Spanish war with France. As noted, how matters had been handled in
1549 could well have steeled the Catholics for what they faced in 1559.
In Zurich no such obstructions to reforming piety had existed for
some years. The civil and ecclesiastical governments existed as a unity,
one that the clergy of the city seemingly happily endorsed.^8 Jewel also
accepted these Erastian premises, at least theoretically; the real question
is, could he live with them in the concrete reality of England? For many
of Jewel’s colleagues the answer was no, though Jewel never openly
contradicted them till 1571. The answer to this will be found by
examining Jewel’s program for reform, an agenda predicated upon his
peculiar vision of the Christian commonwealth, and then comparing this
with Jewel’s estimations of Zurich and his opinions of other foreign
Reformers as well. It will also entail a comparison of Jewel’s public
assessment of the religious state of affairs in England as expressed in his
public writings, letters and sermons, with that appraisal of England
voiced in his private letters with the Zurich Reformers. Only then can a
reconciliation of these dissonant points be made, based on an
understanding of Jewel’s ecclesio-political principles.
Jewel’s public disposition as the dutiful Protestant bishop
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.^9In the beginning of the Apologia Jewel imputed true religion with a
remnant character and an exile status; and that by nature those ignorant
of truth were her enemies. A difficult scenario emerges: on the one hand,
Jewel sees truth’s adherents as the persecuted minority with neither
patrianor domicile, while at the same time he seeks to place the Church
of England within the mainstream of Catholic orthodoxy reaching back
to the most ancient and apostolic Church. For Jewel, the enemies of truth
were those who sought to overthrow the Protestant order of England,
and thus in his polemical writings he concerned himself with the
perceived abuses and real threats advanced by the Church of Rome:
abuses with respect to ritual, doctrine and piety; threats such as sedition
158 JOHN JEWEL AND THE ENGLISH NATIONAL CHURCH
(^8) Pamela Biel, Doorkeepers at the House of Righteousness: Heinrich Bullinger and the
Zurich Clergy, 1535–1575(Bern: Peter Lang, 1991). See especially Chapter 1, ‘The
Doctrine of One Sphere’, pp. 12–43.
(^9) Jewel,An Apology, or Answer, in Defence of the Church of England, in Works, III, p.
- Lady Ann Bacon’s translation.