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devotion. Accordingly, having read that most useful treatise, Bennett's Christian Oratory, he came to these resolutions; "1. I will spend some extraordinary time in devotion every Lord's-day morning or evening, as opportunity shall offer, and will then endeavour to preach over to my own soul that doctrine which I preach to others, and consider what improvement I am to make of it. 2. I will take one other evening in the week, in which I will spend half an hour in these exercises on such subjects, as I think most suitable to the present occasion. 3. At the close of every week and month, I will spend some time in the review of it, that I may see how time has been improved, innocence secured, duties discharged, and whether I get or lose in religion. 4. When I have an affair of more than ordinary importance before me, or meet with any remarkable occurrence, merciful or afflictive, I will set apart some time to think of it and seek God upon it. 5. I will devote some time every Friday evening more particularly to seek God, on account of those who recommend themselves to my prayers, and of public concerns, which I will never totally exclude. In all the duties of the oratory I will endeavour to maintain a serious and affectionate temper. I am sensible that I have a heart which will incline me to depart from God. May his spirit strengthen and sanctify it, that I may find God in this retirement; that my heavenly Father may now see me with pleasure, and at length openly reward me, through Jesus Christ! Amen."

It will not be unpleasing nor unprofitable to the serious reader, if I insert some specimens of the manner in which he preached over his sermons to his own soul; heartily wishing that it may excite ministers to do the like. "July 23, 1727, I this day preached concerning Christ, as the physician of souls from Jer. viii. 22. and having, among other particulars, addressed to those sincere christians, who through a neglect of the gospel remedy, are in a bad state of spiritual health, it is evident to me, upon a serious review, that I am of that number. I know by experi ence, that my remaining distempers are painful. God knows they are the great affliction of my life; such an affliction that, methinks, if I were free from it, any worldly circumstances would be more tolerable, and even more delightful, than that full flow of prosperity, by which I am so often ensnared and injured. I know Christ is able to help me, and restore me to more perfect health than I have ever yet attained: and my experience of his power and grace is a shameful aggravation of my negligence. Therefore with humble shame and sorrow for my former indifference and folly, I would now seriously attempt a reformation. To this purpose I would

resolve; 1. That I will carefully examine into my own soul, that I may know its constitution, and its particular weakness and distempers. 2. I would apply to Christ, as my physician, to heal these distempers and restore me to greater vigour in the service of God. 3. I would remember that he heals by the spirit; and would therefore pray for his influences to produce in me greater devotion, humility, diligence, gravity, purity, and steadiness of resolution. 4. I would wait upon him in the use of appointed means for this purpose; especially prayer, the study of the scriptures, and the Lord's supper. Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. Pronounce the word, thou great physician, and save me for thy mercy sake. Thou hast given me a degree of bodily health and vigour far superior to what, from the nature of my constitution, I had reason to expect. Yet I here record it before thee, that I desire spiritual health abundantly more. I would rather chuse, if thou seest it a necessary means, to be visited with any grievous illness, that might awaken me to greater zeal for thee, and be the means of purifying my soul, than to live at a distance from thee, and sin against thee, amidst such health, as I have for many years enjoyed.—I would further consider my concern in this subject as a minister. God has provided a remedy. He has appointed me to proclaim, and, in some measure, to apply it. Yet many are not recovered. And why? I can appeal to thee, that I have faithfully warned them. My heart does not upbraid me with having kept back any thing that may be profitable to them. I have endeavoured to speak the most important truths with all possible plainness and seriousness, but I fear: 1. I have not followed them sufficiently with domestic and personal exhortations. 2. I have not been sufficiently careful to pray for the success of my ministerial labours. It has rather been an incidental thing, than matter of solemn request. 3. I have lived so, as to forfeit those influences of thy spirit, by which they might have been rendered more effectual. I resolve therefore for the time to come, to be more close in applying to them in their own houses, to pray for them more frequently; to set a greater value upon thy co-operating spirit, and take care to avoid every thing, which may provoke him to withdraw himself from my ministrations. Such caution may I always maintain; and, O, may the health of my people be recovered!

Nov. 12, 1727. I preached this day from those words, I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you. I endeavoured to fix upon unconverted sinners the charge of not loving God, and described at large the character of the christian in the several

expressions of that affection. My own heart condemned me of being deficient in many of them. I humbled myself deeply before God, and do now, in the divine strength, renew my resolutions as to the following particulars: 1. I will endeavour to think of God more frequently than I have done, and to make the thought of him familiar to my mind in seasons of leisure and solitude. 2. I will labour after communion with him, especially in every act of devotion through this week. For this purpose I 'would recollect my thoughts before I begin, watch over my heart in the duty, and consider afterwards how I have succeeded. 3. I will pray for conformity to God, and endeavour to imitate him in wisdom, justice, truth, faithfulness and goodness. 4. I will rejoice in God's government of the world, and regard his interposition in all my personal concerns. 5. I will pray for zeal in my master's interest, and will make the advancement of his glory the great end of every action of life. 6. I will cultivate a peculiar affection to christians, as such. 7. I will study the divine will and endeavour to practise every duty. 8. I will be diligently upon my guard against every thing which may forfeit the favour of God and provoke his displeasure. I resolve particularly to make these things my care for the ensuing week and hope I shall find the benefit of it, and perceive, at the close, that my evidences of the sincerity of my love to God are more stable and flourishing than they at present are.”—Thus careful was he to maintain the life of religion in his own soul, and among his people. Nor was he less solicitous to improve every other opportunity of doing good. He shewed a pious concern for the welfare of the children and servants in the family where he boarded. From hints in his diary it appears, that there were few Lord's-days but he had some conversation with them in private concerning the state of their souls and their religious

interests.

