Another Tractarian: Isaac Williams and Saint John Henry Newman

The Newman Review of the National Institute of Newman Studies highlights Saint John Henry Newman's Tractarian friendship with Isaac Williams. According to Lawrence Gregory:

The Rev. Isaac Williams (1802–1865) was a contemporary of John Henry Newman (1801–1890) at Trinity College, Oxford. The son of a Welsh lawyer, he was ordained a priest in Anglican Orders in 1829, serving first as curate at Windrush, Gloucestershire. Williams returned to Oxford in 1831 after being elected a Fellow and Tutor at Trinity and became the Dean of his College in 1833 and vice-president in 1841. From 1836 he also served as assistant curate to Newman at Littlemore.

He collaborated on the Lyra Apostolica and as a Tractarian and contributed Tract 80, “On Reserve in Communicating, Religious Knowledge,” which he concluded with Tract 87. Williams also wrote Tract 86 “Indications of a superintending Providence in the preservation of the Prayer-book and in the changes which it has undergone.”

The controversy about Tract 90 meant that Williams did not succeed John Keble as Professor of Poetry as expected. In 1842, he left St. Mary's in Oxford and Littlemore, married Caroline Champernowne and the couple moved to Bisley, Gloucestershire, where he worked as a curate to Thomas Keble, John's brother. Williams became very ill in 1846 and was not able to continue in parish work. He and his wife to moved to Stinchcombe, Gloucestershire, where his sister Jane and her husband, Sir George Prevost, another Tractarian, held the living. 

In John Henry Newman: The Liturgy and the Breviary, Their Influence on His Life as an Anglican (Sheed & Ward: 1992), Donald A. Withey suggests that Newman and Williams did not always agree--even though they were good friends and remained friends, even after Newman became a Catholic--on certain projects members of the Oxford Movement were undertaking. For example, in 1838, Samuel Wood and Robert Williams, two laymen, became interested in translating, printing, and selling the Roman [Catholic] Breviary. Richard Hurrell Froude had begun praying it and others in the Movement bought copies when they were on the Continent, etc. Wood and Robert Williams were financing the project with their own money, and were asking Newman, Isaac Williams, and others to translate hymns, etc. 

Opposition to the project, which kept starting and stopping, Withey says was largely aimed at Newman and "was led by Tom Keble, Isaac Williams, and George Prevost. Tom Keble and Newman disagreed about the significance of the reformers of the sixteenth century . . . " (p. 33) Isaac, Withey notes, "admired and enjoyed a close friendship with [Newman]. However, he also had a long-standing loyalty to the Kebles dating from his undergraduate days." Withey suggests that Isaac sided with Tom Keble "against Newman" -- who was also rather diffident about the project because of the cost and the care of omitting things that were just "too" Catholic--because of any "Romanizing influence". (p. 34)

Reading about these efforts to translate and print the four volumes of the Roman Breviary in Chapter Four, "The Breviary Translation Project - Phase One" reminded me of how delicately the Tractarians had to proceed in their overall project to demonstrate the Apostolic basis of the Church of England. They were always walking a fine line--one step too far and they would be accused of Popery and being secretly Papist while holding Church of England benefices, offices, and livings!

In the next chapter, "The Breviary Translation Project - Phases Two and Three", Withey describes Isaac Williams' reactions when E.B. Pusey took up the reins of the effort in 1843. At first Isaac seemed helpful and willing to let Pusey use his translations, but because "he was then moving away from his High Church convictions towards a Low Church stance"*, working with him became more difficult. He "vacillated considerably and awkwardly before making up his mind to allow the use of the manuscripts" (pp. 58-59) 

*[Note that Withey doesn't provide any evidence of Williams' change of mind in the book and I haven't researched that aspect at all. Also note: there is no good image of the cover of Withey's book which is out of print but available. Pages 168-169 in the Notes has some particularly interesting detail about how Latin was pronounced in England in Newman's time! Sister Florella, who taught me Latin at Kapaun-Mount Carmel High School always reminded us that there weren't any "tapes" of Romans speaking Latin in the Vatican archives!]

