Robert Hall

Robert Hall (2 May 1764 – 21 February 1831) was an English Baptist minister.

Quotes

• His imperial fancy has laid all Nature under tribute, and has collected riches from every scene of the creation and every walk of art.
  • On Burke; Apology for the Freedom of the Press, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• He [Kippis] might be a very clever man by nature for aught I know, but he laid so many books upon his head that his brains could not move.
  • On Kippis; Gregory’s Life of Hall, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

• Call things by their right names... Glass of brandy and water! That is the current but not the appropriate name: ask for a glass of liquid fire and distilled damnation.
  • Gregory's Life of Hall, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "He calls drunkenness an expression identical with ruin", Diogenes Laërtius, Pythagoras, vi. "A drunkard clasp his teeth and not undo 'em, To suffer wet damnation to run through 'em", Cyril Tourneur, The Revenger’s Tragedy, Act iii, Scene 1.

• Settle it therefore in your minds, as a maxim never to be effaced or forgotten, that atheism is an inhuman, bloody, ferocious system, equally hostile to every useful restraint and to every virtuous affection; that, leaving nothing above us to excite awe, nor round us to awaken tenderness, it wages war with heaven and with earth: its first object is to dethrone God, its next to destroy man.
  • Rev. Robert Hall, sermon to Baptist meeting, Cambridge, quoted in Charles George Sommers, William R. Williams, Levi L. Hill, ed (1843). The Baptist Library: a republication of standard Baptist works. 2. p. 108. 

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

• We should be more anxious that our afflictions should benefit us than that they should be speedily removed from us.
  • P. 10.

• The Bible is the treasure of the poor, the solace of the sick, and the support of the dying; and while other books may amuse and instruct in a leisure hour, it is the peculiar triumph of that book to create light in the midst of darkness, to alleviate the sorrow which admits of no other alleviation, to direct a beam of hope to the heart which no other topic of consolation can reach; while guilt, despair, and death vanish at the touch of its holy inspiration.
  • P. 30.

• What other book besides the Bible could be heard in public assemblies from year to year, with an attention that never tires, and an interest that never cloys?
  • P. 35.

• While the passion of some is to shine, of some to govern, and of others to accumulate, let one great passion alone influence our breasts, the passion which reason ratifies, which conscience approves, which Heaven inspires, — that of being and doing good.
  • P. 121.

• If ever Christianity appears in its power, it is when it erects its trophies upon the tomb; when it takes up its votaries where the world leaves them; and fills the breast with immortal hope in dying moments.
  • P. 137.

• Eternity invests every state, whether of bliss or of suffering, with a mysterious and awful importance, entirely its own. It gives that weight and moment to whatever it attaches, compared to which all interests that know a period fade into absolute insignificance.
  • P. 212.

• Faith is a practical habit, which, like every other, is strengthened and increased by continual exercise. It is nourished by meditation, by prayer, and the devout perusal of the Scriptures; and the light which it diffuses becomes stronger and clearer by an uninterrupted converse with its object, and a faithful compliance with its dictates.
  • P. 219.

• Wisdom and truth, the offspring of the sky, are immortal; while cunning and deception, the meteors of the earth, after glittering for a moment, must pass away.
  • P. 241.

• The friendship of high and sanctified spirits loses nothing by death but its alloy; failings disappear, and the virtues of those whose faces we shall behold no more appear greater and more sacred when beheld through the shades of the sepulchre.
  • P. 254.

• Heaven is attracting to itself whatever is congenial to its nature, is enriching itself by the spoils of earth, and collecting within its capacious bosom whatever is pure, permanent, and divine.
  • P. 300.

• What delight will it afford to renew the sweet counsel we have taken together, to recount the toils, the combats, and the labor of the way, and to approach, not the house, but the throne of God, in company, in order to join in the symphonies of heavenly voices, and lose ourselves amidst the splendors and fruitions of the beatific vision.
  • P. 306.