He was remarkably solicitous to redeem his time, and with this view generally rose at five o'clock through the whole year, and to this he used to ascribe a great part of the progress he had made in learning*. He often expresseth his grief and humi

"I will here record an observation, which I have found of great use to myself, and to which I may say, that the production of this work and most of my other writings, is owing; viz. that the difference between rising at five and at seven o'clock in the morning, for the space of forty years, supposing a man to go to bed at the same hour at night, is nearly equivalent to the addition of ten years to a man's life; of which (supposing the two hours in question to be so spent) eight hours every day should be employed in study and devotion." Fam. Expos. Rom. xiii. 13. Note (k). The manner of expression here is a little ambiguous; but his meaning is, that they would amount to ten years, made up of days of eight hours each, which is as much as most persons would be able, or chuse, to spend in study and devotion; so that it is the same as if the studying hours of ten years were added to a man's life.

liation before God, that he had made some unnecessary visits, and that in others, he had not used the opportunity of introducing profitable discourse; that there had been many void spaces, which had not been filled with any employment, that He was accurate and watchful might turn to a good account. to trace out the causes of his loss of time, and expresseth the strongest resolutions to avoid them. To prevent future waste of time, he laid down, at the beginning of every year, a plan of books to read and business to pursue; of discourses he intended to compose, and of methods that were to be taken to promote religion in his congregation. At the end of a month, he took a review of the execution of his plan, from his diary; how far he had proceeded; wherein he had failed, and to what the failure was owing. He then set himself to rectify the defect for the next month, and made such alterations in his plan, as present circumstances required. He took a more large and distinct review of the whole twice a year, on his birth-day, and Newyear's-day, attended with proper devotional exercises of humiliation or gratitude, according as he had failed or succeeded in it. These days were entirely devoted to self-examination and devotion: And upon those occasions, he reviewed the catalogue he kept of the particular mercies he had received, of the sins and infirmities into which he had fallen, and the various events relating to him, during the foregoing period. Having expressed before God proper dispositions of mind upon the review, he renewed his solemn covenant with God and entered into fresh resolutions of diligence and obedience through the ensuing period. Before he went to visit his friends, and especially before he undertook a journey, it was his custom to employ some time in seriously considering, what opportunities he might have of doing good, that he might be prepared to embrace and improve them; to what temptations he might be exposed, that he might be armed against them: And upon his return, he examined himself, what his behaviour had been, and whether he had most reason for pain or pleasure on the reflection; and his previous and subsequent reflections were attended with correspondent devotions.

In October 1725 he removed his abode to Market-Harborough, near Kibworth. He continued his relation to the congregation at Kibworth, and preached to them, except when Mr. David Some, minister at Harborough (who had taken this small society under his pastoral care, together with his own) went to administer the Lord's-supper to them; and then Mr. Doddridge

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supplied his place. He had been long happy in the acquaintance and friendship of Mr. Some, and was led to Harborough by his desire to be near a person of such uncommon piety, zeal, prudence and sagacity. "In him," to use his own words, "he had found a sincere, wise, faithful and tender friend. From him he had met with all the goodness he could have expected from a father, and had received greater assistance, than from any person; except Dr. Clark in the affair of his education." This truly reverend and excellent man died May 29, 1737. "God was pleased to favour him with a serene and chearful exit, suited to the eminent piety and usefulness of his life. I am well satisfied, that, considering how very generally he was known, he has left a most honourable testimony in the hearts of thousands, that he was one of the brightest ornaments of the gospel and the ministry, which the age hath produced; and that all who had any intimacy with him, must have esteemed his friendship amongst the greatest blessings of life, and the loss of him amongst its greatest calamities*." During this period, in April 1727, two young ministers in the neighbourhood, who had been his fellow-pupils and intimate friends, died. The loss of them was very distressing to him, but helped to quicken his diligence and zeal in his ministerial work. Concerning the death of one of them, the only son of Mr. Some of Harborough, he thus writes to a person of quality, who, in that early part of life, honoured him with her friendship; "It hath pleased God to remove my dear friend, Mr. Some, after he had lain several days in a very serene and comfortable frame of mind, and a few minutes before his death, expressed a very chearful hope of approaching glory. He appointed me to preach at his funeral, from Ps. lxxiii. 26. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever; which he often repeated with great pleasure in the nearest views of the eternal world. To reflect, that God is the portion of our friends who are sleeping in Jesus, and that he will be our everlasting portion and inheritance, is certainly the noblest support under such an affliction; a support, which I doubt not but your ladyship hath often felt the importance of: yet, madam, though this consideration may moderate our sorrows, a stroke of this nature will be sensibly felt, especially by persons of a tender spirit. For my own part, though I have been in daily expectation of his death several months, it strikes me deeper than I can easily express, and gives me for the present, a disrelish to all

* Doddridge's Sermons and Tracts, Vol. i. p. 125. 12mo.

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