One reason Newman himself was reluctant to see the project completed was since he had obtained the late Richard Hurrell Froude's copy of the Roman Breviary in 1836, he had been praying it daily, and it was influencing him toward "Roman Catholic" piety and prayer. Even though he tried to skip certain prayers to the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints, it was becoming attractive to him. 

Isaac Williams and Newman maintained their friendship after Newman followed that attraction with assent and conversion in 1845. As Gregory notes in the Newman Review article:

The NINS Digital Collections contain 26 letters by Williams. Three are from the papers of Hurrell Froude, and 23 make up his surviving correspondence with Newman. The Newman letters begin in March 1841 at the time of the Tract 90 controversy and continue until May 1864, a few months before Williams’s death. Those from the 1840s cover discussions about the growing schism at Oxford, while those from the 1850s and 60s are of a more personal nature . . .

You may find links to articles about and works of Isaac Williams at Project Canterbury.

Image Credit (Public Domain): A portrait from the Welsh Portrait Collection at the National Library of Wales. Depicted person: Isaac Williams – Welsh writer

Sir Thomas More Resigns

Sir Thomas More resigned as Lord Chancellor of England on May 16, 1532 after the Convocation of Bishops met to discuss and accept Henry VIII's three articles on how they would follow his guidelines for Church governance, the Submission of the Clergy.

British History Online documents his resignation and surrender of the Great Seal in the Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, June 1532, 1-15:

1075. Delivery Of The Great Seal.

Memorandum that on the 16th May 24 Hen. VIII. the Great Seal, being in the custody of Sir Thos. More, chancellor of England, enclosed in a white leather bag sealed with his seal, was delivered into the King's hands in the garden of York Place by Westminster, about 3 o'clock p.m., in presence of Thos. duke of Norfolk, when the said Sir Thomas surrendered his office of Chancellor. And on Monday, 20 May, about 4 p.m., the King, at his manor of Plesaunce or Est Grenewych, in a certain inner chamber near his oratory, took the said Seal out of the bag in presence of Thos. duke of Norfolk, treasurer of England, Henry marquis of Exeter, Henry earl of Northumberland, Rob. earl of Sussex, Steph. bp. of Winchester, Sir Will. Fitzwilliam, treasurer of the Household, Brian Tuke, treasurer of the Chamber, Sir Will. Kyngeston, John Sampson, dean of the Chapel, Thos. Crumwell, keeper of the Jewels, and others of the Privy Chamber; and after inspecting the same, delivered it to Thos. Audeley, whom he ordered to be called keeper of the Great Seal, and to exercise all the functions of the Chancellor in the Chancery, Star Chamber, and Council. And the said Thomas received it, and therewith, in presence of the King, caused to be sealed certain letters patent of the stewardship of the manors of Lewsham and Est Grenewych in Kent granted to Henry Norres, and afterwards replaced it in the bag, and sealed it with his own seal, and retained it in his custody. The King also then made him a knight.

And on Wednesday, 5 June, the first day of Trinity term, the said Sir Thomas Audeley in the Court of Chancery at Westminster took his oath of office as keeper of the Privy Seal. (Form of the oath subjoined.)

About a month later, More wrote to Desiderius Erasmus an explanation for his resignation that emphasized his health:

The thing which I have wished for from a boy, dear Desiderius, which I rejoice in your having ever enjoyed, and myself occasionally,—namely, that being free from public business, I might have some time to devote to God and myself,—that, by the grace of a great and good God, and by the favour of an indulgent prince, I have at last obtained.

I have not, however, obtained it as I wished. For I wished to reach that last stage of my life in a state, which, though suitable to my age, might yet enable me to enjoy my remaining years healthy and unbroken, free from disease and pain. But it remaineth in the hand of God, whether this wish, perhaps unreasonable, shall be accomplished. Meantime a disorder of I know not what nature hath attacked my breast, by which I suffer less in present pain than in fear of the consequence. For when it had plagued me without abatement some months, the physicians whom I consulted gave their opinion, that the long continuance of it was dangerous, and the speedy cure impossible; but that it must be cured by the gradual alterative effects of time, proper diet and medicine. Neither could they fix the period of my recovery, or ensure me a complete cure at last.

