The Country Parson is comprised of 37 chapters, detailing the nature of the pastor’s call, the nature of his parish, and how a pastor should interact with his parishioners and their unique sins.

In his preface, Herbert explains that his little book was written “to set down the form and character of a true pastor, that I may have a mark to aim at.” He points out that it is better to aim very high and fail than aim too low at the start. The pastor, as Christ’s “deputy,” is called to lifelong service to God. Recalling his poem, The Collar, he writes that the pastor’s duties reduce man to the obedience of God (1). The pastor takes Christ’s place in displaying God’s truth and bringing man back from the disobedience which has plagued the entire race since Genesis 3 (1).

Herbert’s Parson is a man who does not chafe at the collar of the ministry, but is both patient and willing to undergo the mortifications which necessarily attend life (3). The idealized picture of the country parson presents an interesting contrast to some of Herbert’s more conflicted poems (like The Collar). The ministry of this ideal pastor, though, is characterized by three aspects: 1) he is frugal; 2) he is not given to luxury or too much recreation; and 3) he is straightforward and a man of his word (in order to win the respect of his rural parishioners). He does not dishonor his call by haunting inns or alehouses.

Interestingly, Herbert’s Parson adapts his ministry to his congregation. While I’m not sure that Herbert would’ve written much differently if he’d written a book called “The Urban Parson,” he does stress the ways in which a country congregation will need a peculiar type of pastor. The country pastor is direct and knows what will capture his audience most effectively. “He often tells them that sermons are dangerous things” in the way they affect the listener. He tells them stories. He does not wander off into lyrical interludes full of classical and poetic allusions. Herbert even says “he is not witty, or learned, or eloquent, but holy.” (Something the ancient rhetoricians wouldn’t be able to fathom.) This recalls his poem, Jordan II, where he writes of the temptation for a learned man to let his words run away from him:

My thoughts began to burnish, sprout, and swell,
Curling with metaphors a plain intention,
Decking the sense, as if it were to sell.
…
But while I bustled , I might hear a friend
Whisper, How wide if all this long pretense!
There is in love a sweetness ready penn’d:
Copy out only that, and save expense.

This warning stands in contrast to much of the preaching of Herbert’s day. I’ve read a few of Donne’s sermons, and they are beautiful, baroque displays of Scriptural and classical references. Like their poems, Donne’s sermons are expansive where Herbert’s pastoral words are concise and plain. The low-church Puritans, too, had a proclivity toward long-windedness, being known for sermons which lasted hours. Herbert, on the other hand, says that sermons should not last longer than an hour—a significant abridgement when compared the sermons of Owen or the other Puritan divines (7). The country pastor, yet again, knows the frame of his congregation—how much they can take while still awake. Also, the sermon itself should not be an argumentative treatise, filled with theologically contentious statements.

Again, the pastor is a capable and economical steward of everything he oversees: he house is run well; his wife is chosen by his “ear,” rather than his eye; he is aware of everything that occurs within his house or parish.

The actual church building reflects the pastor’s economical sensibilities, as well. Every bit of it is in good repair. Walls are plastered, windows glazed, everything is uniform, plain, and orderly. Interestingly, he says that the principles on which the Church is constructed and maintained is twofold: 1) everything must be done decently and in order; and 2) all things are done for edification. Contrast this sensibility to the Abbot Suger book we read last year, and think of what kind of church architecture would naturally come out of either mindset. Herbert is anything but Gothic or Baroque. His aesthetic sensibility is very much that of naturalism (you could think of this in terms of Herbert playing Da Vinci to John Donne’s Michalangelo).

Herbert and Donne both were very much men of their age. Both were products of the renaissance. Herbert, however, stands out as a singularly plain and pastoral man—not so much caught up in all the advances of knowledge which had so infatuated the rest of Europe (think of his views on reason and science in “Divinity” and “Holy Scriptures” I and II). Really, Herbert seems to avoid all appearance of excess in everything he does. His model minister is not given to luxury in anything except knowledge of God. Further, it seems that for Herbert excess goes hand in hand with contentiousness. Controversy is always following in the wake of luxury and worldliness.

