SOURCE: Steere, Dan. “‘For the Peace of Both, For the Humour of Neither’: Bishop Joseph Hall Defends the Via Media in an Age of Extremes, 1601-1656.” Sixteenth Century Journal 27, no. 3 (fall 1996): 749-65.

[In this essay, Steere examines Hall's role as a mediator who attempted to reconcile disputing factions of the Anglican church. The critic suggests that Hall's career and writings reflect the thought of a sizable group of Calvinists who were generally supportive of the Episcopacy, contrary to the assumption that Calvinist theology was unconditionally linked to Presbyterianism.]

In 1645, toward the end of his illustrious career, Bishop Joseph Hall issued this wistful self-assessment: “It was ever the desire of my soul, even from my first entrance upon the public service of the Church, according to my known signature, with Noah's dove, to have brought an olive-branch to the tossed ark. …”¹ Hall's metaphor of the Flood was an appropriate description of the tempestuous years of his public career which began under Elizabeth I in 1601 and reached into the early years of Cromwell's Protectorate. By the time of his death in September 1656, Hall had weathered the storms and tempests, even cataclysms, that had burst upon the ark of his beloved English church. Remarkably, those tumultuous years did not substantially alter Hall's firm commitment to the broadly Calvinist consensus that formed the basis of the church he knew as a young pastor.²

Joseph Hall was a Calvinist episcopalian, a man whose devotional writings were beloved by Puritans but whose polemical works often attacked Puritan shibboleths. He was a polished preacher and innovative writer, who used his considerable gifts in pursuit of peace and not conflict. In an age of growing political and religious intolerance, Hall passionately labored for the restoration of the Elizabethan consensus. As such, he was a man whose life and career exemplify a facet of the dialog of this era that until recently has been largely ignored by historians.³ While standing firmly for the monarchy and episcopacy, he allowed the Puritan lectureships to continue in his diocese and protected the Puritans from his own archbishop. As the storms of religious controversy battered the kingdom, Hall continued to advance the cause of a broad reformed consensus and to work for reconciliation and unity among his warring Christian brethren. Hall repeatedly presented a viable, though rejected, alternative to the confrontation and conflict that dominated the kingdom during the later years of his career. He did not prevail. Both he and his inclusive views were casualties of this violent time. Yet Hall's vision of the broad church was an integral part of this period that demonstrates the perpetuation of the Elizabethan/Jacobean consensus well into the years of the Civil War.

Hall's perspectives on religious moderation reflected the sometimes uneasy compromise that had been hammered out within the church during the years of Elizabeth's reign. Beginning in 1572, the Admonition Controversy debated the question of the proper, biblical rule for the government of the church, and as a consequence, presbyterianism and episcopacy had vied for ascendancy within the church. The successful, though temporary, suppression of the presbyterian position had by the 1590s produced a church that was largely conformist and, with the accession of James, increasingly comfortable with episcopal polity.⁴ During the halcyon days of the Jacobean church, it was still possible to be an “evangelical Calvinist conformist,” but the period during which one could assume an equation between Calvinism and orthodoxy was quickly drawing to a close.⁵ By the end of James' reign, elements of Arminianism were becoming increasingly evident within the church leadership with the result that the Calvinism which had remained the common theological foundation of the English church since the time of Edward VI came under increasing criticism.⁶ Those who advanced these Arminian doctrines were also among the most vocal supporters of episcopacy, and with the accession of Charles I, the Crown openly supported their attempt to shift the church away from the prevailing Calvinistic, Word-centered forms of worship toward a more inclusive theology that focused on the sacraments. This group of men, with the assistance of the royal restrictions on discussion of predestination, successfully marginalized Calvinism by binding it together with presbyterianism under the rubric of “Puritan.” The recent interpretation has been that this process forced the moderates eventually to choose sides and, by painting the Puritan as a populist, provided the template for the bitter politico-religious battles yet to come.

Hall demonstrates that this polarization of the moderate camp was not entirely successful and that there remained, even in positions of leadership, a number of individuals who vigorously supported the Crown and defended the authority of the church while holding the doctrinal position of the despised Puritans. While Peter Lake has pointed to the potentially contradictory relationship between Calvinism and episcopacy, his contention that Calvinism inherently tended toward presbyterianism and thus contained the seeds of conflict with episcopalian polity is a position that can only be maintained from the perspective of hindsight.⁷ At the time, there remained a significant number of influential men who declined to affiliate themselves completely with either camp. It is unfortunate that the decisive shift in royal policy under Charles I that aligned the cause of the royal supremacy with a quasi-Arminian theology and the fierce reaction of more extreme Calvinists to that shift has overshadowed these men and obscured the moderate, inclusive nature of the Jacobean mainstream which continued virtually unabated well into Charles' reign. While historians have generally focused upon the agents of change during this period, more recent scholarship indicates that increased attention must be given to the existing landscape against which this change took place. Patrick Collinson writes of “the damaging mistake of writing the history of that Church in the anachronistically dichotomous terms of an Anglicanism not yet conceived and an alien puritanism not yet clearly disowned.”⁸ His insistence upon the continuity of Calvinist, conforming orthodoxy from the Elizabethan through the Jacobean church lies closer to the perceptions of the time and fits Hall perfectly. Hall was the embodiment of that mainstream orthodoxy and continued to promote that view on both the personal and national levels throughout the Caroline period and until his death in 1656.