Considering this, I saw that I must either lay down my office, or discharge my duty in it incompletely. And since I could not discharge that duty without the hazard of my life, and by so doing should lose both life and office, I determined to lose one of them rather than both. Wherefore, that I might consult the public good as well as my own welfare, I entreated of the kindness of my good and great prince, that from the high office with which (as you know) he honoured me by his incredible favour, far above my pretensions, above my hopes, above my wishes, he should now release me, sinking as I was under the weight of it.

That letter is documented in Henry VIII's State Papers:

1094. More to Erasmus.
Gives an account of his resignation of the chancellorship. Complains of the rapid progress of heretical doctrines, notwithstanding the efforts that have hitherto been made to repress them. Incorrect versions of the Scriptures, and heretical books of all kinds, make their way from Flanders into England. Has replied to several, and does not fear what the result will be with impartial judges. Chelsea, 14 June 1532.
Lat.

2. Erasmus to John Faber, Bishop of Vienne.
Enclosing the above letter, and speaking very highly in praise of More. States that cardinal Wolsey, who was a man of no small ability, said, when he saw no prospect of being restored to favor, that More was the only person who was fitted to succeed him, though he was not partial to More when he was alive. Gives an account of his house at Chelsea, and his family, and their mode of education. Encloses a copy of the epitaph composed by More for himself.
Lat.

Newman's Omaha Connection

Father Juan Velez kindly sent me a review copy of his new book, Holiness in a Secular Age: The Witness of Cardinal Newman, published by Scepter. I'm about two-thirds through the book, which serves as an excellent introduction to Newman's life, projects, and works, exploring his educational projects especially--not the just The Idea of a University, but the practical experience Newman had teaching and administering education at Oxford, in Dublin, and at the Oratory School.

In the course of describing Blessed John Henry Newman's affinity for friendship, Father Velez mentions the first Bishop of Omaha, Nebraska, James O'Connor, whom he met at the Propaganda Fide in Rome while studying for the priesthood. I wondered why an American bishop would be studying in Rome, but then discovered with a little research that Bishop O'Connor was born in Ireland, came to the United States, studied at St. Charles Seminary in Philadelphia, and then went to the Propaganda College in Rome, where he was ordained in 1848. Then he became the first bishop of the Diocese of Omaha:

Bishop James O’Connor was appointed to replace Bishop O’Gorman in 1876. In 1880, the Dakotas were separated and the Diocese of Sioux Falls was established. Montana was dropped three years later. In 1885, the Diocese of Omaha, consisting of Nebraska and Wyoming, was established.

During Bishop O’Connor’s administration, many of Omaha’s older parishes were founded and the Franciscan Fathers arrived in the area.

After the Creighton family gave Bishop O’Connor the college they had endowed, Creighton University was entrusted to the Society of Jesus in 1878.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, then Father O'Connor returned to the United States after ordination:

The following year he was appointed rector of St. Michael's Seminary, Pittsburgh, and in 1862 rector of St. Charles's Seminary, Overbrook, Pennsylvania. In 1872 he was appointed pastor of St. Dominic's Church, Holmesburg, Pennsylvania. In 1876 he was appointed Vicar Apostolic of Nebraska, and on 20 August of the same year he was consecrated titular Bishop of Dibona by Bishop Ryan of St. Louis. During his episcopate the vicariate developed with wonderful rapidity. The construction of the Union Pacific Railway in 1867, and more especially the extension of the Burlington Railway in the seventies and eighties, opened up Nebraska to colonists, and white settlers began to pour in from the Eastern states. It became the duty of the new vicar to provide for the growing needs of the faithful, and the yearly statistics of the vicariate show how successful were his labours. 

When he was consecrated " titular Bishop of Dibona", that was like a holding place designating a mission territory where no established diocese yet exists. It would be fascinating to read some of the letters between Newman and Bishop O'Connor! I don't have ready access to those letters, but I wonder if they corresponded about issues of university education, since Bishop O'Conner was involved in the establishment of Creighton University.

