Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 24.djvu/91

 and prebendaries, who consented to grant it out to the Leveson family on leases. In 1616 Hall was sent by the king as chaplain to Lord Doncaster in his embassy to France. Here he became seriously ill, and reached his home at Waltham with much difficulty. During his absence he found that James I had nominated him to the deanery of Worcester. Before, however, he could take possession of his new dignity, he was summoned to attend the king to Scotland (1617).

James was now endeavouring to introduce the ceremonial and the liturgy of an episcopal church. In this scheme Hall does not seem to have been a very zealous assistant. At any rate he was accused to the king of an ‘over-plausible demeanour to that already prejudicate people,’ and was ordered by the king to write something in defence of the five points of ceremonial which it was desired that the Scotch should accept. This he did to the king's satisfaction. It was probably the knowledge which James had of Hall's fondness for the Calvinistic theology, as well as his readiness to be amenable to direction in his views, which led him to select the new dean, together with Bishop Carlton and Drs. Davenant and Ward, to represent him at the synod of Dort (1618). At this assembly, Hall, together with the other English deputies, did something to moderate the bitterness of the onslaughts of the Calvinists on the Arminians. Ill-health obliged him to leave Dort before the conclusion of the synod. Before his departure he was presented with a handsome gold medal as a testimonial, and had the opportunity of preaching a Latin sermon to the synod, in which with the utmost earnestness and solemnity he advocates unanimity, moderation, and mutual charity. Soon after his return Hall found the church of England ‘begin to sicken of the same disease’ which he had seen raging in Holland. Richard Montagu of Stamford Rivers, Essex, had, in a controversial tract against the Romanists, attributed doctrine to the church of England which was held to be identical with the ‘five points’ of Arminius. He was delated to Archbishop Abbot and censured by him. Hall, endeavouring to soften matters, wrote a tract called ‘Via Media, the Way of Peace.’ This, as he confesses, had no great effect, the quinquarticular controversy beginning now to rage with much fierceness in England. At the meeting of the parliament and convocation in 1624 Hall preached the Latin sermon before convocation entitled ‘Columba Noæ,’ advocating peace and good will. In this year (1624) the bishopric of Gloucester was offered to him, but he refused it ‘with most humble deprecation.’

After the death of King James (27 March 1625) Hall continued in equal favour with his successor. His views of the Romish controversy were acceptable to Charles and Laud. Discarding the ordinary protestant view of the apostasy of the visible church, Hall maintained, in his ‘No Peace with Rome,’ that the catholic church, of which the church of England formed a part, had fallen into corruptions, of which the church of England had now purged herself, and that the church of England should denounce the errors of the church of Rome without denying her catholicity. This line of argument gave much offence to some of the zealous protestant controversialists of the day, but commended itself to the king and his ecclesiastical advisers. In the same spirit Hall wrote a treatise called the ‘Old Religion’ (London 1628), which he defended in the same year by his ‘Apologetical Advertisement’ and ‘Reconciler,’ the latter being accompanied by letters of approval from Bishops Morton and Davenant, Drs. Prideaux and Primrose. Before the publication of these treatises Hall had accepted another offer of a bishopric. He was consecrated to the see of Exeter on 23 Dec. 1627, being allowed, on account of the small revenue of the see, to hold the living of St. Breoc in commendam. Laud, thinking Hall too favourable to Calvinist and puritanical notions, desired him to be closely watched. ‘I soon had intelligence,’ writes Hall, ‘who were set over me for espials; my ways were curiously observed and scanned.’ He determined, however, upon a conciliatory policy towards the puritans, and succeeded in reducing all to conformity. Laud's spies were consequently busy, and the bishop was terribly harassed. He says: ‘I was three several times on my knees to his majesty to answer these great criminations.’ At length he plainly told Laud that ‘rather than be obnoxious to these slanderous tongues of his misinformers he would cast up his rochet,’ which amount of spirit seems to have procured him somewhat of peace. Probably some part of the dissatisfaction shown with Hall's administration of his diocese was due to his disinclination to enforce the reading of the declaration for sports on the Sunday (1633). In the diocese of Exeter it does not appear that any of the clergy were censured for refusing to read this document. In 1635, however, Laud, in the report on his province to the king, says: ‘I must do my lord of Exeter this right, that for his majesty's instructions they have been carefully observed.’ Hall, leaning to the puritans and the low church party, probably induced the archbishop to recommend to him (in 1637) the writing of a treatise in defence