last request to some of the most influential men in the church, that they would never consent to the appointment of a Socinian as Mr. Robinson's successor.

From this account of the state of the church at Mr. Robinson's decease, it will appear how difficult it was to select a successor who would be approved by all; how difficult, also, for that successor to walk steadily in the path of duty.

Mr. Hall, who by this time had attained a high reputation as a preacher, was invited, in June or July, 1790, to preach at Cambridge for one month; after which the invitation was renewed for a longer term. In July the following year, he was invited to take the pastoral charge: the letter announcing his acceptance of the important trust will be found in another part of this volume." *

In these transactions and their consequences still unfolding, the wisdom and mercy of God are strikingly manifested. There was at that time no man of eminence among the Baptists, besides Mr. Hall, who could for a moment have been thought of by the church at Cambridge as a fit successor to Mr. Robinson; nor was there any Baptist church and congregation with which he could become connected with the same prospect of being useful and happy, according to the views he then entertained. Had Mr. Hall's religious principles and feelings been such in 1790 and 1791 as they became a few years afterward, not even his talents would have made them palatable; and a connexion, had it been formed, would soon have been dissolved: on the other hand, had the church been decidedly and entirely Socinianized, he could not conscientiously have become its pastor. The providential correlation soon began to show itself. Their looseness of sentiment on many points, which even then he thought momentous, led him to enforce them frequently with the utmost energy; while his known freedom of opinion on other points, which they also had been led to canvass freely, preserved him from the odium of orthodoxy. Thinking themselves liberal and unshackled, they could not but congratulate one another that their new pastor, a man of splendid talents, was almost as liberal and unshackled as they were. Then again, their want of devotional seriousness, by the force of contrast, heightened his estimate of the value of true piety; and this produced an augmented earnestness and fidelity, which they first learned to tolerate, and afterward to admire. Thus, by the operation of an incessant action and reaction, continued for years, each party exerted a salutary influence on the other; and at length both church and pastor became so distinguished for piety, harmony, and affection, that they who had known and lamented their former state were compelled to exclaim, "This hath God wrought."

The death of Mr. Hall's father, which occurred in March, 1791, had indeed tended greatly to bring his mind to the state of serious thought with which he entered upon the pastoral office. Meditating with the deepest veneration upon the unusual excellences of a parent now for ever lost to him, he was led to investigate, with renewed earnestness, the truth as well as value of those high and sacred principles from which his eminent piety and admirable consistency so evidently flowed. He called to mind, too, several occasions on which his father, partly by the force of reason, partly by that of tender expostulation, had exhorted him to abandon the vague and dangerous speculations to which he was prone. Some important changes in Mr. Hall's sentiments resulted from an inquiry conducted under such solemn impres

* See p. 209.

sions; and among these may be mentioned his renunciation of materialism, which he often declared he "buried in his father's grave."

_66

Attentive to the voice of heavenly admonition, thus addressing him from various quarters, he entered upon his new duties with earnest desires that he might be able “to commend himself to every man's conscience in the sight of God." Feeling that to him was consigned the charge of transforming, with God's assistance, a cold and steril soil into a fruitful field, he determined not to satisfy himself with halfmeasures, but proceeded to expose error, and defend what he regarded as essential truth. The first sermon, therefore, which he delivered at Cambridge, after he had assumed the office of pastor, was on the doctrine of the atonement, and its practical tendencies. Immediately after the conclusion of the service, one of the congregation, who had followed poor Mr. Robinson through all his changes of sentiment, went into the vestry, and said, “Mr. Hall, this preaching won't do for us: it will only suit a congregation of old women."-"Do you mean my sermon, sir, or the doctrine ?"—" Your doctrine."-" Why is it that the doctrine is fit only for old women ?"-" Because it may suit the musings of people tottering upon the brink of the grave, and who are eagerly seeking comfort."-"Thank you, sir, for your concession. The doctrine will not suit people of any age, unless it be true; and if it be true, it is not fitted for old women alone, but is equally important at every age.” This individual, and three or four other men of influence, with about twenty from the poorer classes, shortly afterward withdrew from the congregation, and met together on the Sunday evenings at a private house. The then Rev. William Frend, fellow and tutor of Jesus College, an avowed Socinian, became their religious instructer. This separate assembly, however, did not continue many months; for the person at whose house they met was, ere long, taken up and tried for sedition, and convicted; and the proceedings against Mr. Frend, on account of his pamphlet entitled "Peace and Union," which for so long a time kept the University of Cambridge in a state of great agitation, and which ended in his expulsion from it, drew away his attention from the little band of seceders.

