the British Solomon were smuggled into the assembly by a notable contrivance, got up between their high mightinesses and the English ambassador, Sir Dudley Carleton. When the foreign divines, and the English among them, were called upon for their credentials, the laycommissioners answered for them, that they had already presented them to the States General! With this answer the Synod were perfectly content; although it was quite notorious that, on no former occasion, were ecclesiastical deputies admitted to a Synod, without first producing, not merely a commission from the civil powers, but Synodical letters from their own particular churches. It had been. ascertained, however, that the foreign divines were favourable to the Contra-remonstrants; a merit which abundantly compensated for the irregularity, or rather the absolute nullity of their appointment.

Of these anomalous delegates Doctor Joseph Hall was one! And miserably ill fitted he was for this work of darkness, whose real object was to crush the Remonstrant party, as dangerous to the interests and designs of the Prince of Orange, the near ally of the King of England! How poorly this single-hearted man was accomplished in the arts of diplomacy, appears by the almost ludicrous fact, that in his Latin sermon before the Venerable and Illustrious Synod, he blabbed out, with marvellous simplicity, a portion of the secret instructions which had been given to himself and his colleagues, by their royal and most irrefragable Doctor.* And for this very unstatesmanlike candour he had to endure a reprimand in the form of a caution from the King's Ambassador at the Hague! This shews how ill qualified he was to be trusted with the profounder secrets of this precious specimen of kingcraft. That he was ignorant of its political mysteries we cannot but charitably judge, from his farewell address to the Synod, in which he says that "there is no place under heaven which so resembles heaven, and in which he would more gladly pitch his tent, or which he shall remember with so much delight." Happily the same watchful Providence, whose hand he is constantly acknowledging, never was so conspicuous, as in his deliverance from any further concern with the proceedings of this celestial assembly; although, on this occasion he appears to have been strangely blind to his own preservation. So unconscious does he seem to have been of the odious character of this Convention, that to the end of his days he gloried in wearing a gold medal, representing the Members of the Synod in

Sed et Rex noster, Serenissimus noster Rex Jacobus, cujus nomine exultare mihi videtur tota Ecclesia Dei, regum quos sol unquam vidit, post Salomonem eodidakтoV, Sapientissimus, in suâ illâ aureâ Epistola, monuit, Illustrissimi Ordines, nobisque in mandatis dedit, illud totis viribus urgere, illud unum inculcare, ut receptæ hactenus fidei, communique et vestræ, et aliarum Ecclesiarum confessioni, adhærere usque velitis omnes. Quod si feceritis, O felicem Belgicam! O intemeratam Christi sponsam! O rempublicam florentissimam.

Session, with which he had been complimented on his retirement from it. The frontispiece to this work is an engraving of the Bishop, decorated with this appendage.

It is impossible to quit this subject without a melancholy recollection of the celebrated saying of Sir H. Wooton, Disputandi pruritus Ecclesiarum Scabies! And when this itch is inflamed and exasperated by political acrimony, how dreadfully does it tend to make the Church of Christ loathsome in the sight of the world!

The Church of England soon became sick of the Belgic disease— the quinquarticular plague, whose ravages had been so fatal in the Netherlands. Hall attempted to throw a little oil on the troubled waters, and accordingly published his Via Media, a treatise which shews the "excellent moderation" of his spirit, but which no one can peruse without grief and indignation at the thought, that human beings should tear each other to pieces for the sake of such slender and almost microscopic differences of opinion. The Calvinist shudders, and almost foams at the mouth, when he hears that the decrees of God have respect to the foreseen faith and obedience of the Elect. In vain the Arminian protests that he considers this very faith,* as itself the pure gift of God, who therefore foresees nothing in us but a quality or property of his own giving. The statement is reprobated by the Supralapsarian as little better than treacherous, and almost blasphemous. And yet, what would be the astonishment and dismay of one who should hear, for the first time, that kingdoms were convulsed, and the milk of Christian charity turned to gall, because one set of ignorant mortals would have it that God first predestinates the elect to life, and then gives them faith as the means of accomplishing his purpose: while another presumes to surmise that, faith being his own gift, he cannot but foresee those who will possess it, and who therefore must be regarded as destined for the rewards laid up for the faithful! Well might Hall exclaim, "We are like quarrelous brethen, who, having agreed on the main division of their inheritance, fall out about some heaps of rubbish!" And well might he insist, that " never treatise could be more necessary, in that curious and quarrelous age, than, De Paucitate Credendorum."

