Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 15.djvu/165

 a dissenting minister. In 1712 he was removed to the school at Kingston-on-Thames established by his grandfather, and then taught by [q. v.] His holidays he spent with his uncle, Philip Doddridge, solicitor, and steward to the first Duke of Bedford, thus forming acquaintances with members of the Russell family, which became friendships in later life. In 1715, after the deaths of his father and uncle, he was transferred to a school at St. Albans, where Downes, who had assumed the office of his guardian, lived. His teacher was Nathaniel Wood, D.D., a scholarly nonconformist, who ministered to a neighbouring village congregation. Clark, or Clarke, of the ‘Scripture Promises’ [see, D.D., (1684–1750)], was presbyterian minister at St. Albans, and in him Doddridge found a second father. As early as 1716 he began to keep a diary, already having thoughts of the ministry. Two years later Downes, who seems to have been a man of kindly impulses, but a hare-brained speculator, lost the whole of the Doddridge property as well as his own, and was got out of a debtor's prison solely by the sacrifice of his young ward's family plate.

Doddridge at once left school, and went to consult about his future with his sister, then newly married and residing at Hampstead. The Duchess of Bedford offered him an education at either university, and provision in the church. But he scrupled about conformity. He appealed to, D.D. (1671–1732) [q. v.], to forward his desire of entering the dissenting ministry, but Calamy advised him to turn his thoughts to something else. It has been suggested that Calamy saw the dissenting interest was declining; yet this was before the rent in nonconformity at Salters' Hall (1719) which began the decline afterwards lamented by Calamy. Doddridge's extreme youth and consumptive tendency supply the natural explanation of Calamy's advice. Doddridge was recommended by Horseman, a leading conveyancer, to Sir [q. v.] with a view to his studying for the bar. But a letter from Clark, opening his house to him if he still preferred the dissenting ministry, decided his future.

His theological preparation was begun by Clark, who admitted him as a communicant on 1 Feb. 1719. In October of that year he entered the academy of [q. v.] at Kibworth, Leicestershire. Jennings was an independent, but a few of his students, including Doddridge, were aided by grants from the presbyterian fund. Other small grants reduced the burden of expense, which fell on Clark, to about 12l. a year. This Doddridge seems to have ultimately repaid. He supplies, in his correspondence, some very interesting details of the course of study. The spirit of the academy was decidedly liberal. Jennings encouraged ‘the greatest freedom of inquiry’ (Corresp. i. 155), and was not wedded to a system of doctrine, ‘but is sometimes a Calvinist, sometimes a remonstrant, sometimes a Baxterian, and sometimes a Socinian, as truth and evidence determine him’ (ib. p. 198). As a student Doddridge was diligent and conscientious, gaining a wide acquaintance with the practical outfit of his profession, but showing no turn for research.

The academy was removed to Hinckley, Leicestershire, in July 1722, and on 22 July Doddridge preached his first sermon in the old meeting-house taken down in that year. The state of his finances made it necessary for him to seek a settlement as soon as possible. On 25 Jan. 1723 he passed an examination before three ministers, qualifying him for a certificate of approbation from the county meeting in May. He had already taken the oaths and made the subscription required by the Toleration Act (ib. i. 173), though, as a term of communion among dissenters, he was resolved never to subscribe (ib. pp. 200, 335). At the beginning of June 1723 he became minister at Kibworth to a congregation of 150 people with a stipend of 35l. Stanford prints an extract from what he supposes to be Doddridge's confession of faith on this occasion. But at Kibworth he was not ordained, and made no confession. The document in question is believed by Principal Newth to be the confession of Doddridge's pupil, Thomas Steffe, ordained 14 July 1741; Doddridge wrote his life, prefixed to posthumous sermons, 1742, 12mo.

Almost simultaneously with the invitation to Kibworth, Doddridge had been sought by the presbyterian congregation at Coventry, ‘one of the largest dissenting congregations in England,’ as an assistant to John Warren. He would gladly have accepted this position had the offer been perfectly unanimous; but Warren favoured another man. The result was a split in the congregation and the erection of a new meeting-house. Doddridge was invited (February 1724) to become its first minister; he unhesitatingly declined to go in opposition to Warren. Overtures from Pershore, Worcestershire (October 1723), and from Haberdashers' Hall, London (November 1723), he had already rejected, partly because he did not wish to be ordained so soon, chiefly because in the first case they were ‘a very rigid sort of people’ (ib. i. 286), and in the second he thought it probable that