Hall's attempt to reassert the Elizabethan consensus as a mediating position in the early years of the Civil War provides a surprising confirmation of the vitality of that tradition even as late as 1645. Yet Hall was not alone in his refusal to be pulled to one extreme or the other. There was an entire constellation of men, including prelates and politicians, who have too often been castigated by historians as being crass opportunists or advocates of an outmoded perspective but who, in reality, may have represented the mainstream of informed opinion at that time. Archbishop Ussher, who was at various times claimed by all sides in this conflict, has remained an enigma to most historians precisely because he does not readily fit the polarization paradigm. Ussher's commitment to the broad church perspective provides an explanation for his ease of movement from one hostile camp to another and illuminates his motives for marshalling his prodigious learning in defense of the Elizabethan view of Protestantism.⁹ Bishops Davenant, Morton, and Williams were all committed to conforming Calvinism and labored in the face of much opposition for the preservation of the Elizabethan consensus.¹⁰ Their efforts within the church were paralleled by a host of lesser known figures. Such opinions were found among the laity as well. Edward Sackville, fourth earl of Dorset, has also baffled historians by holding to what David L. Smith has termed a “Jacobethan” worldview: a perspective which valued the political and social order which the earl perceived as inseparably connected with episcopacy and the monarchy. Sackville was perfectly willing to associate with a broad range of religious opinions in order to maintain that order, a characteristic that, according to Smith, “stamps him unmistakably as someone who reached maturity in the England of Elizabeth I and James I.”¹¹ What made Hall unique, even among these men, was his willingness to enter the fray as an open advocate of the broad church position. He sought to play the peacemaker during these decades of crisis and consciously risked personal disaster in order to advance the cause of Christ's church.

Joseph Hall was born July 1, 1574, in the Puritan center of Ashby de la Zouch in Leicestershire. His pious mother, Winifred Bambridge, set the tone for his spiritual life early on while his father, an officeholder under the Puritan patron, the earl of Huntingdon, provided adequately for his education, first in the public school and, beginning in 1589, at Emmanual College, Cambridge,¹² “the foremost puritan academy in England.”¹³ Here, Hall was in his element and after six years of outstanding scholarship was elected a fellow of the college in 1595:

Then was I with a cheerful unaminity [sic] chosen into that society; which if it had any equals I dare say had none beyond it, for good order, studious carriage, strict government, austere piety; in which I spent six or seven years more, with such contentment as the rest of my life hath in vain striven to yield.¹⁴

He was ordained in 1600 and the next year left Cambridge to become rector of Hawstead in Suffolk.¹⁵ And so he began his life's work as a minister of the gospel, the calling his parents had intended for him since he was a boy. He entered the ministry with strong Puritan credentials but at the same time remained a loyal son of the English church.¹⁶

Hall continued to advance in his standing in the church, largely due to the broad popularity of his writings. Even this early in his career, Hall's writings were eagerly sought after by the reading public, a tribute to his clarity of style and timeliness of content. He was particularly adept in the writing of “meditations” (devotional commentaries on biblical passages) and greatly popularized this unique genre of English religious literature. His Meditations and Vows (1605) went through eight printings by 1609 while The Arte of Divine Meditation (1606) had four printings during the same time.¹⁷ His Contemplations grew into a series of eight volumes that were published separately between 1612 and 1624 and reprinted posthumously as a set in 1661. Hall also wrote a number of volumes that discussed practical Christian living, and these were also quite popular. Heaven Upon Earth (1606) was printed four times and then combined with several other works and issued, beginning in 1616, four more times. Characters of Virtues and Vices (1608) was printed three times that year and reissued in 1691, long after his death. Hall continued to write prolifically throughout his life, and it is a gauge of his contemporary popularity and of his enduring relevance that seven collections of his Works were published during his lifetime; three more editions were issued between 1660 and 1714, and three editions of his Complete Works were published in the nineteenth century.¹⁸

Hall's increasing reputation eventually brought him to the notice of Prince Henry and soon after becoming rector at Waltham Holy Cross, Essex, he was appointed chaplain to the prince. Prince Henry's untimely death in 1612 grieved Hall but did not hinder his advance. Viscount Doncaster chose Hall to serve as chaplain to an embassy to France in 1616, and, while absent from England, he was appointed dean of Worcester. The next year, Hall accompanied the king into Scotland to the abortive Conference of Perth. James hoped to establish English-style episcopacy in Scotland, and this conference was to be another step toward that end. It would appear that the king saw Hall in a mediatory role, bridging the substantial gap between the Calvinist Scots and the episcopalian English representatives who, with the exception of Hall, were all Arminians.¹⁹

Hall was well received by the Scots, but by his own account, “the great love and respect that I found, both from the ministers and people, wrought me no small envy from some of our own.”²⁰ The situation foreshadowed much of his subsequent career; the combination of episcopacy with clear Calvinist theology placed Hall between two mutually hostile factions within the kingdom. The Scottish Presbyterians related well to Hall, the Calvinist, but wanted none of his episcopalianism. His fellow Englishmen interpreted his easy fellowship with the Scots as fraternization and questioned his loyalty to the English church. Hall returned to England ahead of the rest of the delegation but soon faced the allegations of disloyalty that had been leveled against him. Called before the king to respond, Hall found opportunity to promote the via media.

Hall's response took the form of a letter to Mr. William Struthers, a preacher in Edinburgh, who had written Hall for his comments on the Five Articles of Perth, the outcome of the Perth conference. King James commissioned Hall to answer Struthers' doubts quickly, no doubt as part of his concerted effort to see the Five Articles ratified as soon as possible.²¹ In his letter Hall immediately revealed his Erastian convictions while commenting about the rudeness of some Scotsmen toward James: “Alas, my dear brother! this is not an usage for kings. They are the nurses of the Church.”²² He then proceeded to discuss the articles themselves, the most controversial of which dealt with kneeling at Communion and the celebration of Christmas and Easter. Hall's argument, his via media, was to plead the validity of church tradition and reason as equal in authority to the scriptures in those areas where the scripture does not provide a clear guideline. This was a line of reasoning that, in general terms, was acceptable to virtually everyone in the reformed camp.²³ Unfortunately for Hall these particular issues were tainted by their association with Roman Catholicism. To the stricter Protestants, the mere smell of popery was more than enough to invalidate his reasonable defense.

