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of fifty-four sermons on the principal doctrine and practical heads of the Christian religion, by Watts, Guise, Price, Hubbard, Jennings, and Neal. The course was published in two volumes 8vo. in 1735. It has passed through numerous editions, and is still regarded as an exceedingly valuable and judicious body of divinity. The other course of lectures was intended as a preservative against Popery, which appeared to be alarmingly on the increase in 1734. The gentlemen who engaged in this design were: Mr John Barker, Dr Chandler, Mr George Smith, Dr Wright, Dr Harris, Dr Hughes, Dr Hunt, Mr Joshua Bayes, Mr Newman, Dr Jabez Earle, Mr Lowman, Dr Grosvenor, Mr Leavesly, Mr Barcough, and Mr Neal. These lectures were afterwards published, and led to two conferences with some Catholic priests, an account of which was afterwards published. While his historical volumes were passing through the press, Mr Neal published an able answer to Dr Madox's remarks on his first volume. Had his health permitted he would doubtless have replied to Dr Zachary Grey's animadversions on the other volumes; but the hand of death was upon him before this could be accomplished. The task, however, was executed by Dr Toulmin of Birmingham, in his edition of Neal begun in 1793 and completed in 1797, in five volumes 8vo.

Mr Neal died in 1743. He was an able divine, an accurate and impartial historian, and a truly pious man. He was Calvinistic in his sentiments, but possessed the friendship of men of all parties.

Archbishop Potter.

BORN A. D. 1674.-DIED A. D. 1747.

THIS learned prelate was the son of a Yorkshire linen-draper, and was born at Wakefield in 1674. He received his early education in that town, and Dr Parr affects to discover this in his Latin productions, which, says he, "abound with those faults which instruction at a higher seminary would have taught him to avoid."

At the age of fourteen he entered the university of Oxford, having the reputation at that early age of being an accomplished Grecian. After taking his bachelor's degree, he was employed by Dr Charlett in the compilation of a work for the use of students, entitled Variantes lectiones et notæ ad Plutarchi librum de audiendis Poetis, et ad Babilii Magui orationem ad juvenes.' In 1694 he was chosen fellow of Lincoln college, and proceeded M. A. in the same year. In 1697 he produced his beautiful edition of Lycophron's Alexandra, and the first volume of his Archæologia Græca,' which he completed next year. In 1704 he proceeded B. D. and was appointed chaplain to Archbishop Tennison. In 1706 he proceeded D. D., and was made chaplain in ordinary to Queen Anne. His first professional publication was a 'Discourse of Church-government,' in which he pleads for the divine institution of episcopacy. In 1708 he succeeded Dr Jane as regius professor of divinity at Oxford. This promotion he owed to the inAuence of the duke of Marlborough.

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In 1715 he was raised to the see of Oxford; and about the same time he published an elaborate edition of Clemens Alexandrinus, with

an entirely new version of the Cohortations.' The celebrated Bangorian controversy soon afterwards commenced, in which, with Sherlock and others, he accused Hoadly, then bishop of Bangor, of holding opinions hostile to all establishments, and particularly to that of the church of England. In 1722 he entered into a correspondence with Atterbury, as to the period when the four gospels were written. He preached the sermon at the coronation of George II., who raised him to the archbishopric of Canterbury in 1737, on the death of Dr Wake. He died in January, 1747, leaving two sons and three daughters. The archbishop's works were published in 1753, in three volumes

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Bishop Gibson.

BORN A. D. 1669.-DIED A. D. 1748

EDMUND GIBSON, son of Edward Gibson of Knipe in Westmoreland, was born at Bampton, in that county, in 1669. He studied at Queen's college, Oxford.

The study of the Northern languages was at this time cultivated at Oxford by several eminent scholars. Young Gibson turned his attention to them also, and with the able assistance of Dr Hickes made great proficiency in them. In 1691 he published an edition of Drummond's 'Polemo-Middiana,' and James the Fifth's 'Cantilena Rustica.' His notes on these works are erudite and facetious. He next undertook an edition of the Chronicon Saxonicum,' the original of which, together with a Latin version and notes, he published in 1692. This work was undertaken at the request of Dr Mill, the learned editor of the Greek Testament. He also edited a valuable edition of Camden's Britannia,' in which he was assisted by Lhwyd, Smith, Johnson, and Kennet.

