties a little more particularly than I have hitherto done , having been prevented , partly by the liurry in which I wrote , and partly by the fear of giving you too sudden and overwhelming an alarm . When I came down to prayer on Lord ' s-day morning at eight o ' clock , immediately after the short prayer with which you know we begin family worship , Mrs . Wilson ( who has indeed shewed a most prudent and tender care of the children , and managed her trust very well during * your absence ) came to me Sn tears , and told me that
Mr . Knott wanted to speak with me . I immediately guessed his errand , especially when I saw he was bo overwhelmed with grief that he could scarcely utter it . It was natural to ask if my child were dead . He told me she was yet alive , but that the doctor had hardly any hopes at all , for she was seized at two in the morning with a chilliness which was attended with convulsions . No one , my dear , can judge so well as yourself what I must feel on such an
occasion ; yet I found , as 1 had just before done in my secret retirements , a most lively sense , of the love and care of God , and a calm , sweet resignation to his w \\\ , though the surprise of the news was almost as great as if my child had been seized in full health ; for every body told me before she was quite in a safe and comfortable way . I had now no refuge but prayer , in which the countenances of my pupils , when J told them the story , shewed how much tjiey were disposed to join with me . J had before me JMr . Clarke ' s
book of the Promises ; and though I had quite forgotten it , yet so it happened that I had left off , the Sabbath before , in the middle of a section , and at the beginning of the 66 th page , bo that the fresji words which came in course to be read were , 'And all things wliatioever ye shall ask in prayer , believing ,
Untitled Article
386 Correspondence of Dr . Doddridge .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1830, page 386, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2585/page/26/
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