On this basis Hall proceeded to discuss each of the Five Articles. In each case, he cited a number of historical precedents and then made an appeal to reason. Thus, when discussing the inflammatory question of kneeling at Communion, Hall succinctly quoted Averroës (who, even though he misunderstood the kneeling as worship, confirmed the antiquity of the act) and the terse statement of Augustine: “Nemo manducat nisi prius adoraverit.” (No one eats unless he first shall have honored it.) He closed with this reasonable query: “Even the smallest gifts we receive from princes upon our knees; and now, when the Prince of our peace gives himself to us, shall we grudge to bow?”²⁴ The issue was not really an issue at all to the broad-minded Hall. It was adiaphora, an area in which the scriptures did not speak explicitly and which must then be decided by historical precedent and the use of reason. If the Scots would only allow the legitimacy of the historical and logical arguments, all would be well. But though the Five Articles of Perth were ratified by Parliament in 1621, most Scottish divines were much less willing than Hall to accept these perceived vestiges of papacy.

The issue of the via media reappeared the next year (1618), when King James again enlisted Hall to represent the English church as one of the English delegates to the Synod of Dort. Called in response to the challenge that the teachings of Arminius presented to the mainstream of reformed theology, the Synod included representatives from most of the major Calvinist territories in Europe. Hall joined in the deliberations of “that honourable, grave, and reverend meeting”²⁵ with great alacrity even to the point of delivering a Latin sermon to the assembly in which he enjoined them to stand firm in their adherence to the Reformed position without delving too deeply into the judgments of God.²⁶ But within two months Hall was overcome by sickness and forced to retire. Again, as at the Perth Conference, his early departure gave some observers cause to question his sincerity as well as his orthodoxy. Hugh Trevor-Roper even dates from this point Hall's supposed shift to the right that ended with his becoming “the defiant assertor of episcopacy.”²⁷ Yet no evidence substantiates such a major shift, for Hall was defending jure divino episcopacy as early as 1610 in A Common Apologie of the Church of England.²⁸

Hall stated his own position and illustrated his method of mediation in the early 1620s in an unpublished work, “Via Media: The Way of Peace, in the Five Busy Articles, commonly known by the Name of Arminius.”²⁹ Hall was indeed scandalized by the results of Dort, not by the doctrine but by the doctrinaire response he saw on all sides. “I see every man ready to rank himself unto a side,” Hall lamented. “I see no man thrusting himself between them, and either holding or joining their hands for peace. This good, however thankless, office, I have here boldly undertaken. …”³⁰ Again, as in his letter to Struthers, Hall sought to find the middle ground and sought to draw others to him, asserting that men need only agree on those points of doctrine that are most clearly stated in scripture. He was of the opinion that the theological controversy surrounding Richard Montague was more a result of mistaken meanings than of actual disagreement, “since it plainly appeared … that Mr. Mountague meant to express, not Arminius, but B. Overall, a more moderate and safe author. …”³¹ Hall proceeded to elaborate upon the five articles dealt with by the Synod, expertly weaving an infralapsarian, hypothetically universalist Calvinism together with a high view of the free will of man to construct a doctrinal statement to which the moderates of both parties would be able to subscribe.³² In the process Hall called upon a host of witnesses from church history and inserted regular appeals to reason and moderation. He also suggested that voluntary restraint and official censorship limit the discussion of these issues to “those moderate bounds which the Church of England, guided by the scriptures, hath expressly set; or which on both sides are fully accorded on.”³³ These elements of the via media—agreement upon doctrines necessary to salvation, silence on points of disagreement, and submission to the church in areas not clearly taught in scripture—formed the core of Hall's credo regarding controversy and were, to his mind, the infallible recipe for peace within the church. To these he added official censorship, if necessary, to enforce that peace.

These early controversies, while illustrative of Hall's position, were comparatively the calm before the storm as the next two decades laid the groundwork for the Civil War. These years brought a great deal of change into Hall's life. After the death of James I, Hall continued to advance, and in November 1627 Charles I named him to the bishopric of Exeter. His position there was rather insecure for he was suspected, in his own words, of “too much favor of Puritanism.”³⁴ He did, in fact, deal gently with the godly ministers under his charge and by his moderation was able to calm the diocese and to prevent in Exeter much of the controversy that plagued England during the Personal Rule.³⁵ Hall maintained harmony in his diocese in spite of the severe scrutiny and “espials” of those within the church who opposed him for his Calvinism.

Unfortunately for Hall, the polarization of the English church continued, and increasingly the old, orthodox Calvinism was being simplistically and invidiously equated with Puritanism.³⁶ Hall was frequently charged with harboring dissidents, and his allowance of the Puritan tradition of lectures only served to increase his apparent guilt. The opponents of Calvinism were deliberately broadening the definition of Puritan to create what Hall called a “modern puritanism … more subtle than in former times, and that under the colour of a full outward conformity, there may be nourished some unquiet and pestillent humours which may closely work danger to the churches peace.”³⁷ At the same time, episcopacy was being frequently paralleled with prelacy, and some of the “hotter sort” on the other side questioned Hall's Protestantism. Later correspondences indicate that during this time Hall faced a great deal of danger from the anti-Calvinist camp, even to the point of potential prosecution, such as overtook Bishop Williams.³⁸

Such dangers made him more careful in his expression of criticisms, but they did not silence him. When, in 1639, Hall once again turned his pen to the task of preserving the peace of the church, the lengthy pamphlet entitled Christian Moderation contained the same elements as had the “Via Media.”³⁹ The heat of the controversy convinced Hall that moderation was needed more than ever:

There is nothing therefore in the world more wholesome or more necessary for us to learn, than this gracious lesson of moderation: without which, in very truth, a man is so far from being a Christian, that he is not himself. This is the centre wherein all both divine and moral philosophy meet; the rule of life; the governess of manners; the silken string that runs through the pearl-chain of all virtues; the very ecliptic line, under which reason and religion move without any deviation; and therefore most worthy of our best thoughts, of our most careful observance.⁴⁰

The pamphlet was written in the form of two books, the first dealing with “Moderation in Practice” or self-control in such areas as pleasures of the palate, lust, wealth, fear, and anger. This section read much like many other practical helps of the time yet paved the way for the second book, “Moderation in Matter of Judgment,” which cut quickly to the issue of religious intolerance. It was here that Hall delineated most clearly his view of the via media of the Jacobean mainstream. While he wisely avoided dealing directly with doctrinal issues, he enumerated twelve “rules” that illuminated the symptoms of and prescribed the cure for immoderation in religious judgment.

