The Apology of the Church of England eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 150 pages of information about The Apology of the Church of England.

The Apology of the Church of England eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 150 pages of information about The Apology of the Church of England.
was Vermigli) returned to Strasburg, and went thence to Zurich, where he died in 1562.  Jewel, repenting of his assent to the new sovereign’s authority in matters of religion, followed his friend Peter Martyr across the water, and became vice-master of a college at Strasburg.  Upon the accession of Elizabeth, in 1588, Jewel came back, and he was one of the sixteen Protestants appointed by the Queen to dispute before her with a like number of Catholics.

In 1559 John Jewel was appointed a commissioner for securing, in the West of England, conformity with the newly-arranged Church service, and he had to see that the Queen’s orders were obeyed in the churches of his native county.  Before the end of the same year he was consecrated Bishop of Salisbury.  He was most zealous in performance of all duties of his charge.  To his good offices young Richard Hooker owed his opportunity of training for the service of the Church.  Among Jewel’s writings, this Apology or Defence of the Church of England was the most important; but he worked incessantly, and shortened his life by limiting himself to four hours of sleep, taken between midnight and four in the morning.  Bishop Jewel died on the 21st of September, 1571, before he had reached the age of fifty.

H. M.

AN APOLOGY, OR ANSWER, IN DEFENCE OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND,

With a Brief and Plain Declaration of the True Religion Professed and Used in the Same.

PART I.

It hath been an old complaint, even from the first time of the patriarchs and Prophets, and confirmed by the writings and testimonies of every age, that the truth wandereth here and there as a stranger in the world, and doth readily find enemies and slanderers amongst those that know her not.  Albeit perchance this may seem unto some a thing hard to be believed, I mean to such as have scant well and narrowly taken heed thereunto, specially seeing all mankind of nature’s very motion without a teacher doth covet the truth of their own accord; and seeing our Saviour Christ Himself, when He was on earth, would be called the Truth, as by a name most fit to express all His Divine power; yet we, which have been exercised in the Holy Scriptures, and which have both read and seen what hath happened to all godly men commonly at all times; what to the Prophets, to the Apostles, to the holy martyrs, and what to Christ Himself; with what rebukes, revilings, and despites they were continually vexed whiles they here lived, and that only for the truth’s sake:  we, I say, do see that this is not only no new thing, or hard to be believed, but that it is a thing already received, and commonly used from age to age.  Nay, truly, this might seem much rather a marvel, and beyond all belief, if the devil, who is the father of lies, and enemy to all truth, would now upon a sudden change his nature, and hope

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The Apology of the Church of England from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.