In 1627, Hall was elevated to the see of Exeter, having three years before refused that of Gloucester. In the administration of his diocese, he was suspected by some of an imprudent degree of indulgence towards the practice of establishing lecturers in the market towns of his diocese. Into this question we cannot enter. The disposition of Hall undoubtedly leaned to moderation. The times were,

Hoc dicit Arminius; qui fidem agnoscit purum putum Dei donum. Corvin. adv. Tilen. p. 32. See Via Media on Art. V.

however, such as rendered it next to impossible for any human being, invested with ecclesiastical authority, to be confident that he was doing right. The revolutionary spirits of the day seemed resolved, not only on the subversion of the Church, but on the destruction of its ablest champions. Neither the mildness of Hall, nor the intrepid and uncompromising zeal of Laud, could preserve them from the vengeful talons of faction." Nothing can exhibit, in a stronger light, the extreme difficulty of steering a right course at that tempestuous season, than the fact, that Hall was, at one and the same time, suspected of a leaning towards popery, and charged with a laxity of discipline towards the puritanical preachers!

"

The admirable and conclusive writings of Hall about this period, in defence of episcopacy, are well known. They were alone sufficient to mark him out as a victim, at a time when there began to appear a disposition to tolerate every thing, but atheism, popery, and prelacy! His danger was greatly increased by the obnoxious nature, and dubious regularity, of the proceedings of the Convocation in 1640. The canons of this Synod propounded, openly and formally, the doctrine of the divine right of kings; and thus scattered abroad more of those dragon's teeth, which afterwards sprung up into armed men. In 1641, the Bishop was translated to Norwich; but (to use his own expression) took the Tower in his way. The occasion of his imprisonment there is well known. The bishops having been most ferociously insulted in their way to the House of Lords, Williams, Archbishop of York, persuaded eleven of them to join him in signing a paper, in which they not only set forth the imminent dangers which rendered it impossible for them to continue their attendance in Parliament, and protested against their absence from the House of Lords being construed into a surrender of their right to sit there, but further protested against the legality of any thing that should thereafter pass "during the time of their forced and violent absence from that Honourable House!" This paper was presented to the King, and by him delivered to the Lord Keeper, who read it to the House of Peers. The consequence was a conference with the Commons, who, within half an hour, resolved that the bishops be impeached of high treason; in consequence of which, Hall, who had signed the protest, was committed to the Tower.

It is almost amusing to read the reflections of the good Bishop on this occurrence, as illustrating the remarkable simplicity of his character:

We poor souls (he tells us in his "Hard Measure,") who little thought that we had done any thing that might deserve a chiding, are now called to our knees at the bar, and charged severally with high treason; being not a little astonished at the suddenness of this crimination, compared with the perfect innocence of

our own intentions, which were only to bring us to our due places in parliament with safety and speed, without the least purpose of any man's offence.-P. 279.

Done nothing to deserve a chiding! Bless his artless and innocent soul! He seems to have been wholly unconscious that he and his colleagues had done something very like rushing into the midst of a herd of mad bulls, and attempting to take them by the horns! To declare to the Parliament and the kingdom that they were disabled, by open menace and assault, from attending their duty, and to claim protection against such violence, might have been a wise and unexceptionable measure. But to declare the whole business of legislation suspended on account of their absence, and this in the existing temper of the public mind,-though it looked about as much like murder or adultery, as treason,-had certainly the appearance of something vastly like insanity. And it was accordingly said by some member, that the bishops assuredly were not traitors, but it might be doubted whether they were not madmen!

