but we can by no means be contented that they should possess this honour alone; and rejoice when our poor attempts afford any assistance in this great work. May you, dear Sir, long live, if I may be allowed to be so bold as to wish you a long absence from your highest hopes and joys; may you long continue to see the increasing accomplishment of your services; and when the solemn hour comes, may you enter into the port of bliss, like a gallant ship laden with the spoils of victory; and may I, though unworthy, be a spectator of your triumph, and a partaker of your joys. Amen, even so come Lord Jesus.

I rejoice, Sir, to hear of the success that attends your design of preparing youths for ministerial studies, and humbly pray that you may receive growing satisfaction in it. Pardon, good Sir, the trouble I have given you, and accept for yourself and honoured lady the best compliments of my good brother and sister, together with his, who, in the love and hope of the gospel, desires to subscribe himself,

Sir,

Your affectionate Friend, and very humble Servant,

BENJ. FORFITT.*

* Rules of the Charitable Society for promoting Religious Knowledge

among the Poor.

I. The design of the SOCIETY is to distribute Bibles, Testaments, and other books, which may be judged useful, gratis among the poor; and particularly to send such books to such ministers and gentlemen in the country, as the SOCIETY may have reason to believe will faithfully distribute them among those that most need them, and may be most likely to improve them.

II. That this charity be carried on by a quarterly subscription of the members, and such other contributions, as well disposed christians may assist the SOCIETY with from time to time.

III. That every subscriber be desired to attend the meetings of the SOCIETY, and shall have the liberty, in his turn, to direct the disposal of as many books as the SOCIETY shall think proper.

IV. That when books are sent down to any minister or gentleman in

FROM CAPTAIN HAY.*

SIR,

London, March 9, 1751.

As few men of my occupation are now a days Julius Cæsar's, I shall not pretend to be master of words of sufficient energy to express my grateful resentment of the favour I have received by your means from my Lord Halifax, and shall only say, that the easy, generous manner in which his lordship conferred the obligation, made it of double value.

Dr. Hughes desires to be remembered to you; and may he, you, and Lord Halifax, and all your family, be as happy as you have made mine, is the sincere prayer of,

Sir,

Your most obliged, most obedient, and humble Servant,

GEO. HAY.

the country, it will be expected from him, that he shall send an account of the receipt and disposal of them; and that the account be delivered to the secretary, by the person that recommended him.

Those who are willing to encourage this design, are desired to send their contributions to either of the gentlemen undermentioned:

The Reverend Mr. CHANDLER, Old Jewry.

The Reverend Mr. STENNETT, Charterhouse Square.

The Reverend Mr. GIBBONS, No. 2. Bunhill Row.

The Reverend Mr. THOMPSON, Barnaby Street, Southwark.

Mr. BENJ. FORFITT, Leadenhall Street.

Mr. EDWARD NICKLIN, in the Cloisters, Smithfield.

Mr. THOMAS HOLMES, Newgate Street.

Mr. JOHN WARD, Cornhill.

*This letter shows that Dr. Doddridge's intimacy with the Earl of Halifax remained unbroken; he had probably, on this occasion, used his influence with his lordship to obtain promotion for this correspondent, and this little incident evinces the readiness and zeal with which he promoted the welfare of even his acquaintance in all proper instances.

TO THE REV. SAMUEL WOOD, D.D.

DEAR SIR, Northampton, April 9, 1751. I HAVE written such a multitude of letters of late, and have received so many, that, not having always been so exact as I ought to have been in making memorandums, I hardly know what I have and what I have not answered;* and with regard to you I am the more uncertain, as I may mistake some particular messages sent to you in Colonel Williams's letter some time since, for an answer to that of yours, which informed me of his marriage; † but of this I am sure that every way I am in your debt, and always shall be so.

My heart has been much set on promoting the youth's scheme, but to my great grief I have not found in many of our Congregations that encouragement which I hoped. Something, however, is done, and much more in proportion from London than from the country. There are, however, nine lads, some of them very promising, who are supported by it; I sometimes think two of them will offer themselves as missionaries to New York, to plant the gospel among the Indians there, and glad at my heart should I be if my only son were desirous of being the third.

I am, at present, under great concern for the illness, I fear the dangerous illness, of my generous, faithful, endeared friend, Mr. Lyttelton. It is the smallest part of this concern, that it prevents him from doing that service to my

* On another occasion, when writing to this friend, Dr. Doddridge says:-"I marshalled my unanswered letters, and found them one hundred and six, near one quarter of which reached me since Friday noon, and it was then Monday evening, and all this, though I have written between fifty and sixty letters the last fourteen days with my own hand, having no secretary."

+ Colonel Williams had then recently married the Doctor's highly valued friend, the amiable and pious Miss Scott, of Norwich.

subscription to the remaining volumes of the Family Expositor, which he was resolved to have attempted, and which, with so great an interest, he might probably enough have effected. The greater part of that disappointment to me is, that it may prevent its coming into the hands of some in higher life, to whom it may otherwise have no access: but God limits or extends all such prospects at pleasure; and I desire to refer it to him, with what degrees of encouragement the work shall be published, and, indeed, whether it shall be published or not. The three volumes will hardly be published at so small a price as a thousand pounds, and I shall judge it the part of prudence, and therefore of duty, not to send them to the press on any terms on which I shall not be secure; and if there be such a number subscribed for or bespoke by booksellers as to effect that, I shall go on with the publication as fast as I can; and bless God for such an opportunity of doing my public homage to his word, and endeavouring, with all integrity and simplicity, to make it understood, and to enforce it on men's consciences, according to the little ability he has been pleased to give me; which truly I think so little, that I am sometimes almost ashamed of having undertaken so great a work.

I have of late been much indisposed with a cold, which is returned again, but not with so much violence as before. I know I have your prayers, and I delight in the thought. We are tending to one blessed home. Our interview at Norwich was pleasant, how much more so will that be which we expect in our Father's house. This poor letter has been written raptim at several times. I have filled my four pages, and yet seem but to have begun. But I must conclude with every good wish for you and yours that the tenderest friendship can form; nor can I hope ever to tell my dear Mr. Wood how faithfully and affectionately I am his,

P. DODDRIDge.

FROM THE REV. WILLIAM ANDERSONE.

REV. AND DEAR SIR,

Glasgow, April 20, 1751. THE kind reception my papers met with from you, and the promise made me in your last, have emboldened me to trouble you with these few enclosed sheets. In them I have attempted to carry up the history of the Jews to the time in which they fell under the administration of kings. I am heartily sorry my circumstances have been such that I must either have sent nothing by the hand of my friend, Mr. John Hamilton, or these few chapters, wrote and laid together as they are. However, I hope to have them better wrote over when set right by your judicious corrections, both as to style and sentiment, for I hope you will not grudge me your friendly assistance in this important affair. And may the divine wisdom and mercy, as manifested to his own people the Jews, and by them to the rest of mankind, appear in its clearest light, by what stands recorded in his word, which is, that truth, a clear understanding and firm belief of which is alone able to set us free from our fatal slavery, both to error and to vice.

In your kind and judicious remarks of last year I see you supposed that I meant by the great and lesser chronicles of the Jews their Talmud and Mischna; but Meyer, whom I quoted, in his learned edition of these chronicles, fully shows them to be no part of these writers you fancied I took them for. Both Meyer and Wolfrus, in his Biblioth. Hebræa, fully show that the Seder Olam, or great chronicle, was wrote by R. Jose Chelpetha, who was teacher of R. Judah the Holy, and so flourished before the Mischna was written, viz. about the year of our Lord 120. This Rabbi was a tanner by trade, but of so high a reputation