It was said that such expressions of religious faith as those of Dr. Johnson and his namesake were still frequent in the eighteenth century, and still to some extent formal. There is an interesting commentary on this in the will of the Rev. Philip Doddridge, D.D., the famous writer and divine. His will is dated June 11, 1741, and was proved with a codicil on the 31st of December, 1751. “Whereas it is customary on these occasions to begin with recommending the soul into the hands of God thro’ Christ, I do it not in mere form but with sincerity and joy, esteeming it my greatest happiness that I am taught and encouraged to do it by that glorious Gospel, which having most assuredly believed I have spent my life in preaching to others, and esteem an infinitely greater treasure than all my little worldly store, or possessions ten thousand times greater than mine.” In his will dated 13th of May, 1751, and proved in December the same year, another divine, the Rev. Obadiah Hughes, D.D., recommends his soul to God in a peculiarly touching dedication. We cannot but believe in its sincerity and strength. “In the name of God, Amen. I Obadiah Hughes, of Aldermanbury, London, Minister of the Gospel and Doctor in Divinity, (being sensible of the frailty and uncertainty of life, and reckoning it a duty of very great importance incumbent upon every man to set his house in order, as well as his heart, before he dies,) do make this my last will and testament in manner following. I recommend my soul into the hands of God, to whom I am humbly bold thro’ Jesus Christ to claim a relation as my God and my Father; and though conscious to myself of great unworthiness, yet I hope to be accepted in the beloved Son of God, and for His sake to obtain mercy and pardon and life eternal. This Jesus I have endeavoured to serve in the Gospel, with great sincerity, I trust, tho’ with many infirmities and too much remissness; with Him I have long ago lodged my everlasting concerns, and I do now most solemnly in the views and expectation of another world declare that I receive Christ Jesus by faith as my Lord, and repose an unshaken confidence in Him as my all-sufficient Saviour; and according to the constitution of the Covenant of Grace, as a penitent returning believing sinner, I hope for Christ’s sake to be made a partaker of an inheritance with the Saints in light, at that awful season when my soul and body shall by death be parted. And in those regions of immortal bliss I hope with inconceivable joy to meet the departed spirit of my late most dearly beloved wife, which I doubt not has safely reached its heavenly home upon its dislodgment from the body—Lord Jesus Christ, let not this hope leave me ashamed, nor my soul finally miscarry.”