To the right honourable▪ and his syng• good lord, Thomas Lord Wentworth, prosperous health, and perpetual fell: city. (⸫)To the right honorable▪ and his syng• good lord, Thomas Lord Wentworth, prosperous health, and perpetual fel: citye. (⸫)

To the right honourable▪ and his syng• good lord, Thomas Lord Wentworth, prosperous health, and perpetual fell: city. (⸫)

To the right honorable▪ and his syng• good lord, Thomas Lord Wentworth, prosperous health, and perpetual fel: citye. (⸫)

NOT without immortal praise, & everlasting renown are the acts and monuments of learned men, commended to posterity. For if life without literature is (as Seneca saith) a death or sepulture of the lively man, & the body (as Plato witnesseth) no body, but a sepulture, cohibiting the mind from his natural vigour: how much excelleth he (right honourable and my singular good Lord) in this frail estate, who with studies of humanity garnished, & with divine knowledge adorned, hath not only enriched his natural understanding: but also made the same almost equivalent to Angels, comprehending the glorious mysteries of the eternal Father, and his ⟨image 3⟩Son Jesus Christ. Among these, how much Martin Luther excelled, his holy works & profane monuments, besides the learned testimonies of many famous Clerks, abundantly declare. Reading therefore of late time, the history of his Life and Acts, set forth by the incomparable ornament of good learning Phillip Melanchthon: I was therein marvellously delighted, & eftsoons perusing the same. I was ravished with incredible desire to bestow sometime in the translation thereof. Many urgent causes moved me, whereof y• principal be these. First, his integrity of life, godly conversation, & zealous affection towards the propagation of Gods holy word. Secondly, his animosity professing Christ his Master, his learned conference with the temporal & Ecclesiastical Estates of Germany, & his contempt of all worldly felicity & transitory pomp, in respect of Christ his Master, whom he purely professed, and sincerely preached. Lastly, y• lamentable verses, & funeral Orations of divers, bewailing the loss of this pearl of Christianity, & the traduction