Life of Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich

The following Memoir was originally prepared as a biographical preface to a new edition of Bishop Hall’s Contemplations. At the request of the Publisher, it now makes its appearance separately, and with some alterations which a revision could not fail to suggest.

In a posthumous volume, entitled

B PREFACE.

The Shaking of the Olive Tree,” were inserted two autobiographical fragments, — the one, “Observations of some Specialties of Divine Providence in the Life of Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich;” the other, “Hard Measure,” setting forth the sufferings of his later years. From these the principal facts of his history have been derived; but his miscellaneous works, especially his devotional writings, abound in materials illustrative of his character; and much information may be gathered from the incidental notices of his voluminous contemporaries. Of these sources, so far as they were known or accessible, the author has availed himself; but in a tract of such humble pretensions, did not think it requisite to authenticate every statement by elaborate references.

It is only justice to this good prelate, and may be for our own advantage, to remember the motive which induced him to leave on record the chief events of his history: *’ Not out of a vain affectation of my own glory, which I know how little it can avail me when I am gone hence, but out of a sincere desire to give glory to my God, whose wonderful providence I have noted in all my ways, have I recorded some remarkable passages of my fore-past life. What I have done is worthy of nothing but silence and forgetfulness; but what God hath done for me is worthy of everlasting and thankful memory,’*

JEdinburghy
August 183a

JOSEPH HALL was born July 1st, 1574, at Bristow Park, in the parish of Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire. His parentage was honest and wellallowed.” His father held an oflSce under the Earl of Huntingdon, which enabled him to procure a good education for his twelve children, and warranted his ambition that one of them should enter the ministry, at a time when a University was not the only avenue to the Church. But the instructions and impressions which Joseph received from his mother were a better qualification than the lessons of all his teachers; and the consciousness of their value in after days invested the memory of the gentle giver with an affection doubly filial. Winifred Bambridge was the Monica of Bishop Hall. A body always feeble, and often anguish-stricken, was the appropriate tenement of a spirit sorrowful and deeply exercised, if it did not even re-act in a morbid influence on her mind. But happily the clouds which at one time shaded the piety of this excellent woman, did not render it forbidding to the more genial temper of her son. He rejoiced in the light, when others would have complained of the halo, nor refused to be conducted to the kingdom by a guide whose countenance was sometimes sad. And he at last had the satisfaction of seeing her set free from these vexing thoughts, and deriving the joy of a religion of hope. What with these trials, so had she profited in the school of Christ, thit it was hard for any friend to come from her discourse no whit holier. How often have I blessed the memory of those divine passages of experimental, divinity which I have heard from her mouth! What day did she pass without a large task of private devotion, whence she would still come forth with a countenance of undissembled mortification! Never any lips have read to me such feeling lectures of piety; neither have I known any soul that more accurately practised them than her own. Temptations, desertions, and spiritual comforts were her usual theme; shortly, for I can hardly take off my pen from so exemplary a subject, her life and death were saint-Uke.”

It was at the public school of his native village that he received the elements of his education. After spending “some years, not altogether indiligently, under the ferule of such masters as the place afforded, and attaining some competent ripeness for the University,” as he was now fifteen years of age, it became a subject of much deliberation to his father, and anxious IS

interest to himself, where he should next be sent. His father’s fortune, not so large as his family, rendered the University almost unattainable; and Joseph’s schoolmaster, in his zeal for so meritorious a pupil, had privately negotiated with Mr. Pelset, a clerical friend, famed for his talents and the eloquence with which he displayed them, to receive him into his house as his scholar; — Mr. Pelset undertaking “within one seven years, to send him forth, no less furnished with arts, languages, and grounds of theoretical divinity, than the carefullest tutor in the strictest college of either University.” The scheme, when unfolded to his father, so completely adapted itself to his circumstances and desires, that he speedily took the reqilisite steps for securing its advantages. “There, and now were all my hopes of my future life upon blasting. The indentures were preparing, the time was set, my suits were addressed for the journey. What was the issue? O God! thy providence made and found it. Thou knowest how heartily and sincerely, in those my young years, -I did cast myself upon thy hands; with what faithful resolution I did in this particular occasion resign myself over to thy disposition, earnestly begging of thee in my fervent prayers, to order all things to the best; and confidently waiting upon thy will for the event. Certainly, never did I in all my life more clearly roll myself upon the Divine Providence, than I did in this business; and it succeeded accordingly”

While these measures were in progress, his elder brother had occasion to visit Cambridge, and was kindly entertained by his townsman Nathaniel Giiby, a Fellow of Emanuel College. The majestic structures, the learned leisure, and the old renown of Cambridge, won his brother to a great love and reverence of an academical life,” and powerfully enforced Mr. Gilby’s earnest persuasions by all means to send his younger brother thither. Under these influences he returned to Ashby, and with Mr. Gilby*s message reported in the most glowing terms his own impressions. On his knees he begged that his father would not drown the expectations of the youthful aspirant *’in a shallow country channel and coneluded by beseeching him, if the cost were the hindrance, to sell part of the land which should otherwise be his own inheritance. An appeal thus urged could not be resisted, and with an honest enthusiasm the governor of Ashby exclaimed, “Cost what it will, to the University he shall go.” The decision was opportunely made, for instantly a knock at the door announced a messenger from Mr. Pelset, to tell that he was waiting for his pupil, and would expect him on the morrow. Mr. Hall told the servant that he was some minutes too late, and informing him of his change of purpose, dismissed him with a courteous message to his master, whilst Joseph welcomed the chge in his destination with tears of joy.

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