The Apology of the Church of England, by John Jewel

Transcribed from the 1888 Cassell and Company edition by David Price, email [email protected]

THE APOLOGY OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

by
JOHN JEWEL,

Bishop of Salisbury.

CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited:
LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK & MELBOURNE.
1888.

INTRODUCTION.

The great interest of Jewel’s “Apology” lies in the fact that it was written in Latin to be read throughout Europe as the answer of the Reformed Church of England, at the beginning of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, to those who said that the Reformation set up a new Church.  Its argument was that the English Church Reformers were going back to the old Church, not setting up a new; and this Jewel proposed to show by looking back to the first centuries of Christianity.  Innovation was imputed; and an Apology originally meant a pleading to rebut an imputation.  So, even as late as 1796, there was a book called “An Apology for the Bible,” meaning its defence against those who questioned its authority.  This Latin book of Jewel’s, Apologia Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ—written in Latin because it was not addressed to England only—was first published in 1562, and translated into English by the mother of Francis Bacon, whose edition appeared in 1564.  That is the translation given in this volume.  The

book has since had six or seven other translators, but Lady Ann Bacon’s translation was that which presented it in Queen Elizabeth’s time to English readers, and it had the advantage of revision by the Queen’s Archbishop of Canterbury, her coadjutor in the establishment of the Reformed Church of England, Matthew Parker.  It was published, with no name of author or translator on the title-page, as “An Apologie or answere in defence of the Churche of Englande, with a briefe and plaine declaration of the true Religion professed or used in the same.”  The book was prefaced by a letter, “To the right honorable learned and vertuous Ladie, A. B.” [Ann Bacon] “M. C. wisheth from God grace, honoure, and felicitie,” where M. C. signifies Matthew Cantuar, Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, whom Lady Ann Bacon had made her judge, and whose judgment, the letter says, her book had singularly pleased.

Lady Ann Bacon was the second daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, who was tutor to King Edward VI.  Sir Anthony gave to his five daughters a most liberal education.  His eldest daughter, Mildred, married Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh, while Ann became the second wife of the Lord Keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon.  Their

father had made Mildred and Ann two of the most learned women in England.

John Jewel was forty years old when he wrote the “Apology.”  He was born in Devonshire in 1522, on the 24th of May, at the village of Buden, near Ilfracombe.  He studied at Oxford, where he became tutor and preacher, graduated as B.D. in 1551, and was presented to the rectory of Sunningwell.  At the accession of Queen Mary he bowed to the royal authority, but he was a warm friend and disciple of Peter Martyr, who had come to England in 1547, at the invitation of Edward VI., to take the chair of Divinity at Oxford.  On the accession of Queen Mary, Peter Martyr (who was born at Florence in 1500, and whose family name was Vermigli) returned to Strasburg, and went thence to Zurich, where he died in 1562.  Jewel, repenting of his assent to the new sovereign’s authority in matters of religion, followed his friend Peter Martyr across the water, and became vice-master of a college at Strasburg.  Upon the accession of Elizabeth, in 1588, Jewel came back, and he was one of the sixteen Protestants appointed by the Queen to dispute before her with a like number of Catholics.

In 1559 John Jewel was appointed a commissioner for securing, in the West of England,

conformity with the newly-arranged Church service, and he had to see that the Queen’s orders were obeyed in the churches of his native county.  Before the end of the same year he was consecrated Bishop of Salisbury.  He was most zealous in performance of all duties of his charge.  To his good offices young Richard Hooker owed his opportunity of training for the service of the Church.  Among Jewel’s writings, this Apology or Defence of the Church of England was the most important; but he worked incessantly, and shortened his life by limiting himself to four hours of sleep, taken between midnight and four in the morning.  Bishop Jewel died on the 21st of September, 1571, before he had reached the age of fifty.

H. M.

AN APOLOGY, OR ANSWER, IN DEFENCE OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND,

With a Brief and Plain Declaration of the True Religion Professed and Used in the Same.

PART I.

It hath been an old complaint, even from the first time of the patriarchs and Prophets, and confirmed by the writings and testimonies of every age, that the truth wandereth here and there as a stranger in the world, and doth readily find enemies and slanderers amongst those that know her not.  Albeit perchance this may seem unto some a thing hard to be believed, I mean to such as have scant well and narrowly taken heed thereunto, specially seeing all mankind of nature’s very motion without a teacher doth covet the truth of their own accord; and seeing our Saviour Christ Himself, when He was on earth, would be called the Truth, as by a name most fit to express all His Divine power; yet we, which have been exercised in the Holy Scriptures, and which have both read and seen what hath happened to all godly men

commonly at all times; what to the Prophets, to the Apostles, to the holy martyrs, and what to Christ Himself; with what rebukes, revilings, and despites they were continually vexed whiles they here lived, and that only for the truth’s sake: we, I say, do see that this is not only no new thing, or hard to be believed, but that it is a thing already received, and commonly used from age to age.  Nay, truly, this might seem much rather a marvel, and beyond all belief, if the devil, who is the father of lies, and enemy to all truth, would now upon a sudden change his nature, and hope that truth might otherwise be suppressed than by belying it; or that he would begin to establish his own kingdom by using now any other practices than the same which he hath ever used from the beginning.  For since any man’s remembrance we can scant find one time, either when religion did first grow, or when it was settled, or when it did afresh spring up again, wherein truth and innocency were not by all unworthy means, and most despitefully intreated.  Doubtless the devil well seeth, that so long as truth is in good safety, himself cannot be safe, nor yet maintain his own estate.

For, letting pass the ancient patriarchs and Prophets, who, as we have said, had no part of their life free from contumelies and slanders, we

know there were certain in times past which said and commonly preached, that the old ancient Jews (of whom we make no doubt but they were