What makes this so interesting is the social context in which Herbert lived. When I was reading The Country Parson I kept having flashbacks to the Jane Austen elective some of us took last year. I kept imagining that George Herbert was a near parallel of Jane’s parson-father. In a word, they both were extremely English, polite, unpretentious, extremely well-mannered in order to avoid giving offense. But in Herbert’s case, this kind of Englishness was a new thing. Remember everything that Herbert’s England had just gone through, and was about to go through. If we wanted to pick a typical “Englishman” of the 17th century, it wouldn’t be Herbert’s Country Parson. Perhaps it would be the dashing Walter Raleigh or the profligate James I. England was not at peace during Herbert’s time there was constant war, treason, and all sorts of decadence.

The theological situation was just as tumultuous. After Henry VIII divorced the English church from Rome, he kept the Roman rites in place, causing great tension between the old Romans (who were angry about the church break) and the new Reformers (who were angry about how the old Roman rites were still in place). Two of Henry’s children, in turn, tried to take the English church in one particular direction: Edward VI tried to bring England to Geneva, and his sister Mary later tried to bring England back to Rome, kicking and screaming if need be. So, when Elizabeth came to the throne, England was very much a divided nation. Elizabeth and the English Church proposed a solution: a “middle way.” England would be Protestant, but not all the way. The Reformed solas would be housed inside the highly liturgical cathedral of old Roman ecclesiology and worship.

Elizabeth was queen when Herbert was born, and James I (who reigned for most of Herbert’s life) continued down the same path as his aunt Elizabeth.

Herbert is very much a Jacobean when it comes to his view of the Church. Take a look at his poem “The British Church” (106). He praises the English church precisely because it avoids the extremes of both Rome (which is personified as a “painted” lady who is deceptively attractive) and Geneva (which is personified as a horribly plain girl who is “dressed-down”). Herbert’s “Mother” Church finds her praise in the “mean” (the middle way) which she embodies, and she alone (see the last stanza).

So, wrapping things up, I want to make one more observation and one critique. Herbert’s piety is exceptional, and I felt convicted time and time again while reading The Country Parson. I do think American religion, with its showiness and market (or purpose)-driven mindset, could use a good dose of English temperance.

That said… Herbert’s faith is lacking in passion; he takes no risks. His country parson has perhaps thrown out a perfectly well-behaved baby with the frothing bathwater that he was so scared of. In chapter 27, for instance, he writes of how the country parson “is generally sad, because he knows nothing but the Cross of Christ… or if he have any leisure to look off from thence, he meets continually with two most sad spectacles. Sin, and Misery.” Completely missing from this is the resurrection of Christ. The Crucifixion, as Herbert surely knew, was the focus of the Roman Catholic mass, while the Protestant liturgy might be said to emphasize the Resurrection. By trying to walk the blessed middle way, Herbert occasionally comes across like the Laodicean church of Revelation 3: “you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other!” The stiff upper lip and English sensibility have their place, but Herbert sometimes seems not to realize just how much his regionalism colors his religion. He constantly recommends that the country parson be very careful to “endeavor that none shall despise him” (28). The parson also allows local customs to prevail, because the congregants are “addicted to them” and to abide by them “is to win their hearts” (35). Again, there is a point here. But, at the same time, when Paul says he tries to become all things to all people, he also talks constantly of how his faith makes him appear foolish and abrasive to the customs of the Jews and Greeks (1 Cor. 1). Paul also makes a common practice of insulting local practices (e.g. his statement that all Cretans are liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons [Titus 1]). But I see so stumbling blocks to the English in George Herbert.

In the end, I loved Herbert’s poetry, was amazed at his multi-layered verses, was convicted by his pastoral admonishments, and impressed at his piety. I just wish he weren’t quite so darn English.