The Bishop was released from the Tower, after a confinement of upwards of four months, on the 5th of May 1642, and immediately withdrew to his diocese of Norwich. The narrative of Mr. Jones is here interrupted and encumbered by three very useless chapters, filled with details of the progress of the Revolution and the subversion of the church and monarchy. It is by no means fair, that readers anxious to become acquainted with the biography of Bishop Hall should be called upon to take, and to pay for, a long and needless historical episode of nearly one hundred pages, as part and parcel of the lot. If the work should reach another edition, these chapters ought certainly to be expunged, and the price of the book proportionably reduced. In their place should be substituted a very brief and rapid summary of these events, (which now occupies so large a portion of the volume,) as introductory to the last scenes of Bishop Hall's life; namely, his persecution at Norwich, his ejection from his palace, and his retirement to Heigham, where he ended his pious and exemplary life.

To these last interesting particulars Mr. Jones devotes his eleventh chapter. It begins with a reprint of Bishop Hall's well-known "Hard Measure," which must be read with ungovernable indignation by every one, whose nature revolts at the triumphs of cowardly and ruffianlike malignity. The following passage contains Mr. Jones' recapitulation of the sufferings, more fully described by the Bishop himself:

If it may be asked, What crime or offence could have induced them to treat a christian bishop in so oppressive and cruel a manner? The answer is, he had been a strenuous advocate of episcopacy, and of the Church of England; he had

been loyal to the king, and a faithful friend of the constitution; and had exposed by his excellent writings the evils and mischiefs of factious parties.

He was therefore harassed, sequestered, and abused most cruelly. Half a year's rents, and arrears of rents, which in compassion to his tenants he had given them time to pay, were taken from him. An inventory of all his goods in and out of the palace was taken, even to a dozen of trenchers, and his children's pictures: even the wearing apparel of himself and family would have been appraised, had not two of the sequestrators, to whom he appealed, forbidden it. All his furniture, library, and goods would have been publicly sold, had not some friends bought them at a valuation, and so kindly left them to him, till he should have been able to repurchase them. A bond was given to the sequestrators to the full value of the books, which they were appraised at; and it was paid out of that poor pittance of fifihs allowed to his family. His synodals were for some time kept from him, and afterwards all the profits of the bishopric. He was several times insulted in his palace at unseasonable hours. Once, a London trooper, and others with him, came very early to the palace before the family were up, and threatened to break the gates, if they were not admitted. When he got entrance, he ransacked the whole house, under the pretence of searching for arins and ammunition. After having examined the chests, trunks, and vessels in the cellar, and finding only two muskets, he took away with him one of the bishop's two horses, when the venerable and aged prelate told him," that his age would not allow him to travel on foot." When this trooper afterwards understood that the bishop sold the other horse, he highly expostulated with him for so doing. At another time the palace was beset by a mob, because he ordained some persons in his chapel contrary to the covenant, and so insolently summoned him to appear before the mayor. One while a whole rabble of volunteers came to his gates at a late hour, when they were locked up, demanding admittance, and threatening to break the gates. Some of them clambered over the walls, and wanted to go into the palace to search for delinquents. These insolences, affronts, and many other hardships almost impossible to be enumerated, Bishop Hall endured with astonishing patience and resignation.-P. 410-412.

When he was driven from his palace, he retired with his family to a small estate which he rented at Heigham, a hamlet in the western suburbs of Norwich. During his retirement he was ready, on all occasions, to preach in any of the neighbouring churches, " until he was first forbidden by men, and at last disabled by God." In the 82d and last year of his life, he preached at Heigham church a sermon still extant, viz. the 42d, in the fifth volume of his works. Under all his sufferings and privations, he distributed a weekly charity to a certain number of poor widows. He observed a weekly fast with his whole family, for the safety and preservation of the King's person, until the day of his murder. Under the acutest pains of stone and strangury, he manifested the meekest submission to the divine will. And thus did his alms and his devotions continue to go up for a memorial to heaven, until he fell asleep in the Lord. His remains were deposited, with a short and simple Latin inscription, in the chancel of Heigham church. His name is enrolled for ever among that cloud of witnesses, which ever encompasses the faithful sons of the English Church, and whose memories may be said to form the most precious treasury of a Christian and Protestant empire.