all penalties, and forfeitures, which his grace might otherwise be liable to, in dispensing with all these usual rites, to which Hooper had an objection. But as the archbishop could not comply with the king's request without violating the laws, and incurring a præmunire, so it was pushed no farther by his majesty, till Hooper had satisfied himself by consulting with Bucer and Peter Martyr, who told him, that, in the business of religious rites, they were for keeping as close as possible to the holy scriptures, and the most uncorrupt ages of the church: But, however, they could not go so far as to believe, that the substance of religion was affected by the clothes we wear; and they thought things of this nature altogether indifferent, and left to our liberty by the word of God. Hooper continued obstinate; and Martyr tells Bucer, in one of his letters, his business was now at that pass, that the best and most pious disapproved of it; and many were much provoked. Hooper afterwards died a martyr in the protestant cause, and more of this affair will be mentioned in the life of Peter Martyr. Martin Martin Bucer ended his life, at the age of sixty-one years, and was buried at St Mary's in Cambridge; several authors assigning sundry dates of his death. Crusius, part 3. annal. Suev. lib. 11. cap. 25. makes him to die in 1551, on the second of February. Sleidan on the 27th of February, 1551. Pantaleon, de Viris Illustribus Germaniæ, makes him expire about the end of April of the same year. Mr Fox, in his reformed Almanack, appoints the twenty-third of December, for Bucer's confessorship. A printed table, of the chancellors of Cambridge, set forth by doctor Perne, signe th March the tenth, 1550, for the day of his death. N or will the distinction of old and new stile, had it been in use, help to reconcile the difference. It seems, by all reports, that Bucer was incontestably dead in or about this time. Parsons, the Jesuit, tells us, that some believed he died a Jew; merely, perhaps, because he lived a good Hebræan, citing Surius, Genebrand, and Lindan, for this report. But it is certain, none of them were near him at his death, as Mr Bradford, and others were: Who, when they admonished him in his sickness, that he should arm himself against the assaults of the devil, answered," that he had nothing to do with the devil, be"cause he was wholly in CHRIST. God forbid, says "he, that I should not now have experience of the "sweet consolations of Christ.". He likewise said, "Cast me not off, O my God, in my old age, now "when my strength faileth me;" adding" He hath "afflicted me sore, but he will never cast me off." And when Mr Bradford came to him, and told him that he must die, he answered, "Ille, ille, regit, & moderatur " omnia ;" i. e. The Lord, the Lord alone rules and disposes all things; and so quietly yielded up his soul. He was a plain man in person and apparel, and therefore, at his own request, privately created doctor, without any solemnity; A skilful linguist, whom Vossius, a great critic, and of palate not to be pleased with a common gust, stileth, "Ter maximum Bucerum," a commendation which he justly deserved. Calvin, whose testimony is equal at least to any of Bucer's contemporaries, said of him, in a letter to Viretus, that he never thought of the loss which the church of God had felt in Bucer, but his heart was rent with sorrow.'-cor meum propè lacerari sentio. Bossuet says, that Bucer was a man pretty well learned, of a flexible spirit, and more fertile in distinctions, than the most refined scholastics A fine preacher, somewhat heavy in his style; but was respected for his stature, and the sound of 'his voice. He had been a Jacobin, and married as others did, and, as one may say, more than others; for his wife dying, he married a second and a third time. This is calm for a papist. Burnet says, that Bucer was inferior to none of all the reformers in learning; but superior to most of them in an excellent temper of mind, and great zeal for preserving the unity of the church -----a rare quality in that age, in which Melancthon and he were most eminent. He had not that • nimbleness of disputing, for which Peter Martyr was more admired; and the popish doctors took advantage from that to carry themselves more insolently towards him.' Bucer's writing was so very bad, that the printers and he himself could hardly read it: But Muscules read it easily, and copied it elegantly. He transcribed for him, among many other things, his exposition of the prophet Zephaniah, which is in print: In the beginning of this are his verses, and that whole Psalter, which he published under the name of Aretius. Felinus. Erasmus, Lipsius, and several other great authors, had the same defect as Bucer: and there were few learned men who could write so well as Musculus. There is nothing more absurd, than to impute to him as particular errors, that the body of Jesus Christ is pre sent in the eucharist, only in the act of receiving: That baptism does not procure salvation to children: And that there is no sin in not believing, that priests are not obliged to celibacy. The first of these propositions is the common doctrine of the Lutherans: The second and fourth are the common doctrine of all protestants. When I consider, says Calvin, with myself, what a ⚫ loss the church of God has suffered by the loss of this one man, I cannot but every now and then renew my grief. He would have done great service in