Contribution To Education and Religious Life
With independent religious leanings, Philip Doddridge declined offers which would have led him into the Anglican ministry or a career in law; and in 1719 chose instead to enter the Dissenting academy at Kibworth in Leicestershire. Here he was taught by John Jennings, whom Doddridge briefly succeeded in 1723. Later that year, at a general meeting of Nonconformist ministers, Philip Doddridge was chosen to conduct the academy being newly established a few miles away at Market Harborough, later known as the Daventry Academy. In the same year, he received an invitation to be pastor to an independent congregation at Northampton, which he also accepted. Here his popularity as a preacher is said to have been chiefly due to his "high susceptibility, joined with physical advantages and perfect sincerity." His sermons were mostly practical in character, and his aim was to cultivate in his hearers a spiritual and devotional frame of mind.
Throughout the 1730s and 1740s Philip Doddridge continued his academic and pastoral work, and developed close relations with numerous early religious revivalists and independents, through extensive visits and correspondence. Through this approach he helped establish and maintain a circle of influential independent religious thinkers and writers, including Dr Isaac Watts. He also became a prolific author and hymnwriter. In 1736 both the universities at Aberdeen gave him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. However, these multifarious labours led to so many engagements and bulky correspondence that it interfered seriously both with his preaching and academic duties (he had some 200 students to whom he lectured on philosophy and theology, in the mathematical or Spinozistic style).
Doddridge was a prolific writer. His The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul was translated into seven languages. Charles Spurgeon referred to The Rise and Progress as "that holy book". Reading this book led William Wilberforce, the anti-slave trade campaigner, to become a Christian. Besides a New Testament commentary and other theological works, Doddridge also wrote over 400 hymns. Most of the hymns were written as summaries of his sermons and were to help the congregation express their response to the truths they were being taught.
Read more about this topic: Philip Doddridge
Famous quotes containing the words contribution to, contribution, education, religious and/or life:
“He left behind, as his essential contribution to literature, a large repertoire of jokes which survive because of their sheer neatness, and because of a certain intriguing uncertainty—which extends to Wilde himself—as to whether they really mean anything.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“Sometimes I think that idlers seem to be a special class for whom nothing can be planned, plead as one will with them—their only contribution to the human family is to warm a seat at the common table.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“It is the responsibility of every adult—especially parents, educators and religious leaders—to make sure that children hear what we have learned from the lessons of life and to hear over and over that we love them and they are not alone.”
—Marian Wright Edelman (20th century)
“The clergyman is expected to be a kind of human Sunday. Things must not be done in him which are venial in the week-day classes. He is paid for this business of leading a stricter life than other people. It is his raison d’être.... This is why the clergyman is so often called a “vicar”Mhe being the person whose vicarious goodness is to stand for that of those entrusted to his charge.”
—Samuel Butler (1835–1902)