TWO TREATISE S. I. ON THE HOLY SCRIPTURES. II. ON THE SACRAMENTS. BY JOHN JEWEL, SOMETIME BISHOP OF SALISBURY. OXFORD, JOHN HENRY PARKER: J. G. F. AND J. RIVINGTON: J. HATCHARD, LONDON: T. STEVENSON, CAMBRIDGE. MDCCCXL. PREFACE. THE TWO Treatises, which are here submitted to the reader, deserve greater attention than they have hitherto received. The very celebrity of Bp. Jewel's great immortal work has tended to throw into unmerited obscurity other portions of his labours, which, though of less European notoriety, yet exerted a wide and permanent influence upon that and the following generation. The Treatise on Holy Scripture and that on the Sacraments are characterized by all that vigour and clearness of thought, that copiousness of learned illustration, that true English strength and simplicity of language, which distinguish the other writings of the great Apologist of the Church of England. If neither can lay claim to great originality of design, this is nothing surprising in one, whose whole genius was directed not to novelty, but to the revival and enforcement of old and forgotten truths. The scope and tendency of all Bp. Jewel's writings was an appeal from novelty and corruption to the purity of earlier times, from the Church of Rome to the Church Catholic and Apostolic. And as this was the general design of his life, so the parti cular object of the following Treatises was to familiarize his people with the simple elements of primitive truth, and to make intelligible to all his flock the principle upon which the English Reformation was conducted, that is, the interpretation of Scripture by the consent universal of the Church. In the Treatise of the Holy Scriptures, for example, while he fully asserts the supremacy of the written word of God, yet he expressly acknowledges and teaches, "that the Fathers.... are interpreters of the word of God; that they were learned men and learned fathers, the instruments of the mercy of God, and vessels full of grace. . . . . that they were witnesses to the truth"." In the Treatise on the Sacraments, in like manner, his appeal is constantly made to the testimony of the "ancient learned Fathers." On the question of the number of the Sacraments, after quoting the judgment of St. Augustine and St. Ambrose, he says, 6 to these I might also join other ancient Fathers. Let no man then be offended with us for so doing; we do no new thing, but restore the ordinance of Christ, and keep the example of the holy Fathers"." Again, (on the subject of the Real Presence,) "That which I will utter herein shall not be of myself, but of the Fathers of the Church; not of those who have been of later years, but of the most a p. 42. b p. 119. |