Hall first insisted that zeal in religion was indispensable and quoted Augustine: “Qui non zelat, non amat.”⁴¹ Yet he also maintained that all zeal must be moderated by discretion and charity, “without either and both of which, it is no other than a wild distemper; and with them it is no less than the very life-blood of a Christian. …”⁴² Moderate judgment, then, must first distinguish between different types of people. Some may well be heretics while others may only be influenced or misled by an heretic. “There is a broacher and deviser of that wicked opinion; there are abettors and maintainers of it, once broached; [and] there are followers of it, so abetted. …”⁴³ Each degree of culpability merits its own level of response or censure. Moderate judgment must also make distinctions among various levels of truth:

Those truths which are of the foundation and essence of religion are necessarily to be known, believed, embraced of all men; and the obstinate opposers of them are worthy of our careful avoidance and hardest censure. Truths important, though not fundamental, are worthy of our serious disquisition and knowledge. All other truths are commendable, and may be of good use in their kinds and places: but so, as that he who is either ignorant of them, or otherwise minded concerning them, hath his own freedom; and must not, so he trouble not the common peace, forfeit our charitable opinion.⁴⁴

Hall then elaborated on this concept of truth in the next several rules which encouraged his readers to search out only those truths which are clearly stated in scripture, to rest content in them, and to be accommodating in their judgment of their own and other's opinions.⁴⁵

Delving deeper into the sickness that he believed afflicted his beloved English church, Hall next turned to the issue of moderation in dealing with opponents. In any controversy there is a strong temptation to overstate the case or position of one's adversary. Hall sought to blunt that temptation by means of some explicit “rules of engagement.” One cannot judge a foe's opinion, Hall insisted, on the basis of its logical inferences. A controversialist can ascribe to his opponent only those positions stated by the opponent. One also cannot attribute an opponent's opinions to all those who are allied with him, for there is no assurance that all in his camp agree with him. Neither is it proper to judge the worth of a cause or opinion by the actions of those who hold to it because outward appearances do not always give a true picture of what is believed. “How many dunghills have we seen, which, while they have been covered with snow, could not be discerned from the best gardens! … Truth of doctrine is the test whither we must bring our profession for matter of trial; and the sacred oracles of God are the test whereby we must try the truth of doctrine.”⁴⁶

The pamphlet climaxed with three rules obviously calculated to bridge the widening breach within the English church. In addition to all the cautions already given regarding the nature of truth and the actions and opinions of adversaries, Hall insisted that all parties must strive to come to terms with each other, for the issues involved were not issues of heresy or salvation. Danger emerged because participants in the controversy had exaggerated their differences. Hall then enjoined restraint in the use of invidious language, a requirement “too requisite for these times: wherein it is rare to find any writer whose ink is not tempered with gall and vinegar, any speaker whose mouth is not a quiver of sharp and bitter words, Ps. lxiv.3.”⁴⁷ In his final rule, Hall commended unity and peace: “If we cannot bring our judgments to conspire in the same truth with others, yet we should compose our affections to all peace, to all tender respects and kind offices to our dissenting brethren. What if our brains be diverse! yet let our hearts be one.”⁴⁸ His conclusion spoke of “the wide house of his [God's] Church” as he cited examples of moderation ranging from the early church to Calvin, Luther, and others.⁴⁹

Hall thus continued to believe, as late as 1639, that the English church was broad enough to accommodate all who would agree on those few doctrines necessary to salvation and who would follow the line of moderation in all else. Here again, on the eve of the Civil War, was an appeal to the Jacobean mainstream, an attempt to forge a compromise based not upon unanimity of opinion but upon the relegation of differences to the category of adiaphora. But it was not to be. Events had developed far beyond the point where a truce in the religious battle could have produced a general armistice. The struggle for political advantage had become intertwined with religious credos to such an extent that the two were inextricable. The players on all sides of the religious controversy, and Hall himself, had become deeply involved in the political battles and seemed unable to separate the fate of the English church from the fate of the kingdom. As it was, religious labels came to be equated with political agendas while Hall, balancing carefully on his via media, satisfied no one and therefore received attacks from all sides.

It must be granted that Hall did little to insulate himself from these attacks, for in the very same year that Christian Moderation was published, Hall also published Episcopacy by Divine Right and A Humble Remonstrance to the High Court of Parliament. Both works were defensive in nature, since Hall was well aware of the opinions being expressed against the established order, some of which would result in the Root and Branch Petition later in 1640. Nor was he unaware that the pro-episcopal position he advocated would serve as a lightning rod for the political and religious frustrations that had been allowed to accumulate during the years of the Personal Rule. In fact, Hall had only reluctantly, and at Laud's insistence, taken on the task of writing in defense of episcopacy, not because he doubted the validity of the position but because he desired the project to be a corporate venture, thereby lending it the weight of numbers.⁵⁰ However, the storm of controversy that followed on the heels of these publications must not be allowed to obscure the fact that Hall remained throughout a man of the middle. Hall never succumbed to the level of personal invective that characterized the polemics of both Smectymnuus and the young John Milton in their response to the Humble Remonstrance.⁵¹ Even while engaging in controversy, he made allowances for differences of opinion and defended the established order of liturgy and episcopacy on scriptural, historical, and logical grounds.⁵²

