Isaac Watts, Stoke Newington, to Philip Doddridge, Northampton, 11 February 1743/4.

My dear Friend whom I love in ye Truth

         I hope you have received, as Mr Jennings promised me a Letter from his hand to declare how well Mr Bradbury is satisfy’d by a visit from him and Dr Guyse, & I suppose that Storm is quite blown over: and I hear Mr Bradbury is in a dangerous Illness.

         I never suspected your diligence with regard to your pupills, and therefore your Letter need not have left room for that Apology. I pray God bless the young Scotch Lord under your care, and let Mary Spencer, and Mrs Scawen & Col. Gardiner have any best Salutation convey’d from you.

         I rejoice in Mr Jennings’s judicious Abridgment of Dr C [Mathews?] Life, and I say just as you do, in Conparison of such a Man I am hardly worthy to be called a Servant of Christ.

         This last Week I have had another fit of the Colic that has thrown me somewhat back again, but I thank God I was made easy in twenty four hours beyond my Expectation.

         I am sorry for ye Loss of any of your Pupills by Death; but especially so very promising a one a Mr Gibbs: but tis pleasant to read and to hear the success which you have in your various Labors, may God continue his Spirit much with you.

         I am glad to find that you think my [?] tolerably just, and the necessity of a little sinking of you style; may God make it more abundantly usefull what you write further in that Work I would be glad to see it in MS before it is printed.

         As for ye few Sermons that you talk of being Posthumous, if they are not printed I desire they may be so before I see them. I suppose they are not your own.

         I have no more to add but to pray for the presence of God with you in every one of your labors Amen.

         I am Sir

                     Yours in all Bonds of Christianity and Love

                                                         [signature cut out]

S. Newington

Feby 11. 1743/4

Salutations attend you from [?] and Mrs Doddridge. Two or three weeks ago I wrote a little preface to ye largest & best Attestation to ye Work of God in New England under ye hands of One hundred and eleven pastors of Churches. I desird my nephew to take the first Opportunity of sending it to you.

Address: none

Postmark: none

Endorsed: Dr Watts 1744

Text: MA 514.14, Isaac Watts Letters, The Morgan Library, New York.  The above letter is not mentioned in Geoffrey Nuttall's Calendar of the Correspondence of Philip Doddridge (1977) or Nuttall's Philip Doddridge: Additional Letters (2001).