Encompassing Prayer

I can't resist adding one, brief stanza to show how much I appreciate George Herbert. It's taken from a collection of poems known as The Temple, which was entrusted to his old friend Nicholas Ferrar (the founder of the Little Gidding community) as Herbert was on his deathbed. It was subsequently published and became a firm favorite, influencing later poets such as Vaughan and Coleridge. Here's the stanza in question.

Enrich, Lord, heart,
hands, mouth in me
with faith, with hope
and charity,

that I may run, rise,

rest in Thee.

I picked up my copy of The Temple in Cambridge, when I was at college. In fact I believe I bought it in a second hand store on Trinity Street, which is rather appropriate given that Herbert was at Trinity College. He secured a fellowship there in 1614. He was well known for his classical scholarship and his musical abilities (he played the lute and the viol). A few years later he became the Public Orator of the university and would probably have ended up at the Court of King James, except for the monarch's untimely death.

Herbert ended up being ordained. Unlike many of his contemporaries, however, he took his work seriously. He published A Priest in the Temple in 1652, which gives a sober and balanced account of the responsibilities of a clergyman. It has been very influential.

St. Peter's Church, Fugglestone.

Herbert spent all of his ministry in the same place. In 1630 he was persuaded, by Archbishop Laud, to accept the living of Fugglestone with Bemerton, near Salisbury, in the South of England. He spent the remainder of his short life devoted to his flock and to prayer.

It's commonplace nowadays to sneer at the Parish model of Church governance. Under this system the country is divided up into parishes and the clergy have responsibility for everyone who lives within a given geographic area. The plan assumes, of course, that just about everyone is Christian. There are obvious problems. It can degenerate into Erastianism, in which the church becomes the lackey of the state. Even if this doesn't happen, it can lead to too close an association between church and state. The prophetic function of the church can suffer. Resentments against secular leaders can be translated into anti-clericalism. But there is also something attractive about the parish model. It speaks of the all-encompassing nature of God, and the need for the church to reach out to all. At its best it is a genuine attempt to influence the whole of society with the Gospel. And perhaps it would work: if we were all gifted with the gentle spirit of George Herbert.