The _Divine Considerations_ was put into English by Nicholas Ferrar (1592-1637) of Little Gidding, and published at Oxford in 1638, together with the Introduction to the _Commentary on Romans_, under the name of "John Valdesso." The English translation was submitted by Ferrar to his friend, George Herbert, who wrote some interesting critical notes which were printed with the original edition. George Herbert expresses his great love for "Valdesso," whose eyes, he says, God has opened, even in the midst of Popery, "to understand and expresse so clearly { 238} and excellently the intent of the Gospell in the acceptation of Christ's righteousness," but he "likes not" his slighting of Scripture and his use of the Word of God for inward revelation. He believed, though wrongly, that de Valdès was a "mystic," and that he was advocating a religion of "private enthusiasms and revelations." The fact was rather that de Valdès was presenting or was aiming to present a religion of universal validity, brought to birth by the discovery of God in Christ as revealed in the Gospel, and made continuously effective anew by personal experience of the same Christ as Divine Revealer in the lives of men.
There is no question of the far-reaching influence of Ferrar's translation of this vital message of de Valdès, especially among scholars and literary men. It must also have had a popular influence, for Samuel Rutherford in 1648 declared it to be one of the "poysonable" sources of "Familisme, Antinomianisme, and Enthusiasme."[2] He charges that "Waldesso," as he calls him, teaches men that the Scriptures have been supplanted by the inner Light, in fact that "Scripture shines only as a light in a dark place until the Day-star arises in the heart, and that then man hath no more need to seeke that of the holy Scripture which departs of it selfe, as the light of a candle departs when the Sunne-beames enter, even as Moses departed at the presence of Christ and the Law at the presence of the Gospel."[3]
Ochino and Vermigli spent six important years in England from 1547 to 1553, when persecution under Mary forced them to flee. They were far more under the influence of Calvin at this period than under that of their former friend de Valdès, but they both with the fire and intensity of their Italian nature--especially Ochino in his sermons--drove home to the hearts and consciences of their hearers the way of salvation by faith and the absolute necessity of inner experience and interior religion.