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After having declined a small living in the Isle of Thanet which had been offered to him by Lord Somers, he accepted, in 1697, the appointment of morning-preacher at Lambeth-church; and, in 1698, that of domestic chaplain to Archbishop Tennison. About the same time he was made lecturer at St Martin's-in-the-Fields, and published the posthumous works of Sir Henry Spelman. In 1700 he was presented to the rectory of Stisted in Essex; two years afterwards the archbishop of Canterbury conferred on him the degree of D. D.; and in 1703 he obtained the rectory of Lambeth, and was made precentor and residentiary of the cathedral of Chichester. He next obtained the mastership of St Mary's hospital, with license to hold his other preferments; and in 1710 he was promoted to the archdeaconry of Surrey. In 1713 he published his famous 'Codex Juris Ecclesiastici Anglicani.' In 1715, on the death of his patron Archbishop Tennison, and the elevation of Wake to the primacy, he was raised to the bishopric of Lincoln; and on the death of Robinson he was translated to London. Bishop Gibson's talents were considerable, and he was an excellent business man. During the long illness of Archbishop Wake, he formed a kind of regent archbishop, the ministry consulting him on all occasions, and his advice being sought for by all his brother-prelates He died in September, 1748.

Philip Doddridge.

BORN A. D. 1702.-died a. d. 1750.

Few names stand higher in the estimation of the British public, for genius and piety, for eloquence, charity, and evangelic zeal, than that of Philip Doddridge. He was the son of a London merchant, and the grandson of a non-conforming rector. He was born on the 26th of June, 1702, and became an orphan at an early age, but not before his tender mind had received some salutary impressions from the instructions of his parents. His guardian having dissipated the small fortune which had been left him by his father, he was indebted to the kindness of Dr Samuel Clarke of St Alban's for the means of pursuing his studies. In 1716 he began to keep a diary, in which he regularly accounted for every hour of his time. It was his custom at this period, although only fourteen years of age, to visit the poor, and discourse with them on religious subjects, occasionally administering to their necessities out of his own slender allowance. In 1718 he went to reside with his sister, the wife of Mr John Nettleton, a dissenting minister at Ongar in Essex. His uncle, who was steward to the duke of Bedford, soon afterwards procured him the notice of some members of that nobleman's family. The duchess offered to support him at the university, and to procure him preferment in the church, if she should live until he had taken orders; but Doddridge felt compelled to decline this kind proposal, on account of his scruples as to the thirty-nine articles. In the attainment of his favourite object, that of becoming a dissenting preacher, he met with serious obstacles. "I waited," he says, "on Dr Edmund Calamy, to beg his advice and assistance, that I might be brought up a minister, which was always my great desire. He gave me no encouragement in it, but advised me to turn my thoughts to something else." He received this advice with great concern, but resolving "to follow Providence, and not to force it," he was soon afterwards about to embrace an advantageous opportunity of entering upon the study of the law; but before coming to a final resolution on the subject, he devoted one morning to earnest solicitation for guidance from the Almighty; and, while thus engaged, a letter was brought to him from Dr Clarke, in which his benefactor offered to assist him in preparing for the pastoral office. Regarding this communication, to use his own words, “almost as an answer from heaven," he hastened to St Alban's; whence, after passing some time with his generous friend, he removed in October, 1719, to a dissenting academy kept by Mr John Jennings, at Kibworth, and afterwards at Hinckley, in Leicestershire, where he pursued his studies with extraordinary diligence and success; being not only very ardent but admirably methodical in his pursuit of knowledge.

He began his regular ministerial labours at Kibworth, preferring that retired village, with the larger opportunities for study which it afforded, to a more public situation. From large congregations in Worcester, Coventry, and London, he received repeated solicitations to become their pastor. Some of these he positively declined on account of the narrowness or exclusiveness of the opinions which were known to pre

vail amongst them. With a modest distrust of his own qualifications, and from the high standard he had formed to himself of ministerial excellence; from a determination also to give himself in his early years to diligent study, and a generous affection to the people with whom he was first connected, he resisted all the temptations of fame and influence so flattering to one of his ardent temper, and resolutely remained for more than seven years at Kibworth and in its neighbourhood, where, as he tells us in one of his letters, his morning-audience seldom exceeded forty persons, and his annual salary was only £29.

