JUDGMENT OF MARTIN BUCER, CONCERNING DIVORCE:

WRITTEN TO EDWARD THE SIXTH, IN HIS SECOND BOOK OF THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST; AND NOW ENGLISHED. WHEREIN A LATE BOOK, RESTORIng the "doctrine and discipline of divorce," 18 HERE CONFIRMED AND JUstified by the authority of

MARTIN BUCER.

TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND.

John iii. 10. "Art thou a teacher of Israel, and knowest not these things?"

PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY.

TESTIMONIES OF THE HIGH APPROBATION WHICH LEARNED France, and England. Whence the saying of Quin

Jacobus Verheiden of Grave, in his elogies of famous dom and authority, religious lords and commons !

fore having reduced his model of reformation to fourteen heads, he bestows almost as much time about this one point of divorce, as about all the rest; which also was the judgment of his heirs and learned friends in Germany, best acquainted with his meaning; who first published this his book by Oporinus at Basil, (a city for learning and constancy in the true faith honourable among the first,) added a special note in the title, " that there the reader should find the doctrine of divorce handled so solidly, and so fully, as scarce the like in any writer of that age:" and with this particular com

of England, he sincerely wished in the hearing of many devout men, "that what he had in his last book written to King Edward concerning discipline might have place in this kingdom. His hope was then, that no calamity, no confusion, or deformity would happen to the commonwealth; but otherwise he feared, lest in the midst of all this ardency to know God, yet by the neglect of discipline, our good endeavours would not succeed."* These remarkable words of so godly and so eminent a man at his death, as they are related by a sufficient and wellknown witness, who heard them, and inserted by Thu-mendation they doubted not to dedicate the book, as a anus into his grave and serious history; so ought they most profitable and exquisite discourse, to Christian to be chiefly considered by that nation, for whose sake the IIId, a worthy and pious king of Denmark, as the they were uttered, and more especially by that general author himself had done before to our Edward the council, which represents the body of that nation. If VIth. Yet did not Bucer in that volume only declare therefore the book, or this part thereof, for necessary what his constant opinion was herein, but also in his causes, be now revived and recommended to the use of comment upon Matthew, written at Strasburgh divers this undisciplined age; it hence appears, that these years before, he treats distinctly and copiously the reasons have not erred in the choice of a fit patronage same argument in three several places; touches it also for a discourse of such importance. But why the upon the 7th to the Romans, and promises the same whole tractate is not here brought entire, but this mat- solution more largely upon the first to the Corinthians, ter of divorcement selected in particular, to prevent the omitting no occasion to weed out this last and deepest full speed of some misinterpreter, I hasten to disclose. mischief of the canon law, sown into the opinions of First, it will be soon manifest to them who know what modern men, against the laws and practice hoth of wise men should know, that the constitution and re- God's chosen people, and the best primitive times. formation of a commonwealth, if Ezra and Nehemiah | Wherein his faithfulness and powerful evidence predid not misreform, is, like a building, to begin orderly vailed so far with all the church of Strasburgh, that from the foundation thereof, which is marriage and the they published this doctrine of divorce as an article of family, to set right first whatever is amiss therein. How their confession, after they had taught so eight and can there else grow up a race of warrantable men, while twenty years, through all those times, when that city the house and home that breeds them is troubled and flourished, and excelled most, both in religion, learndisquieted under a bondage not of God's constraining, ing, and government, under those first restorers of with a natureless constraint, (if his most righteous judg- the gospel there, Zelius, Hedio, Capito, Fagius, and ments may be our rule,) but laid upon us imperiously those who incomparably then governed the commonin the worst and weakest ages of knowledge, by a ca- wealth, Farrerus and Sturmius. If therefore God in nonical tyranny of stupid and malicious monks? who the former age found out a servant, and by whom he having rashly vowed themselves to a single life, which had converted and reformed many a city, by him they could not undergo, invented new fetters to throw thought good to restore the most needful doctrine of on matrimony, that the world thereby waxing more divorce from rigorous and harmful mistakes on the dissolute, they also in a general looseness might sin right hand; it can be no strange thing, if in this age with more favour. Next, there being yet among many he stir up by whatsoever means whom it pleases him, such a strange iniquity and perverseness against all to take in hand and maintain the same assertion. necessary divorce, while they will needs expound the Certainly if it be in man's discerning to sever proviwords of our Saviour, not duly by comparing other dence from chance, I could allege many instances, places, as they must do in the resolving of a hundred wherein there would appear cause to esteem of me no other scriptures, but by persisting deafly in the abrupt other than a passive instrument under some power and and papistical way of a literal apprehension against counsel higher and better than can be human, working the direct analogy of sense, reason, law, and gospel; to a general good in the whole course of this matter. it therefore may well seem more than time, to apply For that I owe no light, or leading received from any the sound and holy persuasions of this apostolic man to man in the discovery of this truth, what time I first that part in us, which is not yet fully dispossessed of undertook it in " the Doctrine and Discipline of Dian errour as absurd, as most that we deplore in our vorce," and had only the infallible grounds of Scripture blindest adversaries; and to let his authority and un- to be my guide; he who tries the inmost heart, and answerable reasons be vulgarly known, that either his saw with what severe industry and examination of name, or the force of his doctrine, may work a whole- myself I set down every period, will be my witness. some effect. Lastly, I find it clear to be the author's When I had almost finished the first edition, I chanced intention, that this point of divorcement should be held to read in the notes of Hugo Grotius upon the 5th of and received as a most necessary and prime part of Matthew, whom I straight understood inclining to discipline in every Christian government. And there- reasonable terms in this controversy and something

