MEMOIR.

THE eminently pious Bishop Hall was born at a dwelling in Bristow Park, in the parish of Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire, July 1, 1574. His father was in office under the Earl of Huntingdon: and his mother, of the ancient family of Bambridge, was a woman of extraor dinary piety. Having from his infancy been devoted by his parents to the work of the ministry, he was educated in the public school of his native place, and afterwards sent to Emmanuel College, Cambridge: where in 1592, he took the degree of bachelor of arts. He distinguished himself as a wit and a poet in the early part of life, and published his Satires, in six books,' which obtained considerable celebrity.

After our Author had been two years at the university, his father, having a family of twelve children, was no longer able to bear the expense; he therefore proposed to get him appointed master of the free school in his native place, where he had received the first rudiments of his education. This however was prevented by the benevolent interposition of an uncle, who by bearing part of the expense, enabled him to prosecute his studies at Cambridge, where in 1596 he took his second degree. He then became a fellow of the college, delivered his lectures on rhetoric, and entered into the public

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disputations with great success: but wishing rather to devote himself to the study of divinity, and the service of the sanctuary, he resigned his fellowship, obtained ordination, preached before the university, and frequently in the neighbouring villages.

Being appointed to the rectory of Halsted, near Bury St. Edmonds, he married a Miss Winniff of Bretenham, with whom he lived forty nine years. The parsonage house being in a ruinous state, he rebuilt it at his own expense; and his patron having kept back part of the income from interested motives, he was reduced to the necessity of writing some books, that he might be able to purchase others which he wanted. In 1605, he accompanied Sir Edmund Bacon into Germany, where he composed one of his volumes of Meditations.' At Brussels he entered into a conference with a noted jesuit, and made himself personally acquainted with the forms and ceremonies of the Romish church.

On his return to London he was appointed one of the court chaplains, with the offer of a perpetual residence, and the promise of great preferment; but the Earl of Norwich having presented him with the living of Waltham HolyCross in Essex, he declined the prince's offer; and being anxious to change his patron, he accepted the donative of Waltham. Here he preached three times a week, as he had done before at Halsted; and in 1612, took his degree of doctor in divinity. He was at the same time made prebendary of the collegiate church of Wolverhampton, and was the chief instrument in recovering a considerable estate, of which

that church had been deprived by a fraudulent

conveyance.

In July 1616, Dr. Hall attended Lord Doncaster on an embassy to the court of France. During his absence, James I. conferred upon him the deanery of Worcester; and in the following spring, he accompanied the king into Scotland as one of his chaplains. The States of Holland being about that time greatly agitated by the Arminian controversy, and several of their cities in a state of confusion and alarm, in consequence of the violent proceedings of the opposite parties, Dr. Hall was commissioned, with several other English divines, to attend the celebrated Synod of Dort, where the five points were to be openly discussed. Dr. Hall inclining to neither extremes, wished for an amicable adjustment between the parties, and exhorted them to mutual forbearance; but unable to accomplish his benevolent design, and intimidated by the rancorous opposition which prevailed, he quickly returned to England. Previous to his departure however, he preached a latin sermon before that famous assembly, who, by their president and assistants, took a solemn leave of him. The deputies of the state dismissed him with an honourable retribution, and sent after him a rich golden medal, being the portraiture of the synod, which he wore suspended on his bosom. Being himself inclined to the middle way between the Calvinists and the Remonstrants, or to what may be termed moderate Calvinism, he afterwards published his sentiments on that subject, under the title of 'Via Media.'

During the oppressive reign of the bigoted James, the Puritans suffered great persecution; they were driven from their homes, first to Holland, and then to the inhospitable wilds of America. Two ships freighted with persons of this description, sailed from Southampton in June 1620; and after enduring the greatest hardships, and encountering almost insuperable difficulties, they founded the colony of New Plymouth in North America. And though Dr. Hall was not at present included in the number, his eminent piety soon gave occasion to suspect that he also was a puritan.

Charles I. however no sooner succeeded to the throne, than he offered him the bishopric of Gloucester, which he declined; but was consecrated bishop of Exeter in 1627, holding at the same time a rectory in Cornwall. He entered upon his new dignity with much reluctance and uneasiness, knowing that he was suspected by the high-church party, who had placed around him a number of spies to watch his conduct. The charge soon brought against the bishop was, that he had ordained a number of pious, active and evangelical ministers, who were constant and laborious in preaching the word, and that the bishop himself was too much given to lecturing within his diocese. Three times was he upon his knees before king Charles for this heinous offence, while the lords of the court reproached and reviled him as a puritan.

The infamous LAUD was at this time elevated to the see of Canterbury, and aspired to an ascendancy over both church and state. Charles's coronation he claimed an authority

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from God to confer the crown upon the king, and charged him to remember that those who came nearest to the altar were entitled to the highest honour. He also undertook to newmodel the established church, and to introduce a variety of popish forms and ceremonies, which had prevailed in the darkest ages of superstition, and which by the puritans were held in the greatest abhorrence. The scheme of Laud and the prelates who acted with him, was to lead back the people by gradual steps to the religion of their ancestors; this was so obvious that not only the presbyterians and discontented puritans believed the church of England to be fast relapsing into Romish superstition, but the court of Rome itself entertained hopes of regaining its authority in this island; and in order to forward Laud's supposed good intentions, an offer was twice made him in private of a cardinal's hat, which he declined accepting. But though he was not willing to be ranked among the papists, the genius of his religion was the same. The same profound respect was demanded for the sacerdotal character, the same submission required to the creeds and decrees of synods and councils, the same pomp and ceremony was affected in public worship, and the same superstitious regard to days, postures, meats and vestments. No wonder therefore that this prelate was every where, among the puritans, regarded with horror, as the forerunner of antichrist.

The affectation of Laud sufficiently displayed itself in the pompous and ridiculous manner in which he consecrated the church of St. Catherine, as well as in many other instances. Ap