John Hales, 1584–1656. Born, in Bath, 19 April 1584. Educated at Bath Grammar School. To Corpus Christi College, Oxford, as scholar, 16 April 1597; B.A., 9 July 1603; Fellow of Merton College, 1605; M.A., 20 June 1609; Lecturer in Greek to University, 1612. Fellow of Eton College, 24 May 1613 to April 1649. To Holland with Sir Dudley Carleton, as Chaplain, 1616. To Eton, 1619. Canon of Windsor, 23 May, 1639; installed, 27 June; deprived of canonry by Parliamentary Committee, 1642. Tutor to William Salter, in Buckinghamshire, 1649. Returned to Eton. Died there, 19 May 1656. Buried there. Works: “Oratio Funebris” (on Sir Thomas Bodley), 1613; “A Sermon,” 1617; “Anonymi dissertatio de pace et concordia Ecclesiæ,” 1630; “The way towards the finding of a Decision of the Chief Controversie, etc.” (anon.), 1641; “A Tract concerning Schisme,” 1642 (anon.; 2nd edn. same year); “Of the Blasphemie againste the Holy Ghost” (anon.; attrib. to Hales), 1646. Posthumous: “Golden Remains,” 1659; “Sermons preached at Eton,” 1660; “Several Tracts,” 1677. Collected Works: ed. by Lord Hailes (3 vols.), 1765.

Personal

	Hales, set by himself most gravely did smile
	To see them about nothing keep such a coil;
	Apollo had spied him, but, knowing his mind,
	Past by, and called Falkland that sat just behind.

  His industry did strive, if it were possible, to equal the largeness of his capacity, whereby he became as great a master of polite, various, and universal learning, as ever yet conversed with books. Proportionate to his reading was his meditation, which furnished him with a judgment beyond the vulgar reach of man, built upon unordinary notions, raised out of strange observations, and comprehensive thoughts within himself. So that he really was a most prodigious example of an acute and piercing wit, of a vast and illimited knowledge, of a severe and profound judgment.

  At Eaton be lodged (after his sequestration) at the next house (to) the Christopher (inne), where I sawe him, a prettie little man, sanguine, of a cheerfull countenance, very gentile, and courteous; I was received by him with much humanity: he was in a kind of violet-coloured cloath gowne, with buttons and loopes (he wore not a black gowne), and was reading Thomas à Kempis; it was within a yeare before he deceased. He loved Canarie; but moderately, to refresh his spirits. He had a bountifull mind…. He lies buried in the church yard at Eaton, under an altar monument of black marble, erected at the sole chardge of Mr…. Curwyn, with a too long epitaph. He was no kiff or kin to him.

  He had read more and carried more about him, in his excellent memory, than any man I ever knew; he was one of the least men in the kingdom, and one of the greatest scholars in Europe.

  Thro’ the whole course of his bachelorship there was never any one in the then memory of man (so I have been informed by certain seniors of that coll. at my first coming thereunto) that ever went beyond him for subtle disputations in philosophy, for his eloquent declamations and orations, as also his exact knowledge in the Greek tongue, evidently demonstrated afterwards, not only when he read the Greek lecture in that coll., but also the public lecture of that tongue in the schools…. He was a man highly esteemed by learned men beyond and within the seas, from whom he seldom fail’d to receive letters every week, wherein his judgment was desir’d as to several points of learning.

  His great learning and “profound judgment” were combined with the most punctilious integrity and the utmost modesty of demeanor; so that there was no man of the day of whom more people spoke well.

  We can readily realise from the whole tenor of his life, as well as of his writings, the picture suggested by Clarendon of a modest, sensitive, yet profound and discerning spirit—hating religious controversy, yet apt and keen in religious argument when once engaged in it—honest and open-minded to a fault, yet with a great power of reserve in him before the unwise and unreflective—loving peace, yet detesting tyranny—and severe to himself, while kind and charitable in all his thoughts of others.

  There are several Etonians of this century who acquired distinction as churchmen and scholars, whom I have not yet spoken of, but I must not omit in this chapter. First, I will revert to

THE EVER-MEMORABLE JOHN HALES.

Such was the title given by his friends and contemporaries to a learned, ingenious, pious, and kind-hearted man, who became a Fellow of Eton in 1613. The sounding title of “ever-memorable,” applied to one whose works now seldom find a reader, and whose name is rarely mentioned by any modern writer, reminds one of the epithets “Angelic,” “Seraphic,” “Irrefragable,” and the like, which were so liberally bestowed on the once idolized but now neglected Schoolmen. In truth, the reputation of Hales in his own age seems to have been due not so much to any proof of gigantic genius or stupendous learning, as to pleasing powers of conversation, and affability of temper, combined with a fair share of natural ability and an unusual share of industrious energy. Every age has its John Hales.

