The Vocacyon of Johan Bale: Protestant Rhetoric and the Self

Abstract

John Bale’s Vocacyon was written in a great hurry at a critical point in his life.¹ Its place in this volume may be justified because it is a personal view of his own experience over a period of just about a year. It is in no sense a full account of his life, or a measured reflection upon an eventful past, since its main objective is to bring out a number of key points of Protestant belief, and it is focused upon the risks and exigencies of the present. Nor does it set out to be complete or comprehensive of all the things which happened to him in this eventful year. A polemical purpose underlies most of what is found in the work, which is why I have put the word ‘rhetoric’ in the title. The book is an attempt to declare a faith and to influence others. It would be ingenuous, however, to suppose that Bale confines himself to the fate of the individual Christian, for there are many aspects of what he recounts and of the way of presenting them which have a broader politico-religious dimension or motive. On the grounds of the way his self is constructed and in relation to the political milieu, we might indeed accept that Bale’s short autobiography is a ‘cultural product’.² Indeed, this self is developed so as to describe a situation and influence it.