Nicol. Car. de obitu Buceri.

that there is some difference in the handling, in the order, and the number of arguments, but still agreeing in the same conclusion. So as I may justly gratulate mine own mind with due acknowledgment of assistance from above, which led me, not as a learner, but as a collateral teacher, to a sympathy of judgment with no less a man than Martin Bucer. And he, if our things here below arrive him where he is, does not repent him to see that point of knowledge, which he first and with an unchecked freedom preached to those more knowing times of England, now found so neces

he whispered rather than disputed about the law of | writer, I had laboured out, and laid together. Not but charity, and the true end of wedlock. Glad therefore of such an able assistant, however at much distance, I resolved at length to put off into this wild and calumnious world. For God, it seems, intended to prove me, whether I durst alone take up a rightful cause against a world of disesteem, and found I durst. My name I did not publish, as not willing it should sway the reader either for me or against me. But when I was told that the style, which what it ails to be so soon distinguishable I cannot tell, was known by most men, and that some of the clergy began to inveigh and exclaim on what I was credibly informed they had not read; Isary, though what he admonished were lost out of our took it then for my proper season, both to shew them a name that could easily contemn such an indiscreet kind of censure, and to reinforce the question with a more accurate diligence: that if any of them would be so good as to leave railing, and to let us hear so much of his learning and christian wisdom, as will be strictly demanded of him in his answering to this problem, care was had he should not spend his preparations against a nameless pamphlet. By this time I had learned that Paulus Fagius, one of the chief divines in Germany, sent for by Frederic the Palatine, to reform his dominion, and after that invited hither in King Edward's days, to be a professor of divinity in Cambridge, was of the same opinion touching divorce, which these men so lavishly traduced in me. What I found, I inserted where fittest place was, thinking sure they would respect so grave an author, at least to the moderating of their odious inferences. And having now perfected a second edition, I referred the judging thereof to your high and impartial sentence, honoured lords and commons! For I was confident, if any thing generous, any thing noble, and above the multitude, were left yet in the spirit of England; it could be no where sooner found, and no where sooner understood, than in that house of justice and true liberty, where ye sit in council. Nor doth the event hitherto, for some reasons which I shall not here deliver, fail me of what I conceived so highly. Nevertheless, being far otherwise dealt with by some, of whose profession and supposed knowledge I had better hope, and esteemed the deviser of a new and pernicious paradox; I felt no difference within me from that peace and firmness of mind, which is of nearest kin to patience and contentment: both for that I knew I had divulged a truth linked inseparably with the most fundamental rules of Christianity, to stand or fall together, and was not uninformed, that divers learned and judicious men testified their daily approbation of the book. Yet at length it hath pleased God, who had already given me satisfaction in myself, to afford me now a means whereby I may be fully justified also in the eyes of men. When the book had been now the second time set forth well-nigh three months, as I best remember, I then first came to hear that Martin Bucer had written much concerning divorce: whom, earnestly turning over, I soon perceived, but not without amazement, in the same opinion, confirmed with the same reasons which in that published book, without the help or imitation of any precedent

