DODDRIDGE, PHILIP, D. D., born in Lon don, where his father was an oilman, 1702 ; died at Lisbon, whither he had gone for the recovery of his health, in 1751, a fortnight after his arrival there. He belonged to the old dissentiks of England, or those who adhered to the clergy ejected from the Church by the act of uniformity, which was passed in 1662, and prescribed the terms of ministerial conformity. These persons were both numerous and powerful, and at length succeeded, though not till after the revolution, in getting their worship protected by law under the Act of Toleration in 1689. Doddridge passed his earliest years in London, but was afterwards for a time at St. Albans, under the care of a minister named Clarke, who, upon the death of the elder Doddridge, seems to have acted like a parent to Philip, for whose support little had been left by his father. While yet young Doddridge gave evi dences of predilections for the ministry, and was entered at a dissenting school kept at Kibworth Leicestershire, by one Mr. John Jennings, the son of a clergyman, who had suffered by the Act of 1662. At this place he commenced his ministry in 1722, Jennings having left it, and dying in the fol lowing year. The academy over which he pre sided thus being left without a head, Doddridge began to be regarded as a person eminently quali fied to carry it on. He continued, however, to preach at Kibworth and Market Harborough, and to prosecute his theological studies, and did not open his academy till 1729. It soon became cele brated, and was the nursery of many of the old dis senters of the eighteenth century. He first estab lished it at Market Harborough, and subsequently removed to Northampton upon being chosen minister of a large congregation in that town.
Here he continued till his death, discharging the ditties of pastor and head of the academy for the education of ministers. Doddridge was very anxious to waken his countrymen to deeper ear nestness and piety. With this aim he wrote his celebrated and excellent work, The Rise and Pro gress of Religion in the Soul, and also his equally valuable Family Expositor, which consists of the N. T., the gospels being arranged in harmony, with a paraphrase, critical notes, and reflections, or, as he calls them, improvements of each section, into which the whole is divided. This has been often printed, and is a monument at once of his learning and piety. The notes are original, and selected from various authors. The course of his educational lectures was published after his death, and is esteemed as a text-book of divinity (espe cially the later edition of Dr. Kippis, 2 vols. Svo). It contains a body of valuable references to various writers on subjects connected with divinity. Dod dridge also wrote the life of Colonel James Gar diner, and was the author of several beautiful hymns. He lived and died universally respected, and was admired even beyond the pale of his own community for his calm and placid piety. He in structed his pupils with the freedom and tenderness of a father, and never desired that they should blindly follow his sentiments, but encouraged them to judge for themselves. He would check any appearance of bigotry, and endeavour to chew them all that could be said in support of the principles which they disliked. His works have been trans lated into French, German, and Dutch.—S. L.