18 September 2015 A.D. Jewel’s “Apology”—bishop of Rome impugns morals of English Reformed Church, pp.67-68
18
September 2015 A.D. Jewel’s “Apology”—bishop
of Rome impugns morals of English Reformed Church, pp.67-68
Jewel, John. “The Apology of the
Church of England.” Project Gutenberg. 5
Aug 2006. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17678/17678-h/17678-h.htm. Accessed 1 Aug 2015.
Wherefore, when these
men saw they could not rightly find fault with our doctrine, they would needs
pick a quarrel and inveigh and rail against our manners, surmising, how that we
do condemn all well-doings: that we set open the door to all licentiousness and
lust, and lead away the people from all love of virtue. And in very deed,
the life of all men, even of the devoutest and most Christian, both is, and
evermore hath been, such as one may always find some lack, even in the very
best and purest conversation. And such is the inclination of all
creatures unto evil, and the readiness of all men to suspect that the things
which neither have been done, nor once meant to be done, yet may be easily both
heard and credited for true. And like as a small spot is soon espied in
the neatest and whitest garment, even so the least stain of dishonesty is
easily found out in the purest and sincerest life. Neither take we all
them which have at this day embraced the doctrine of the Gospel, to be angels,
and to live clearly without any mote or wrinkle; nor yet
think we these men either so blind, that if anything may be noted in us, they
are not able to perceive the same even through the least crevice: nor so
friendly, that they will construe aught to the best: nor yet so honest of
nature nor courteous, that they will look back upon themselves, and weigh our
fashions by their own. If so be we list to search this matter from the
bottom, we know in the very Apostles’ times there were Christians, through whom
the Name of the Lord was blasphemed and evil spoken of among the
Gentiles. Constantius the emperor bewaileth, as it is written in Sozomenus,
that many waxed worse after they had fallen to the religion of Christ.
And Cyprian, in a lamentable oration, setteth out the corrupt manners in his
time: “The wholesome discipline,” saith he, “which the Apostles left unto us,
hath idleness and long rest now utterly marred: everyone studied to increase
his livelihood; and clean forgetting either what they had done before whilst
they were under the Apostles, or what they ought continually to do, having
received the faith they earnestly laboured to make great their own wealth with
an unsatiable desire of covetousness. There is no devout religion,” saith
he, “in priests, no sound faith in ministers, no charity showed in good works,
no form of godliness in their conditions: men are become
effeminate, and women’s beauty is counterfeited.” And before his days,
said Tertullian, “O how wretched be we, which are called Christians at this
time! for we live as heathens under the Name of Christ.” And without
reciting of many more writers, Gregory Nazianzen speaketh thus of the pitiful
state of his own time: “We,” saith he, “are in hatred among the heathen for our
own vices’ sake; we are also become now a wonder, not only to angels and men,
but even to all the ungodly.” In this case was the Church of God, when
the Gospel first began to shine, and when the fury of tyrants was not as yet
cooled, nor the sword taken off from the Christians’ necks. Surely it is
no new thing that men be but men, although they be called by the name of
Christians.
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