Be honest, when you hear the name John Jebb, you don’t immediately picture an early nineteenth-century Irish Anglican bishop. I picture a guest star from The Dukes of Hazard (“Well, it looks like the boys have gotten in some trouble now, but hopefully old John Jebb can get them out …. ”). Even for Anglicans, Jebb is not a familiar name. His work does not garner a place on the curriculum in many seminaries, let alone inquirers’ classes in parishes. Yet his 1815 tract on the Peculiar Character of the Church of England gives arguably the most clear and succinct apologetic for Anglicanism ever written.
According to Jebb, what makes the Church of England different from all other Christian communions is her teaching that Christian doctrine is to be derived from Scripture first, but not alone:
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