In a subsequent letter to his mother, referring to the circumstance of a younger brother entering upon his education, he observes, "What is the learning of any one language, but throwing away so much time in getting by heart a parcel of words in one language, and another parcel corresponding to the first in another? It is an odd thing that some more rational and useful employment cannot be found out for boys of his age, and that we should still throw away eight or ten years in learning dead languages, after we have spunged out of them all that is to be found. God certainly never intended that so much of our time should be spent in learning Greek and Latin. The period allotted to us for action is so short that we cannot too soon begin to fit ourselves for appearing upon the stage. Mr Campbell cannot read Greek, and he is a bad Latin scholar; yet he is a philosopher, a divine, and a statesman, because he has improved his natural parts by reading a great deal of English. I am, and perhaps all my life shall continue a close student; but I hate learning. I have no more than is absolutely necessary, and as soon as I can I shall throw that little away." Whatever was his Latinity, Mr Campbell’s interest was good and promised still to be better, in consequence of which Mr Hill’s friends were instant with him to go into the church of England, where, through the attention of Mr Campbell, he might be much better provided for than he could be in the church of Scotland, to which, notwithstanding, he still professed not only adherence, but a high degree of veneration.

From this temptation he was delivered by the death of Mr Pryce Campbell, who was cut off in the prime of his days, and in the midst of his expectations. Mr Hill, however, was still continued with his pupil, who was now under the protection of his grandfather; and as great part of his estates lay in Scotland, that his education might be corresponding to the duties which, on that account, he might have to perform, young Campbell was sent for two sessions to the university of Edinburgh, and that he might be under the eye of principal Robertson, he was, along with his tutor, boarded in the house of Mrs Syme, the principal’s sister. During these two sessions, Mr Hill attended the divinity class and the meetings of the Speculative Society, where he acquired considerable eclat from a speech in praise of the aristocracy. He also waited on the General Assembly, in the debates of which he took so much interest as to express his wish to be returned to it as an elder. With Dr Robertson his intercourse was uninterrupted, and by him he was introduced to the notice of the principal men in and about Edinburgh. By his uncle, Dr M’Cormick, he was introduced at Arniston house, and in that family (Dundas) latterly found his most efficient patrons. While he was thus swelling the train of rank and fashion, it was his fortune to meet for the first time, dining at general Abercrombie’s, with the celebrated David Hume, of whom he thus wrote immediately after: "I was very glad to be in company with a man about whom the world has talked so much; but I was greatly surprised with his appearance. I never saw a man whose language is more vulgar, or whose manners are more awkward. It is no affectation of rudeness as being a philosopher, but mere clownishness, which is very surprising in one who has been so much in high life, and many of whose writings display so much elegance." During all this time, the progress of his pupil was not commensurate to the expectations of his friends, and the expenses it occasioned; and with the approbation of his patron, lord Kinnoul, Mr Hill resigned his charge. Mr Morton, professor of Greek in the university of St Andrews, at this time wishing to retire on account of the infirmities of age, Mr Hill became a candidate, was elected after some little opposition, and on the 21st of May, 1772, was admitted joint professor of Greek, being yet only in the twenty-second year of his age. He now went to London with his former pupil, and visited Cambridge, where Mr Campbell was to finish his studies; and, having received from lord Kinnoul and Dr Robertson ample testimonials to the ability and faithfulness with which he had discharged his duty while residing in Edinburgh, the family parted with him, expressing their thankfulness, their respect, and regret. Returning to Scotland, he spent some time with his uncle, preparing for meeting with his class, which he did in the end of the year 1772. The duties of this charge did not prevent him from various other pursuits. In the year 1774, Mr Campbell, in order to make the most of his parliamentary interest in the shire of Nairn, gave to a number of his friends votes upon life-rent superiorities, and among others conferred one upon Mr Hill, who, while at Nairn performing his friendly office as one of Mr Campbell’s voters, nearly lost his life by sleeping in a room that had been newly plastered. His groans, however, happened to be heard, and a physician