ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



much to his remarkable versatiHty as to his gifts of mind and character that 

 he has left so deep a mark on religious history. Though versatile, his 

 achievements were great ; his academy numbered 200 students during the 

 time he was at its head, and included some who, though placed with him, 

 were intended for the ministry of the Church of England.' His well-known 

 volume on The Rise and Progress of Re/igio/i in the Soul' is second to Law's 

 Serious Call alone as a manual of practical religion. His hymns of genuine 

 though not transcendent merit have passed into permanent use in the 

 English and Scotch churches as well as among dissenters. His Free 

 Thoughts on the Most Probable Way of Reviving the Dissenting Interest, by a 

 Minister in the Country, published in 1730, shows his attention was directed 

 to the task of unifying and strengthening the then decadent nonconformity. 

 The problem was to retain the liberal cultivated element without losing hold 

 of the people ; in this he was greatly successful. Through his uncle and 

 guardian, who was steward to the duke of Bedford, he secured the friend- 

 ship and support of some of the most iniluential Whigs, and in the life of 

 Northampton he was a prominent citizen, helping among other things 

 to found the county infirmary and to start a school for poor children and 

 a society for distributing good literature among the poor. 



Through the action of Wills, curate to Reynolds, rector of Kingsthorpe, 

 Doddridge incurred the enmity of the local clergy. Vexatious proceedings were 

 commenced against him in the Consistory Court, but the case was carried to 

 Westminster and a valuable judgment obtained in his favour, while renewed pro- 

 ceedings were stopped by the intervention of the king."' Henceforth dissenters 

 were practically safe from similar interference.'' The width of Doddridge's 

 sympathies were shown by his famous statement that he would lose his place 

 and even his life rather than exclude from the Communion a real Christian on 

 the ground of Arian tendencies. His pulpit was open alike to the Arminian 

 Wesley and the Calvinist Whitfield, and it has been truly stated that he did 

 more than any man in the century to obliterate old party lines and unite 

 Nonconformists on a common religious ground. This was effected not only 

 by his opinions being of that evangelical tendency tinged with moderate Cal- 

 vinism which has been the dominant type of Nonconformist thought apart 

 from Methodism, ever since, but by the singular fervour or charm of his 

 nature. The man who corresponded with Archbishop Herring as to inter- 

 change of pulpits, and with Zinzendorf as to the duty of missions, and who 

 was the friend alike of Warburton and Whitfield, was far ahead of the temper 

 of his time; indeed his scheme laid before ministers in 1741 is the real 

 beginning of Protestant missions, while his alertness of mind in another direc- 

 tion is shown by his being one of the first tutors to lecture in English instead 

 of Latin. His method of controversy and endeavour in an age when intoler- 

 ance almost everywhere accompanied religious zeal, comes out in his dictum 



'£>;<■/. Nj/. Biog. XV, 162. 



' 1745, 8vo, afterwards translated into nine languages. 



' Cited to Consistory Court, 6 Nov. 1733 ; judgment at Westminster 31 Jan. 1734. Stanford, Life of 

 Doddridge, 67 ; and Cotrespondcnce, iii, 108 et seq. 



* Though two years after, a mob at Brixworth broke up a meeting of dissenters and threatened the life of one 

 of Doddridge's students, Risdon Darracott, afterwards a well-known minister called among dissenters * The St.ir 

 of the West.' Here again the energy of Doddridge secured the punishment of the rioters. See Hortkampion 

 Mercury, 25 Oct. 1736. 



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