Apology.^84 But whatever the reason for his lack of further response
beyond his Replie unto M. Hardings Answer, in what Jewel did write he
asserted little by way of a positive creed or dogma, and is instead wholly
consumed by delineating what the ancient Church did not teach. Though
never overtly saying so, his main task is clearly not a defense of English
Protestant religion, but the denial that Roman dogma had any claim on
antiquity. Jewel’s failure to treat such topics as prayers for the dead, the
treasury of merit, the meritorious nature of good works and the
sacerdotal nature of the Christian ministry, betrays a tacit admission that
these traditionalist doctrines existed and were well defined within the
period he had marked, and that those several things he had slighted were
those things he could easily enough dismiss. Both Cole and Harding
made this point. That this did not stop them from playing by Jewel’s
rules does not say, however, that they believed that all that Jewel
attacked was either material or integral to traditionalist doctrine. What
it does say is that they were not going to allow Jewel to go unchallenged
in his assertions. Some have slighted Cole, Harding and others, who
responded to Jewel,^85 but it seems that given the nature of Reformation
polemics and the absolute claims proffered by either side, that to have
left anything uncontested would have been seen as conceding your
protagonist’s point.^86
Jewel produced not a single assertion of how the Fathers could be
used in a normative way, for the whole goal of his enterprise was to rid
the Fathers of any normative, authoritative consensus. He seldom
commented upon the Scriptures he proffered in light of Patristic
authority, and he never gave any precise interpretations to the writers
and points Harding made. Instead Jewel responded by way of
confutation, either to slight what Harding’s quotations asserted, or by
the use of syllogism and logic – and that at times shoddily employed – to
rob Harding’s authorities of the weight that he asserted they bore. Jewel
seemed less interested in argument and more interested in scoring
rhetorical points. In his very first letter in response to Jewel’s Challenge
Sermon, when Henry Cole maintained that the debate Jewel proffered
must proceed dialectice, and that learning and not words should govern
74 JOHN JEWEL AND THE ENGLISH NATIONAL CHURCH
(^84) See the biographical memoir in the Parker Society edition of Jewel’s Works, IV, pp.
xxvi–xxviii for a catalogue of Jewel’s works, extant and lost, and as well for a chronology
of the printed disputations between Jewel and Harding. This chronology is reproduced in
Appendix II.
(^85) F.J. Levy, Tudor Historical Thought(San Marino, 1967) pp. 107–9.
(^86) Jewel had put it ‘Now therefore, if it be leefull for these folks to be eloquent and fine-
tongued in speaking evil, surely it becometh not us in our cause, being so very good, to be
dumb in answering truly’. Apologia, in Works, III, p. 55.
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