memory; yet that God doth now again create the same doctrine in another unwritten table, and raises it up immediately out of his pure oracle to the convincement of a perverse age, eager in the reformation of names and ceremonies, but in realities as traditional and as ignorant as their forefathers. I would ask now the foremost of my profound accusers, whether they dare affirm that to be licentious, new, and dangerous, which Martin Bucer so often and so urgently avouched to be most lawful, most necessary, and most christian, without the least blemish to his good name, among all the worthy men of that age, and since, who testify so highly of him? If they dare, they must then set up an arrogance of their own against all those churches and saints who honoured him without this exception: if they dare not, how can they now make that licentious doctrine in another, which was never blamed or confuted in Bucer, or in Fagius? The truth is, there will be due to them for this their unadvised rashness the best donative that can be given them; I mean, a round reproof; now that where they thought to be most magisterial, they have displayed their own want, both of reading, and of judgment. First, to be so unacquainted in the writings of Bucer, which are so obvious and so useful in their own faculty; next, to be so caught in a prejudicating weakness, as to condemn that for lewd, which (whether they knew or not) these elect servants of Christ commended for lawful; and for new, that which was taught by these almost the first and greatest authors of reformation, who were never taxed for so teaching; and dedicated without scruple to a royal pair of the first reforming kings in christendom, and confessed in the public confession of a most orthodoxical church and state in Germany. This is also another fault which I must tell them; that they have stood now almost this whole year clamouring afar off, while the book hath been twice printed, twice brought up, and never once vouchsafed a friendly conference with the author, who would be glad and thankful to be shown an errour, either by private dispute, or public answer, and could retract, as well as wise men before him; might also be worth the gaining, as one who heretofore hath done good service to the church by their own confession. Or if he be obstinate, their confutation would have rendered him without excuse, and reclaimed others of no mean parts, who incline to his opinion. But now their work is more than doubled; and how they will hold up their heads against the

