Hales, John

Hales, John of Eton, usually called the "ever memorable," an eminent English scholar and divine, was born in Bath, 1584, and educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford. In 1606 he was elected fellow of Merton College, and was employed by Sir H. Savile in the preparation of his fine edition of Chrysostom, published in 1613. His attainments in Greek gained him the professorship of that language at Oxford in 1612, and in 1613 he was ordained and become fellow of Eton. In 1618 he accompanied Sir D. Carleton to the Hague as his chaplain, and attended him to the Synod of Dort (q.v.). He went to that celebrated body a Calvinist, and left it an Arminian, as is shown by a letter of Farindol (q.v.), prefixed to Hales's Golden Remains, in which he says "At the well-pressingof Joh 3:16 by Episcopius there, I bid John Calvin good-night, as he has often told me" (see Jackson, Life of Farindon, p. 49). In 1636 he wrote for Chillingworth a tract on Schism, in which he rebuked the claims of high Episcopacy. Laud sought to gain over the great Greek scholar, and offered him any preferment he pleased. In 1639 he was made canon of Windsor, but was deprived in 1642. Refusing to subscribe to the covenant, he was compelled to wander from place to place, and at last he had to sell his library for bread. He died May 19,1656. No man of his time had greater reputation for scholarship and piety. Bishop Pearson speaks of him as a "man of as great a sharpness, quickness, and subtlety of wit as ever this or perhaps any nation bred… a man of vast and unlimited knowledge, of a severe and profound judgment." He wrote unwillingly, and published but a few tracts in his lifetime; but after his death a number of his sermons and miscellaneous pieces were collected under the title of Golden Remains of the Ever-memorable John Hales (London, 1659, 8vo; best ed. 1673, 4to); his Letters concerning the Synod of Dort are published in the edition of 1673. An edition of his Whole Works (with the language modernized) was published by lord Hailes in 1765 (3 vols. 12mo). See Des Maizeaux, Life of Hales (Lond. 1719, 8vo).; General Biog. Dictionary; Jackson, Life of Farindon (prefixed to Farindon's Sermons, vol. 1); Wood, Athenae Oxoniensis, 2, 124; Herzog, Real-Encyklop. 5, 476-7; Allibone, Dict. of Authors, s.v.