Hall, Robert; Gregory, Olinthus & Belcher, Joseph [editors]. The Works of the Rev. Robert Hall, A.M. (Vol. II). New York: Harper & Brothers, 1854. [11286]
Worn full leather binding, 9 1/4 x 6 inches, one black leather spine label (lacks the volume number label), joints cracked and weak, gouge to leather at the middle of the front board, small hole center of spine. Marbled page edges and end papers; private library label of C. G. Wilson. 488 generally clean pages, light foxing in places, text block is tight. Fair. Hardcover.
This volume contains tracts touching on political subjects, including Christianity Consistent with a Love of Freedom; An Apology for the Freedom of the Press; An Address on the State of Slavery in the West India Islands; etc. Also Articles from the Eclectic Review, and "Miscellaneous Pieces" covering a wide variety of subjects. These include introduction that he wrote for Memoirs of the Rev. Joseph Freeston; Help to Zion's Travellers; Life of Janeway; Beddome's HYmns; Chase's Antinomianism Unmasked; and an essay on the Spiritual Condition and Prospects of the Jews.
Robert Hall (1764-1831), “one of the most eminent of modern divines.” – Allibone. An English Baptist, the son of a Baptist minister, and something of a child prodigy. “Before he was nine years of age he had perused and reperused, with intense interest, the treatises of the profound and extraordinary thinker, Jonathan Edwards, on the ‘Affections’ and on the ‘Will.’ About the same time he read, with a like interest, ‘Butler’s Analogy.’ Before he was ten years old he had written many essays, principally on religious subjects, and often invited his brothers and sisters to hear him preach.” – Dr. Olinthus Gregory.
At the age of 12 he was sent to the boarding school of the Baptist minister John Ryland. He began preaching publicly at age 16 and after 12 years of arduous labor suffered a mental collapse. After a two-year rest he returned and enjoyed a long and fruitful ministry both in the pulpit and the press.
"From Calvinism he advanced to Arminianism, and was rather a dualist than a trinitarian, never losing faith in the divinity and atonement of our Lord...Hall's fame rests mainly on the tradition of his pulpit oratory, which fascinated many minds of a high order. His eloquence recommended evangelical religion to persons of taste. Dugald Stewart commends his writings as exhibiting 'the English language in its perfection,' which is certainly extravagant praise. His conversation, of which some fragments are preserved, was brilliant when his powers were roused by intellectual society." - DNB.
