as the Book of Martyrs for a truth relates, Vol. 3. p. 770. the faid Doctor Pern fmiting himself on the Breast, and in manner weeping, wifht with all his heart, that God would grant his Soul might then presently depart, and remain with Bucer's; for he knew his Life was such, that if any man's Soul were worthy of Heaven, he thought Bucers in special to be most worthy. Hiftor. de Combuft. Buceri, et Fagii.

Acworth the University-Orator.

Soon after that Queen Elizabeth came to the Crown, this Condemnation of Bucer and Fagius by the Cardinal and his Doctors, was folemnly repeal'd by the University; and the Memory of those two famous Men celebrated in an Oration by Acworth the Univerfity-Orator, which is yet extant in the Book of Martyrs, Vol. 3. p. 773. and in Latin, Scripta Anglic. p. 936.

Nicolas Carre, a learned Man; Walter Haddon, Master of the Requests to Queen Elizabeth; Matthew Parker, afterwards Primate of England, with other eminent Men, in their funeral Orations and Sermons, express abundantly how great a Man Martin Bucer was; what an incredible lofs England suftain'd in his Death; and that with him dy'd the hope of a perfet Reformation for that Age. Ibid.

Jacobus Verheiden of Grave, in his Elogies of
famous Divines.

Though the Name of Martin Luther be famous, yet thou, Martin Bucer, for Piety, Learning, Labour, Care, Vigilance, and Writing, art not to be held inferior to Luther. Bucer was a fingular inftrument of God, fo was Luther. By the Death of this most learned and moft faithful Man, the Church of Christ sustain❜d a heavy lofs, as Calvin witneffeth; and they

who are ftudious of Calvin, are not ignorant how much he ascribes to Bucer; for thus he writes in a Letter to Viretus: What a manifold lofs befel the Church of God in the Death of Bucer, as oft as I call to mind, I feel my heart almost rent asunder.

Peter Martyr Epift. to Conradus Hubertus. He is dead, who hath overcome in many Battels of the Lord. God lent us for a time this our Father, and our Teacher, never enough prais'd. Death hath divided me from a moft unanimous Friend, one truly according to mine own heart. My Mind is overpreft with Grief, infomuch that I have not power to write more. I bid thee in Chrift farewel, and wish thou maist be able to bear the lofs of Bucer, better then I can bear it.

Testimonies giv'n by learned Men to Paulus Fagius, who held the fame Opinion with Martin Bucer concerning Divorce.

Paulus Fagius, born in the Palatinate, became most skilful in the Hebrew Tongue. Being call'd to the Ministery at Ifna, he publifht many ancient and profitable Hebrew Books, being aided in the expences by a Senator of that City, as Origen fometime was by a certain rich man call'd Ambrofius. At length invited to Strasburgh, he there famously discharg'd the Office of a Teacher; until the fame Perfecution drove him and Bucer into England, where he was preferr❜d to a Profeffors place in Cambridge, and foon after died. Beza Icones.

Melchior Adamus writes his Life among the famous German Divines.

Sleidan and Thuanus mention him with honour in their History. And Verheiden in his Elogies.

To the PARLAMENT.

HE Book, which among other great and high Points of Reformation, contains as a principal part thereof, this Treatise here

prefented, Supreme Court of Parlament, was by the famous Author Martin Bucer, dedicated to Edward the fixt: whofe incomparable Youth doubtless had brought forth to the Church of England fuch a glorious Manhood, had his life reacht it, as would have left in the affairs of Religion, nothing without an excellent pattern for us now to follow. But fince the secret purpose of divine Appointment hath referv'd no lefs perhaps then the just half of fuch a facred Work to be accomplisht in this Age, and principally, as we truft, by your fuccesful Wifdom and Authority, religious Lords and Commons, what wonder if I feek no other, to whose exactest judgment and review I may commend these last and worthieft Labours of this renowned Teacher? whom living, all the pious Nobility of thofe reforming Times, your truest and best imitated Ancestors, reverenc'd and admir'd. Nor was he wanting to a recompence as great as was himself; when both at many times before, and especially among his laft Sighs and Prayers testifying his dear and fatherly affection to the Church and Realm of England, he fincerely wifht in the hearing of many devout Men, that what he had in this his laft Book written to King Edward concerning Difcipline, might have place in this Kingdom. His hope was

then, that no calamity, no confufion, or deformity would happen to the Common-wealth; but otherwife he fear'd, left in the midst of all this ardency to know God, yet by the neglect of Difcipline, our good Endeavours would not fucceed. Thefe remarkable words of fo godly and fo eminent a Man at his death, as they are related by a fufficient and well-known witnes, who heard them, and inserted by Thuanus into his grave and serious History; fo ought they to be chiefly confider'd by that Nation for whofe fake they were utter'd, and more especially by that general Council which represents the Body of that Nation. If therfore the Book or this part therof, for neceffary causes, be now reviv'd and recommended to the use of this undisciplin'd Age; it hence appears, that these Reafons have not err'd in the choice of a fit Patronage for a discourse of such importance. But why the whole Tractat is not here brought entire, but this matter of Divorcement felected in particular, to prevent the full speed of fome mif-interpreter, I haften to disclose. First, it will be soon manifeft to them who know what wife men fhould know, that the constitution and reformation of a Common-wealth, if Ezra and Nehemiah did not mif-reform, is, like a building, to begin orderly from the foundation therof, which is Marriage and the Family, to fet right firft what ever is amifs therein. How can there els grow up a Race of warrantable Men, while the house and home that breeds them, is troubl❜d and disquieted under a bondage not of God's conftraining with a natureles constraint (if his moft righteous judgments may be our rule) but laid upon us imperiously in the worst and weakest Ages of Knowledg, by a canonical tyranny of ftupid and malicious Monks : who having rafhly vow'd themselves to a single life,

*Nicol. Car, de obitu Buceri.

which they could not undergo, invented new fetters to throw on Matrimony, that the World thereby waxing more diffolute, they also in a general loofnes might fin with more favour. Next, there being yet among many, such a strange iniquity and perverfnes against all neceffary Divorce, while they will needs expound the words of our Saviour not duly by comparing other places, as they must do in the refolving of a hunder'd other Scriptures, but by perfifting deafly in the abrupt and Papistical way of a literal apprehenfion against the direct Analogy of Senfe, Reason, Law and Gofpel; it therfore may well feem more then time to apply the found and holy Persuasions of this Apoftolic Man, to that part in us, which is not yet fully difpoffeft of an error as abfurd, as moft that we deplore in our blindest Adverfaries; and to let his Autority and unanswerable Reasons be vulgarly known, that either his Name, or the force of his Doctrine may work a wholfome effect. Lastly, I find it clear to be the Author's intention, that this point of Divorcement fhould be held and receiv'd as a most neceffary and prime part of Difcipline in every Christian Government. And therfore having reduc'd his model of Reformation to 14 Heads, he bestows almost as much time about this one point of Divorce, as about all the reft; which alfo was the judgment of his Heirs and learned Friends in Germany, best acquainted with his meaning; who first publishing this his Book by Oporinus at Bafil (a City for Learning and Conftancy in the true Faith, honorable among the first) added a special note in the title, that there the Reader should find the Doctrine of Divorce handl'd fo folidly, and fo fully, as fcars the like in a Writer of that Age: and with this particular commendation they doubted not to dedicate the Book, as a most profitable and exquifit Difcours, to Chriftian the 3d, a worthy and pious King of Denmark, as the