[Some people] stand this day against so many old fathers, so many doctors, so many examples of the primitive church, so manifest and so plain words of the holy scriptures; and yet have they herein not one father, not one doctor, not one allowed example of the primitive church, to make for them. Of all the words of holy scriptures, of all the examples of the primitive church, of all the old fathers, of all the ancient doctors, in these causes they have not one.

—John Jewel, Challenge Sermon 1558

John Jewel was one of the earliest and most effective apologists for the church of England. Jewel and the early Anglican reformers wanted to reform Christ’s one holy, catholic, and apostolic church, and return it to its historical and scriptural roots. They had no interest in throwing the baby out with the bath water. Hence, we must be very careful not to read too much into some of his anti-Catholic rhetoric. Jewel and the early Anglican apologists were not against Catholicism per se. Rather, they were against much of the practices that had developed within the church, practices they considered to have no basis in Scripture and that were antithetical to the primitive church.

In this excerpt above, Jewel is arguing against those who wanted to completely break from all the practices of Catholicism, something Jewel found unacceptable because it had no historical or scriptural basis. Tradition was important to the early Anglicans, but tradition that had its root in the early church, not that had developed in the last few centuries. This is one reason I love Anglicanism. It seeks to be consistent and true to Scripture and the early church. I think people who fail to consider tradition rob themselves of the richness of Christian worship and theology.