Jul 3, 2025

Philip Doddridge

William Wilberforce was elected to British Parliament in 1780 at the tender age of twenty-one. Four years later, when Parliament went into recess, William toured Europe with his family and invited his former tutor, Isaac Milner, to join them. At the house where they were staying, Wiliam noticed a book on a table, The Rise and Prosperity of Religion, written by the Puritan preacher Philip Doddridge (1702-1751). William asked his tutor if he had read it. Isaac, who had recently become a Christian, said, “It’s one of the best books ever written.” They took the book with them on their return travels to read and discuss. By the time William reached home, he had come “to a settled conviction” about the truth of Christianity. This book strengthened his resolve to do what he could to abolish the slave trade. He devoted his life to end slavery in the Dutch West Indies. After forty years of pressing for reform and only three days before William died, The Abolition of Slavery Act was passed by Parliament in 1833.

While Philip Doddridge served an obscure country parish, you can also measure his success by helping to abolish slavery in England. One never knows what our Christian witness today will mean in someone’s life tomorrow. Philip concluded each chapter of his book with a devotional exercise and prayer. Here is his prayer that closes the first chapter:

O thou great eternal Original, and Author of all created beings and happiness! I adore Thee, who has made man a creature capable of religion, and has bestowed this dignity and felicity upon our nature, that it may be taught to say, “Where is God our maker?” (Job 35.10). I lament that degeneracy spread over the whole human race, which has “turned our glory into shame” (Hosea 4.7) and has rendered the forgetfulness of God, unnatural as it is, so common and so universal a disease. Holy Father, we know it is Thy presence, and Thy teaching alone, that can reclaim Thy wandering children, can impress a sense of Divine things on the heart, and render that sense listing and effectual. From Thee proceed all good purposes and desires, above all, of diffusing wisdom, piety and happiness in this world which (though sunk in deep apostasy) thine infinite mercy has not utterly forsaken…

Rev. Dr. Peter James served 42 years as the senior of Vienna Presbyterian Church in Vienna, VA — 21 years in the 20th century and 21 years in the 21st century. He retired in 2021 and now serves as Pastor-in-Residence at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

Even as a pastor, prayer came slowly to Pete. Read Pete’s story.