Query 2. How are we to understand that passage in the Psalms, "Thou hast led captivity captive?"

Query 3. Is David in the sixty-ninth Psalm speaking in his own person, or in that of the Messiah?

Query 4. What does St. Peter mean, when he says, Acts, ii. 39, "The promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off; even as many as the Lord our God shall call;" do the second and last clauses relate to infants, or the first alone?

You must suppose I endeavoured to say something very handsome at taking leave, but that my paper would not contain it. My candle is also going out, so I can barely see how to write

PHILIP DODDRIDGE.

However, I am your affectionate Friend and Servant, in the dark.

Our people give their services to you, and say a hundred things more than I can write; the sum of all is-come, come, come.

N. B. If you should continue much longer a nonresident, I shall think myself obliged to take peculiar care of the interesting lady whom you desert. I assure you she is already a very great favourite with me, for which I hope I shall have your encouragement and should you draw a bill upon me for twenty or thirty kisses, I shall be ready to honour it at sight!

TO THE LADY RUSSELL*.

April 10. Ir grieves me to be the messenger of such news as will afflict Lady Russell; but Mr. Some wishes me to inform your ladyship that it has pleased God to remove my dear friend, his son, in the afternoon of yesterday, at about one o'clock. He had lain several days in a very comfortable and cheering frame of mind; and only a few minutes before his death, expressed a very cheerful hope of approaching glory. He has appointed me to preach at his funeral, which will be on Wednesday, from Psalm lxxiii. 26, " My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever," a passage which he often repeated with great pleasure in the near view of an eternal world. He has strictly charged me to say but little of his character, agreeably to that modesty which was so remarkable a portion of it. A few weeks ago he burnt a great many papers, containing, as Mr. Some supposes, some religious secrets, and reflections on events and characters in human life; and, amongst other things, I know there were some excellent essays on practical subjects: but he has spared none of them except an imperfect piece on the vanity of the world.

To reflect that God is the portion of our friends who are sleeping in death, and that he will be our everlasting portion and inheritance is certainly the noblest support under such afflictions; a support of

* On the death of Mr. D. Some, that dear and excellent friend.

which I question not but that your ladyship has often felt the importance: and yet, madam, though this consideration may moderate our sorrows, it will not so entirely silence or dispel them; but that a stroke of this nature will continue to be sensibly felt by persons of a tender temper. Mr. Some, though he appears to feel it like a parent, yet supports himself under it with a serenity and fortitude worthy of so excellent a Christian and minister, and Mrs. Some seems less transported with sorrow than any of us expected. For my own part, madam, though I have been in daily expectation of my friend's death for several months together, yet it strikes me deeper than I can easily express, and gives me, for the present, a disrelish to all those employments or thoughts which do not immediately relate to that world to which he is gone. Yet, in the midst of my sorrow, it is with pleasure that I reflect on the goodness of God, in continuing to me so many other excellent friends, and among them the good Lady Russell, who is an extensive blessing to the world, and an ornament to that exalted station in which Providence has placed her. May mankind be as ready to imitate your character, as they are to applaud it, and then I shall hardly be able to wish them any greater good.

I am, with the utmost respect, Honoured Madam,

Your Ladyship's most obliged

and most obedient Servant,

PHILIP DODDridge.

P.S. My humble services always wait upon Sir Harry Houghton and Mrs. Scawen*; and allow me to say that I am not unmindful of their present circumstances. I wish Mr. Scawen all the success, in the great affair which is now before him, which a gentleman of so worthy a character may reasonably expect; and though I have that regard to his personal honour, which I ought to have, from his near alliance with your excellent family, yet you will pardon me, madam, that I wish his success, more for the sake of the world than for his own!

TO MR. CLARK,

DEAR AND REVEREND SIR,

April 10, 1727. I FULLY intended to write you a long letter, by a good friend who is going to London; but at present I have neither the time nor the heart to enlarge upon the subject I proposed, nor indeed upon any other; for it pleased God, in the afternoon of yesterday, to take away my dear companion and brother, Mr. David Some.

There was no person in the world, of his age, whom I respected more, and whom I loved so well. At the academy we were partners in study; and since I came to Harborough he used, when his health

Lady Russell's only daughter by Lord Russell, then recently married to Thomas Scawen, Esq. of Carshalton in Surrey, and M. P. for that county.

would permit it, to take frequent journeys with me to Kibworth on a Lord's day; and what sweet counsel have we taken together, when we went to the house of God in company! I have been informed of some of his expressions of respect and tenderness for me, which affect me exceedingly. He has ordered me to preach at his funeral from Psalm lxxiii. 26*; but my mind is so shattered with grief, and my eyes are so filled with tears, that I hardly know how either to read or to write.

How much am I indebted to that divine Providence which still continues my dearest friend Mr. Clark; for surely, if the loss of Mr. Some shook me so much, his death would quite subdue me. May God prolong your valuable life, and teach me so to improve the mercy as I should wish I had done if Providence saw fit to remove you.

I beg your prayers, that God would support me under this affliction; and that now he has removed a person of so promising a character, he would pour out more abundant influences of his spirit upon me, and upon other young ministers who yet remain here, that we may be enabled to supply the void arising from the removal of his servants from the earth, and to meet them with honour and pleasure in heaven.

I am, Dear Sir,

Your most affectionate and most humble Servant,

P. DODDRIDGE.

"My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my

heart, and my portion for ever."