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Of his share in the Popish controversies of that agitated period, he gives the following account:"Some insolent Romanists, Jesuits especially, in their bold disputations pressed nothing so much as a catalogue of the professors of our religion to be deduced from the primitive times; and, with the peremptory challenge of the impossibility of this pedigree, dazzled the eyes of the simple; while some of our learned men, undertaking to satisfy so needless and unjust a demand, gave, as I conceived, great advantage to the adversary. In a just indignation to see us thus wronged, by mistaking the question betwixt us; as if we, yielding ourselves of another church, originally and fundamentally different, should make good our own erection upon the ruins, yea, the nullity, of theirs; and, well considering the infinite and great inconveniencies that must needs follow upon this defence, I adventured to set my pen on work; desiring to rectify the opinions of those men, whom an ignorant zeal had transported, to the prejudice of our holy cause: laying forth the corruptions of the Romish Church, yet making our game of the outward visibility thereof; and, by this means, putting them to the probation of those newly obtruded corruptions, which are truly guilty of the breach betwixt us. The drift whereof not being well conceived, by some spirits that were not so wise as fervent, I was suddenly exposed to the rash cenIn "The Old Religion."

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sures of many well affected and zealous Protestants; as if I had, in a remission to my wonted zeal to the truth, attributed too much to the Roman church, and strengthened the adversaries' hands and weakened our own. This envy I was fain to take off, by my speedy Apologetical Advertisement,' and, after that, by my Reconciler,' seconded with the unanimous letters of such reverend, learned, sound divines, both bishops and doctors, by whose undoubtable authority I was able to bear down calumny itself: which done, I did, by a seasonable moderation, provide for the peace of the church, in silencing both my defendants and challengers, in this unkind and ill-raised quarrel."

Having some years previously ascended the usual intermediate step, by his promotion to the deanery of Worcester, Hall was, in 1624, offered a bishopric. The see proposed was Gloucester: he declined it; but, in 1627, accepted that of Exeter. In those times of well-grounded jealousy on the part of the Church of England, in regard to the designs of the Puritans, the conciliatory demeanour of the new bishop could scarcely fail of bringing him under the charge of blameable indulgence to nonconformists: in this light he was maliciously represented to the King; an accusation which caused him much con

1 "The Reconciler, an epistle pacificatory of the seeming differences of opinion, concerning the trueness and visibility of the Roman church."

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cern, and placed him in a situation of some danger. Every succeeding year now added proof to the last, that the time was at hand when the sincerity of men's attachment to the ritual and government of the church would be severely put to the test. The ominous aspect which public events bore towards the safety of these institutions, in the year 1640,-a year memorable for the commencement of the Long Parliament, and the first manifest breaking out of those rancorous divisions which in their course overthrew the establishment, and with it the monarchy,called forth the suspected favourer of the nonconformists as the able champion of episcopal government. His first publication, on this subject,"Episcopacy by Divine Right asserted," was followed, before the close of the year, by a second, a beautiful and earnest address, entitled, "An Humble Remonstrance to the High Court of Parliament, in defence of the Liturgy and Episcopacy." The high ground taken by Hall in these publications, gave violent offence to the Presbyterian party. It was in reply to the latter work, that the celebrated treatise, called "Smectymnuus," was written; a title which, as is generally known, was formed from the initials of the writers' names, (five in number,) who jointly contributed to its composition.' This controversy, which was maintained for some time,

Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, William Spurslowe.

on the bishop's side with learning and temperate vigour, and, as he truly says, on the part of his opponents, "with much fierceness of spirit and asperity of language," was made yet more remarkable by the subsequent accession of the name of Milton to the list of combatants. "Smectymnuus" was followed by I Hall's "Defence of his Humble Remonstrance." And now, in a quarrel worthy of his "giant's strength" and "glittering arms," had he fought on the side of truth and antiquity, issued to the combat the poet of "lost" and "recovered Paradise." Milton's Treatise is characterised less by argument than by what its author expressively describes as "a certain grim laughter;" and is chiefly worthy of being remembered as showing how the highest intellectual endowments may be deprived of their angelic temper, when, by reversing the order of the divine promise,' they are employed, not, at the call of universal charity, as instruments to promote the welfare of mankind, but to havoc and destroy in the war of party passions.

When the parliament of 1640 assembled, it was in the midst of a deep, expectant agitation of the national mind, which indistinctly but fearfully presaged the evils that followed. Hall's prophetic foresight of the important results, is thus expressed in the introduction to his "Humble Remonstrance:" "It were but a narrow word, to say that 1 Isaiah, ii. 4.

the eyes of all us, the good subjects of the whole realm, are fixed upon your success; certainly there are not more eyes in these three interessed kingdoms than are now bent upon you. Yea, all the neighbour churches and kingdoms, if I may not say the whole Christian world, and no small part beyond it, look wishfully upon your faces, and with stretched-out necks gaze at the issue of your great meeting." Whether or not, that assembly opened with a fixed purpose, on the part of the Presbyterian and other sects, to overthrow the constitution in church and state, has ever since been, and is likely to continue to be, a question most unprofitably discussed: that such a design was, at least, soon after tacitly conceived, seems rendered undeniable by the fact, that the measures, which originated with those parties, were pushed on to the production of that fatal. issue, with but a more determined spirit, after the entire removal of those grievances which were alleged as their original pretext.

The first attack made by the Commons upon the episcopal order, was in an attempt to fasten an indictment for high treason upon the bishops, and other members of the late convocation, founded on the subscription to a body of canons which had been promulgated by that assembly, for preventing innovation in the doctrine, discipline, and government of the church. Upon the failure of this de sign, "petitions, accusatory," numerously, but, in

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