The years of the Civil War, documented in the second part of his autobiography, Hard Measure, were trying ones for Hall, who throughout his life remained a royalist and (in his estimation) a bishop of the English church.⁵³ Even while tediously engaged in the heat of the Smectymnuan controversy, Hall was watching the development of events, and his reactions were recorded in a number of his surviving sermons. In the late spring of 1640, commenting on the conditions that would soon result in the Second Bishops' War, Hall preached a sermon before the king in which he praised Charles for his “temperance, chastity, piety, mercy, and justice” while he lamented the actions of “the rebellious seditionary” who would dare to “lift up his hand against the Lord's anointed, and that under a colour of religion.”⁵⁴ In the spring of 1641, while the Long Parliament discussed the Root and Branch Petition, Hall grew yet more bold and delivered a sermon at Whitehall on The Mischief of Faction, and the Remedy of it. The sermon was a prolonged indictment of those who would disturb the peace of the kingdom, yet evidenced Hall's belief that the situation was still resolvable. He delineated a series of remedies that recalled the “rules” of his Christian Moderation and confirmed his conscious promotion of the broad church. At the same time, he delivered a scathing commentary on the prevailing opinions of the time:

Good Lord! what uncharitable censure are men apt to pass upon each other! Let a man be strict and austere in moral and divine duties: though never so peaceable, he is a puritan; and every puritan is an hypocrite. Let him be more free, and give more scope to his conversation: though never so conscionable, he is a libertine: let him make scruple but of any innovated form, he is a schismatic; let him stand for the anciently-received rites and government, he is a time-serving formalist. … In the mean time, who can escape free? Surely I, that tax both, shall be sure to be censured of both: shall be? yes, am, to purpose; and therin I joy, yea and will joy. “What!, a neuter?” says one: “What! on both sides?” says another. This is that I looked for. Yes truly, brethren, ye have hit it right. I am, and profess to be, as the terms stand, on neither; and yet of both parts: I am for the peace of both, for the humour of neither. How should the mortar or cement join the stones together if it did not lie between both?⁵⁵

Charles I translated Hall from Exeter to Norwich in 1641, apparently in a belated attempt to appease the Puritans in that center of parliamentary partisanship.⁵⁶ But Hall had yet to relocate to Norwich when, in late December, Parliament ordered that he and eleven other bishops be imprisoned in the Tower on a charge of high treason.⁵⁷ Hall was devastated. He could not understand why such rancor was directed against him. In a letter to a friend, Hall expressed his bewilderment and indignation:

My intentions and this place are such strangers, that I cannot enough marvel how they met. … You tell me in what fair terms I stood not long since with the world; how large room I had in the hearts of the best men: but can you tell me how I lost it? … I have unpartially ransacked this fag-end of my life, and curiously examined every step of my ways; and I cannot … find what it is that I have done to forfeit that good estimation, wherewith you say I was once blessed. … Can my enemies say, that I bore up the reins of government too hard, and exercised my jurisdiction in a rigorous and tyrannical way, insolently lording it over my charge? … Can they say that I barred the free course of religious exercises, by the suppression of painful and peaceable preachers? … Nay, the contrary is so famously known in the western parts, that every mouth will herein justify me. What free admission and encouragement have I always given to all the sons of peace, that came with God's message in their mouths! … Can they challenge me as a close and back-stair friend to Popery or Arminianism, who have in so many pulpits, and so many presses, cried down both? Surely the very paper that I have spent in the refutation of both these, is enough to stop more mouths than can be guilty of this calumny.⁵⁸

Hall's stay in the Tower was short, and by June 1642 he took up his duties at Norwich. But it was less than a year until he was sequestered from office, his household goods confiscated, and his income cut off.⁵⁹ Several of Hall's friends purchased his goods and his books and returned them, but the family was forced to live on the “fifth part” that his wife was granted in charity.⁶⁰

It was under these conditions that Hall sent The Peacemaker to the publisher in 1643 as one more attempt to bring about harmony in the English church through the restatement of the Elizabethan/Jacobean ideal. The book, arguably Hall's magnum opus, was an apologetic for the moderate, conformist convictions that had governed his thinking and writing from the beginning. It was also a veritable handbook for the private and public maintenance of the broad church. The work opened with a declaration that division within the church was a great evil that must be avoided. The presence of such division required “every son of peace to endeavour, what in him lies, to reduce all the members of God's Church upon earth to a blessed unity, both in judgment and affections.”⁶¹ Hall, the consummate peacemaker, again set himself in the middle and attempted to mediate the conflict.

Hall sincerely believed in the unity of all Christians everywhere. This unity would never be unanimity but would inevitably be a unity that was maintained in spite of much disagreement and diversity. The key to unity under such circumstances was to recognize which truths were essential and which were adiaphora. Hall built his exposition of essential truths on the scriptural phrase, “One Lord, one faith, one baptism.”

[W]here there is an acknowledgment of the same living Lord … where there is a profession of the same faith in all the main points of Christian doctrine, summed up in that symbol of the holy apostles [the apostles' Creed]; where there is a communion in the same blessed sacraments instituted by our Lord Jesus; there is one and the same Church of Christ, however far disterminate in places, however segregated and infinitely severalized in persons, however differing in rites and circumstances of worship, however squaring in by-opinion.⁶²

On the international level, this unity ought to manifest itself in peace among the various national churches that then existed. In this regard Hall took both the Roman Catholics and the Lutherans to task for their lack of charity toward the Reformed churches. By the same rule, he insisted that there was no essential difference between the Church of England and the Reformed churches established elsewhere. Yet this rule of unity cut both directions. If any church professing the essential truths of Christianity was to be regarded as a true church and its members embraced as brethren, then to separate from such a church, for any reason whatsoever, was to brand oneself as schismatic.

In Hall's estimation such schisms were the cause of the crisis within the Church of England and, by extension, within England itself. The Church of England met all the criteria for a true church, and therefore no other church was needed. But instead of pursuing unity and peace, men were running about contending for their own opinions, and many of them were separating themselves from the established church when there were no legitimate reasons for doing so.

