assessment, though Jewel’s apologetic may only look in one direction
explicitly, it nonetheless does assert the foundational principles so
vigorously assailed by the Puritans. In his contention for the right of
regional Churches to establish their own liturgies and ceremony, and by
his establishing the prince as the governor of the Church, Jewel implicitly
contains a rebuke to those Knoxians at Frankfurt. And while perhaps
not expressly in Jewel’s mind at the time (though given his sentiments in
theEpistolathis may be argued in the affirmative), it even censures those
Precisian contentions about vestments and the Presbyterian quibbles
about Church government. The troubles at Frankfurt had given Jewel a
taste of those English who were far more radical in their attempts at
reform than he was. Such sentiments, too seditious even in their mild
incarnation, had also existed even in Edward’s day as the case of bishop
Hooper and his refusal to wear episcopal garb illustrates. Jewel viewed
the Puritans not as seditious, but as disorderly, contentious about minor
issues when the substance, de re vero ipsa, should be emphasized.
Conversely, Rome contained those:
such as hold not the true religion, as it is taught by the word of God,
and hath been practiced in those churches which the apostles
planted, and among those Christians which lived nighest unto that
time when the apostles preached, because they know their religion
which they profess now will not agree with that, they deal
deceitfully and with guile.^108Jewel saw in the Puritan cavils a means whereby order could be
disturbed; in the Catholics he saw both the English order’s and true
religion’s overthrow.
Turning the polemical guns on the Presbyterians: Jewel in 1571
Before looking at Jewel in regard to the Presbyterians of England and
their emergence in 1571, it is necessary to look at his assessment of John
Knox and Christopher Goodman following the accession of Elizabeth.
As has been pointed out, Jewel understood the tenuous balance that
realms maintained in matters of religion. The difficulties regarding the
integration of Church and realm in France, especially as regards the
changing of religion – ‘Scio omnes in republica magnas mutationes
odiosas et graves esse’^109 – undoubtedly obtained of England as well.
Jewel’s interpretation of the Protestant commonwealth necessitated both
188 JOHN JEWEL AND THE ENGLISH NATIONAL CHURCH
(^108) Jewel,A Replie to Harding, in Works, II, p. 830.
(^109) ‘I know that great (religious) changes in a commonwealth are weighty and hateful.’
Jewel,Works, IV, p. 1246.
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