Visit westportexperiment.com for more audio resources. A Plain Method of Catechizing 02: A Prefatory Catechism - Thomas Doolittle Thomas Doolittle (1632–1707), nonconformist tutor, third son of Anthony Doolittle, a glover, was born at Kidderminster in 1632 or the latter half of 1631. While at the grammar school of his native town he heard Richard Baxter preach as lecturer (appointed April 5, 1641) the sermons afterwards published as “The Saint’s Everlasting Rest” (1653). These discourses produced his conversion. Placed with a country attorney he scrupled at copying writings on Sunday, and went home determined not to follow the law. Baxter encouraged him to enter the ministry. He was admitted as a sizar at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, on June 7, 1649, being then “17 annos natus.” He could not, therefore, have been born in 1630, as stated in his “memoirs.” The source of the error is that another Thomas, son of William and Jane Doolittle, was baptised at Kidderminster on Oct. 20, 1630. His tutor was William Moses, afterwards ejected from the mastership of Pembroke. Doolittle graduated with an M.A. at Cambridge. Leaving the university for London he became popular as a preacher, and in preference to other candidates was chosen (1653) as their pastor by the parishioners of St. Alphage, London Wall. The living is described as sequestered in Rastrick’s list as quoted by Palmer, but James Halsey, D.D., the deprived rector, had been dead twelve or thirteen years. Doolittle received Presbyterian ordination. During the nine years of his incumbency he fully sustained his popularity. On the passing of the Uniformity Act (1662) he “upon the whole thought it his duty to be a nonconformist.” He was poor; the day after his farewell sermon a parishioner made him a welcome present of 20l. A residence had been built for Doolittle, but it appears to have been private property; it neither went to his successor, Matthew Fowler, D.D., nor did Doolittle continue to enjoy it. He removed to Moorfields and opened a boarding-school, which succeeded so well that he took a larger house in Bunhill Fields, where he was assisted by Thomas Vincent, ejected from St. Mary Magdalene, Milk Street. The Toleration Act of 1689 left Doolittle free to resume his services at Mugwell Street, preaching twice every Sunday and lecturing on Wednesdays. Vincent, his assistant, had died in 1678; later he had as assistants his pupil, John Mottershead (removed to Ratcliff Cross), his son, Samuel Doolittle (removed to Reading), and Daniel Wilcox, who succeeded him. Emlyn’s son and biographer says of Doolittle that he was “a very worthy and diligent divine, yet was not eminent for compass of knowledge or depth of thought.” This estimate is borne out by his “Body of Divinity,” a painstaking and prolix expansion of the assembly’s shorter catechism, more remarkable for its conscientiousness and unction than for its intellectual grasp. His private covenant of personal religion (Nov. 18, 1693) occupies six closely printed folio pages. He had long suffered from stone and other infirmities, but his last illness was very brief. He preached and catechized with great vigor on Sunday, May 18, took to his bed in the latter part of the week, lay for two days unconscious, and died on May 24, 1707. He was the last survivor of the London ejected clergy. Six portraits of Doolittle have been engraved; one represents him in his own hair “ætatis suæ 52;” another, older and in a bushy wig, has less expression. This latter was engraved by James Caldwall for the first edition of Palmer (1775), from a painting in the possession of S. Sheaf or Sheafe, Doolittle’s grandson; in the second edition a worthless substitute is given. Doolittle married in 1653, shortly after his ordination; his wife died in 1692. Of his family of three sons and six daughters all, except a daughter, were dead in 1723. -~-~~-~~~-~~-~- Please watch: "A Call to Separation - A. W. Pink Christian Audio Books / Don't be Unequally Yoked / Be Ye Separate" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBDg7u21cKY -~-~~-~~~-~~-~-