If men be allowed a latitude of opinions in some unnecessary verities, it may not be endured, that in matter of religion every man should think what he lists, and utter what he thinks, and defend what he utters, and publish what he defends, and gather disciples to what he publisheth. This liberty, or licentiousness rather, would be the bane of any church.⁶³

Hall's prescription for peace began with self-examination or what he termed “private ways of peace.” Much of the contention, he asserted, was due to such inward sins as pride, self-love, envy, and covetousness. The Christian must labor against such sins in order to achieve a proper disposition for peace. He must cultivate a meek and humble temper that willingly listens to and obeys the spiritual guides that God has given. “In sum, therefore, if ever we desire to recover and maintain ecclesiastical peace, God's messengers must be greater in our eyes, and we lesser in our own.”⁶⁴ The maintenance of peace also mandated that Christians avoid unnecessary questions, rein in curiosity, pray for a greater understanding of necessary truths, and in every area possible “comply with our brethren so far as we safely may. …”⁶⁵ This conformist disposition was finally, and most clearly, evidenced in Hall's contention that a true peacemaker would evidence a willingness to sacrifice personal opinion for the good of the church:

It is possible I may meet with some private opinion which I may strongly conceive more probable than the common, and perhaps I may think myself able to prove it so; shall I presently, out of an ostentation of my own parts, vent this to the world, and strain my wit to make it good by a peremptory defence, to the disturbance of the Church, and not rather smother it in my own bosom, as thinking the loss much easier of a conceit than of peace?⁶⁶

Much of the information in his section on private ways for peace Hall had covered before in “Via Media” and Christian Moderation. But when he turned to the subject of public peacemaking and penned his thoughts on the role of authority in this process, he greatly expanded an area which previously he had mentioned in only the most cursory fashion. Such a change was no doubt due to his unpleasant experiences with the existing religious milieu. The level of involvement of the English magistrate in the maintenance of peace within the church had fluctuated considerably over the years and had nearly ceased by 1645. Such was the confusion and turmoil within the realm that little was being done to suppress the rise of schisms and new sects. To Hall this confusion clearly evidenced the need for some form of constructive intervention on the part of those in authority to restore and maintain order and conformity within the established church. Thus in the second section of his Peacemaker, Hall outlined an ambitious plan for the suppression of error, a plan which called for a return to a strong and widespread involvement of authority in the religious life of Englishmen. Yet there is no evidence that he was advocating a return to the centralized authoritarianism of Laud. He made no mention of church authority in his argument and, in fact, gave only general guidelines for implementing this increased supervision. It is therefore unclear whom Hall proposed to be given the responsibility of suppressing error, but it seems likely he envisioned the type of episcopal oversight he had exercised in Exeter, since most of his suggestions could only be implemented at the local level by those trained in theology.

Hall stated these authorities must stand ready to become involved quickly in any case of questionable opinions in order to suppress spiritual quarrels at the very beginning, for error usually does not show its full colors at the outset. Intervention would only be effective “if when any heterodox or irregular doctrine shall be let fall, it be taken at the first rebound, and the author and avower fairly dealt withal, and strongly convinced of his error. …”⁶⁷ Hall retained his moderate approach by insisting on persuasion, not coercion, as the only effective method of reconciliation, but he also recognized that not everyone would be open to the truth. In that case stopping the spread of the infection was imperative and should be accomplished by outlawing private meetings among the disaffected and denying dissenters access to the press. Ultimately, if those in error refused to be reconciled to the church through moderate persuasion, they incurred upon themselves the just retribution of established authority: “[H]ow worthy are they to smart, that mar the harmony of our peace by the discordous jars of their new and paradoxal conceits!”⁶⁸ In addition to this method of dealing with errant individuals, Hall also recommended mandatory catechizing in order to safeguard parishioners against the temptations of doctrinal error. And beyond this general educational effort, he advocated the selection of an elite corps of theologians whose task it would be to combat error in person and in print. Nowhere in this plan do we see the high-handed measures of Laudianism. Rather, Hall evoked somewhat idealized memories of that more congenial time in the history of the English church in the reigns of Elizabeth and James when men were persuaded to conform more by argument than by force. After a short section on the misery caused by discord within the church, Hall closed The Peacemaker and, with it, his most valiant attempt to restore his beloved English church.⁶⁹ He was soon thereafter ejected from the bishop's palace at Norwich and spent his remaining years quietly in a cottage in nearby Higham, still the Bishop of Norwich yet painfully aware that events had rendered impossible the peace for which he had so diligently labored.

The Peacemaker was the culmination of Hall's career as a moderate churchman. It was his last attempt to apply the principles of the broad church to contemporary circumstances. Over the decades he had modified his content—The Peacemaker, for example, contains no overtly Calvinist positions—but his arguments and goals remained consistent as he continually appealed to Elizabethan ideology in order to restore the past glories of the English church. He staunchly maintained the viability of a broad, conformist church established upon doctrinal unanimity in the essential truths while allowing for diverse opinions in nonessential areas. He just as consistently defended episcopacy as the proper and most ancient form of church polity and yet was willing to entertain discussion on the details of its implementation. Moreover, he continued to appeal to church tradition and reason in those areas where the scriptures were silent or indistinct. Nowhere was his orientation toward the past more clearly shown than in the final section of The Peacemaker where his solution to the proliferation of sects and schisms was a return to religious education for the strengthening of orthodoxy combined with the use of rational persuasion of dissenters to encourage conformity. Only as a last resort were pulpits and presses to be silenced, and only the most recalcitrant heretics would feel the weight of justice.

