Jewel

Bishop John Jewel's "Apology for the Church of England." Drawn from the preface, vi-x. Observe the reaction within and outside the Anglican Church. This is the theology of the framers of the XXXIX Articles. This should be required reading for college age classes in every Anglican Church worldwide. Obviously, if post-collegian Anglican haven't worked through it, get with it. If a rector or cleric, this should course through the veins. In this installment, we bring you a few pages.

Freely downloadable at:
।google.com/books?id=l17TMgynV8IC&pg=PR6&dq=john+jewel&output=text#c_top">http://books।google.com/books?id=l17TMgynV8IC&pg=PR6&dq=john+jewel&output=text#c_top
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"Few works possess stronger claims to regard than that which is now for the first time introduced to the American public. Apart from its intrinsic merits, it comes down to us from the golden age of the reformation, with the stamp of national sanction at the time of its publication, and recommended by the undivided suffrages of the learned and pious of every intervening age. It is the production of an individual, it is true ; but that individual confessedly pre-eminent for learning and eloquence in a learned age, and expressing, with mature deliberation, the avowed sense of all his brethren, under their revision, and with their unqualified approbation." It may, therefore, justly pretend to all the consideration due to the combined wisdom, learning, and piety of the Church of England in one of its brightest periods—the age of the compilers of the Book of Common Prayer,

"The Apology of the Church of England bears nearly the same relation to that Church, that is possessed, with regard to the Lutheran Church of Germany, by its Symbolical Books. Like the latter, the Apology is a statement of doctrine and discipline put forth for the purpose of refuting the calumnious misrepresentationsof the Romish Church. Like them, it is an explanation and defence of the avowed principles of the Communion of which it bears the name. Like them, it was formerly acknowledged as such by the whole body of that Communion. Like them, it was an object of bitter hostility to the enemies of reformation, and of warm defence by its supporters ; serving as a rallying point to those whose faith it imbodied forth, and a centre of union against the combined efforts of the adversaries of that faith. It is to the honour of the Church of England that the comparison does not hold good throughout, and that subscription to the Apology has never, like that to the Symbolical Books in Germany, been imposed upon her clergy as a condition of admission to their sacred office—notwithstanding that efforts for that purpose have been made.

"A person familiar with the publications, correspondence, and sermons of the first three years of the reign of Elizabeth, will readily perceive that Jewell, when writing the Apology, considered himself as merely the amanuensis of his brethren, and freely employed their arguments and statements. Several productions of the years 1558 and 1559 furnish portions of its argument ; in two, particularly, (the articles agreed on by the leading friends of reformation immediately after the accession of Elizabeth, and a sermon preached by Jewell himself at Paul's Cross, in 1559 or 1560") the whole train of thought is developed ; briefly and hastily, indeed, yet sufficiently at length to make it evident that they contain the first outlines of the larger work."

footnote b: Works, folio ed. p. 202, ss.—Gilpin, in his Life of Cranmer, p. 195 (quoted by Mr. Isaacson) says, I know not on what grounds, that "Bishop Jewell laid the plan of the Apology at Strasburgh, though he did not finish it till happier times." This statement, if correct, would perfectly explain the remarkable coincidence between the sermon and the Apology.

footnote: These circumstances by no means detract from the merits of Jewell's work. While they lessen its pretensions to originality, they enhance its claim to respect, as the result of the combined wisdom and learning of its day, merely culled and arranged by the • master hand whose name it bears.

"As such the Apology was openly recognised by those who were best acquainted with its origin and character. The biographers of Jewell, and after them, the historians of the reformation, unanimously represent him as having undertaken the work at the instigation of his fellow bishops; principally for the purpose of conveying correct impressions of the state of religion in England to foreigners," whom the Romanists used every artifice to deceive and prejudice against the newly renovated Church. For this reason it was necessary that it should be written in Latin, the universal language; and the celebrated purity of Jewell's Latin style was unquestionably one of the reasons tiiat led to his appointment. His work appears to have been perused in manuscript by several of the bishops, and among them by Archbishop Parker, and to have received their corrections, previously to its presentation to the Queen.d After having passed this ordeal, a fair transcript was submitted to the inspection of Elizabeth, and, receiving her hearty approbation, was at length committed to the press. Hence the work is repeatedly spoken of as published ' by authority,' or ' set out by the Queen's authority.'

