[1] He was educated under his uncle John Bellamy, rector of Hampton, and other private tutors until his matriculation at Merton College, Oxford, in July 1535.

[2] There he was taught by John Parkhurst, afterwards bishop of Norwich; but on 19 August 1539 he was elected scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

[3][2] He made some mark as a teacher at Oxford, and became after 1547 one of the chief disciples of Pietro Martire Vermigli, known in England as Peter Martyr.

He graduated BD in 1552, and was made vicar of Sunningwell to the south of Oxford, and public orator of the university, in which capacity he had to compose a congratulatory epistle to Queen Mary on her accession.

He had on 26 November 1559, in a sermon at St Paul's Cross, challenged all comers to prove the Roman Catholic case out of the Scriptures, or the councils or Fathers of the first six hundred years after Christ.

[2] The "Great Controversy" that followed would give rise to sixty-four polemical exchanges and it set the tone and content of much subsequent debate between English Reformers and Roman Catholic writers.

Jewel continued to present the case for the Church of England from public pulpits, particularly Paul's Cross, in the year's following 'the Challenge sermon'.

[5][6] A translation of the Apologia ecclesiae Anglicanae into English by Anne Bacon to reach a wider audience and was a significant step in the intellectual justification of the Church of England.

A more formidable antagonist than Cole now entered the lists in the person of Thomas Harding, an Oxford contemporary whom Jewel had deprived of his prebend in Salisbury Cathedral for recusancy.

The arguments that had weaned him from the Puritan Zwinglian worldviews did not satisfy his some English nonconformists, and Jewel had to refuse admission to a benefice to his friend Lawrence Humphrey, who would not wear a surplice.

[2] He was consulted a good deal by the government on such questions as England's attitude towards the Council of Trent, and political considerations made him more and more hostile to Puritan demands with which he had previously clashed.

; John Strype's Works (General Index); Calendars of Domestic and Spanish State Papers; Dixon's and Frere's Church Histories; and Dictionary of National Biography (article by Bishop Creighton).

The houses are all named after famous Bishops of Salisbury: John Jewell (using alternative spelling), Martival, Osmund, Poore and Ward.

(I.10) In this way, the Apology serves to allow everyone to determine with themselves, whether that faith which they must needs perceive to be consonant to the words of Christ and the writings of the apostles, and the testimonies of the catholic fathers, and which is confirmed by the examples of many ages, be only the rage of a sort of madmen, and a combination or conspiracy of heretics.

(I.17) Answering accusations of heresy and "tumultuous defection," among others, Jewel attempts to establish the truth and legitimacy of the claims of not only the Church of England but the whole protestant reformation by arguing that there is continuity between the reformers and Scripture, the apostles (especially, Paul), the church fathers (i.e., Augustine, Tertullian, Ambrose, Jerome, etc.

[8] In tone and approach, this section is reminiscent of the Augsburg Confession, a 1530 document written primarily by Philip Melanchthon throughout which he had maintained a strong emphasis that the reforming movement was no new sect or cult and had added no new or heretical doctrines: "Our churches dissent in no article of the faith from the Church Catholic, but only omit some abuses which are new, and which have been erroneously accepted by the corruption of the times."

We say that man is born in sin and leadeth his life in sin, and that no man can truly say his heart is clean; that the most holy man is an unprofitable servant; that the law of God is perfect, and requires of us a full and perfect obedience; and that we cannot in any way keep it perfectly in this life; and that there is no mortal who can be justified in the sight of God by his own deserts; and therefore our only refuge and safety is in the mercy of God the Father, by Jesus Christ, and in the assuring ourselves that he is the propitiation for our sins, by whose blood all our stains are washed out; that he has pacified all things by the blood of his cross; that he by that only sacrifice which he once offered upon the cross, hath perfected all things; and therefore, when he breathed out his soul, he said, IT IS FINISHED; as if by these words he would signify, Now the price is paid for the sins of mankind.

(II.21) In this statement, we see continuities with the early Protestant reformers and sharp discontinuity with the late medieval Catholic theologians (e.g., Gabriel Biel, Robert Holcot) of the via moderna.

We can see evidence of Luther's totus homo anthropology and corollary view that the Christian is simul iustus et peccator.

This is apparent when Jewel begins using first-person pronouns and when he says that no one is able to obey the law in this life (i.e., before glorification, when man will become unable to sin).

Second, Jewel, like the early Protestants, maintains that man, because of original sin and his corrupt nature, possesses no soteriological resources.

But Jewel is no antinomian or abuser of Christian freedom, for a true and living faith "is not idle" but, as Paul says in Ephesians 2:10, is called unto good works.

Jewel defines sacraments as "the sacred signs and ceremonies which Christ commanded us to use, that he might by them represent to our eyes the mysteries of our salvation, and most strongly confirm the faith we have in his blood, and seal in our hearts his grace" (II.11).

Concerning the nature of the Eucharistic elements, the Apology is slightly vague, although its position seems to be somewhere between Luther's sacramental union and the Calvin's spiritual presence.