DEAR SIR,

TO MR. MASSEY.

Burton, Sept. 12, 1724.

I SUPPOSE that by this time you may be returned from that journey which you were preparing for when I left London, and therefore I think this the most proper season to return you my thanks for the generosity and friendship with which you treated me in my last visit. You must not expect that I should make you any fine speeches upon the occasion; for, though it may indeed require them, yet I must take the freedom to acknowledge, that I seldom deal in such trifling commodities, especially when I am addressing a person of such good sense as Mr. Massey, who can so easily see through them. I will rather assure you, with that frankness and sincerity which I know you love in others as well as practise yourself, that I have a hearty sense of your goodness; that I think myself very happy in so kind and valuable a friend, and that if it should ever come in my way to serve you, I shall do it with all imaginable cheerfulness.

The splendid, and I had almost said luxurious way of living, that I had been used to at your house, gave me a disrelish for our country plainness, for almost a week after I came home. But now I am pretty well reconciled to that as well as to my studies, so that I apprehend I am not yet quite spoiled; but I really am afraid, that if I were to spend a quarter of a year with you, I should be in a great deal of danger. I have compassion upon my Fathers and

Brethren, the London ministers, who are daily exposed to such temptations at home and abroad. Let me entreat you, therefore, in your great wisdom, and out of that tender affection that I know you bear them, that you would slacken your hand towards them, and reduce them nearer to that primitive simplicity of living for which the clergy were once so remarkable! In the mean time, if you should happen to have a bowl of that excellent punch the next time I come to make you a visit, I shall heartily rejoice at the sight of it, and sip the nectar with due pleasure. I am impatient to hear from your good family; but I know you are a gentleman of so much business, that I am afraid I must not expect a letter from your own hand. However, if my very good friend and pupil Mr. John Massey will be so obliging as to answer this, I will acknowledge it as a great favour. I do likewise expect and require with all the awful authority of a Tutor, that he give me a very good account of the progress he has made in short-hand ; and, that as an evidence of his proficiency, he send me one of his own poems, written in such fair and eligible characters, that my favourite scholar Miss Kitty may be able to decipher the same!

I am just now setting out for Welford to preach for Mr. Norris, who has lately been so ill that his life has been despaired of. But I bless God, he is now

on the recovering hand. apace, and I would by no means lie in the fields. But, in all my haste, I cannot break off, till I have inserted my very humble service to good Mrs. Massey,

The evening is coming on

and hearty thanks for the care she took of me at London. I could almost wish that your family had not been so kind, that I might not have been so much concerned at parting from them. And now, my dear friend, I heartily beg a remembrance in your prayers, and I assure you I am not forgetful of you in mine, which I think is the only way I can take to express that gratitude and sincerity with which I am, good Sir,

Your most affectionate and obliged humble Servant,

PHILIP DODDRIDGE.

REV. SIR,

TO MR. CLARK.

Burton, Oct. 22, 1724.

I RECEIVED your obliging letter, and the books which you sent with it, and return you my most hearty thanks for both. I have already distributed such of them, as I thought would be most necessary and convenient, and hope, by the blessing of God, they may turn to some good account. There is a serious spirit among some of the poorer people in our congregation, which gives me some reason to believe and expect it. I hope, sir, I shall remember the kind caution you are pleased to add with relation to the prudence which is necessary in love affairs. My own experience convinces me of its need, and I hope God will give me wisdom and grace to behave myself

in a becoming manner.

I found most of my friends

in these parts well, and particularly dear Miss Kitty. I continue upon very good terms with her, and she treats me with all the gratitude and friendship which I could reasonably expect. I have the pleasure to see her every day improving under my hand, and I firmly believe she will be a very fine woman. I wish I was half so sure she would ever be mine. Her uncles at London have lately given Mr. Freeman repeated assurances that they intend to do very handsomely for all his children, and have expressed a particular regard for her. So that I am afraid they will not very readily fall in with my project, unless her father and mother show a pretty deal of resolution in my favour. I have sometimes very uneasy thoughts about it; but, upon the whole, I would leave it to the determination of divine Providence, and the experience I have already had of its care and tenderness, encourages me to do so with the greater cheerfulness.

I have at present a great deal of time for study, which I rejoice in as a great happiness. I have books enough to furnish me constantly with agreeable employment. I shall be heartily glad if you, sir, would be pleased to send me your advice how I may improve my time to the greatest advantage, and what particular studies, or method of study, you would recommend. At present my thoughts are principally taken up with divinity and the study of the scriptures. I am going on with Mr. Baxter's works, which I cannot sufficiently admire. I have

been looking over his Reasons for the Christian religion, and I find a great many curious and important thoughts, which have not occurred to me in any of the Boylean Lectures which I have seen. I am now reading Pearson on the Creed; and as I go along compare it with Barrow, article by article. After I have dispatched these works I intend to read Burnet on the Thirty-Nine Articles, which I have hitherto only consulted occasionally. As I consider the books I am now reading very valuable, I go over them with a great deal of care and attention; take extracts of all the most curious passages, and compare them with Mr. Jenning's theological lectures, that they may be ready for use, as I have occasion.

I have now before me another business, which takes up a pretty deal of my time. I am drawing up, but only for my own use, a sort of analytical scheme of the contents of the epistles of the New Testament*. I have already gone through the Romans, and the greatest part of the first of the Corinthians. I hope I now understand the connexion of these parts of St. Paul's writings a great deal better than I did before. But I am afraid I have frequently been mistaken, having often been embarrassed by the different views in which the same passages may be considered. There are, indeed, a great many difficulties which I have not yet been able to work my way through, at least to my own satisfaction; and where

The circumstance here related may be considered as the foundation-stone of Dr. Doddridge's great and valuable work, the Family Expositor.