being in the house to give immediate assistance, he was soon recovered. The year following, he formed the resolution of entering the church, and having made application to the presbytery of Haddington, with which, through his brother-in-law Mr Murray of North Berwick, he considered himself in some sort connected, he was by that reverend court licensed to preach the gospel on the 3d of May, 1775. He was immediately after this employed as assistant to principal Tullidelph in the parochial church of St Leonard’s, which has always been united with the principalty of the college. In this situation, he continued till the death of principal Tullidelph in the year 1777. The same year he was offered the parish of Coldstream by the earl of Fladdington; but he did not think it worth accepting. The following year, on the death of Dr Baillie, professor of theology in the college of Glasgow, principal Robertson desired him to stand candidate for that chair; but he seems to have taken no steps for that purpose, probably from the circumstance of his being only a preacher, which might have operated against him in case of a well supported candidate coming forward. The same year, probably to be ready in case of a similar emergency, he again applied to the presbytery of Haddington, and was by them ordained to the holy ministry. In the year 1779, through the interest of principal Robertson, and his uncle Dr M’Cormick, he was offered one of the churches of Edinburgh, with the prospect of a chair in the university in a short time. This also he declined with a view to some contemplated arrangements of lord Kinnoul. In consequence of the death of principal Morison, Dr Gillespie was shortly after removed from the first charge in the city to the principalty of the new college. Dr Adamson, the second minister, was promoted to Dr Gillespie’s benefice, and Mr Hill was elected by the town-council successor to Dr Adamson. In consequence of his holding the professorship of Greek, Mr Hill’s induction was protested against by a member of the presbytery of St Andrews, and the case was brought before the General Assembly in the year 1780, which dismissed it without ceremony, as it did also overtures on the subject from the synods of Fife, Perth, and Stirling. Mr Hill was, accordingly, with the full concurrence of the congregation, admitted to the church in which his father had officiated, on the 22nd day of June, 1780. Since his settlement at St Andrews as a professor of Greek, he had sat in the General Assembly as an elder; he now appeared in the more weighty character of a minister, and on the retirement of Dr Robertson became the most important member of the house, and confessedly the leader of the moderates.

We have already noticed his acceptance of a life-rent superiority, by which he became a freeholder in the county of Nairn in the year 1774. He continued to stand on the roll of freeholders for that county till the winter of 1784, when a new election came on; but Mr Campbell, from being on the side of the ministry, was now violent on the side of the opposition. In this case, for Mr Hill to have given his vote to Mr Campbell’s candidate would have been considered by the ministry as open rebellion against their claims on the church, for which they might have selected another leader, and have, at the same time, withdrawn every mark of their favour from him. They might also have prosecuted him before the justiciary on a charge of perjury, as they had already done some others in similar circumstances. Under this complication of difficulties, Mr Hill as usual had recourse to the earl of Kinnoul, and to his brother-in-law Mr Murray of North Berwick. Lord Kinnoul most ingeniously gave him back his own views; did not, as chancellor of the university think he was warranted to allow him to desert his professional duties for the purpose merely of giving a political vote; and stated, that though he himself could have greatly extended his interest by such votes as Mr Hill possessed, he had never granted one of them. A charge of perjury he admitted, might be brought against any person who received them, and whether it might be well founded or not, it was a charge to which, in his opinion, no minister of the gospel should expose himself. The judgment of his lordship we cannot but approve, though it is probable that if the candidate had been a ministerial one, the Greek class might have been allowed a few holidays without the smallest impropriety. Mr Murray, while he regretted (though he no doubt knew it from the first,) that his friend should ever have accepted such a vote, applauded his purpose of relinquishing it, and of refusing, under all circumstances, to comply with the requisition to attend the election. Mr Hill’s biographer labours hard to clear him from any degree of blame in this affair, but without effect: it carries its character full in its face, and holds up a most important lesson to all clergymen, to beware of intermeddling in political intrigues of any kind.

