Preface

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