Gary W. Jenkins - John Jewel And The English National Church The Dilemmas Of An Erastian Reformer

which I have wyshed before to be well remembered, that our

question is not, whether any priest then did receive alone, but

whether he might doe it laufullie, or no, that is our question.^33

Rastell also faulted Jewel for his poor use of words in his assertions that
nowhere in the first 600 years could be found in any old doctor or
church council that ‘Christes bodye ys reallye, substaniallie, corporallie,
carnaillie, or natrurallie in the Sacrament’. Rastell could offer his own
challenge with little fear of what it would mean for his theology, for
likewise

I think it would be very hard to find, in any writering, of old and
holy doctor within vjC yeares of Christ, all these wordes, that he
tokereall, subtantiall, corporall, carnall, et naturall flesh,of the
virgin marie, and yet they were instructed perfectlie, to beleve that
Christ toke owr verye flesh, and not a figure onlye therof, as the
Maniches did evill report.^34
Closely aligned with Jewel’s tergiversation on the precise limits of his
challenges was his equivocal use and misquoting of texts. Thomas
Dorman, Harding’s protégé, presented a clear case of this in which Jewel
had cited the Acta of a council at Carthage to the effect that only
Scripture could be read in the churches. Yet having made his point Jewel
completely ignored what immediately followed.

You know you have alleaged it, aswel in your sermon and privately,

as in your Apologie togeather with others to prove, that nothing

may be read in the Churche but Scriptures. And yet you coulde not

be ignorant, if ever you sawe the place in the original, that there

foloweth, immediatly, sub nomine divinarum Scriptarum, under the

name of divine scriptures: whiche wordes you cut of cleane, as you

concealed also the latter parte of the canon, where is an other

exception, directlie making against that for the which you alleaged

it, that is, that besides the scriptures, the Legendes of Passions of

martyrs may also be read, when their yearely Feastes are kept: which

thing you denie.^35

Rastell also censured Jewel in regard to his seeming careless use of
passages for his Protestant ends. For Rastell it was hardly a question of
Jewel being haphazard, as in his mind Jewel had deliberately twisted the
passage in question. Drawing on a particular passage in Jerome’s
Adversus Iovianium, Jewel had hoped to demonstrate that people ought
not to take the elements of the Eucharist and communicate at home, that

THE CATHOLIC REACTION TO JEWEL 131

(^33) John Rastell, A Replie against and Answere(Antwerp: Aegidius Diest, 1565), ff.
125b–26a.
(^34) John Rastell, Confutation of a Sermon(Antwerp: Aegidius Diest, 1564) ff. 139a–39b.
(^35) Thomas Dorman, B.D. A Request to M. Iewell(Louvian: John Fowler, 1567), ff.
3a–3b. Emphasis is Dorman’s.