VIII

The teaching of John Hales needs separate treatment. Hales was born at Bath in 1584. He was a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, a Fellow of Merton, where he lectured in Greek, and a Fellow of Eton. He was in Holy Orders, and was a Chaplain to Laud and a Canon of Windsor. In 1642 he was ejected from his canonry; and in 1649 he was dispossessed of his Fellowship at Eton in consequence of his refusal to take the “Engagement”. He died in 1656. His life was chiefly devoted to study; and he was a pioneer of Latitudinarian thought, although there are good reasons for disbelieving the charge of Socinianism often brought against him. His tract On the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, and concerning the Church’s mistaking itself about Fundamentals was probably published soon after 1635. He rejects “the doctrine of the Reformed Churches” concerning the presence of Christ in the Eucharist as well as the doctrine of “the Church of Rome”. Both err in supposing that at the words of consecration “something befalls that action which otherways would not”. It is a further mistake to say that the consecrated bread and wine are the body of Christ “not after a carnal but after a spiritual manner”; for such a statement is “nonsense” whether made by the Reformers or by the divines of Rome. It is untrue to say that in the Communion “the body of God, into which the bread is transubstantiated,” is given; or that, “the same body, with which the bread is consubstantiated,” is bestowed; or that “the bread remaining what it was, there passes with it to the soul the real body of God in a secret unknown manner”; or that “a further degree of faith is supplied us”; or that “some degree of God’s grace, whatever it be, is exhibited, which otherwise would be wanting”. His own opinion he states clearly in the following passage:—

“First, In the Communion there is nothing given but bread and wine.

“Secondly, The bread and wine are signs indeed, but not of anything there exhibited, but of somewhat given long since, even of Christ given for us upon the cross sixteen hundred years ago and more.

“Thirdly, Jesus Christ is eaten at the Communion Table in no sense, neither spiritually by virtue of anything done there nor really, neither metaphorically nor literally. Indeed that which is eaten (I mean the bread) is called Christ by a metaphor, but it is eaten truly and properly.

“Fourthly, The spiritual eating of Christ is common to all places as well as the Lord’s Table.

“Last of all, The uses and ends of the Lord’s Supper can be no more than such as are mentioned in the Scriptures, and they are but two.

“1. The commemoration of the death and passion of the Son of God, specified by Himself at the institution of the ceremony.

“2. To testify our union with Christ, and communion one with another, which end St. Paul hath taught us.

“In these few conclusions the whole doctrine and use of the Lord’s Supper is fully set down; and whoso leadeth you beyond this doth but abuse you: ‘Quicquid ultra quæritur, non intellitur’.”

Hales thus supplies an instance in the first half of the seventeenth century of avowedly Zwinglian belief concerning the Eucharist.