which he entitles The Church Porch, a series of gnomic quatrains on the conduct to be expected of a Christian gentleman. While so many of the Puritan preachers and lecturers in Herbert's day were delectating their flocks with curious points of doctrine, "reasoning high,” like Milton's philosophical devils "Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate— with the result, to quote Milton again, that "their hungry sheep looked up and were not fed, but swollen with wind, rotted inwardly,"* Herbert tasks himself to apply to the particular faults of his own class a particular remedy. Sager and more appealing dissuasions from the sins of the flesh, sounder and more generous counsels on the conduct of life were surely never penned. What could be better than this? "Art thou a Magistrate? then be severe ; If studious, copy fair what time hath blurr'd, Throughout the world. Fool not; for all may have, If they dare try, a glorious life or grave." I could wish that The Church Porch were printed separately and given to every boy in our public schools; it would advantage him more than hearing sermons. At any rate, The Church Porch is among the best witnesses to the reasonable and practical spirit—the eneikeiα and σωφροσύνη-characteristic of our communion. I will call but one more witness-George Herbert's "dear and deserving brother," Nicholas Ferrar, who, the The Italian ambassador of the day observed that "the common people of England were wiser than the wisest of his nation, for here the very women and shopkeepers were able to judge of predestination." As a natural consequence we have many testimonies to the decay of morals. NICHOLAS FERRAR 429 son of a merchant, and himself enjoying a wide reputation for skill in the management of affairs, took deacon's orders at the age of thirty-four, and retired with his mother and a large family of kinsfolk to the manor house of Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire, in order to live a life of prayer, contemplation, and alms-deeds. He had been allowed his degree at Cambridge before the statutory age in recognition of his mature scholarship, and had given special attention to Church history. Afterwards he travelled through Germany, Italy and Spain, studying everywhere the customs of the Churches, and the effect of the customs upon life and manners; and he came back to England with clear convictions upon two points: first, that the soul of the Church was the worship of God, and that worship in England had been almost extinguished by controversy; secondly, that the Roman Mass did not, as its defenders alleged,* tend to real worship, but, on the contrary, was in its tendency even anti-Christian. His brother records a saying of his about the Roman Mass, that if it were celebrated in his house he would pull down the room in which it had been said and build it up again. Nevertheless Ferrar did not escape the charge of Popery; it was enough that he lived in a religious community, "an Arminian nunnery,” as it was called. On the other hand, he was also taunted with Puritanism from the temperate mode of life practised at Gidding, so much at variance with the lavishness of the day, which reduced many old families to poverty. A very interesting letter has been preserved from a Mr. Lenton of Gray's Inn, who, like many other curious observers of the day, paid Gidding a visit, in which he Cardinal Newman, in Loss and Gain, revived this specious plea, contending that Anglican worship was only invocation of God, whereas Roman worship was an evocation; but if God is a Spirit, why should a substantial presence be more worshipped than a spiritual presence? gives a full description of the chapel and the service there. We learn that the holy table was not placed altarwise; that the prayer-desk was made of the same height as the pulpit, in order that prayer might not be degraded below preaching in the estimation of the worshippers, as it too commonly was in those days;-Walton tells us that George Herbert made the same arrangement in the church he restored at Leighton;-and that the chapel was "fairly and sweetly adorned with herbs and flowers, and with tapers on every pillar." On the communion table stood "some plate, as a chalice, and candlesticks with wax candles." What most impressed the visitor was Ferrar's reverence in the church. "At the entering thereof he made a low obeisance; a few paces further a lower; coming to the half-pace (which was at the east end, where the table stood) he bowed to the ground, if not prostrated himself," giving afterwards as a reason that “God was more immediately present while we were worshipping Him in the Temple." Ferrar's view of the peculiar position and tenets of the Church of England is indicated in the report preserved by his brother of the farewell discourse he addressed to the household at Gidding upon his deathbed: "Sunday [Nov. 5, 1637] he received the Communion which Mr. Groose administered, and before it made a most solemn and comfortable confession of his faith according to the Church of England, acknowledging his salvation to depend Mr. Shorthouse, who in his delightful romance of John Inglesant follows Lenton's letter closely, does not notice this detail; I should say he is justified in ignoring it, because the position of the table would have no controversial bearing. The point argued between the Roman and Anglican Churches at the time was not as to the fact of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, but as to its nature, whether commemorative or repeated and substantial. The east window, with the picture of the crucifixion, which is made to play a part in influencing Inglesant, is imaginary. The only painted glass in the church was a representation of the royal arms. NICHOLAS FERRAR 431 only upon the sweet and infinite mercies and sufferings of his most dear Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, excluding all other dependencies, saying, 'when all men had done all they could, they must wholly acknowledge and confess themselves most unworthy servants.' So with great desire and devotion he received the Blessed Sacrament with much joy; and during all his sickness his speech tended to nothing but exhortations to love, fear, and serve God, as the only comfort and happiness of this world and [?] to the better. He often would exhort the family that 'they should steadfastly and constantly adhere to the doctrine of the Church of England, and to continue in the good old way, and in those they have been taught out of the Word of God, and in what he had accordingly informed them of, for it was the true, right, good way to heaven; that they should find oppositions and means used by those that they did not expect it from to withdraw them, to hinder, to divert them. But,' said he, 'I forewarn you to be constant, to be steadfast in the good old way. You will find danger and trouble, but shrink not, rely upon God, and serve Him in sincerity of devotion, both in souls and bodies; God will have both, He made both, and both must worship Him in reverence and fear. He is a great Lord God, as full of mercy, so of majesty. I am now going before Him, to give an account of what I have said to you and instructed you in. I again say, what I have taught you is according to His good will and heavenly Word, and out of it. Be you steadfast, and of good cheer; if you continue to serve Him, He will be your shield and defence to preserve you.' May the words of the dying Ferrar find an echo in the hearts of all English Churchmen to-day! * MAYOR'S Ferrar, p. 97. XIV. The Roman Controversy By W. E. COLLINS, M.A. THE HE Roman controversy occupies a place which is shared by no other controversy whatever. It is always with us, and forces itself upon our notice from time to time whether we will or not. It is to be found in every part of the world where Romanism exists and is not in power. None are safe from it: the pretensions of the Roman See are no less destructive to the Eastern Churches than to those of the West. Its special claims and its methods are equally obnoxious to the Anglican Church and the Church of Constantinople; or, as they are sometimes described by the Roman authorities, the Anglican heresy and the Photian schism. And the scholars of the Halke at Constantinoplet are as carefully trained to meet the attacks of Roman controversialists as are those of Trinity College Dublin. Nor is this by any means a phenomenon of recent days only. Even in the Middle Ages the exaggerated claims of the Roman Church had begun to provoke opposition. Although the best theological writers of that period willingly recognised that there were true Churches in the East which had never For example, in a letter addressed by the Congregation of the Inquisition to the Roman Catholic bishops in England (given by Cardinal MANNING The Reunion of Christendom, p. 98). + The chief theological school of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. |