William Jones (30 July 17266 January 1800), known as William Jones of Nayland, was a British clergyman and author. William Jones Graves

Life

He was born at

Lowick, Northamptonshire Lowick is a village and civil parish forming part of the district of North Northamptonshire, England, about north-west of Thrapston. It appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as ''Luhwik'', and later as ''Lofwyk'' and in 1167 as ''Luffewich''. ...

, but was descended from an old Welsh family. One of his ancestors was Colonel John Jones, brother-in-law of

Oliver Cromwell Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English statesman, politician and soldier, widely regarded as one of the most important figures in British history. He came to prominence during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, initially ...

. He was educated at

Charterhouse School Charterhouse is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) in Godalming, Surrey, England. Founded by Thomas Sutton in 1611 on the site of the old Carthusian monastery in Charter ...

and

University College, Oxford University College, formally The Master and Fellows of the College of the Great Hall of the University commonly called University College in the University of Oxford and colloquially referred to as "Univ", is a Colleges of the University of Oxf ...

. There a taste for music, as well as a similarity of character, led to his close intimacy with George Horne, later

bishop of Norwich The Bishop of Norwich is the Ordinary (Catholic Church), ordinary of the Church of England Anglican Diocese of Norwich, Diocese of Norwich in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers most of the county of Norfolk and part of Suffolk. Th ...

, whom he induced to study Hutchinsonian doctrines. After obtaining his bachelor's degree at University College, Oxford in 1749, Jones held various preferments (Vicar of Bethersden, Kent (1764); Rector of Pluckley, Kent (1765)). In 1777 he obtained the perpetual curacy of

Nayland Nayland is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Nayland-with-Wissington, in the Babergh District, Babergh district, in the county of Suffolk, England. It is in the River Stour, Suffolk, Stour Valley on the Suffolk side of t ...

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

, and on Horne's appointment to Norwich became his

chaplain A chaplain is, traditionally, a cleric (such as a minister, priest, pastor, rabbi, purohit, or imam), or a lay representative of a religious tradition, attached to a secular institution (such as a hospital, prison, military unit, intellige ...

, afterwards writing his life. His vicarage became the centre of a High Church ''coterie'', and Jones himself was a link between the non-jurors and the

Oxford Movement The Oxford Movement was a theological movement of high-church members of the Church of England which began in the 1830s and eventually developed into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose original devotees were mostly associated with the Un ...

. He could write intelligibly on abstruse topics.

Works

In 1756 Jones published his tract ''The Catholic Doctrine of a Trinity'', a statement of the doctrine from the Hutchinsonian point of view, with a summary of biblical proofs. This was followed in 1762 by an ''Essay on the First Principles of Natural Philosophy'', in which he maintained the theories of Hutchinson in opposition to those of

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton () was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment that followed ...

, and in 1781 he dealt with the same subject in ''Physiological Disquisitions''. Jones was also the originator of the ''

British Critic The ''British Critic: A New Review'' was a quarterly publication, established in 1793 as a conservative and high-church review journal riding the tide of British reaction against the French Revolution. The headquarters was in London. The journa ...

'' (May 1793). Eighteenth century high churchmen were more concerned with ecclesiology than with the sacraments. The status of Anglican ministry was crucial to high church ecclesiology. The ground of the Anglican ministry was trinitarian orthodoxy and this doctrine was reasserted by high churchmen against Arians, Deists and Socinians. Jones's "A Full Answer to the Essay on Spirit" (London 1753), co-authored with George Horne, responded to Robert Clayton's Arian work of three years earlier and sharpened the trinitarian controversy according to Jones himself. In the 1790s he and William Stevens launched the Society for the Reformation of Principles. Jones wrote loyalist tracts and argued that the French Revolution was a manifestation of the

Antichrist In Christian eschatology, Antichrist (or in broader eschatology, Anti-Messiah) refers to a kind of entity prophesied by the Bible to oppose Jesus in Christianity, Jesus Christ and falsely substitute themselves as a savior in Christ's place before ...

. His ideas were perpetuated after his death by successive reprints of his works and helped influence the 19th century conservative tradition in both Church and State. His collected works, with a life by William Stevens, appeared in 1801, in 12 vols., and were condensed into 6 vols in 1810. A life of Jones, forming pt. 5 of the ''Biography of English Divines'', was published in 1849. He published a hymn to the words of

John Milton John Milton (9 December 1608 – 8 November 1674) was an English poet, polemicist, and civil servant. His 1667 epic poem ''Paradise Lost'' was written in blank verse and included 12 books, written in a time of immense religious flux and politic ...

, the seventeenth century puritanical republican, 'The Lord will come and not be slow.'

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, William 1726 births 1800 deaths Alumni of University College, Oxford People educated at Charterhouse School English Anglicans Fellows of the Royal Society People from North Northamptonshire People from Nayland 18th-century Anglican theologians