footnote: " That thereby all foreign nations might understand the considerations and causes of your majesty's doings in behalf of the catholic faith" says Jewell, in his Dedication of the Defence of the Apology to Queen Elizabeth.

footnote: J. Mr. Isaaeson says that "the copy was sent to Secretary Cecil for his judgment, and the Queen's approbation, in 1561." Infe of Bishop Jewell, p. lvii.

"The first edition appeared toward the close of the year 1562, probably just before the meeting of the Convocation in January 1563, (then reckoned 1562;) and was almost immediately followed by an English translation, published by the direction of Archbishop Parker, if not made by him. Both were sedulously circulated, at home and abroad, and in a very short space of time, foreign editions of the original, and several translations into other languages, had made the work extensively known upon the continent.

"Abroad, it met with the most flattering reception. Being " made common to the most part of all Europe," Jewell writes to the queen, with justifiable pride, in his dedication of the Defence, "it hath been well allowed of and liked by the learned and godly, as is plain by their open testimonies touching the same."— The congratulatory letter of Peter Martyr to the author, prefixed to the Latin work, and for the firsttime given in an English dress in this edition,* may serve as a specimen of those testimonies.

"At home, its estimation was, if that might be, still higher. It was admired and praised by all the friends of the reformation, and received with silent dismay by the advocates of the ' old religion.' In the Convocation which met soon after the publication of the work, it was invariably regarded as a standard of faith, of little less authority than the Liturgy and Articles themselves. A schedule of business prepared, in anticipation, for the Convocation,' contains, among other matters, the proposition that the ' Apology of this Church, once again revised, and so augmented and corrected as occasion serveth,' be adjoined, in one book, to a Catechism and Articles, to be adopted; and that the whole be authorized, as containing true doctrine, and enjoined to be taught to youth : offences in speaking or writing against it to be punished as those against the Common Prayer. In another paper, relative to the same Convocation, supposed by Strvpe to be the production of Archbishop Parker's secretary, it is proposed to extract from the Apology articles for general assent.—When it is remembered that these propositions were brought before the Convocation in which the Catechism and Articles, as they now stand, were discussed and adopted; the high ground occupied by the Apology, as a standard of the Churchy comes clearly into view. We have reason to thank God that the wisdom of the leading men of that Convocation, under the guidance of His providence, overruled the disposition to exalt the work to a still higher place;for the results of such a measure would, in all probability, have been little less disastrous than the kindred proceedings of the Lutherans in Germany—at first. the fiercest controversy, and ultimately, total disregard of all ties of union in faith ; but we cannot lightly regard a work which there was at least a disposition among the framers of the Articles to place upon a level with the Articles themselves.

"It was not to be expected that a work of this nature, and of such pretensions, should be suffered to remain unanswered. In the tongue, indeed, which its author had chosen as the fittest vehicle for his plea, it met with no reply; although it is said that the Council of Trent considered it an object worthy of animadversion, and appointed two ecclesiastics, a Spaniard and an Italian, to prepare an answer. Some time, also, elapsed before the English Romanists gathered spirits to attack a production at once so learned and so eloquent, even in their own language—with all the advantage of writingin their mother tongue, and against a translation. At length, in 1564, one Dorman," a fellow of New College,TM Humphrey, Jewell's earliest and contemporary biographer, asserts this as matter of common fame :—" etiamsi omnium sermone tritum sit Synodum Tridentinum vidisse, et in eam acriter inquisivisse, et respondendi pensum Hispano cuidam et Italo jam olim demandasse." Keatly gives the same account, with the variation of substituting a Frenchman for the Spaniard; in which form also (I think) it is somewhere given by Jewell himself. This is all the authority I can find for the fact, of which I discover no vestiges in the histories of the Council of Trent by Fra Paolo, Pallavicini, and Le Courayeh ; although Strype and Collyer repeat the statement, but without adducing vouchers.