Reflections on George Herbert's Prayer I

"It is a good work, if it be sprinkled with the Blood of Christ." This is one of very few spoken quotations to be taken from the great poet of the seventeenth century, George Herbert. Herbert was so intent on glorifying God though his works and not himself that he would not have it published in his lifetime. Instead, while on his deathbed he sent the manuscript for his collection of poems, The Temple, to his friend, Nicholas Ferrar, and told him to publish it if he thought the poems might "turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul", but otherwise, to burn them. Obviously, the outcome shows that advancement of the soul was indeed the case. "Subjection to God's destructive power-the seventeenth century called it ‘mortification'-does have a spin-off for the Christian poet: thereafter, the ‘quickening', is a kind of spiritual inspiration. It is God's power which enables him to write: the poet's own ability has been well purged" (Clarke). If what Clarke says is true, then we are to take Herbert's work as divinely inspired; that is a bold statement. Such a suggestion is likely to produce one of two extreme reactions: people will either revere such work, or they will reject it.

In Herbert's collection of poems intended to advance the state of any dejected poor soul there is a poem entitled "Prayer (I)", which lives up to its standard. "Prayer (I)" consists of many metaphors to explain and define what prayer is. Going through the poem metaphor by metaphor, and taking it as divinely inspired provides an interesting perspective on prayer.

PRAYER I

PRAYER the Churches banquet, Angels age,
Gods breath in man returning to his birth,
The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,
The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth ;

Engine against th' Almightie, sinner's towre,
Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,
The six daies world-transposing in an houre,
A kinde of tune, which all things heare and fear ;

Softnesse, and peace, and joy, and love, and blisse,
Exalted Manna, gladnesse of the best,
Heaven in ordinarie, man well drest,
The milkie way, the bird of Paradise,

Church-bels beyond the stars heard, the souls bloud,
The land of spices, something understood. (Herbert)

Metaphors Explained

The Churches banquet. What does it mean for prayer to be the churches banquet? To grasp this, first, a proper understanding of the church must be had. Church is not a building. Church is not even a place. Church is the people. Someone can go to church, they can even become an official member, and never actually be a part of the church. The church is everyone who truly believes that Jesus is Lord and loves Him with all of their heart, mind, soul, and strength (Matt 22.37). The church consists of that because that is what a Christian is, and church is the body of believers. Knowing this and then looking at the metaphor, the Churches banquet, it begins to have a little more clarity. The final piece to be explored is the banquet, which connects with the biblical imagery of food as being a means for spiritual nourishment. Christians have to be spiritually fed. Evidence for this is found in many places in scripture, one of them being 1 Corinthians 10: 3-4: "They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ" (NIV) Now it is clear that the Churches banquet is telling us that church is a way for feeding our soul and nourishing our spirit.

God's breath in man returning to his birth. This line really begins to show Herbert's Calvinistic theology. This line is saying that prayer is only possible because God is the supplier of the breath to say the prayer in the first place. This line can be very encouraging and instill in one much boldness. If God is the supplier of the breath with which prayer is given, then one need not worry if he or she has all of the correct words, because God will give them.

The soul in paraphrase. Webster's dictionary defines paraphrase as "a restatement of a text, passage, or work giving the meaning in another form" (Merriam-Webster's). With this being true, Herbert's words tell us that one's prayer is one's soul in different form. And with one's soul being the essence of oneself, then prayer itself is the very essence of one's being. Heart in pilgrimage. This tells that prayer is one's heart on a journey to a sacred place. 1 Thessalonians 5:7 tells us to "pray continually", which in conjunction with Herbert's words tells us that our hearts should constantly be striving toward holiness. However, this is not something one can do by oneself, especially not since Herbert is writing as a Calvinist. Deuteronomy 30:6 tells us that "The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live." This verse shows that one can only love God if He provides one with the means to do so (which is a good thing, because being inherently sinful, one would never be able to love God on one's own). One must have a circumcised heart to love God, and only God can circumcise one's heart. Applied to prayer and mixed with Herbert's words, this says that prayer is a continual process in which God is drawing one closer and closer to Himself.