Blessed John Henry Newman and His Letters

Edward Short writes a review of Father Roderick Strange's new book, John Henry Newman: A Portrait in Letters, for The Catholic World Report:

In John Henry Newman: A Portrait in Letters, Father Roderick Strange brilliantly distills Newman’s approximately 20,000 extant letters into a rich, revelatory selection, which covers every period of the great convert’s long life and gives readers a judicious view of the man’s pastoral counselling, controversies, and hard-won accomplishments, even though the latter, in a life riddled with failure, can often be seen only sub specie aeternitatis.

One reason why Father Strange has succeeded in his selection is that he has not sought to produce a “life in letters,” knowing that such an epistolary life could never capture the full complexity of his subject. Letters, after all, by their very nature—as Father Strange recognizes—do not lend themselves to a “smooth, rounded, complete narrative.” Moreover, if made to do the necessarily multi-faceted work of such a narrative, a selection of letters would inevitably risk being tendentious. Instead, Father Strange has sensibly chosen to make his selection a portrait of Newman, which may not make any claim to definitiveness, but nonetheless gives the reader a marvelously rich, evocative, critical sense of the charm, integrity, caritas, and genius of his fascinating subject.

Short focuses, for example, on one of Newman's controversies--from his Anglican period--the Bampton Lectures of Renn Dickson Hampden:

We should certainly keep Newman’s “unswerving” adherence to doctrinal integrity in mind when we read his letters to Renn Dickson Hampden, the Oriel fellow, with whose heterodox Bampton Lectures (1832) falsifying the Trinity and the Incarnation Newman took such spirited exception. “I dare not trust myself to put on paper my feelings about the principles contained in it,” Newman wrote of the pamphlet Hampden wrote as a follow-up to his lectures, “tending as they do in my opinion altogether to make shipwreck of Christian faith.” Hampden, a shy, reticent, retiring man, never altogether recovered from Newman’s principled attack, though he did what he could to defend himself. “I charge you with malignity,” the indignant don wrote in response to Newman’s accusations, “because you have no other ground of your assault on me but a fanatical persecuting spirit,” to which Newman replied, in the third-person, with comic formality: “He altogether disallows Dr. Hampden’s imputation that he has been guilty of dissimulation, and falsehood, and dark malignity.”

What is most significant about the Hampden controversy is how it reveals the unsparing polemicist in Newman. When it came to principles of doctrine, he never compromised. As he wrote one of his friends with regard to Hampden, “There is no doctrine, however sacred, which he does not scoff at—and in his Moral Philosophy he adopts the lowest and most groveling utilitarianism as the basis of Morals—he considers it is a sacred duty to live to this world—and that religion by itself injuriously absorbs the mind.” For Newman, the other fellows of Oriel might not be irreproachable, but they each had virtues to counterbalance their flaws. Hampden, on the other hand, as far as Newman could see, “judging by his writings, [was] the most lucre loving, earthly minded, unlovely person one ever set eyes on.” With an opponent as fierce as this, Hampden could be forgiven for deciding to spend most of his later career in his garden, far away from the brickbats of debate, only emerging briefly to oppose the heretical Essays and Reviews in 1860, by which time Newman had long since removed himself from the jousts of Anglicans.  

He concludes:

The shelf of good books on Newman is small, but Father Roderick Strange’s John Henry Newman: A Portrait in Letters is a welcome addition to it. Those familiar with Newman and those unfamiliar with him will find it an altogether splendid read.

Read the entire review there.

With the volumes of letters now published, there could be a new Newman publishing industry, making the letters accessible by topic (even if there is no comprehensive index yet, as Short notes): like the book I read a couple of years ago on Newman's spiritual direction to friends and family, Edward Short's books on Newman--and I eagerly await the third--certainly belong on the shelf with Father Strange's book.

'the true life of a man is in his letters'

From Oxford University Press comes this new book about Blessed John Henry Newman:

John Henry Newman was one of the most eminent of Victorians and an intellectual pioneer for an age of doubt and unsettlement. His teaching transformed the Victorian Church of England, yet many still want to know more of Newman's personal life. Newman's printed correspondence runs to 32 volumes, and John Henry Newman: A Portrait in Letters offers a way through the maze.

