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...