, was born at Shottesbrooke, in Berkshire, June 17, 1709, and was
, was born at Shottesbrooke, in
Berkshire, June 17, 1709, and was educated at Trinity
college, Oxford, where he took the degree of master of
arts, on the 8th of June, 1732. In the course of his life,
he obtained several considerable preferments. He was
rector of Shottesbrooke, and vicar of Bucklesbury and of
White-Waltham. Dr. Sherlock, when bishop of Salisbury,
gave him a prebendal stall in that cathedral, and he afterwards became a canon of the same church. Bishop Thomas
promoted him to the archdeaconry of Berks. The principal works by which he was distinguished, were, “A Free
Answer to Dr. Middleton’s Free Enquiry,
” published in
A full and final Reply to Mr. Toll’s Defence of Dr. Middleton,
” which appeared in Two
Sermons on the eternity of future punishment, in answer
to Whiston with a Preface,
” Oxford, Visitation
Sermon on the desireableness of the Christian Faith, published at the request of bishop Sherlock,
” Oxford, Two Sermons on a rational faith,
” Oxford, Sermon on the practical influence of the doctrine of the Holy
Trinity,
” Oxford, Dissertation on Jepthah’s Vow,
occasioned by Romaine’s Sermon on that subject,
” London,
Practical Discourses (14) on moral subjects, vol.1.
”
London, Vol. II. London, 1749, containing 14 more;
” and
preceded by a Dedication to bishop Sherlock, whose “unsolicited testimony of favour
” to him laid him “under
personal obligations. Such a testimony from such a patron,
and the obliging manner of conferring it, added much to the
value of the favour itself.
” “Assize Sermon on Human
Laws,
” Oxford, Sermon on St. Paul’s Wish,
” Oxford, Two Sermons on Superstition,
” Oxford, Assize Sermon on the equal and impartial discharge of
Justice,
” Oxford, Letter to the Author of Considerations on the Act to prevent Clandestine Marriages;
with a Postscript occasioned by Stebbing’s Enquiry into
the annulling Causes,
” &c. London, was known, at the time, as
Dr. DodwelPs;
” Two Sermons on the Doctrine of the
Divine Visitation by Earthquakes,“Oxford, 1756;
” Assize Sermon on the False Witness, Oxford, Sermon at the Meeting of the Charity Schools,
” London, Two Sermons on a particular Providence,
” Oxford,
Sermon before the Sons of the Clergy,
” London,
Charge to the Clergy of the archdeaconry of
Berks,
” London, Sermon at the Consecration of
Bishop Moss, in 1766,
” London, The Sick Man’s
Companion; or the Clergyman’s Assistant in visiting the
Sick; with a Dissertation on Prayer,
” London, The Prayer, on laying the foundation stone of the Salisbury infirmary, subjoined to dean Greene’s Infirmary Sermon,
” Salisbury, Infirmary Sermon,
” Salisbury,
Three Charges on the Athanasian Creed,
” in consequence of the request of some Oxford friends, to see the
light. They were accordingly printed at the university
press; and contributed, as the author expresses himself in
his second page, “to obviate all real mistakes, to silence
all wilful misrepresentations, to remove prejudices, to confirm the faith of others, and to vindicate our own sincerity
in the profession of it
” and it was considered by him as
“not unseasonable or unuseful to review and justify that
which is called the Athanasian Creed not, we well know,
as composed by him whose name it bears, but as explaining the doctrine which he so strenuously maintained.
”