of rite concerned him only as they touched on the issues of antiquity: was
the Roman rite the most ancient? Who invented the Canon of the Mass?
Were the Greeks – a pedigree as ancient as Rome’s – practitioners of
private Masses? Did the Greek liturgies differ in significant ways from
the Latin? Could all the accretions contained in the Roman Mass be
either found in or justified by the ancient Church? As early as the 1559
Challenge Sermon he used the Liturgy of St James in comparison to the
Mass. And when he cited them, Jewel used the Liturgies of St Basil and
St John Chrysostom to show that universal conformity in rite had never
existed.^60 That the English rite only contained elements of the primitive
forms was inconsequential, for ultimately a universally binding liturgy
did not exist: each dominion would have varying orders as region and
situation dictated.^61 This polemic against Rome also spoke to the
question of Puritanism. As noted in the discussion of the Challenge
Sermon and the Apologia, Jewel effected this doctrinal and ritual
minimalism by using the stratagem of abusus tollit usum: he cited
Erasmus, Augustine, Bernard of Clairvaux and Jerome as arguments
against monasticism. Jewel did so not to reform, but to destroy. Sloth,
impiety, worldliness were cited not merely to discredit, but to bolster
inter alia Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries.^62 Though his
polemical duplicity is apparent, it would be wrong to think that he does
not believe himself justified. On the one hand, less doctrine meant
greater inclusion within the English realm, and thus at least a modicum
of consensus among the Protestants. Incidentals were just that;
substantially, per Jewel’s persistent refrain, England was united behind
her queen. For Jewel, the greater the realm of nonessentials, the more
narrow the domain of positive theology; the greater the unilateral rule of
the prince, the more excluded the claims of some universal pontiff.
Jewel concurred with Flaccius, à Lasco, Guest, Humphrey and
Sampson, that the abuse destroyed the use; but Jewel denied that by this
argument the Precisians were vindicated in their contentions, for the
prince had privilege over questions that trumped conscience.^63 In this
regard Jewel was also being true to the memory of Martyr and the
A PRELATE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE 171
(^60) Jewel,Works, IV, pp. 887–88. Jewel had as well read Nicholas Cabasilas’s
Interpretation of the Divine Liturgy,and was also conversant with the liturgy of St James.
(^61) ‘In short, Jewel is not really interested in the eastern liturgies as forms of service, but
simply as useful allies in the battle against Roman claims.’ Cuming in Baker, Orthodox
Churches, p. 235.
(^62) Jewel,Works, IV, pp. 798–801.
(^63) As discussed above, this is Jewel’s basic argument to Harding in defending those in
the Church of England who refused to wear the surplice: it had been befouled by Roman
superstition,Works, III, 614–18. Doubtless Jewel would not grant the prince a prerogative
so vast that even evil could be called good, yet this can become easily a question of degrees,
as the seventeenth century would demonstrate.