Defence of the Apology of the Church of England
John Jewel's Defence emerged from the fierce theological battles of the early Elizabethan settlement, written as a direct response to Thomas Harding's comprehensive attack on Jewel's earlier Apology of the Church of England. When Harding, a former Protestant turned Catholic exile, published a detailed refutation of Anglican positions in 1564, Jewel found himself compelled to mount a systematic defense of the reformed English church's theological foundations and ecclesiastical legitimacy.
The Defence operates as both theological treatise and polemical masterwork, methodically answering Harding's objections while expanding and deepening the arguments of the original Apology. Jewel moves through contested doctrines with patristic learning and biblical exegesis, defending Protestant positions on scripture and tradition, justification, the nature of the church, and sacramental theology. His approach combines rigorous scholarship with pointed rhetoric, marshaling early church fathers against papal claims while demonstrating the continuity between primitive Christianity and Anglican reform. The work reveals Jewel's formidable command of patristic sources and his skill in wielding historical evidence as theological argument, particularly in his sustained critique of papal authority and defense of royal supremacy.
The Defence established itself as a cornerstone of Anglican apologetics, providing subsequent generations with both theological framework and argumentative strategy for defending the via media against both Roman and Puritan challenges. Its influence extended well beyond England, shaping Protestant polemic across Europe and serving as a model for reasoned theological controversy.
Who should read this: Scholars of Reformation theology and Anglican history will find essential material here, as will those interested in the development of Protestant apologetics. General readers seeking devotional material should look elsewhere, as this remains a work of technical theological controversy requiring substantial background in sixteenth-century ecclesiastical debates.