"Worthy to be here": Protestant Sacramental Devotion and Herbert's "Love" (III)

"Worthy to be here": Protestant Sacramental Devotion and Herbert's "Love" (III) by Parker Johnson Richard Strier has suggested that explanations of Eucharistie theology do not fully answer important questions about the relation of Herbert's poems to the Sacrament, and he calls for a somewhat different orientation toward this topic: The major question is not Herbert's theological account of the Eucharist but his devotional relation to it. The technical discussion will not answer the key question of whether Eucharistie devotion is or is not at the center of Herbert's poetry. Again, "Love" (III) is a more crucial text.1 I agree that the technical theological discussion does not finally answer the question and that "Love" (III) is a crucial text; I wish to show that Eucharistie devotion is indeed central to Herbert's poems.2 To pursue Strier's question, we must determine what kind of sacramental devotion is an appropriate context for elucidating "Love" (III). The well-established Protestant devotional tradition of sacramental preparation and self-examination, explained in numerous treatises of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, provides such a context. The critical issue, as these treatises explain, in sacramental preparation is the worthiness of the receiver, an issue directly addressed in "Love" (III). The worth ofthe receiver, his claim to the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, depended upon a devotional act of preparation and self-examination in which the question of worthiness is considered from many points of view. The worth of the speaker in "Love" (III), his fitness as a guest at Love's banquet, is the critical issue in the poem. The scriptural demand for devotional preparation for the Supper is unmistakably clear: "But let a man examine himself . . . For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and 50Parker Johnson drinketh damnation to himself" (1 Cor. 1 1 : 28-29). The Book of Common Prayer, in its invitation to the Communion, reminds participants of Paul's words, "how he exhorteth all persons diligently to try and examine themselves, before they presume to eat of that bread, and drink of that cup."3 This selfexamination was broadly construed as preparation for the Supper, conscientious meditation during the Supper, and reflection afterthe Supper upon the benefits one had received. Jeremiah Dyke resorts to the imagery of clothing and banquet in his rhetorical question: "When we are invited to our neighbors Tables to feast with them, how do we spruce up our selves, in our comelier and cleanlier apparrell, and how much rather will we choose to be absent, then to come in undecent and homely attire?"4 The Second Helvetic Confession (1566) contains the most expansive doctrinal definition of the selfexamination required of participants in the sacrament; participants should examine themselves according to the commandment of the apostle, especially as to the kind of faith we have, whether we believe that Christ has come to save sinners and to call them to repentance, and whether each man believes that he is in the number of those who have been delivered by Christ and saved; and whether he is determined to change his wicked life, to lead a holy life, and with the Lord's help to persevere in the true religion and in harmony with the brethren, and to give due thanks to God for his deliverance.9 Conversion was prerequisite both for the sacrament itself and for the devotional self-examination attendant upon it. Dyke states flatly that "No man is fit to be a partaker of the seale of the covenant, who is not in the covenant of grace."6 Thomas Doolittle claims that self-examination "is a necessary Duty; not necessary to the Being and Essence of a Christian, for that is supposed: for Conversion must go before participation of [sic] this Holy Ordinance, which is not appointed of God to beget, but to encrease Grace."7 The Lord's Supper is not a converting ordinance, but it is, among other things, an occasion for public acknowledgement of one's faith. Richard Vines writes that the sacrament is a "barred" ordinance and that only a "baptized HERBERTS "LOVE" (III)51 visible Professor of the Gospel" is to be admitted: Manyare in...