preached at Sunningwell have survived, though he left a record of his
thoughts at this time apart from that implied by his association with
Parkhurst and Martyr. Although slight in comparison with his later
polemical treatises, sermons and letters, Jewel’s written work from his
time at Oxford – a sermon, three orations, three letters and a short poem
- speak to the course of his life, and give insight into the events which
occurred upon the accession of Mary. Most importantly, they
demonstrate Jewel’s theological and ideological bent as a student. In this
regard, as their contents comprehend certain characteristics and methods
to be found in Jewel’s later polemical writings, they betray an emerging
idiom.
Of the extant pieces the most important is a sermon delivered, in
Latin, at the university Church of St Mary the Virgin, associated by
Humphrey with Jewel’s reception of his Bachelor of Divinity degree,
given sometime in the reign of Edward VI, though the exact date is
uncertain.^83 Jewel had the happy convenience that the Lectionary’s
appointed epistle for the day was I Peter 4.11, Si quis loquitur, tanquam
sermones Dei(If any man speak, let him talk as the words of God). He
used the occasion to accentuate certain Reformation emphases touching
the place of the sermon in worship and preaching in the vocation of the
minister (pastor and never sacerdos). Necessarily integral to this
preaching is the Word of God, indeed foundational for Jewel. The
sermon proceeds fairly tamely, never really transgressing decorum, as
Jewel touches on themes that any reforming monastic may have
employed, though his Protestantism seems always to hide just below the
surface of his words: ministers should preach often, they should do so
from Scripture, gravity and modesty should be their protocol. He then
reaches a specific point, tacitly Protestant in its intent:
26 JOHN JEWEL AND THE ENGLISH NATIONAL CHURCH
since he had preached at both Paul’s Cross and before court, and as the content of some,
especially the sermon on the Sacraments, is replete with arguments found elsewhere in
Jewel, even employing the same quotations, this seems likely. Cf. Mary Ellen Rickey and
Thomas B. Stroup, Certaine Sermons or Homilies, facsimile reproduction (Gainesville, FL,
1968), pp. vii, and especially Sec. II. 123–42 ‘Of Common Prayer and the Sacraments’.
(^83) ‘A Learned and Godly Sermon, made in the Latin tongue, in St Mary’s, in Oxford,
upon the Sunday after the Ascension, in the reign of King Edward the Sixth.’ Works, II, pp.
949–64. The date is either 1550, the date of his graduation with his BD as given by
Anthony à Wood in Athenae oxonienses: an exact history of all the writers and bishops
who have had their education in the most ancient and famous university of Oxford, from
the fifteenth year of King Henry the seventh, Dom. 1500, to the end of the year 1690 ...
to which are added, the Fasti or annals, of the said university, for the same time(London:
Printed for Tho. Bennet, 1691–92), 1813–20, and Fasti Oxoniensis, Vol II, cols. 130–31,
or, according to Humphrey, who while stating that this sermon was given upon the event
of Jewel’s graduation, places it in the fifth year of Edward VI’s reign, 1551, Vita Iuelli, p.
- The sermon as reprinted in Works, is taken from Humphrey, pp. 49–66.