Soto, Peter

, a contemporary of the preceding, but more connected with this country, was born at Cordova, and educated among the Dominicans of Salamanca. Having distinguished himself in the duties of the cloister, and made an eqiujl progress in learning, especially divinity and the sacred languages, he was called to court, and was successively confessor to the king of Spain, and to Charles V. of Germany, who employed him to write against the Lutherans. When Philip of Spain married our queen Mary, Soto was one of those Spanish divines who attended him to England, and settled at Oxford, where he was professor of divinity, and sometimes read a Hebrew lecture, as Wood supposes, for Dr. Bruerne, the Hebrew professor. This occurred in 1556; and, the year before, Soto had been | incorpora; ed D. D. in this university. After the death of queen Mary, he was called to the council of Trent, where be died in April 1563. He published “Institutiones Chris, tiana?,” 1548, and some other works of the controversial kind against John Brentius, or Brent. Dodd says he was a zealous assertor of church discipline, as appears by a letter which he wrote to pope Pius IV. in his last sickness, in which he insists that the residence of bishops should be declared dejure divino. ¹