Who was Martin Bucer?

Bucer was one of the Reformers. He was such a star on the continent, and he got invited over to Cambridge during the time of the young Edward VI, who was a godly young king in between Henry and Queen Mary. Under his reign, the Reformation flourished. So Bucer was invited over to Cambridge.

Another interesting thing about Bucer is that his wife married four times. She was widowed three times. He was the fourth husband to Wibrandis, so sometimes she’s called the bride of the Reformation.

Bucer was a brilliant scholar. But once he got to Cambridge, the water or something didn’t agree with him at all. He picked up parasites, which killed him after he was there for a few years. So he didn’t live as long as some of the Reformers. He didn’t leave behind as much of a corpus as other Reformers, but he was a very significant Reformer who was both on the continent and at Cambridge.

It was his preaching at Cambridge that was the most impactful. If you ever get to go to Cambridge, there’s the King’s College Chapel, which is towering. It’s where they do the Christmas Eve service. Everyone knows it. But the church you need to go to is the Church of St. Edward the Confessor. It’s so small and tucked away that it’s not even surrounded by a street. There is just a little walkway to get to it. That was the center of the Reformation. Thomas Bilney preached there, Ridley preached there, and Bucer preached there. It was his preaching that had a huge effect on the Cambridge students who then went out and took the Reformation with them.

This transcript is from a live Ask Ligonier event with Stephen Nichols and has been lightly edited for readability. To ask Ligonier a biblical or theological question, email ask@ligonier.org or message us on Facebook or Twitter.