Faith & Spirit Quote by John Jewel

Jewel’s sentence is doing institutional work. Written by a leading English Protestant bishop in the churn after Henry VIII’s break with Rome and under Elizabeth I’s still-fragile settlement, it frames Scripture not as decorative piety but as an all-purpose authority engine: counsel for the present, a map of God’s character, a moral curriculum, and a courtroom for human behavior.

The phrase “sad and grave counsel” is a deliberate tonal claim. Jewel is staking the Bible’s credibility on seriousness, not spectacle. In an age when opponents could caricature reformers as reckless iconoclasts, “sad” signals sober-mindedness: Scripture is not a hype machine; it is the ballast that keeps doctrine from drifting into fashion or clerical whim.

The list structure matters. It cascades from knowledge (“the knowledge of God”) to practice (“examples of virtues”) to discipline (“correction of vices”), then stretches time itself (“the end of this life… the life to come”). That movement is the subtext: the Word governs every register of existence, from what you believe to how you behave to how you die. It quietly sidelines rival sources of religious authority - inherited custom, clerical pronouncements, even sacramental systems - by presenting Scripture as complete and self-sufficient.

There’s also a pastoral stick-and-carrot embedded here. “Examples” flatters the reader with models to imitate; “correction” warns that the same text will indict you. The final turn to eternity supplies the pressure that makes the argument work: if the stakes are ultimate, then the book that narrates them must be obeyed now.