they might with as good reason accuse us of adultery." See the bishop's "Hard Measure," subjoined to his Spes cialites, in Mr. Dodd's edition, p. 46, &c. Shortly after the commitment of the bishops to thè Tower they were impeached of high-treason by the commons; and, when they should have made their defence, were told, that, it being then late, they should have another day; but that day never came. At length, about June, 1642, they were released upon giving five thousand pounds bail; whereupon our author withdrew to Norwich. Here he was received with more respect than he could have expected in such times, and frequently preached to numerous audiences; enjoying peace till the beginning of April 1643. But then the ordinance for sequestring notorious delinquents' estates being passed, wherein he was included by name, all his rents were stopped, when he was in hopes of receiving the foregoing half year for the maintenance of his family; and a very few days after some of the sequestrators came to seize upon his palace, and all his estate, both real and personal. Of this transaction, and the severe usage he met with upon that occasion, he gives the following account in his "Hard Measure," p. 54. "The sequestrators sent certain men appointed by them (whereof one had been burned in the hand) to appraise all the goods that were in my house; which they accordingly executed with all diligent severity, not leaving so much as a dozen of trenchers, or my children's pictures out of their curious inventory: yea, they would have appraised our very wearing apparel had not some of them declared their opinion to the contrary. These goods, both library and houshold stuff of all kinds, were appointed to be exposed to public sale: but in the mean time, Mrs. Goodwin a religious good gentlewoman, whom yet we had never known or seen, being moved with compassion, very kindly offered to lay down to the sequestrators the whole sum at which the goods were valued; and was pleased to leave them in our hands, for our use, till we might be able to re-purchase them. As for the books, several stationers looked on them, but were not forward to buy: at last Mr. Cooke, a worthy divine of this diocese, gave bond to the sequestrators, to pay them the whole sum whereat they were set; which was afterwards satisfied out of that poor pittance, which was allowed me for my maintenance." Thus deprived of all support, he applied to the commit tee tee at Norwich; which allowed him 4001. a year out of the episcopal revenues. And yet this was ineffectual; for, before he could receive one quarter, there came down an order from the superior committee for sequestration at London, under the hand of serjeant Wild, the chairman, and procured by Miles Corbet, forbidding any such allowance; and telling the Norwich-committee, that neither they, nor any other, had power to allow him any thing; but, if his wife needed a maintenance, upon her application to the committee of lords and commons, she should have a fifth part. Accordingly, upon her petition, though after long delays, it was granted her: but so confused and imperfect an account was brought into the sequestrators by their solicitor and collector, of both the temporal and spiritual revenues, that the bishop could never get a knowlege what a fifth part meant; and therefore, it seems, was obliged to take what they thought fit to give him: and, which was still harder, while he received nothing, something was required from him. For they were not ashamed, after they had taken away and sold all his goods and personal estate, to come to him for assessments and monthly payments for that estate which they had seized, and took distresses from him upon his most just denial. Nay, they vehemently required him to find the arms usually furnished by his predecessors, when they had left him nothing: and, upon many occassions, offered him insolent affronts and indignities. Of this he himself gives us two instances: the first, that, one morning before his servants were up, there came to his gates a London trooper, attended with others, requiring entrance, and threatening, if they were not admitted, to break open the gates. The pretence for their coming was, to search for arms and ammunition; and though the bishop told them he had only two muskets, yet, not resting upon his word, they searched round about the house, looked into the chests and trunks, and examined the vessels in the cellar. Finding no other warlike furniture, they took away one of the bishop's two horses, though he told them his age would not allow him to travel on foot. At another time, the mob beset his palace, at a very unseasonable hour; for having ordained some persons in his own chapel, and had the insolence to demand his appearance before the mayor. Still he remained in his palace, though with a poor retinue and maintenance: but at last he was forced to Vol. IX. Churchm. Mag. Oct. 1805. Kk quit quit it at three weeks warning (though his wife offered to pay rent for it out of her fifths) and might have lain in the street; such was the inexorableness of his merciless enemies! had not a neighbour in the Close quitted his own house, to make room for him and his family. This was his hard measure, as he expresses it in his essay on the subject, which we have before referred to. Shortly after his expulsion he retired to a little estate, which he rented at Higham near Norwich; where notwithstanding the narrowness of his circumstances, he distributed a weekly charity to a certain number of poor widows. In this retirement he ended his life on the 8th of September 1656, in the eighty-second year of his age, and was buried in the church-yard of that parish, without any memorial; observing in his will: "I do not hold God's house a meet repository for the dead bodies of the greatest saints." He is universally allowed to have been a man of incomparable piety, meekness, and modesty, having a thorough knowlege of the world, and possessing great wit and learning. As to his writings (besides those already specified, and the others mentioned by Mr. Bayle in his dictionary under the author's name) they make in all five volumes in folio and 4to. The first volume, printed, or rather collected together, in 1617, and again in 1624, contains, Į. "Meditations and vows, divine and moral; in three centuries." 