FERRAR, ROBERT: Bishop of St. David's; b. near Halifax (14 m. w.s.w. of Leeds), Yorkshire, before 1509; burned at Carmarthen, Wales, Mar. 30, 1555. He probably studied at Cambridge, afterward at Oxford (B.D., 1533), where he became a canon regular of the order of St. Augustine and a member of the priory of St. Mary's. He read Luther's works, became a Reformer, and in 1528 was compelled to recant. Later he aided Henry VIII. in suppressing the monasteries, and in 1540, a pension of eighty pounds a year was bestowed upon him, a large amount for those times. During the reign of Edward VI. he enjoyed the patronage of the Duke of Somerset, who employed him in carrying on the Reformation. He was elevated to the see of St. David's in 1548; but on his arrival in his diocese in 1549 he found serious difficulties awaiting him. Technical flaws were found in his commission, false charges were trumped up against him. Somerset, now in the Tower, could do nothing for him, and in 1551 Ferrar was thrown into prison and kept there till the accession of Queen Mary. He was deprived of his bishopric in Mar., 1554, condemned as a heretic a year later, and was burned at Carmarthen on Mar. 30, 1505. To a bystander who commiserated him he remarked, "If you see me once to stir while I suffer the pains of burning, then give no credit to those doctrines for which I die." He made good his assertion, for he did not move till a blow on the head felled him in the midst of the flames.

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Testament Theology (1890); Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (Nashville, Tenn., 1891); Brief History of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church (New York, 1894); Our Doctrines (Nashville, Tenn., 1897); and Systematic Theology (1898).