The mellow light of Herbert's via media

Herbert is an attractive figure in so many different ways, both as a person and as a poet. I think the first feature for me, in both the man and the poet is a kind of inclusive balance and honesty.

What caught my attention in this recent interview with Malcolm's Guite was the apparently simple point he makes regarding the attractiveness of the character of George Herbert.  This attractiveness is surely, at least in part, bound up with Herbert's embodiment of the faith of the reformed ecclesia Anglicana.

It is a theme which frequently reoccurs in commentary upon Herbert.  Eamon Duffy, for example, refers to "the mellow light of the church of George Herbert".  Elizabeth Clarke talks of him representing "calm Anglican practice".  This is "the mean" Herbert celebrates in 'The British Church', a via media between gaudy Tridentine grandeur ("she on the hills") and a lack of decent order which characterised other Reformed churches ("she in the valley").  Against this, as the Country Parson says of his parish church, "all things there be decent".

But, dearest mother, what those miss,  
The mean, thy praise and glory is  
And long may be.

In his excellent Music at Midnight: The Life and Poetry of George Herbert, John Drury describes Herbert's background in "the civilized and inclusive character of Jacobean Anglicanism", particularly referencing his home parish of St Martins-in-the-Fields.  Drury quotes from the 1632 funeral sermon for the Rector of the parish:

a true son of the Church of England, I mean a true Protestant; he was as far from popish superstition, as factious singularity, nor more addicted to the conclave of Rome than addicted to the parlour of Amsterdam.

There is something here of that "inclusive balance" which we see in Herbert, with deep roots in Cranmer's insistence that while an "excessive multitude of Ceremonies" burdens the Church and the Christian, it was necessary to have "Ceremonies which do Serve to a decent Order and godly Discipline, and such as be apt to stir up the dull mind of man to the remembrance of his duty to God".  It also has roots in Hooker's understanding that such decent ceremonies were 'natural', befitting "the dignity of religion" (LEP V.6.2) and thus a right, reasonable, and good ordering of the Church's life.

We see this in Herbert's discussion of the practice of blessing in The Country Parson:

The neglect of this duty in Ministers themselves, hath made the people also neglect it; so that they are so far from craving this benefit from their ghostly Father, that they oftentimes goe out of church, before he hath blessed them. In the time of Popery, the Priests Benedicite, and his holy water were over highly valued; and now we are fallen to the clean contrary, even from superstition to coldnes, and Atheism. But the Parson first values the gift in himself, and then teacheth his parish to value it. 

Again, this is "a kind of inclusive balance and honesty", "the mean" between superstition and atheism, the Church present within and blessing the community, neither overpowering it nor absent from it.

Balance, inclusion, middle way.  Yes, a generation or more of rather banal liberal Anglican theology has misused such terms, emptying them of meaning precisely because they were uprooted, torn away from the rich, fertile soil of the Anglican tradition and instead conformed to the norms of the 1960s.  What, however, makes Herbert attractive is what can make Anglicanism attractive, not least in a time of fear, loathing, and bitter division: balance, inclusion, via media.  

It hath been the wisdom of the Church of England, ever since the first compiling of her Publick Liturgy, to keep the mean between the two extremes, of too much stiffness in refusing, and of too much easiness in admitting any variation from it.

These are not empty terms but, rather, a means of aiding the Church to reflect something of the peace and order of the Heavenly City.  The days following Michaelmas are an appropriate time to reflect on this.  Hooker, describing the "corporation" of the angelic host, notes their "tranquillity, and joy" (I.4.1), while Andrewes says of them:

When we hear of a multitude, we fear a confusion. But you will observe, this multitude was ... no confused rout ... there is order in a choir, there is order among Angels ... So a multitude without confusion.

Balance, inclusion, via media: thus does the Anglican tradition, embodied by Herbert, seek to offer something of a reflection of the peace and tranquillity of the Heavenly City.  

O God, from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed: Give unto thy servants that peace which the world cannot give ...