Jewel

Bishop John Jewel's "Apology for the Church of England." Pages xxxi.ff. Observe the criticism of the tendency of the Reformed hermeneutic--a razor without an ear to history, allegedly--versus the more cautious English Reformed hermeneutic. We will watch this closely as the posts emerge. Sola scriptura has limits. Solid Reformed men recognize that, to wit, the Bible is not a text on mathematics, art, music, architecture...that is not its aim. (There have been some helpful posts by Dr. Darryl Hart of Westminster Seminary, Philadelpia, and Dr. Scott Clark, Westminster Seminary, Escondido, CA, to this end.)

Jewel's work is free at:

http://books।google.com/books?id=l17TMgynV8IC&pg=PR31&dq=john+jewel&output=text#c_top
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"This `Treatise on tlw Scriptures,' together with the 'Apology', may be considered as a complete exemplification of the process to which, under God, our Church is beholden for her faith and constitution.

"It has been remarked already, that one grand principle—the sufficiency of the Scriptures for our guidance to all revealed truth—was the basis of the Reformation. All who disclaimed the tyranny and corruptions of Rome agreed in the recognition of this fundamental truth.

"Yet there has been much error prevalent respecting this important principle; and that error has given occasion to the abuse of the authority of the Reformers, and the precedent of the Reformation, for the defence of unchristian license under the mask of Christian liberty. The illustrious instruments of renewing the soiled face of the Christian Church have been represented as the patrons of self-opinionated dogmatism, and their example quoted for the countenance of such as, being ' wise in their own conceits', ' wrest the Scriptures to their own destruction.'

"It must be confessed that both the avowed tenets, and the practice, of many of the continental reformers have considerable tendency to sanction this dangerous extreme: but it is a proud distinction of the English branch of Protestantism that there it never was allowed a footing. The principles settled by the Church of England, and with hardly an exception acted on by those who expelled Popery from its bosom, as subordinate to the one fundamental truth already stated, were these :—

"1. The appeal to Scripture for an ultimata decision of all points essential to Christian faith and practice; and

"2. The revocation of all doctrine and discipline to the primitive pattern;—in other words, The appeal to antiquity and universal consent in the Church of Christ, for the interpretation of Scripture, and the constitution of the Church.

"Nothing can be more plain than the exhibition of both these principles in the works of Jewell now combined, when jointly viewed. The `Treatise' is, throughout, a strenuous assertion of the first; yet without a single proposition or argument militating against the second. The 'Apology' is one continued exemplification of the second, based upon, and allied in the closest combination with the first. In both, the whole aim of the Reformers is uniformly represented to be—not the gratification of a hankering for change— not the establishment of their own notions of the import of the Scriptures, and the outward form of Christian polity—but the removal of novelties and corruptions, return to the faith first delivered, and the ministry and ordinances first received, among the followers of Christ. Antiquity, Universality, and Consent are the standard by which the false interpretations put upon the Scriptures, and unwarranted additions foisted in their Canon, by the Church of Rome, are invariably meted and rejected. But on the other hand, the Sole Authority Of Scripture as the rule of faith, is maintained with equal consistency; and antiquity, universality, and consent, are only brought forward as evidences of its application, and only allowed authority when based upon its dictates. The worthlessness of all human authority, as definitive of points of faith, is proclaimed with uncompromising sternness. The sufficiency of private judgment to ascertain the truth from Scripture, by the aid of the consentient testimony of the early Church, and so to obtain the ultimate decision of the only acknowledged authority, is boldly asserted and consistently maintained.—In a word, ' the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free,' is used for the discovery and maintenance of 'the faith once delivered to the saints:' the ' form of sound words' which the first followers of the apostles ' heard of them, is sought in ' the pillar and ground of the truth.'

"In this respect—as examples of the principles on which the Church of England, and its offspring, the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States, are built, and have ever been maintained, and will stand as long as the Scriptures are held in Due reverence, and human weakness and presumption made to feel their proper limits—the `Apology' and `Treatise' of Jewell are invaluable. They are, perhaps, when combined, the most complete exhibition of those principles to be found among the writings of the original combatants in their behalf. They are, more than any other production of their day, and perhaps of any age, adapted to induce, both by admonition and example, " to be careful that, in our anxiety to avoid one extreme, we run not into the other by adopting the extravagant language of those who, not content with ascribing a paramount authority to the written Word on all points pertaining to eternal salvation, talk as if the Bible—and that, too, the Bible in our English translation—were, independently of all external aids and evidence, sufficient to prove its own genuineness and inspiration, and to be its own interpreter."'

1 Kay's Ecclesiastical History illustrated from Tertullian, p. 304. ed. 2d.