In December, 1729, he felt himself at liberty to accept a call from Northampton, and was ordained to the pastoral charge of a church there in March, 1730. In the following December he married a lady named Maris, a native of Worcester. He had in his youth, before experience and matrimony had taught him judgment, been a great sufferer under that painful dispensation, which, beyond all the exactions of a Levitical or a ceremonial law, gendereth to bondage,-early and unrequited love. His exercises of mind under this trial have been recently laid bare to the public gaze, with either a thoughtless or an unfeeling hand, by a descendant of the venerated man himself, who has edited two volumes of Dr Doddridge's juvenile correspondence, for the purpose of proving that the doctor was a much more liberal and indulgent sort of personage than his evangelical brethren of the present day. These letters are, what they purport to be, the familiar letters of a young man, chiefly upon subjects of the most personal description, and written at a period of life when the ardour and the weakness of the character are most in danger of being betrayed. "They undeniably contain some things, and indeed not a few, that will surprise those who have associated only the images of sanctity and spiritual-mindedness with their idea of this amiable man. And even those, who, from the impartial life of him by his pupil, Dr Kippis, and from the letters of Mr Orton, may have been led to anticipate that admixture of infirmities to be found in the wisest and the best of our race, will yet regret the prominence here given to emotions of which the existence may be always safely enough inferred without the expression. In truth, no inconsiderable part of the collection before us, is made up from the earliest love-letters of Doddridge, in some of which the endearments of the tenderest affection, the hopes and fears, the suspicion or distrust, resentment and forgiveness, joys and agonies of his love, are uttered with a singular fulness and simplicity. And notwithstanding the large indulgence to be allowed for the period at which they were written—when he was between nineteen and twenty-seven-notwithstanding the private and the confidential nature of the correspondence, intended surely for no eye but that of the lady addressed, we are left to some wonder at the writer, and to much more at the publisher, who, after the lapse of a century, has chosen to bring into light what only a common respect for the name of his ancestor, and a common share of the prudence that dwells with discretion, should have constrained him to suppress, or rather to destroy. We would not, however, be understood as implying, that these letters exhibit much that is absolutely discreditable to the pure fame of their author. Many of them will reflect an added lustre to his character. But the sin of exposing without cause the infirmities of good men, we hold to be scarcely inferior to that of indulging the

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infirmities themselves. Let it not, however, be forgotten, that amidst all that with a less susceptible spirit might pass for weakness, or that might justly bring into question the solidity of his judgment, Mr Doddridge never lost sight of his high and generous aims, of the claims of his profession, or of his habitual piety. At this very period he was a conscientious and faithful pastor, and, as fully appears from the memoirs both of Kippis and Orton, was preparing himself, by diligent study and the improvement of all his powers, for the usefulness and honour to which he was destined. These petty entanglements and disappointments of his heart—somewhat numerous, we confess, and perplexing for a wise man to suffer-were but passing clouds, that could not long obscure the beauty or the brightness of his ascending sun."

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In the year of his settlement at Northampton and marriage, he published a treatise, entitled, Free Thoughts on the most probable means of Reviving the Dissenting Interest, occasioned by the late inquiry into the Causes of its Decay;' in 1732, Sermons on the Education of Children;' in 1735, Sermons to Young Men;' in 1736, Ten Sermons on the Power and Grace of Christ, or the Evidences of His Glorious Gospel;' in 1739, the first volume of his Family Expositor,' of which he produced a second in the following year. In 1741 appeared his 'Practical Discourses upon Regeneration;' and, in the two following years, Three Letters to the Author of a Treatise, entitled, Christianity not founded in Argument. In 1743 he published The Principles of the Christian Religion expressed in Plain and Easy Verse, divided into Lessons for the Use of Children and Youth;' in 1745 The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul;' in 1747 Remarkable Passages in the Life of Colonel James Gardiner;' in 1748 the third volume of his 'Family Expositor;' and, also The Expository Works and other Remains of Archbishop Leighton.' His last production, published in his life-time, was 'A Plain and Serious Address to the Master of a Family, on the important subject of Family Religion.' He left the manuscript in short hand, but partly transcribed for the press, of the last three volumes of his Family Expositor;' which Orton published in 1754 and 1756. In 1763 appeared his Lectures on the Principal Subjects of Pneumatology, Ethics, and Divinity,' which were republished by Dr Kippis, with extensive additions, in 1794.

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Dr Doddridge's genius was by no means an original or powerful one. He cannot for a moment be placed by the side of such men as Baxter, and Howe, and Owen, and the glorious company of theologians of the seventeenth century. In his criticisms he is seldom original, nor is he always to be regarded as a sure guide for the religious inquirer. His catholicism and freedom from uncharitableness were carried to a dangerous excess, especially for a theological tutor; and the consequences became apparent, even in his own life-time, in the academy over which he presided as theological tutor. "Once I remember," says Dr Kippis, some narrow-minded people of his congregation gave him no small trouble on account of a gentleman, in communion with the church, who was a professed Arian, and who otherwise departed from the common standard of orthodoxy. This gentleman they wished either to be excluded from the ordinance of the Lord's supper, or to have his attendance

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American' Christian Examiner.'

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