of his deep devotion to you, and his dependence upon your oracular sentence in doubts of this nature, have presumed thus to interrupt your higher thoughts: In the desire and hope whereof, I humbly take leave, and profess myself, Your Grace's in all Christian Higham, May 1, 1654. observance and fervent devotion, JOS. NORVIC. No. VI. BISHOP HALL'S ATTESTATION TO THE CHARACTER OF THE REV. JOHN DOWNE, B. D. IN A LETTER TO DR. HACKWELL. WORTHY DR. HACKWELL, I DO heartily congratulate to my dead friend and collegian, this your just and noble commemoration. It is much that you have said; but, in this subject, no whit enough. 1 can second every word of your praises, and can hardly restrain my hand from an additional repetition. How much ingenuity, how much learning and worth, how much sweetness of conversation, how much elegance of expression, how much integrity and holiness, have we lost in that man? No man ever knew him, but must needs say, that one of the brightest stars in our west is now set; the excellent parts that were in him, were a fit instance for your learnedly defended position, of the vigour of this last age; whereinto he gave his accurate and witty astipulation. I do much rejoice, yet, to hear, that we shall be beholden to you for some mitigation of the sorrow of his loss, by preserving alive some of the posthume issue of that gracious and exquisite brain; which, when the world shall see, they shall marvel that such excellencies could lie so close, and shall confess them as much past value as recovery. Besides those skilfull and rare pieces of divinity, tracts, and sermons; I hope (for my old love to those studies) we shall see abroad some excellent monuments of his Latin poesy: In which faculty I dare boldly say, few, if any, in our age exceeded him. In his polemical discourses, (some whereof I have by me) how easy is it for any judicious reader to observe the true genius of his renowned uncle, Bishop JEWELL? Such smoothness of style, such sharpness of wit, such interspersions of well-applied reading, such grave and holy urbanity shortly (for I well foresaw how apt my pen would be to run after you in this pleasing tract of so well-deserved praise) these works shall be as the cloak, which our prophet left behind him in his rapture into heaven. What remains, but that we should look up after him, in a care, and endeavour of readiness for our day; and earnestly pray to our GoD, that as he hath pleased to fetch him away in the chariot of death, so that he will double his spirit on those he hath thought good to leave yet below: In the mean time, I thank you for the favour of this your grave, seasonable, and worthy sermon, which I desire may be prefixed, as a meet preface, to the published labours of this happy author. Farewell, from your loving friend, and fellow-labourer, Exon. Palace, JOS. EXON'. No. VII. A LATIN SERMON, PREACHED BY THE VERY REV. JOSEPH HALL, D. D. THEN DEAN OF WORCESTER, Before the Synod of Dort, Nov. 29, 1618. xxix Novembris, Die Jovis ante meridiem. "Habita fuit in Conventu Synodico à Reverendo et Clarissimo, D. Josepho Hallo Wigorniensi Decano, doctissima atque accuratissima exhortatio Latina, ex Eccles. Salomonis, c. vii, v. 16. Pro quâ publicè ei gratiæ sunt actæ." Acta Synodi Dordrechti, p. 38. |