Author: Geoffrey Holt, S.J. (editor)
Title: Catholic Record Society: The Letter Book of Lewis Sabran, S.J. (Rector of St. Omers College) October 1713 to October 1715, Volume 62
Description: London, Catholic Record Society, 1971. First Edition. Hardcover. Blue cloth. xix, 340p. A clean and tight book in very good condition. The Catholic Record Society (Registered Charity No. 313529), "the premier Catholic historical society in the United Kingdom", founded in 1904, is a scholarly society devoted to the study of Reformation and post-Reformation Catholicism in England and Wales. Particularly active members in its early years were Joseph Gillow, J. H. Pollen, and Joseph S. Hansom. The society was initially established as a text publication society, with the aim of publishing Catholic historical records. Only later did it become a more general historical society. It has been credited with making much otherwise obscure archival material more readily available. This book contains the letters of Lewis Sabran. Louis de Sabran or Lewis Sabran (1 March 1652-22 January 1732) was a French Jesuit. He was associated with the court of James II of England and engaged in vigorous theological debates with both Anglican and Puritan spokesmen. In 1687 he was made the royal chaplain to James II. A sermon he preached to the king on August 28 of that year on the invocation of saints led to a pamphlet war with William Gee, a Puritan. He also entered into a controversy with William Sherlock, the Anglican theologian and Dean of St. Paul's. He was the assumed author of Dr. Sherlock Sifted from his Bran and Chaff in 1687, which Sherlock answered. Sabran answered the reply with An Answer to Dr. Sherlock's Preservative and then Dr. Sherlock's Preservative Considered in 1688. That same year he was made the chaplain to the infant Prince of Wales. When the Glorious Revolution began, Sabran was responsible for getting the prince out of the country. They headed for Portsmouth, but he was then ordered to return to London before being allowed to escape. He disguised himself as an attendant to a group of Polish nobles but was discovered by a crowd and beaten and imprisoned. He was freed from prison, however, by order of the king. Sherlock coincidentally issued a reply to Sabran as the revolution was starting, entitled A Vindication: an Answer to the Cavils of Lewis Sabran. After returning to France, Sabran was elected to be sent to Rome, Italy to the Vatican by the council of Watten in 1693. He was appointed visitator of the Neapolitan Jesuits, and represented his province at Rome in the congregation of 1693, when the case of Father González was discussed. In 1699, the Prince-Bishop of Liège made him the president of the seminary there to answer charges of Jansenism among the faculty. The bishop had to enforce order with soldiers. Once the crisis was passed, Father Sabran's rule was successful, and he remained there until 1704. In 1708/09, he was made provincial superior. He then wrote to Father Metcalfe, a Jesuit in the north, about the progress of Jansenism, but his letter was intercepted, and was declared by some to portend that he intended to gain possession of the University of Douai, as he had done that of Liège. A long-drawn and somewhat bitter controversy ensued. From 1712 to 1715 he was the headmaster of St. Omer, where he maintained a devotion to St. Melangell. In 1717 he was made the spiritual father of the English College in Rome. He died in Rome in 1732. .

Keywords: Anglo-Catholic, British, English, anti-Catholicism


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