Hall sought a restoration, not a new synthesis. His repeated attempts at reconciliation, beginning with his “Via Media” in the 1620s, demonstrated a genuine conviction that unity was of the essence of true Christianity. In his mind, however, unity could only be accomplished if all combatants were to gather under the broad umbrella of the old Church of England. This conservatism, along with his Calvinist doctrine and episcopalian polity, brand him as a churchman of the Elizabethan/Jacobean era, a man fundamentally out of synch with the mind-set of the Caroline church, for the Caroline church was a different entity altogether from the church Hall sought to restore.⁷⁰ The support given to Arminianism by Charles and Laud's enforcement of a sacramental liturgy had initiated a whole series of reactions that had essentially destroyed the viability of the broad church concept. In addition, the attacks of the Laudians on predestination, preaching, and the Sabbath had served only to equate the English episcopacy with Arminianism and the papacy in the minds of many Puritans and, thus, had irrevocably shattered the old Calvinist consensus.

Yet Hall could never bring himself to accept that the Elizabethan church was unrecoverable. While he recognized that Arminianism and Presbyterianism were permanent fixtures on the religious scene and even attempted some compromise with them, his compromises always proceeded from the standpoint of Calvinist, episcopalian orthodoxy. This fact serves to remove Hall from the pantheon of the precursors of modern religious tolerance.⁷¹ Hall was no relativist, willing to allow that another's beliefs were as valid as his. In his estimation sects and schisms were an evil that merited whatever level of persuasion or force was necessary to remove them from the church. He never wavered in his own convictions nor was he willing to sacrifice an ounce of essential doctrine for the sake of unity. His pleas for moderation and unity were, in fact, designed to facilitate the reconstruction of the broad church of the English Reformation.

It was a battle nobly fought for a cause that was doomed to failure. Circumstances had long since passed beyond the point where any meaningful reconciliation was possible. The Elizabethan via media, whose restoration Hall and so many others had labored for, no longer existed for many Englishmen. Most of its prominent proponents were already gone, and of those remaining Hall would outlive all but Bishop Morton. Hall himself was not unaware of how far the situation had deteriorated by 1642, but out of his love for the church and in the hope that men might yet come to their senses, he wrote, knowing his efforts might be in vain. In his metaphor of the Flood, after comparing himself to the dove and expressing his long-standing desire to bring the olive branch of peace to “the tossed ark,” he concluded, “and God knows how sincerely I have endeavoured it; but if my wings have been too short, and the wind too high for me to carry it home, I must content myself with the conscience of my faithful devotions.”⁷²

Notes

1. Taken from Hall's introduction to “The Peacemaker,” in The Works of the Right Reverend Joseph Hall, 10 vols., ed. Philip Wynter (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1863), 6:595. [Hereafter cited as Works.]

2. See Peter Lake, Anglicans and Puritans? (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988), 244. Lake's designation of Hall as a “moderate puritan” squares with Hall's training and theological bent. I wonder, however, whether the increased involvement of these moderate Puritans in the established church under James is less a theological accommodation (as Lake here implies) than a consequence of a conscious attempt on James' part to balance potentially divisive elements within the kingdom. See Lake's discussion of James' policy, 247.

3. Patrick Collinson, The Religion of Protestants (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1982), 19. Collinson's cogent discussion of the nature and characteristics of the Elizabethan/Jacobean church terminates with the year 1625. However, Hall carries many of these characteristics well into the 1650s.

4. Collinson, Religion of Protestants, 20.

5. See Lake, Anglicans, 244. Lake finds all the elements of England's unique brand of Arminianism to be present by the 1590s although some time would elapse before these elements coalesced into a viable position; Lake, Anglicans, 245. In a more recent and controversial study, Julian Davies asserts that the mainstream of the Church of England under James was “reformed” but not necessarily Calvinistic. Arminianism was a natural outgrowth of problems inherent within Calvinism itself, and English Arminianism was but another facet of the reformed theology which all divines held in common; Davies, The Caroline Captivity of the Church (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 2, 87-89.

6. Nicholas Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists: The Rise of English Arminianism, c. 1590-1640 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 7-8, 181-188. Tyacke stresses the change that occurred in the 1620s which caused “the definition of Puritanism [to be] publicly extended so as to include Calvinist doctrine.”; Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, 8.

7. Lake, Anglicans, 244. Lake, in fact, sees a process of accommodation that takes place among Calvinists after the collapse of Presbyterianism in the 1590s. As events transpired, Calvinism and episcopacy did fall out, but Hall and others like Ussher and Davenant demonstrate the continuing viability of the Elizabethan consensus.

8. Collinson, Protestants, ix.

9. Hugh Trevor-Roper, Catholics, Anglicans, and Puritans: Seventeenth-Century Essays (Chicago: U Chicago Press, 1987), 120-165. Trevor-Roper correctly interprets Ussher as an advocate of the Elizabethan consensus but fails to see the vitality of that consensus, preferring to lionize the “new, more rational, more skeptical ‘Arminian’ Church …”; Trevor-Roper, Catholics, Anglicans, and Puritans, 152.

10. Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, 209-216. In his discussion of these bishops, Tyacke places them in the camp opposing Laud even though they were presently conforming, yet he also concedes their Elizabethan perspective. See also Sara Jean Clausen, “Calvinism in the Anglican Hierarchy, 1603-1643: Four Episcopal Examples” (Ph.D. diss., Vanderbilt University, 1989), passim.

11. David L. Smith, “Catholic, Anglican, or Puritan? Edward Sackville, Fourth Earl of Dorset and the Ambiguities of Religion in Early Stuart England,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6th ser., 2 (1992): 122.

12. Hall, Works, 1:xxi-xxiii. This collection opens with several autobiographical essays by Hall, the first of which is entitled, “Observations of Some Specialities of Divine Providence in the Life of Joseph Hall, Bishop of Norwich.” Much of the information in this biographical section comes from this source.

