Philip Doddridge
1702-1751 18th century
The inner life understood as something kept up or lost, and clear sight about what eats away a day.
Who was Philip Doddridge?
The twentieth child of a London oil merchant and an orphan at thirteen, he refused a scholarship that would have led him into the established church and became a dissenting minister at Northampton, where he kept an academy for young men shut out of the universities. A family man, he wrote hymns to be sung at the end of his sermons. Consumptive, he went to die at Lisbon at forty-nine, on money friends had raised for the voyage.
In their own words
Perhaps, when you come into your closet at that season, some favourite book you are desirous to read, some correspondence that you choose to carry on, or some other amusement, will present itself, and plead to be despatched first. This will probably take up more time than you imagined; and then secret prayer will be hurried over.
O happy day, that fix'd my choice on Thee, my Saviour and my God!
Awake, my soul, stretch every nerve, and press with vigour on.