Mr. Hall's ministerial labours, at this interesting period of his life, were blessed with the happiest results, when the benefit seemed likely to be for a while suspended by the intrusion of violent political discussion. The impression made throughout Europe by the French revolution of 1789 was such, that not merely here and there an individual indulged in political speculation, but almost every man threw himself into the vortex of controversy. The clergy of every order and station, the laity of every rank and class, yielded alike to the impulsion; and he who did not declare his decided and cordial adhesion to one or other of the contending parties might expect the censure of both, for his want of spirit or of principle. Cambridge, hitherto characterized as the whig university, was, at this epoch, split into the most violent party divisions, and the public was deluged with sermons from the pulpit, and pamphlets from the press, in which the respective advocates of "things as they are," and of " things as they should be," defended their opposite views with the utmost zeal, and too often with the most unbecoming rancour.

At such a season Mr. Hall, then under thirty years of age, was not likely to maintain an entire silence. When a man's quiescence was sufficient to render his principles equivocal, he was certainly not one who would make a secret of his opinions. He thought that political ethics had almost ceased to be referable to any principle of pure ethics,

He hesitated not to avow that the grand object of all good government must be to promote the happiness of the governed, to assist every individual in its attainment and security. He regarded a government chiefly anxious about the emoluments of office, or aiming to consolidate its own power at home and to aid the efforts of despots abroad, while it neglected the comfort and welfare of individuals in middle or lower life, whose burdens it augmented by a mistaken course, as a goverument that should be constitutionally opposed by every lawful means. He gave to such subjects, also, more than political considerations. He looked upon those European governments which were founded on oppression, and trampled on the natural rights of man, as operating most fatally in the extinction of light and virtue. He regarded the conditions of those who tyrannize, and of those who are the objects of tyranny, as each productive of a numerous and distinct class of vices; and thought that the consequent darkness, ignorance, and criminality of the general mass under despotic governments, in great measure, if not entirely, incapacitated them for the pure and elevated enjoyments of heaven. It was hence a permanent conviction of his mind, "that he who is instrumental in perpetuating a corrupt and wicked government is also instrumental in unfitting his fellow-men for the felicity of the celestial mansions." Could it then be matter of surprise that, believing and feeling all this, he should exult when "the empire of darkness and of despotism had been smitten with a stroke which sounded through the universe;" or, when other ministers of the gospel were signalizing themselves by opposing this view of things, that he should, for a short interval, be drawn aside from pursuits more congenial with his prevailing tastes, and, in some important respects, I think, more compatible with his holy calling, and at once endeavour to prove that "Christianity is consistent with a love of freedom," and that true Christianity will prevail most where genuine freedom is most diffused and best understood?

Cordial, however, as was Mr. Hall's attachment to a cause in which he conceived man's best interests to be closely interwoven, and strong as was his hatred of despotic measures, or what he regarded as such, either at home or abroad, I do not think that even their joint operation would have overcome his repugnance to writing, had it not been for skilful abetters, who first worked upon his feelings, and then extorted from him the promise of preparing a work for the public. Such, if I have not been misinformed, was the origin of his first political pamphlet; and such, I know, from his own declaration, often repeated, was the origin of the eloquent and powerful" Apology for the Freedom of the Press." The evening after the event occurred to which he alludes in the "Apology," he attended a periodical meeting of a book-society, constituted principally of members of his own congregation, and of Mr. Simeon's, and usually denominated Alderman Ind's Club, that distinguished ornament of Mr. Simeon's congregation being the treasurer. Every person present expressed himself in terms of the strongest indignation at the insult offered to Mr. Musgrave; every one thought it highly desirable that some man of talent at Cambridge should advocate the principles maintained by the friends of liberty, especially of those who avowed evangelical sentiments, and the necessity for their united activity, in the present state of the country and of Europe. Mr. Hall spoke as decidedly as any of them with regard to the urgent necessities of the case; when they all, having brought him precisely into the posi† See note in vol. ii. p. 59

See the splendid passage in vol. ii. p. 36-38.

tion at which they were aiming, exclaimed that it was he to whom alone they could look in this exigency. "Alderman Ind, you know, sir," said he, "was an excellent man; pure as a seraph, and gentle as a lamb. I thought that if he felt roused, if he could join with the rest in urging me, I might bring all hesitation to a truce; and so, in an evil hour, I yielded to their entreaties. I went home to my lodgings, and began to write immediately; sat up all night; and, wonderful for me, kept up the intellectual ferment for almost a month; and then the thing was done. I revised it a little as it went through the press; but I have ever since regretted that I wrote so hastily and superficially upon some subjects brought forward, which required touching with a master-hand, and exploring to their very foundations. So far as I understand the purely political principles which are advanced in that pamphlet, they are, I believe, correct at all events they are mine still. But, I repeat it, I yielded in an evil hour; especially if I had any wish to obtain permanent reputation as a political writer. Perhaps, however, the pamphlet had its use in those perilous times." Such was Mr. Hall's account of this publication. How far it indicates the spirit of selfdepreciation, in which, almost through life, he characterized his own productions, they who are best acquainted with the "Apology" will be most competent to decide; unless, indeed, their prepossessions and prejudices should disqualify them for deciding aright.