Roderick Strange has chosen letters that illustrate not only the well-known aspects of Newman's personality, but also those in which elements that may be less familiar are on display. There are letters to family and friends, and also terse letters laced with anger and sarcasm. The portrait has not been airbrushed. This selection of letters presents a rounded picture, one in which readers will meet Newman as he really was and enjoy the pleasure of his company. As Newman himself noted, 'the true life of a man is in his letters'.

The Contents:

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
A Chronology of John Henry Newman
1. Early Years (1801-33)
2. The Oxford Movement (1833-39)
3. Under Siege (1839-43)
4. From Oxford to Rome (1843-46)
5. Early Catholic Years (1846-51)
6. The Pressure of Crises (1852-58)
7. Dark Days (1859-63)
8. The Apologia and the Oxford Mission (1863-65)
9. Answering Pusey and Anticipating the Vatican Council (1865-69)
10. Vatican I and Answering Gladstone (1870-76)
11. Honorary Fellow of Trinity and Cardinal (1876-81)
12. Final Year (1881-90)
Index of Correspondents

Amazon.com offers a generous preview and/or Kindle sample. 

Strange is an excellent interpreter of Newman's life and thought. Next to Father Ian Ker and Edward Short, he is one of the best. Several years ago, I read his Newman 101 published by Ave Maria Press and reviewed it for Amazon:

Over the years I have read many books about Newman: biographies, studies, monographs. I have read Newman's major works and many of his sermons. I have taught classes on Cardinal Newman. When I picked up this book to read as a review before attending a seminar at Christ Church at the University of Oxford, I really did not expect to learn anything new.

With that preface out of the way--this book truly impressed me. Father Strange reveals Newman's influence and impact on his life and vocation as a priest in so many wonderful ways, so that the book has a very appropriate "heart speaks to heart" quality (Cor ad cor loquitor/Heart Speaks to Heart was Newman's motto as Cardinal).

He provides an excellent overview of Cardinal Newman's life and his major efforts and works. The chapter on Marian Doctrine and Devotion, not always a theme expected in an introductory study of Newman, was truly revelatory. Newman's apologetic for the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, like his explanation of the First Vatican Council's declaration on Papal Infallibility, provides a clear defense of the Church's teachings while placing them in their proper context of the Divine Economy of Salvation.

Father Strange also enlightens when describing Newman's understanding of God's providence in his life (and in the lives of all Christians), the course of Newman's sermons at the Church of St. Mary the Virgin during the Oxford Movement, his efforts to help the laity, and to advance Christian unity.

The last two chapters are perhaps the most extraordinary: a comparison of St. Thomas More and Venerable John Henry Newman as a meditation on sanctity and canonization and an analysis of Newman's epic poem, "The Dream of Gerontius".

The title may indicate that this book is on an introductory level, it's true (in the U.K. the title was "John Henry Newman: A Mind Alive" which does not have such a college course catalog flavor about it). The writing is clear and accessible, but the richness of Father Strange's introduction goes far beyond just an acquaintance or chance meeting--it reveals friendship and understanding. Highly recommended to anyone wanting to know more about Venerable (soon to be Beatified) John Henry Newman.

480 Years Ago Today: St. Thomas More to his Daughter Meg

Thomas More wrote to his daughter Meg on June 3, 1535 describing the latest interrogation he'd been called to in the Tower of London. He had not been questioned about his response to the Succession and Supremacy since late April 1535 (he wrote to Meg on May 2). Cromwell and the others wanted him to reveal why he wouldn't swear the oaths:

To this it was said by my Lord Chancellor and Master Secretary both that the King might by his laws compel me to make a plain answer there­to, either the one way or the other. 

Whereunto I answered I would not dispute the King's authority, what his Highness might do in such case, but I said that verily under correction it seemed to me somewhat hard. For if it so were that my conscience gave me against the statutes (wherein how my mind giveth me I make no dec­laration), then I nothing doing nor nothing saying against the statute, it were a very hard thing to compel me to say either precisely with it against my conscience to the loss of my soul, or precisely against it to the destruc­tion of my body. 

