John Jewel and the English National Church: The Dilemmas of an Erastian Reformer

John Jewel cuts an ambiguous figure among Elizabethan clerics. Hailed as the ‘father of Anglicanism’, Jewel privately criticised the English Church. Like many Marian exiles, he criticised the Elizabethan settlement, preferring instead the Churches of Zurich and Geneva. Jewel, however, was to become the leading apologist of the Church he described as ‘a leaden mean’. In his biography, Gary W. Jenkins attempts to reconcile these apparent contradictions. He admits that ‘John Jewel incarnates a Janus figure’, one part conforming, one part looking wistfully towards Zurich; however, Jenkins also boldly claims that ‘Jewel in fact agreed with what occurred in 1559 as much as he adhered to theology …of Zurich: to Jewel the Elizabethan settlement made no virtue of necessity’. Jenkins's argument, drawn from Jewel's letters, sermons and apologies, is that Jewel's rise within the English Church (he became bishop of Salisbury) required no intellectual compromise. Instead, Jenkins argues, Jewel developed a model of the English Church which allowed him to argue that it was as valid as its counterpart in Zurich. Of course, John Jewel was not the only cleric to find the Elizabethan Church wanting, after his experience of Swiss Protestantism. Jenkins shows that Jewel continued to lament the slow progress of reform in England; lamenting to Peter Martyr, his friend and mentor in Zurich, ‘Zurich! Zurich! How much more often do I think of you than ever I thought of England in Zurich’. In England, Jewel remained close to outspoken critics of the Elizabethan church, most notably Lawrence Humphrey. Like Humphrey, Jewel disliked the clerical robes which Elizabeth insisted upon, dismissing them as ‘relics of the Amorites’. Yet, he wore them, and demanded that Humphrey wear them too, refusing to admit him to a living in Salisbury until he conformed on the matter. Jenkins argues that Jewel's strict conformity reflected an ecclesiology drawn from his experience in Zurich. As such, Jewel's thought offers an insight into the thinking of that amorphous group, the ‘moderate’ Puritans of Elizabeth's Church. It may be that they, like Jewel, found good intellectual reasons for their conformity, and did not always regard it as a compromise of principles. Jenkins claims that in 1559, ‘Jewel had already arranged his thought along a Zurich/English axis’, drawing on early sermons to argue that Jewel's conformity was the consequence of his theology, not vice versa. That theology was largely derivative: he told Martyr that he intended that the English Church ‘would not depart the slightest degree from the confession of Zurich’. But it did. Jewel tried to reconcile the Churches’ differences by limiting the essentials of the Reformed faith to the bare minimum. He argued that little consensus had existed among the Church fathers; that regional churches had always differed; and he expanded the category of adiaphora (matters which had no effect on salvation) to include clerical dress. On these practices Elizabeth was to be the arbitrator, and on these she must be obeyed. Jewel's first defences were aimed at Catholic opposition—the famous Challenge sermon of 1559 and following apologetics. But this model was subsequently used against Presbyterian and godly criticisms. Jenkins argues that Jewel's Erastianism was imported from Zurich, where city fathers governed the Church. But England was not a city state; and Elizabeth I was no councillor. While making a convincing case for Jewel's ability to find continuity between the Zurich and English experiences, Jenkins fails to explore the limits of Jewel's Erastianism. Jewel bitterly regretted conforming under Mary and went into exile, as in his eyes even the powers of Protestant monarchs were limited by ‘the Word of God’. As a counterbalance to Elizabeth's extensive powers, Jewel and his colleagues returned repeatedly to this idea; using it to navigate their way in the half-reformed English church. A discussion of this would have been most welcome. Jenkins claims that Jewel's ‘real significance’, however, was not his churchmanship but his legacy: a legacy explored in the final chapter. Jewel's apologies were purchased by parish churches across England, and his significance in moulding the identity of the English Church is demonstrated by the appropriation of Jewel by both Laud and his opponents, and later by opponents of the Tractarians. Jewel, it seemed, really was the ‘father of Anglicanism’, or at least the myth of Anglicanism. This biography suggests that Jewel's intellectual legacy, rather than his churchmanship, had the greatest impact on the continuing English Reformation. Jenkins concludes that Jewel's ‘rhetoric outstripped his dogmatics’, yet argues that it was the dogma within his rhetoric which outlived him.