brand him and them with the character of monkery and a nunnery (names odious and dishonourable in this country merely because of papal abuses among us heretofore, and still in our neighbour countries), yet this was so perfect a forgery, that I find him in some of his papers declaring himself against such vows of single life with such earnestness as I did not expect in him. Nay, when their reverend diocesan had declared himself, without anybody's seeking to him, ready to accept a vow (not absolute and unconditional, as it were in spite of heaven and hell, but) a vow of sincere endeavour, if God should continue to them the grace, in a single state to withstand the temptations of the world the flesh and the devil, the foremost of them all in any of their generous and religious undertakings was not forward to take any such engagement upon her, but kept the middle way betwixt vowing and slackness, arriving at that which St. Paul calls stedfastness of heart and power over her own will. But as all (except two or three of them, who resolved to spend their lives in a severer retirement and mortification) were intended one day to be matched unto the clergy, so they were bred accordingly, with so many dictates given them and received by them relating to the duties of humility and obedience to their husbands, of industry and pure devotion, to keep their souls always on the wing, 1 I Cor. vii. 37. 2 $35. that they were rare examples to all who lived in view of them. 67. His friends would often say, he knew them a good deal better than they knew themselves. If he conversed but a few days with any, that did not disguise themselves on purpose, he would see far into their dispositions and find how to work upon their passions; and then he would gently ply them with such effectual persuasives to better things, and would use such apt medicines to dissuade and reclaim them if they were out of the way, that, though minds are as different as bodies and several kinds of physic are as necessary for those as for these, yet, either in their temporal or in their spiritual affairs, he seldom failed in some measure to gain his point and his good ends upon them. Besides he was a man without fear in an honest cause and without any partial affection, and would not strain his conscience, though all the world might immediately be applied to heal it. In these he used, not the greatest and weightiest, but the most proper and effectual arguments that could be brought. 68. If any one attended him for his advice in a thing of moment (as he was the oracle of his friends), if the time and place would bear it, he would write down in brief the substance of what they propounded; then he would set down his answer, his advice and reasons, why he liked or disliked the proposition. He found by experience, delivering his mind in a short written note, especially to his country tenants, when they came to treat with him, saved a great deal of time, preventing impertinent talking and passions and misunderstandings. 69. And as for his letters of any consequence, though addressed to an ordinary friend, such was his extraordinary care and diligence, that he wrote out a copy of them and kept it by him. Such a master he was of insinuation for the good of souls, that he would scarce indite a letter, though a very short one, without something in it tending to promote the most excellent ends; and that with such a prudence and civility, besides weight and seriousness, as must needs be very obliging. He would usually say, the world was in a great errour in not taking the right way to do itself good by a diffusive charity; that it was our Saviour's proverb', 'Tis better to give than to receive, but that the devil was the author of the selfish proverb (in the sense 'tis commonly spoken), Charity begins at home. 70. Their alms, besides their charity upon casualties and at the door, were so much every day to poor housekeepers in the towns round about the lordship, who all were admitted into a lower room, whither Mr. Ferrar himself came to see them served, to administer ghostly as well as bodily comforts to them all, and to inquire who were sick in any of the neighbouring villages, that he might send to relieve them. As he had a singular dexterity in reproving, which he commonly did by telling 1 Acts xx. 35. them some story, the application of which to themselves was easy', and as he had an admirable faculty of advising others by way of asking their advice; so it is well known that he made the point of applying the best remedies to wounded consciences one great and main end of his studies, and with his most affectionate pains would assist others in these distresses, till he had, as it were, begotten them anew to God. He understood it the better as having undergone himself, in his own tender age, many and grievous temptations. 71. Whilst he was in Italy, a young gentleman' fled thither out of England, having unhappily killed another in a duel, and being a stranger at Padua, he was noted there as a man desperately melancholy; till, in a good hour for him, he fell by chance into company with Mr. Ferrar, and found so much goodness in him, that he made him his confessor. He, finding the poor soul's hearty repentance and sorrow for what he had done, so applied the mercies of God to him, that he was well satisfied and much comforted. Yet, he would say, he was never well but in Mr. Ferrar's company; whom thenceforward he loved and esteemed above all the world. 72. Bishop Linsell, once his tutor and ever his admirer, observing how daily more and more refined and exalted was his practice of all Christian virtues, would ask him, Whither he would go? what examples 2 Garton. § 15. 1 Above, 91, 92. he would set them? Nay, sir, he would answer, you are to answer this: Why did you set me at the college to read the lives of the fathers, and of later saints in England, if not to follow them? 73. Accordingly he ordered several choice texts1 of scripture to be texted up in his study, that he must of necessity cast his eyes upon one or other of them; and over the outer door of his house he caused to be engraven on a plate of brass: FLEE FROM EVIL AND DO GOOD AND DWELL FOR EVERMORE 2. In the great dining-room too, which was also the receptacle for strangers, there were divers tablets, fairly written in great letters, hung round. the room; which were of the same use with the travellers' table-books, to receive any sentence their friends and visitants had a mind to insert or by way of good counsel bestow upon them. 74. He frequently penned excellent good prayers for several occasions, some only short, as collects, others of extraordinary length upon some great And he employed a dear nephew of his account. 1 "Even the walls are not idle, but something is written or painted there, which may excite the reader to a thought of piety; especially the 101st psalm, which is expressed in a fair table, as being the rule of a family."-Country Parson, c. x. See the extract from Bacon in Wordsworth, Eccl. Biogr. iv. 195 seq. 2 Ps. xxxvii. 27. With this text Mrs. Collett concludes a letter to her son Edward, writing in Nov. 1628. It is also engraved on the back of the brass formerly on John Ferrar's tomb. |