5 - Philip Doddridge’s New Testament

Summary

On October 22, 1724, the 22-year-old dissenter Philip Doddridge, who was then ministering to a farming congregation in Leicestershire and devoting much of his time in his rural seclusion to his studies, wrote to his friend and mentor Samuel Clark, minister at St. Albans, about his current reading. After describing the works on divinity he was immersed in, he went on to another related topic that was also giving him “a great deal of pleasure”: “I am drawing up, but only for my own use, a sort of analytical scheme of the contents of the epistles of the New Testament.” Doddridge’s great-grandson and editor of his letters added a note suggesting that this might be considered the origin of The Family Expositor. His former student, editor, and biographer Job Orton described this as Doddridge’s “Capital-work,” noting that “He had been preparing for this Work from his Entrance on the Ministry, and kept it in View in the future Course of his Studies.” From these beginnings emerged the six substantial volumes of The Family Expositor: or, A Paraphrase and Version of the New Testament. With Critical Notes; and a Practical Improvement of each Section, published over a period of seventeen years, with the last three volumes appearing posthumously.