sudden aspect of these two great and reverend saints, | from mighty sufferings aspires to be the example of all whom they have defamed, how they will make good christendom to a perfectest reforming. Dare to be as the censuring of that, for a novelty of licence, which great, as ample, and as eminent in the fair progress of Bucer constantly taught to be a pure and holy law of your noble designs, as the full and goodly stature of Christ's kingdom, let them advise. For against these truth and excellence itself; as unlimited by petty premy adversaries, who, before the examining of a pro- cedents and copies, as your unquestionable calling from pounded truth in a fit time of reformation, have had the Heaven gives ye power to be. What are all our public conscience to oppose naught else but their blind re- immunities and privileges worth, and how shall it be proaches and surmises, that a single innocence might judged, that we fight for them with minds worthy to not be oppressed and overborn by a crew of mouths, enjoy them, if we suffer ourselves in the mean while for the restoring of a law and doctrine falsely and un- not to understand the most important freedom, that learnedly reputed new and scandalous; God, that I God and nature hath given us in the family; which may ever magnify and record this his goodness, hath no wise nation ever wanted, till the popery and superunexpectedly raised up as it were from the dead more stition of some former ages attempted to remove and than one famous light of the first reformation, to bear alter divine and most prudent laws for human and witness with me, and to do me honour in that very most imprudent canons: whereby good men in the thing, wherein these men thought to have blotted me; best portion of their lives, and in that ordinance of God and hath given them the proof of a capacity, which they which entitles them from the beginning to most just despised, running equal, and authentic with some of and requisite contentments, are compelled to civil intheir chiefest masters unthought of, and in a point of dignities, which by the law of Moses bad men were not sagest moment. However, if we know at all when to compelled to? Be not bound about, and straitened in ascribe the occurrences of this life to the work of a the spacious wisdom of your free spirits, by the scanty special Providence, as nothing is more usual in the and unadequate and inconsistent principles of such as talk of good men, what can be more like to a special condemn others for adhering to traditions, and are themProvidence of God, than in the first reformation of selves the prostrate worshippers of custom; and of England, that this question of divorce, as a main thing such a tradition as they can deduce from no antiquity, to be restored to just freedom, was written, and seri- but from the rudest and thickest barbarism of antiously commended to Edward the VIth, by a man called christian times. But why do I anticipate the more acfrom another country to be the instructor of our na- ceptable and prevailing voice of learned Bucer himself, tion; and now in this present renewing of the church the pastor of nations? And O that I could set him livand commonwealth, which we pray may be more ing before ye in that doctrinal chair, where once the lasting, that the same question should be again treated learnedest of England thought it no disparagement to and presented to this parliament, by one enabled to sit at his feet! He would be such a pilot, and such a use the same reasons without the least sight or know- father to ye, as ye would soon find the difference of his ledge of what was done before? It were no trespass, hand and skill upon the helm of reformation. Nor do lords and commons! though something of less note I forget that faithful associate of his labours, Paulus were attributed to the ordering of a heavenly power; Fagius; for these their great names and merits, how this question therefore of such prime concernment both precious soever, God hath now joined with me necesto christian and civil welfare, in such an extraordinary sarily, in the good or evil report of this doctrine, which manner, not recovered, but plainly twice born to these I leave with you. It was written to a religious king latter ages, as from a divine hand I tender to your ac- of this land; written earnestly as a main matter whereceptance, and most considerate thoughts. Think not in this kingdom needed a reform, if it purposed to be that God raised up in vain a man of greatest authority the kingdom of Christ: written by him, who if any, in the church, to tell a trivial and licentious tale in the since the days of Luther, merits to be counted the aposears of that good prince, and to bequeath it as his last tle of the church: whose unwearied pains and watchwill and testament, nay rather as the testament and ing for our sakes, as they spent him quickly here among royal law of Christ, to this nation; or that it should of us, so did they, during the shortness of his life, increitself, after so many years, as it were in a new field dibly promote the gospel throughout this realm. The where it was never sown, grow up again as a vicious authority, the learning, the godliness of this man conplant in the mind of another, who had spoke honestest sulted with, is able to outbalance all that the lightness things to the nation; though he knew not that what his of a vulgar opposition can bring to counterpoise. I youth then reasoned without a pattern had been heard leave him also as my complete surety and testimonial, already, and well allowed from the gravity and worth if truth be not the best witness to itself, that what I of Martin Bucer: till meeting with the envy of men formerly presented to your reading on this subject, ignorant in their own undertaken calling, God directed was good, and just, and honest, not licentious. Not him to the forgotten writings of this faithful evange- that I have now more confidence by the addition of list, to be his defence and warrant against the gross these great authors to my party: for what I wrote imputation of broaching licence. Ye are now in the was not my opinion, but my knowledge; even then glorious way to high virtue, and matchless deeds, trust- when I could trace no footstep in the way I went: ed with a most inestimable trust, the asserting of our nor that I think to win upon your apprehensions with just liberties. Ye have a nation that expects now, and numbers and with names, rather than with reasons;

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