c. 1746/47 

Anne Dutton, Great Gransden, to Philip Doddridge, Northampton, undated, incomplete [c. 1746-47], during the time her husband was in America.

. . . let us leave ye Government of ye Church unto HIM, upon whose Almighty Shoulders ye whole Weight of it is devolved by ye Father. Our Lord is in ye Ship, as our Skilful Pilot, & steer it aright He will & bring it safe to Land thro’ a thousand Storms: And these shall only serve as so many Foils, to illustrate ye Glory of yt peaceful Calm wch awaits us, when crying to ye LORD in our Trouble, He brings us out of our Distresses, & unto our desired Haven, to our Heart’s Joy, & his Name’s Glory.

         I have gone thro’ a Part of your Rise & Progress,[1] Sir. And many Things therein reach my inmost Soul, knit my Heart to Christ, wing my Desires for him, & humble me in ye Dust before him, for all my Sins of Omission & Commission agst Him. The Description you give of ye Christian Temper, makes me think of an Expression of dear Mr. Rutherford,[2] wch I have oft tho’t expressive of my Case: “I think I shall die, minting & aiming to be a Christian.” Ah! Sir, I am very light, in true Christianity; but glad am I, that my Christ is full Weight unto God: That in His Acceptableness, my sinful Person & Services are accepted; that thro’ His Influence, I have at any Time been likeminded, according to Christ Jesus; and yt shortly, I shall know & love, & serve ye Lord perfectly. Mean while, I wash in ye Fountain set open for Sin & for Uncleanness, flee to ye Lord my Strength, for fresh Supplies of Grace, & confessing & bewailing my Iniquities before God my Father, I rejoyce that He is faithful & just, to forgive me my Sins, & to cleanse me from all Unrighteousness. – But when I see so much of ye Image of Christ in you, Sir, (which endears my Soul to yours) me thinks as a Christian, I am almost absorpt! That is, as to ye practical Part of Christianity. – But glad am I, that my Dearest JESUS, my worthy LORD, hath some of his Servants that love him fervently. – While I speak thus, Sir, methinks I hear You say, “Alas! I shrink into Nothing, while I view what my great Lord is to me, & what great things He hath done for me, & how little I have been, or am, have done, or can do for Him!” – And so go on, my Dear Revd Brother, to roll in ye Dust, before ye Majesty of infinite Grace! And take your Fill of Godly Sorrow, for all yt you have done agst Christ, while you behold him pierced by you & for you upon ye Cross! For such is the excellent Greatness of your Husband-Lover, of your Royal Master, that HE is infinitely worthy of ten Thousand, Thousand Times more than you are, or have, or ever will have to give him! O cast your whole Soul, as a Drop of Love & Duty, into ye boundless, bottomless, endless Ocean of His Love & Glory! And tell Him, “If you had millions of Souls, & of perfect Loves, they should all devolve upon HIM, your Altogether lovely LORD!” For it pleases God our Saviour, ye LORD our Lover, to hear such broken Language from saved Souls, & such Lispings of Affection from Babes in this low Land. And for us, ye weakest of us all, to love ye LORD, is a sweet Ascension towards ye Heights of Glory: Of yt bright eternal Bliss, wch waits us when Men in Christ, in our Country above, in Emanuel’s Land, whither we are going: Where we shall live & love, Love & live forever! – Unto ye Heart & Arms of your Dear Lord Jesus, I commit you. The LORD increase you more & more! With all the Increases of God! So prays,

                                 Reverend Sir,

                                             Your most obliged Humble Servant,

                                                                     Anne Dutton.

P.S. You might well say, Sir, That I had wrote agst some of ye Errors of ye M-----ns; for like evil Men & Seducers, alas for them! They wax worse & worse. I have sent you a Letter I wrote wn I first began to hear of ye Mischief they did in Philada.[3] – You said, Dear Sir, “I might write freely.” Excuse this Letter, wch I have made much longer than I designed. – I am a Partaker of your Bliss, Sir, ye Dear, agreeable Consort, wch ye Lord hath given you. A Mother in Israel, may she be made! A Helper of your Joy, & a strengthener of your Hands in GOD! And may ye best of Blessings, richly descend upon You & Yours! My most humble Salutations, Sir, to Madam Doddridge.[4] Her most kind Regard to unworthy me, is most obliging. An Hundred-fold Reward, be given into her own Bosom! – If you shd write to Mr. Jekyll,[5] Sir, my most humble Thanks & dutiful Salutations, be pleased to give. Great Grace be with you! Farewel in ye Lord! –

A few Lines prefixt by way of Dedication to my 2d Vol. of Letters.[6] Transcrib’d to shew my Honour’d Friend, how my poor Heart then, minted at being the LORD’s.

I give this Service, LORD, to THEE:

         My Self I dedicate:

Accept my Self, my feeble Work;

         And grant thy Blessing great!