England; and I hoped for something greater from his writings hereafter, than what he has hitherto published.' Cardinal Pole kept a visitation in Cambridge, by his power legatine, whereby the bones of Bucer and Fugius were burnt to ashes, and many superstitions established. This cardinal was of the blood royal, and obtained the see of Canterbury when Cranmer was martyred. He was at enmity with the pope; and the English clergy wished him at Rome again, because he was not willing to indulge queen Mary, and the persecuting prelates, in their cruelties against the protestants: For he was a modest, humble, good-natured, and learned man. However, the next year, Pole sent his Italian, friend Ormaneto, and several bishops, on a visitation to the university of Cambridge, of which he was chancellor in the room of Gardiner. The first thing which they did, was to put two churches under an interdict, because the bodies of Bucer and Fagius, two German heretics, were laid in them. They entered on a ridiculous process against the two dead bodies; of which sensible men, whose understanding was not devoured by their bigotry, must have been ashamed. The process being finished by the visitors, and a writ from the queen having been sent in consequence of their sentence, the bodies were taken out of their graves, tied to stakes with many of their books, and all the heretical writings they could find, and burnt all together. Beza composed some excellent verses in celebration of his memory, and the duke of Suffolk wrote his epitaph; both of which are in Melchior Adam, but require too much room for insertion. SEBASTIAN SEBASTIAN MUNSTER. SEBASTIAN MUNSTER, an eminent German divine, was born at Inghelheim, in the year 1489; and at the age of fourteen, was sent to Heidelberg to study. Two years after, he entered the convent of the Cordeliers, where he laboured assiduously; yet did not content himself with the studies relating to his profession, but applied himself also to mathematics and cosmography. He was the first who published a Chaldee grammar and lexicon, and gave the world, a short time after, a Talmudic Dictionary. He went afterwards to Basil, and succeeded Pellicanus, of whom he had learned Hebrew, in the professorship of that language. He was one of the first who attached himself to Luther; yet he seems to have done it with little or none of that zeal which distinguished the first Reformers; for he never concerned himself with their disputes, but shut himself up in his study, and busied himself in such pursuits as were most agreeable to his humour; and these were the Hebrew and other oriental languages, the mathematics, and natural philosophy, He published a great number of works on these subjects, of which the principal and most excellent is a Latin version from the Hebrew of all the books of the Old Testament, with learned notes, printed at Basil in 1534, and 1546. His version is thought much better, more faithful, and more exact, than those of Pagninus and Arias Montanus ; and his notes are generally approved, though he dwells a little long upon the explications of the rabbins. For this version he was called the German Esdras, as he was the German Strabo, for an universal cosmography, in six books, which he printed at Basil in 1550. Munster was a sweet tempered, pacific, studious, retired man, who wrote a great number of books, but never meddled in controversy: all which considered, his going early over to Luther, may justly seem somewhat extraordinary. He died of the plague at Basil in 1552, aged sixty-three years. CASPAR CASPAR HEDIO. THIS HIS truly excellent and learned man was born at Etling, in the marquisite of Baden, and educated at Friburg, where he took his master of arts degree; from thence he went to Basil, where he studied divinity, and commenced doctor about the year 1520. He was called from this last station to the principal church at Mentz, but some of his hearers, not liking his plain and close preaching, were easily induced by the enemies of the faith to persecute him. Upon this account, he left Mentz, and went to Strasburgh, in the year 1523; and there afforded, under God, great assistance to Capito and Bucer in the Reformation of religion, by the command of the senate: And there also he married in 1533. Gerbelius, a writer of that time, said of him in a letter to a friend, that Hedio's success in preaching the gospel was wonderful; and that he was of vast service to his colleagues, and to the cause of truth, not only by the solidity of his discourses, but also by the integrity and purity of his life. The papists there likewise greatly persecuted him, notwithstanding which, he preached and wrote boldly against masses, indulgences, auricular confession, and the other flagrant enormities of the church of Rome. In the year 1543, Herman, archbishop of Colen, set on foot a Reformation, and sent for Bucer and Hedio to assist him in it; as both these excellent men were remarkable for their popular way of preaching, and consequently most likely, through the divine blessing, to succeed in the instruction of the people: But being exceedingly persecuted, and at length driven away by the emperor and the Spaniards who were then at Borin, he escaped through many difficulties and dangers, and returned to Strasburgh. All the time he could spare from his ministerial employments, he spent in writing commentaries upon the holy scriptures, or in compiling histories. For the latter he was |