In 1787 Mr Hill was honoured by the university with the title of D.D., and in 1788 was appointed to succeed Dr Spens as professor of divinity in St Mary’s college. He had been the previous year appointed dean to the order of the thistle, a place that had been first created to gratify Dr Jardine for his services in support of Dr Robertson, but with no stated salary; the dean only claiming a perquisite of fifty guineas on the installation of every new knight. During Dr Hill’s incumbency, no instalment took place, and he of course derived no pecuniary benefit from the situation. He had been little more than three years in the divinity chair, when the situation of principal became vacant by the death of Dr Gillespie, and it was by lord Melville bestowed on Dr Hill. This appointment in his letter of thanks he considered as peculiarly valuable, as being the best proof that lord Melville approved the mode in which he had discharged the duties of the divinity professorship. "I will not attempt, he continues, to express by words the gratitude which I feel; but it shall be the study of my life to persevere as a clergyman in that line of conduct upon which you have generously conferred repeated marks of your approbation." This was the termination of his university preferment; but he was shortly afterwards nominated one of his majesty’s chaplains for Scotland, with a salary annexed; and, on the death of his uncle Dr M’Cormick, he succeeded him as one of the deans of the chapel royal. The deanery of the thistle already noticed was unproductive; but the above two situations, while they added nothing to his labours, increased his income in a material degree. In his management of the General Assembly Dr Hill copied closely after Dr Robertson; except that the entire satisfaction of himself and his party with the law of patronage as it then stood, was marked by withdrawing from the yearly instructions to the commission, the accustomed order to embrace every opportunity of having it removed, and by still bolder attempts to do away with the form of moderating calls for presentees and to induct them solely upon the footing of presentations. In his progress Dr Hill certainly encountered a more formidable opposition than Dr Robertson latterly had to contend with. In one case, and in one only, he was completely defeated. This was an overture from the presbytery of Jedburgh concerning the imposition of the Test upon members of the established church of Scotland, which it was contended was an infringement of the rights of Scotsmen, and a gross violation of the privileges and independence of the Scottish church. In opposition to the overture it was maintained by the moderates of the assembly that the Test Act was a fundamental article of the treaty of union; and Dr Hill, in particular, remarked that there were no complaints on the subject except from one single presbytery, for was there any ground to complain; for, to a liberal and enlightened mind it could be no hardship to partake of the Lord’s Supper according to the mode sanctioned by a church whose views of the nature and design of that ordinance were the same with his own. For once the popular party gained a triumph, and the accomplished and ingenious leader was left in a minority. A series of resolutions moved by Sir Henry Moncrieff were adopted, and by the unanimous voice of the assembly a committee was appointed to follow out the spirit and purpose of these resolutions. Care, however, was taken to render the committee of no avail, and nearly thirty years elapsed without any thing further being done. We cannot enlarge on Dr Hill’s administration of the affairs of the church, and it is the less necessary that no particular change was effected under him. Matters generally went on as usual, and the influence of political men in biasing her decisions were, perhaps, fully more conspicuous than under his predecessor. Of his expertness in business, and general powers of management, the very highest sense was entertained by the public, though differences of opinion latterly threatened to divide his supporters.

In 1807 Dr Hill had a severe attack, from which it was apprehended he would not recover; contrary to all expectation he did recover, and the following year, on the death of Dr Adamson, he was presented to the first ecclesiastical charge in the city of St Andrews. Eight years after, namely, in 1816, we find him as active in the General Assembly as at any former period of his life. Shortly after this time, however, he was attacked with slight shocks of apoplexy, which impaired his speech, and unfitted him for his accustomed exercises. He was no more heard in the assembly house; but he continued to preach occasionally to his own congregation till the year 1819, when he was laid aside from all public duty. He died on the 19th of December that year, in the seventieth year of his age, and thirty-ninth of his ministry.