O Thou, who art of Jacob, GOD,

         Thy feeblest Worm regard;

Accept the Mite I give in Love,

         And grant a free Reward!

O All-Sufficient GOD, Thou dost

         None of my Service need:

Ten Thousand Thousand, Lord, Thou canst

         Without thy Creatures feed.

But such thy condescending Grace,

         To Men and Angels is,

That Thou’lt employ them in thy Work:

         Which, Lord, is perfect Bliss!

O Lord, I love Thee for thy SELF;

         Thy Work to me is sweet:

And had I all created Strength,

         I’d lay it at thy Feet.

But, Lord, thy Worm, hath but a Mite;

         Thou know’st I’m weak and poor:

But Thou’lt accept of Turtle Doves,

         When Thine can give no more.

Then, Lord, accept my little Mite;

         And grant me what I crave:

That Thou great Glory, Thine great Good,

         By what I’ve wrote may have!

Notes

[1] Reference is to Doddridge’s Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul (London, 1745). For Dutton’s other letters to Doddridge on this site, see Dutton to Doddridge, 30 January 1744; Dutton to Doddridge, August 1749; Dutton to Doddridge, 25 September 1749. In her youth, Dutton was a member of the Castle Hill Independent meeting in Northampton, where Doddridge served as minister from 1729-51. For more on Dutton’s life, click here; for her complete Bibliography with extensive annotations, click here.

[2] Most likely a reference to Samuel Rutherford (c. 1600-61), a Scottish Presbyterian minister who was one of the delegates at the Westminster Assembly in the 1640s that led to the Westminster Confession.

[3] Two publications by Dutton are possible answers to this allusion to a letter to believers in Philadelphia: A Letter to All Those that Love the Lord Jesus Christ, in Philadephia (London, 1743) and A Letter from Mrs. Anne Dutton, to the Reverence Mr. G. Whitefield, which was printed in Philadelphia c. 1743-44. Concerning the Moravians, Dutton’s first letter against them appeared in 1746, titled Some of the Mistakes of the Moravian Brethren: in a Letter to another Friend and appended to her Postscript to a Letter lately Published, on the Duty and Privilege of a Believer, to live by Faith (London, 1746). The references to her writing against the Moravians, coupled with the reference to Doddridge’s Rise and Progress, places the letter c. 1746/47. Dutton describes her composition of her letter against the Moravians in Part III of her A Brief Account of the Gracious Dealings of God (London, 1750), pp. 113-16:

And as to the other Letter added, Some of the Mistakes of the Moravian Brethren; It was written at first, in answer to the Request of a particular Person, who desir’d me to inform him, “Wherein I thought the Moravians were mistaken.” And tho’ I was not so free at first to engage in this Work, as in some others, it being of a controversial Nature; yet the Lord inclin’d me, for the Glory of his Name, and the Good of Souls to attempt it, and with much Evidence to the Truth, and sweet Pleasure in it, He carry’d me thro’ the Work. But when I had wrote it, having other Work upon Hand, I was not free to take the Copy of it, until the Lord brought this Scripture to my Mind, He that hath my Word, let him speak my Word faithfully: What is the Chaff to the Wheat? saith the Lord, Jer. xxiii. 28. The Lord’s Voice to me herein was this: “Have I given thee my Word in this Letter: And wilt thou not speak it, write, preserve, and communicate the same? Wilt thou be unfaithful? What is the Chaff of Error, to the Wheat of Truth? My Truth is valuable: Wilt thou not speak it?” The Lord also brought to my Mind, That wicked and slothful Servant, who hid [115] his Lord’s Money in the Earth; and what was said unto him, Thou oughtest therefore to have put my Money to the Exchangers, and then at my Coming I should have received mnine own with Usury, Matt. xxx. 27. From this the Lord said unto me, “It is my Money, my Truth, which I have given thee in this Letter, to trade with: It is not thine, to do what thou pleasest with it, to hide it at thy Pleasure. Thou oughtest to put my Money to the Exchangers, to communicate it to my People, that at my Coming I may receive mine own with Usury.” From these two Scriptures, the Lord fully convinc’d me that it was my Duty to copy out the Letter; and my Spirit was laid under such Awe, by the one Talent that was taken away from the slothful Servant, and given to him that had Ten; that I durst do no other. I thought, ‘If I did not put my Lord’s Money to the Exchangers, if I did not speak his Word faithfully; He might justly take it from me, and use me no more to any of his People.’ And from that Clause, “Receive mine own with Usury,” I was encourag’d to hope, that if I was found in my Duty, my dear Lord would have Glory. Upon which my Heart was fully inclin’d, and sweetly drawn to this little piece of Work. And the Copy I took at the Lord’s Bidding, and laid it at his Feet, to do what He pleased with it.

