Abstract
This chapter situates Herbert’s deft balancing of assurance with doubt in the context of the early modern critique of certitude. Challenging the idea that Herbert rejected so-called covenant theology, Kuchar explains the complex interrelations among adoption, perseverance, assurance, and spiritual motions in two major Herbert lyrics. In doing so, he offers a nuanced account of why Herbert removed the emotionally devastating lyric “Perseverance” from the final version of The Temple in favor of lyrics such as “Assurance.” Following Hooker and Andrewes, “Perseverance” was written out of an awareness that despair sometimes arises as a result of spiritual presumption. In this respect, the standard view that Herbert rejected "Perseverance" on the grounds that it is too despairing is not incorrect so much as incomplete.
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Notes
- 1.
See also Andrewes, 5.337. For one example of this type of reduction, see John Forbes, How a Christian man may discerne the testimonie of Gods spirit (Middleburgh: 1616), 60–64.
- 2.
Joseph H. Summers, George Herbert: His Religion and Art (London: Chatto and Windus, 1954), 62; Louis L. Martz, “Generous Ambiguity” in A Fine Tuning ed. Maleski, 37.
- 3.
Summers, George Herbert, 62.
- 4.
Clarke, Theory and Theology, 7, 280.
- 5.
Such theological open-endedness is not altogether surprising when we bear in mind that Arthur Lake, a bishop who had acted as a consultant to the British delegation at the Synod of Dort, was quite willing to leave the question of final perseverance unresolved. See Arnold Hunt, The Art of Hearing, 382. Clearly, such open-endedness reflects cultural as well as literary exigencies.
- 6.
For a discussion of the Barrett controversy and subsequent events, see Chap. 3.
- 7.
Luther, Babylonian Captivity, cited in Strier, Love Known, 307.
- 8.
For a fuller discussion of this aspect of reformation thought, see Chap. 3 and Louise Schreiner, Are You Alone Wise?, 57–58.
- 9.
For Clarke’s groundbreaking discussion of this passage in relation to Herbert, see Theory and Theology, 165.
- 10.
Goodwin, The Returne of Prayers (London: 1643), “Epistle Dedicatory,” *3v.
- 11.
St. Augustine, Confessions. Loeb Classical Library. With an English translation by William Watts (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1961), 74.
- 12.
Goodwin, Returne of Prayers, 69.
- 13.
For a related discussion of prayer and spiritual motions in Herbert’s poetry, see Clarke, Theory and Theology.
- 14.
Rebecca Weaver, “Prayer,” Augustine through the Ages, 672.
- 15.
Ezekiel Culverwell, A Treatise of Faith. Seventh Edition. (London: 1633), 50–51.
- 16.
Augustine, De Dono Perseverantiae trans. Sister Mary Alphonsine Lesousky (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America, 1956), 128–129; Calvin Institutes 3.80 cited in George Tavard, Holy Writ or Holy Church : The Crisis of the Protestant Reformation (New York: Harper, 1959), 105.
- 17.
Sidney Gottlieb, “The Two Endings of George Herbert’s ‘The Church’” in A Fine Tuning, 57–76, 64.
- 18.
Augustine, De Dono Perseverantiae, 209.
- 19.
The Williams Manuscript of George Herbert’s Poems: A Facsimile Reproduction With An Introduction Amy M. Charles (Delmar NY: Scholars Facsimiles and Reprints, 1977), 76.
- 20.
Institutes 3.2.31.497.
- 21.
W.E. Vine, Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997), 21−22.
- 22.
Forbes, How a Christian May Discerne, 17.
- 23.
Ibid.
- 24.
For a discussion of this aspect of the word, see Clarke, “George Herbert’s House of Pleasure? Ejaculations, Sacred and Profane,” George Herbert Journal, 19.1–2 (1996), 55–71.
- 25.
As William Perkins explains, adoption is co-extensive with justification and thus occurs late in the experience of sanctification. See The Golden Chain or the Description of Theology (London: 1591), Q2v.
- 26.
Ibid., A4r.
- 27.
For a discussion of the Spiera case, see Chap. 3.
- 28.
Strier, Love Known, 108–113.
- 29.
For a discussion of “Ungratefulnesse,” see Chap. 2.
- 30.
See Calvin, Institutes 3.14 sections 18–20, pp. 785–86 particularly as cited and discussed in Steven Ozment, The Age of Reform 1250–1550: An Intellectual and religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe (New Haven: Yale UP, 1980), 378. See also Calvin’s commentary on 1 John 3:14 Commentaries on the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to The Hebrews trans. John Owen (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, n.d.), 217–218, especially as discussed in Pitkin, What Pure Eyes Could See, 88. As we saw in the last chapter, Herbert, like Calvin, takes it for granted that the “pledges of Gods Love” are visible to Christians. See The Country Parson, 283.
- 31.
For a related reading of “Assurance” to which I am very much indebted, see Cefalu, The Johnnanine Renaissance, Chap. 4.
- 32.
See footnote 12 of the Introduction for references.
- 33.
See footnote 27 of the Introduction for references.
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Kuchar, G. (2017). Adoption, Doubt, and Presumption: From Perseverance to Assurance . In: George Herbert and the Mystery of the Word. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44045-3_4
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