  The genial recluse, with his prodigious memory and his keen, rapier-like thrust of argument, was the most loving and tender-hearted of men.

  Pure-minded, simple-hearted little man, reading Thomas-à-Kempis in his violet gown; poor, degraded, but not dishonoured; what a strong, grave protest your quiet, exiled life, self-contained and serious is, against the crude follies, the boisterous energies of the revolution seething and mantling all about you! the clear-sighted soul can adopt no party cries, swears allegiance to no frantic school; enlightened, at the mercy of no tendency or prejudice, it resigns all that gave dignity to blessed quiet, and takes the peace without the pomp; with unobtrusive, unpretentious hopes and prospects shattered in the general wreck, the true life-philosopher still finds his treasures in the old books, the eternal thoughts and the kindly offices of retired life.

General

  Their [Hale’s Works] merits are unequal. The best seems to be his discourse on Schism, that on the abuse of hard places of Scripture, and his letters to Sir Dudley Carleton, from the Synod of Dort, in which he gives a good account of that far-famed convention. He was evidently a man superior to many of the prejudices of his age; but if the reader’s expectations are raised very greatly by his high-sounding title and the testimonies referred to, he will probably be disappointed even by his Golden Remains.

  John Hales was a man whose reputation was far higher among his contemporaries than his Remains (rather unmeaningly called Golden) seem to justify. He was admittedly the first Greek scholar of his day. Sir Henry Savill’s grand edition of Chrysostom was in reality his work, but the one was Warden, the other Fellow of Merton, and the name of higher position was affixed to the work. In religious principles he was a latitudinarian, like Chillingworth.

  If by its political structure the English Church is persecuting, by its doctrinal structure it is tolerant; it needs the reason of the laity too much to refuse it liberty; it lives in a world too cultivated and thoughtful to proscribe thought and culture. John Hales, its eminent doctor, declared several times that he would renounce the Church of England to-morrow, if she insisted on the doctrine that other Christians would be damned; and that men believe other people to be damned only when they desire them to be so. It was he again, a theologian, a prebendary, who advises men to trust to themselves alone in religious matters; to leave nothing for authority, or antiquity, or the majority; to use their own reason in believing, as they use “their own legs in walking,” to act and be men in mind as well as in the rest; and to regard as cowardly and impious the borrowing of doctrine and sloth of thought.

  There is in all our author’s writings exactly that which so many theological writings want, the light of a bright, open-eyed, candid intelligence, which sees frequently far beyond the range of the most powerful systematic intellect straight to the truth—“an acute and piercing wit,” a wise, calm, and “profound judgment.”… His accumulated knowledge of books and systems never encumbers him. He never, or rarely, uses it as materials of exposition, or stuff for dilating and parading arguments in themselves worthless, after the prevailing fashion. But all his knowledge has become an enriching basis of his own thought, and raises him above “the vulgar reach of man” to see for himself clearly and widely. It has entered into the very life of his quick and genial intellect, and contributes to the wealth of his meditative insight, and his tolerant, comprehensive, and sweetly-tempered genius. The simplicity and breadth of his religious thought are astonishing for his time. He goes to the heart of controversies, and distinguishes with a delicate and summary skill the essential from the accidental in religion as in other things…. In freedom of thought and clearness of faith, he greatly excels the mere professional divine of any age. He is evangelical without dogmatism, and preaches grace without despising philosophy. At once conservative in feeling, and liberal in opinion, he hates all extremes, as of the nature of falsehood, and a prolific source of wrong. He is the representative—the next after Hooker—of that catholicity yet rationality of Christian sentiment which has been the peculiar glory of the Church of England.

  Andrew Marvel justly describes Hales as “one of the clearest heads and best prepared breasts in Christendom.” The richness of his learning impresses us even less than his felicity in using it. His humour enables him to treat disturbing questions with attractive lightness of touch. His strength lies in an invincible core of common sense, always blended with good feeling, and issuing in a wise and thoughtful charity.

  Hales’s literary style is, in the main, the reflection of his lucid manner of thinking. When he argues, he goes straight to the point, and, barring a certain looseness in the construction of his sentences, he is a master of exposition. His illustrations, though copious, never weary the reader, being always the natural overflow of a mind well stocked with learning, and not a mere display of pedantry. There runs through his writings a thin thread of humour characteristic of the man—himself in earnest, but scorning the earnestness about non-essentials which he discovers in others.

  The large and generous current of Hales’ human sympathy, and his appreciation of all that is good wherever it is to be found, are characteristic features of his writings, and make him one of the most delightful, stimulating, and wholesome of the divines of the seventeenth century. He appears as quite unconnected historically with the School of Cambridge divines who came, at a later time, to be spoken of as the “Latitude-men,” though his tone is in many respects similar to theirs.