Cromwell tried to compare More's conscience to the consciences of the heretics which More had investigated as Chancellor:

To this Master Secretary said that I had before this when I was Chan­cellor examined heretics and thieves and other malefactors and gave me a great praise above my deserving in that behalf. And he said that I then, as he thought and at the leastwise Bishops did use to examine heretics, whether they believed the Pope to be the head of the Church and used to compel them to make a precise answer thereto. And why should not then the King, since it is a law made here that his Grace is Head of the Church, here compel men to answer precisely to the law here as they did then concerning the Pope. 

I answered and said that I protested that I intended not to defend any part or stand in contention; but I said there was a difference between those two cases because at that time, as well here as elsewhere through the corps of Christendom, the Pope's power was recognized for an undoubted thing which seems not like a thing agreed in this realm and the contrary taken for truth in other realms. Whereunto Master Secretary answered that they were as well burned for the denying of that as they be beheaded for deny­ing of this, and therefore as good reason to compel them to make precise answer to the one as to the other. 

Whereto I answered that since in this case a man is not by a law of one realm so bound in his conscience, where there is a law of the whole corps of Christendom to the contrary in matter touching belief, as he is by a law of the whole corps though there hap to be made in some place a local law to the contrary, the reasonableness or the unreasonableness in binding a man to precise answer, standeth not in the respect or difference between beheading and burning, but because of the difference in charge of con­science, the difference standeth between beheading and hell. 

This is crucial to our understanding of More's integrity, as Richard Rex noted in his chapter in The Cambridge Companion to Thomas More: when More investigated charges of heresy, Rex notes, he referred to the egotism of the heretic, interpreting The Holy Bible idiosyncratically and ignoring the authority of the Church. He was acting upon his conscience as formed by the Church, not his own view and interpretation. The Acton Institute blog offers another summary of this distinction, commenting several years ago on The Last Letters of Thomas More edited by Father Alvaro De Silva:

Whereas modern doctrines of conscience characteristically emphasize the self-sufficiency of the individual’s judgment, More stresses its communal nature. More, to be sure, recognized the uniqueness of the individual conscience. More was, after all, imprisoned precisely because he could not, in good conscience, swear allegiance to Henry VIII’s oath. But in contrast to the modern claim that the individual can create his own moral values, More saw the “formation of conscience” as “the fruit” of an education “in the truth.” Far from being the arbitrator and creator of its own moral order, the human conscience is in need of conforming to the truth. For More, the formation of conscience is the result of a long process in which one discovers a preexisting created moral order. This was, in some sense, the issue in More’s dispute with Henry. Henry sought to substitute his own law for the “higher law of God and Christ’s Church.” Nothing underscores the profound differences between More’s and the modernist’s understanding of conscience more than this fact: Whereas modern thought views the individual’s conscience as being above all other authorities, More’s conscience testifies to the superiority of the church’s authority to his king’s. More’s refusal to take Henry’s oath was not an act of civil disobedience but, rather, of obedience to truth and thus, in his view, an act of “genuine liberty.”

More makes this point in a long, artful letter in which he relates to his daughter the story of “Company.” The letter opens with Margaret urging her father to take Henry’s oath in order to regain his freedom. More proceeds to tell her about Company, “an honest man from another quarter,” who cannot agree with the questionable verdict rendered by his fellow eleven jurors. Angered that Company is stubbornly getting in the way of their decision, the eleven urge him to be “Good Company” and agree with their verdict. Open to the possibility of correction, Company says that while he already has considered the matter, he would like the eleven “to talk upon the matter and tell him … reasons“ he should change his mind. After the jury declines his offer, Company decides to keep to his own company; otherwise, ”the passage of [his] poor soul would passeth all good company.“ As More reminds Margaret, he himself ”never intended (God being my good lord) to pin my soul to another man’s back … for I know not whether he may hap to carry it."

More would again explain his views on conscience when at trial on July 1, 1535.