But, whatever might be Mr. Hall's opinion of this work, it does not seem to have been regarded by the public as of little value. Three editions were called for, I believe, within less than six months; and then, the author not sanctioning a republication, various editions were printed and circulated surreptitiously. Its more splendid and impressive passages were repeatedly quoted in the periodicals of the day, and many of its arguments were cited as perfectly conclusive. It was also widely circulated in America; and is there still regarded as having been powerfully influential in diffusing those liberal political principles which, of late, have acquired so marked an ascendency in Britain.

Mr. Hall, however, experienced such inconveniences from his political celebrity, as induced him to recede, not from his principles, or from the avowal of them in private, but from the further advocacy of them in public. It forced upon him the society of men whose conduct and character he could not approve; it tended to draw him, much more than he could conscientiously justify, from retirement and study; and thus, ere long he became of opinion, to adopt his own words, "that the Christian ministry is in danger of losing something of its energy and sanctity, by embarking on the stormy element of political debate." His elegant eulogium on Dr. Priestley,* in his first pamphlet, and the warm terms of admiration in which he used to speak of him in private, tempted many to fancy, and to say, that he also was a Socinian at heart; and although his preaching became more and more distinguished by the introduction and energetic application of evangelical truth, he still found himself often so equivocally placed as to render his denial of Socinianism quite imperative. On one of these occasions, Mr. Hall having, in his usual terms, panegyrized Dr. Priestley, a gentleman who held the doctor's theological opinions, tapping Mr. Hall upon the shoulder with an indelicate freedom from which he recoiled, said, "Ah! sir, we shall have you among us soon, I see." Mr. Hall, startled and offended by the rude tone of exultation in which this was uttered, hastily replied, "Me among you, sir! me among you! Why, if that

See vol. ii. p. 23-26.

were ever the case, I should deserve to be tied to the tail of the great red dragon, and whipped round the nethermost regions to all eternity!" Notwithstanding the reasons Mr. Hall thus had for some degree of reserve, yet in this, as in every period of his life, he displayed a remarkable relish for social intercourse. He did not court the society of literary men; indeed, he rather shrank from it, because he felt the risk of having his thoughts too much engrossed by mere matters of language or of science: he had acquired enough of both to value them greatly; yet he desired to regard them principally as subservient to the higher purposes of his profession. Besides this, the philosophy of mind, in which he took extreme interest, was then but little cultivated at Cambridge. Happily, however, the leading individuals in his congregation were very intelligent and well-informed, able to appreciate his talents justly, and skilful in bringing his conversational powers into full action. With one or other of these he usually spent his evenings, selecting most frequently those who possessed the enjoyments of domestic life, and often stealing in earlier than he was expected, that he might for an hour share in the gambols and gayety of the children.

He was, but only for a short time, an imitator of Dr. Johnson. Some years afterward, when reminded of this, he replied, "Yes, sir: I aped Johnson, and I preached Johnson; and I am afraid with little more of evangelical sentiment than is to be found in his Essays: but it was youthful folly, and it was very great folly. I might as well have attempted to dance a hornpipe in the cumbrous costume of Gog and Magog. My puny thoughts could not sustain the load of the words in which I tried to clothe them."

There needed not, in truth, the principle of imitation to produce great similarity in some important respects between these two extraordinary men. They manifested the physical difference between a melancholic and a cheerful temperament; in consequence of which, the one was slow and measured in utterance, the other rapid and urgent. But, in conversation, both evinced a ready comprehension of the whole subject, a quick and decisive accuracy in answering, and a perfect selfdependence. They both disliked a protracted debate, and would sometimes terminate a discussion, when it was growing tiresome, by a strong and pointed observation which it was difficult to encounter. Both were alike in exhibiting a rather more than ordinary degree of faith in things of a preternatural or mysterious description. In both, too, there were the similarities of acute intellect united with splendid imagination; and of a natural majesty of mental and moral genius which commanded veneration. But in the correction of his faults, and the improvement of his virtues, Mr. Hall possessed, in his superior piety, an immense advantage over Dr. Johnson.

In argument he was impetuous, and sometimes overbearing; but if he lost his temper he was deeply humbled, and would often acknowledge himself to blame. On one of these occasions, when a discussion had become warm, and he had evinced unusual agitation, he suddenly closed the debate, quitted his seat, and, retiring to a remote part of the room, was overheard by a lady, who was just entering, to ejaculate with deep feeling, "Lamb of God! Lamb of God! calm my perturbed spirit!" Mr. Hall's personal habits, not only at the time of which I am now speaking, but in a certain degree through life, though not precisely those of an absent man, were those of one whose mental occupations kept his thoughts at a distance from various matters of ordinary observance, and made him regardless of a thousand things which most persons never forget. Thus, on his return from an evening visit, if not