y provided for me; for walking from the church on Monday, in
the Whitsun week, with a grave and reverend minister, I saw a comely and
modest gentlewoman standing at the door of that house where we were
invited to a wedding-dinner, and inquiring of that worthy friend whether
he knew her, "Yes," quoth he, "I know her well, and have bespoken her for
your wife." When I further demanded an account of that answer, he told
me she was the daughter of a gentleman whom he much respected--Mr. George
Whinniff, of Brettenham; that out of an opinion he had of the fitness of
that match for me he had already treated with her father about it, whom
he found very apt to entertain it. Advising me not to neglect the
opportunity, and not concealing the just praises of the modesty, piety,
good disposition, and other virtues that were lodged in that seemly
presence, I listened to the motion as sent from God, and at last, upon
due prosecution, happily prevailed, enjoying the comfortable society of
that meet-help for the space of forty-nine years.' A young clergyman so
good and amiable ought to have fared better as regards the days in which
his lot was passed. Hall should have lived in some theological Arcadia.
As it was, he had to fight much and suffer much. In those distracted
times he was all for peace. When the storm was brewing in Church and
State, which for a time swept away Bishop and King, he published--but,
alas! in vain--his 'Via Media.' 'I see,' he wrote, 'every man to rank
himself unto a side, and to draw in the quarrel he affecteth. I see no
man either holding or joining their hands for peace.' Bishop Hall was
the most celebrated writer of his time in defence of the Church of
England. Archbishop Laud got him to write on 'The Divine Right of
Episcopacy,' nor could he have well placed the subject in abler hands.
This was followed, after Laud had fallen, with 'An Humble Remonstrance to
the High Court of Parliament,' in which treatise he vindicated the
antiquity of liturgies and Episcopacy with admirable skill, meekness, and
simplicity, yet with such strength of argument that five Presbyterian
divines clubbed their wits together to frame an answer. These
Presbyterian ministers were--Stephen Marshal, then lecturer at St.
Margaret's, whom Baillie terms the best of the preachers in England;
Edmund Calamy, who had long been a celebrated East Anglian preacher,
first at Swaffham, then at Bury St. Edmunds, who, as we all know, refused