        Soon after, the Lord shew’d me, how good He was to me, in persuading me to take the [116] Copy. For the Original being sent to the Person for whom it was writ, he and others being displeas’d with it, as it oppos’d their Errors; it was resolv’d among them, That it should never be seen more by any Person. “It is not fit to be seen:” said one of them. So that, if I had not had the Copy, the Witness which the Lord enabled me to bear for his Truth in that Letter, would have been as it were entirely lost.

        And when the Postscript to my Letter publish’d the last Year, was written; it appear’d to me very needful, to add that Letter, A Caution against Error, &c. and this, Some of the Mistakes of the Moravian Brethren, to that Postscript: Which for the Glory of God, and the Good of his People, I accordingly did. (113-116)

[4] Mercy Doddridge (1709-1790) was born at Worcester, the daughter of Richard Maris (d. 1752) and Elizabeth Brindley (d. c. 1743). Her relation, William Hankin (d. 1723), was the first Baptist minister at Upton upon Severn. She went to live there with her Hankin relations because of various issues in her family in Worcester. She met Doddridge in the home of her great-aunt, Mrs Edward Owen, in Coventry in July 1730, and they were married at Upton on 22 December 1730. They lived first in Marefair, Northampton, where the Academy was also situated, and then in 1740 to a large town house in Sheep Street rented from Lord Halifax of Horton. Letters in this collection note that they lived in a third residence in Mary Street after the removal of the Academy to Daventry and remained in that residence until their removal to Tewkesbury by the early 1770s. Her chief claim to fame is her status as the wife of Philip Doddridge and her work in preserving his writings and continuing their publication after his death. As W. N. Terry notes in the ODNB entry on Mercy, she was an educated woman and able to discuss theological and secular matters with her husband. She often apologized for her poor spelling and grammar, yet she and her husband were friends with many noblemen and their wives, including the Prince of Wales. She oversaw the posthumous publication of many of her husband’s works and managed to create a substantial living endowment through the sale of the copyrights and subscriptions, as well as an annuity that had been established for her by the Northampton church after his death in 1751. She died at Tewkesbury in 1790. Some letters by Mercy and her daughters, as well as her husband, Philip, can be found on this site at the Doddridge Family Correspondence.

[5] Most likely this is Joseph Jekyll (d. 1752), at that time Treasurer of the Northampton Hospital. He was the nephew of Joseph Jekyll (1663-1738), of Dallington, who served for many years as Master of the Rolls for Northamptonshire. The Jekylls appear on several occasions in the correspondence of Philip Doddridge.

[6] The poem appeared at the beginning of Dutton’s Letters on Spiritual Subjects, and Divers Occasions, sent to Relations and Friends. By One who has Tasted that the Lord is Gracious. London: Printed by J. Hart, in Poppings-Court, Fleet-street: and sold by J. Lewis, in Bartholomew-Close, near West-Smithfield; and E. Gardner at Milton’s Head in Grace-Church-street, MDCCXLIII [1743], the second of 15 volumes that would appear under that title between 1740 and 1769. Previous to that printing, Dutton added the poem to a letter to John Lewis in early summer 1742, that Lewis published in The Weekly History, Saturday, 31 July 1742, no. 69, pp. 3-4. The 1742 version is essentially identical to the one Dutton sent to Doddridge. The printed version of 1743, however, differs in many places from what Dutton sent to Doddridge, with a completely different stanza two:

An Hymn. Composed upon Copying out some Letters for the Press.

I.

I Give this Service, Lord, to thee;

         Myself I dedicated:

Accept myself, my feeble Work,

         And grant thy Blessing great.

II.

O Prince of Grace, send from above,

         And take, and bless this Bread:

That so thy needy Children dear,

         By Thousands may be fed!

III.

Oh, All-sufficient GOD, thou dost

         None of my Service need:

Ten Thousand, Thousand, Lord, thou canst

         Without thy Creatures feed!

IV.

But such thy condescending Grace,     

         To Men and Angels is,

That thou’lt Employ them in thy Work:

         Which, Lord, is perfect Bliss!

V.

O thou, who art of Jacob, God,

         Thy feeblest Worm regard;

Accept the Mite I give in Love,

         And grant a free Reward.

VI.

O Lord, I love thee for thy SELF!

         Thy Work to me is sweet!

And had I all created Strength,

         I’d lay it at thy Feet!

VII.

But Lord, thy Worm has but a Mite,

         Thou knowst I’m weak and poor:

But thou’lt accept of Turtle-Doves,

         When thine can give no more!

VIII.

Then Lord, accept my little All;

         And grant me what I crave:

That thou great Glory, thine great Good;

         By what I’ve wrote may have!

Text: Special Collections, Bridwell Library, Southern Methodist University, BridColl 01, Box 04, Folder 17.