Much admiration was likewise felt for Bullinger. We confess ourselves to be entirely yours, wrote to him the four Englishmen, 'as long as we can be our own.' The works of the Zurich doctor were much read in England, and diffused there the spirit of the Gospel. Nicolas Eliot wrote to him:--'And how great weight all persons attribute to your commentaries, how greedily they embrace and admire them (to pass over numberless other arguments), the booksellers are most ample witnesses whom by the sale of your writings alone, from being more destitute than Irus and Codrus, you see suddenly become as rich as Crœsus.[225] May God, therefore, give you the disposition to publish all your writings as speedily as possible, whereby you will not only fill the coffers of the booksellers, but will gain over very many souls to Christ, and adorn his church with most precious jewels.'[226] [Sidenote: WORKS OF BULLINGER.] At the news that the mighty king of England had separated from the pope, the Swiss theologians were filled with hope, and they vied with each other in speeding his progress towards the truth. Bullinger composed two works in Latin which he dedicated to Henry VIII.; the first of them on _The Authority, the Certitude, the Stability and the Absolute Perfection of Holy Scripture_; the second on _The Institution and the Function of Bishops_. He forwarded copies of these works to Partridge and Eliot for presentation to the king, to Cranmer, and to Cromwell. The two young Englishmen went first to the archbishop and delivered to him the volumes intended for the king and for himself. The archbishop consented to present the book to the prince, but not till after he had read it himself, and on condition that Eliot and Partridge should be present, that they might answer any questions asked by the king. Then going to Cromwell, they gave him the copy intended for him; and the viceregent, more prompt than the archbishop, showed it the same day to Henry VIII., to whom Cranmer then hastened to present his own copy. The king expressed a wish that the work should be translated into English. 'Your books are wonderfully well received,' wrote Eliot to Bullinger, 'not only by our king, but equally so by the lord Cromwell, who is keeper of the king's privy seal and vicar-general of the church of England.'[227]