13. J. T. Cliffe, The Puritan Gentry: The Great Puritan Families of Early Stuart England (London: Routledge, 1984), 93.

14. Hall, Works, 1:xxv.

15. Leonard D. Tourney, Joseph Hall (Boston: Twayne, 1979), chronology.

16. Collinson, Collinson, Religion of Protestants, 85, refers to the broadening and mollifying of Hall's initial Puritanism “through the effect of patristic learning and the combined influences of aristocratic patrons, foreign travel including controversial contact with Roman Catholics, and, of course, preferment.”

17. Except where noted, publication data are from A. W. Pollard and G. R. Redgrave, A Short Title Catalogue (London: Bibliographical Society, 1976-) and from Donald Wing, Short-Title Catalogue of Books … 1641-1700 (New York: MLA, 1988).

18. DNB, s.v. “Hall, Joseph.”

19. See Conrad Russell, The Causes of the English Civil War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 46-49 for a succinct discussion of James' goals in Scotland.

20. Hall, Works, 1:xl.

21. Russell, Causes, 49, writes of James' “vigorous campaign to secure subscription to the Articles.”

22. Hall, Works, 9:117.

23. Hall's position is virtually identical to that of Lawrence Chaderton, the master of Emmanuel College during Hall's tenure there. See Lake, Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1982), 243-261.

24. Hall, Works, 9:125.

25. Hall, Works, 1:xli.

26. John Hales, “Letters from the Synod of Dort,” in Golden Remains of the Ever Memorable Mr. John Hales (1673): 12,13.

27. Trevor-Roper, Catholics, Anglicans, and Puritans, 59, asserts that Hall was “shocked” by the “savagery of the Calvinist party in the Synod …” and began a shift to the right.

28. Hall, Works., 9:92.

29. Printed in Hall, Works, 9:489-516. Hall, Works, 1:xliv, stated the reason this excellent pamphlet was never published: “[T]he confused noise of the misconstructions of those who never saw the work, crying it down for the very name's sake, meeting with the royal edict of a general inhibition, buried it in a secure silence.”

30. Hall, Works, 1:489.

31. Hall, Works, 1:xliii.

32. Hall, Works., 9:502-503, delineated no less than six different positions with regard to the subject of predestination. The issue of hypothetical universalism is mentioned by Nicholas Tyacke, Anti-Calvinists, 99, who seems hesitant to state that Hall held to this position, but whether Hall believed it or not, he made it a central part of his argument on article 2.

33. Hall, works, 9:498.

34. Hall, Works, 1:xlvi.

35. Hall, Works, 1:xlvi, reported that he reclaimed all but two of the ministers under his charge and that subsequently no one opposed “the anciently received orders … of the Church in that large diocese.”

36. See Patrick Collinson, The Puritan Character (Los Angeles: William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, U California, 1989), 19-23, for a discussion of “labeling.”

37. Cited in Davies, Captivity, 103. Davies comments that this category of modern Puritan “implicated those who were tolerant of nonconformity within the Church with the stigma of disaffection and widened the climate of treason.”

38. See the excellent discussion of this point in Richard A. McCabe, Joseph Hall: A Study in Satire and Meditation (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), 16-18.

39. The full text of this tract is found in Hall, Works, 6:385-490.

40. Hall, Works, 6:388.

41. Hall, Works, 6:444.

42. Hall, Works, 6:447.

43. Hall, Works, 6:447.

44. Hall, Works, 6:448-449.

45. Hall, Works, 6:451-462.

46. Hall, Works, 6:476.

47. Hall, Works, 6:484.

48. Hall, Works, 6:4897.

49. Hall, Works, 6:489.

50. See Hall's correspondence with Laud included in Works, 10:533-544. It is also worth noting that Hall's moderation in argument was considerably modified by Laud's editing, making Hall appear more intransigent than he actually was.

51. Hall's tracts, A Humble Remonstrance, A Defence of the Humble Remonstrance, and A Short Answer to the Tedious Vindication of Smectymnuus, are all included in Works, 9:282-443. Hall is generally considered to have bested Smectymnuus in both style and substance. See Tourney, Hall, 131-132; and William Riley Parker, Milton: A Biography, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 1:205-206. Much has been made of Milton's decision to enter into this controversy, but since Hall never actually responded to Milton's two diatribes, Animadversions upon the Remonstrant's Defence and Apology Against … a Modest Confutation, Milton's involvement is not discussed in this article.

52. See the closing paragraphs of the Humble Remonstrance in Works, 10:295-296. Episcopacy by Divine Right is also included in that volume, 10:148-281.

53. Hall, Works, 1:lvi-lxix.

54. Hall, Works, 5:492, 5:497.

55. Hall, Works, 5:517.

56. McCabe, Satire, 23.

57. Hall, along with the other bishops, had signed a petition that asked the king and Parliament to guarantee their safety after they had been threatened and forced to flee the House of Lords by a large mob protesting the presence of the bishops in Parliament. The document also sought to invalidate any legislation that might pass in their absence and was therefore seen by some as treasonous. See Hall's description of the circumstances that surrounded his imprisonment in Works, 1:lvi-lxiii.

58. Hall, Works, 1:xlviii-xlix.

59. Hall is named in “An ordinance for sequestring notorious delinquents' estates”; John Ayre, ed., The Stuart Constitution (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1986), 277.

60. Hall, Works, 1:lxv.

61. Hall, Works, 6:599.

62. Hall, Works, 6:601.

63. Hall, Works, 6:612.

64. Hall, Works, 6:623.

65. Hall, Works, 6:634.

66. Hall, Works, 6:638.

67. Hall, Works, 6:646.

68. Hall, Works, 6:646.

69. Hall published a Latin pamphlet, Pax Terris, in 1648, but its contents were largely a restatement of the arguments presented in The Peacemaker.

70. See Julian Davies, Captivity, for his thorough discussion of the impact of Charles I and Laud on the English church.

71. W. K. Jordan, The Development of Religious Toleration in England, vol. 2 (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1965), 147-154. Jordan represents Hall as the forerunner of the more tolerant positions taken by the Anglican church in later years.

72. Hall, Works, 6:595.