2. "Heaven upon earth; or of true peace and tranquillity of mind." 3. "The Art of divine meditation; with a meditation upon death." 4. "Holy Observations. 5. "Some of David's Psalms metaphrased, in verse," 6, "Characters of virtues and vices, in two books." 7. "Solomon's choicest arts of ethics, politics, œconomies, with an open and plain paraphrase upon the canticles." 8. Epistles, in six decads." 9. "Six sermons." "A common apology of the church of England, against the unjust challenges of the Brownists; [viz. Smith and Robinson."] 11. "A brief sum of the principles of religion, by way of catechism." 12. "Contemplations upon the principal passages of the sacred history, in eleven books." To which, in the edition of 1624, eight more books were added, making in all nineteen. In that edition also is inserted, "The honour of the married clergy maintained, &c." and three new sermons. The second volume of his works consists of, "A plain and familiar 10. familiar explication (by way of paraphrase) of all the hard texts of the whole scripture of the Old and New Testament." London 1633, folio. The third volume, printed in 1624, contains: "Meditations on the New Testament; thirteen sermons; tracts against popery, &c." The fourth volume, published in 1660, after his death, in 4to. is intitled, "The shaking of the olive-tree. The remaining works of that incomparable prelate, Joseph Hall, D.Ď. late lord bishop of Norwich; with some specialties of divine providence in his life. Together with his hard measure: written by himself." This volume consists chiefly of sermons, letters, speeches in parliament, &c. The fifth and last volume is intitled, "Divers treatises written upon several occasions: now first collected into one volume;" London, 1662, folio. " His moral works were reprinted at London in 1738, folio. Besides all which pieces he published, in 1597, "Virgidemarum; satires in six books." And calls himself in the prologue, the first satirist in the English language. I first adventure, follow me who list, And be the second English satirist. The three first books are called toothless satires; poetical, academical, moral. The three last, biting satires. They were reprinted at Oxford in 1753, 8vo. In his manner of writing he has imitated Seneca more than any other of our English authors; for which reason Sir Henry Wotton, in his letter to Dr. Collins, styles him The Christian Seneca. But we do not find that he published any book under that title, as Mr. Bayle seems to think; deceived, no doubt, by the translators, either of his letters or meditations; who so intitled them, on account of their resemblance to Seneca's morals. Another writer observes of our author, from the extensiveness of his works, that, “He may be said to have died with the pen in his hand. He was commonly called our English Seneca; for his pure, plain and full style. Not ill at controversies, more happy at comments, very good in his characters, better in his sermons, best of all in his MEDITATIONS." MISCELLANIES. The Necessity of re-assembling the Convocation. TO THE EDITORS OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCHMAN'S GENTLEMEN, MAGAZINE. your readers to IVE me leave to call the attention of GIV the matter communicated on this subject by your va Juable correspondent the LONDON CURATE, vol. i. p. 241 of your miscellany. I most heartily join in your correspondent's wish that " some abler advocate of the rights of the church of England" than myself would undertake this. task, but as it hath not been done in your pages, or else-> where, as far as I know, by the "eminent loyal antiquary" alluded to by him, I take the liberty of adding a few hints on the subject, in default of the exertions of some abler pen. Whoever peruses with common attention what Doctor Burn hath said in his Ecclesiastical Law, under the article CONVOCATION, cannot entertain a doubt that it is, as the L. C. well observes, "a part of the constitution of England, as well as the parliament." And surely every wellwisher to the prosperity, the rights, and the interests of the church of England, must with him lament the degradation into which she is fallen, by the contempt, so to speak, into which the provincial synod is at present fallen. Every true son of this church must also "wish to see her appear as a church;" must desire to behold her once more invested with a power, which, in the present state of religion in these dominions, would in all human probability be attended with the most beneficial effects; as the longer continuance of her present degradation is likely to prove dangerous if not fatal to her. The act of submission obtained in the 25th year of the reign of that ambitions, tyrannical, and latterly despotic prince, HENRY VIII. Whether obtained fairly and honourably, or through the complaisance of his parliament, is not now to be called into question, but must be considered as the law at this day; and to be acted on accord |