Fangirling

"It is no part of my nature, most learned Wolfgang, to be excessively fond of life; whether it is that I have, to my own mind, lived nearly long enough, having entered my fifty-first year, or that I see nothing in this life so splendid or delightful that it should be desired by one who is convinced by the Christian faith that a happier life awaits those who in this world earnestly attach themselves to piety. But at the present moment I could almost wish to be young again, for no other reason but this, that I anticipate the approach of a golden age..." (Letter to Capito, 1517)

While I don't share Erasmus's utopian optimism, this passage has been on my mind during the past few days, and in reality, these last few years, as I've watched plans unfold for the creation of a Reformed Baptist seminary. Hearing it has finally been approved has been the highlight of my week. Listening to the generation ahead of me speak of their zeal for the project, it's easy to pick up on a sense of wistfulness in their voices: they know that they will only see its beginnings - it is very much a work of faith. My peers and I have been given a tremendous privilege in being able both to participate (in various ways) in its beginning and perhaps live to see these efforts pay off in an established institution with a ministerial/academic legacy. I can't help but feel that we are witnessing the beginning of an exiting time in RB history, with church planting expanding and education becoming more and more available. What a time to be alive.

Calvin on godliness

The Institutes are worth their weight in gold.

For, first of all, the pious mind does not devise for itself any kind of God, but looks alone to the one true God; nor does it feign for him any character it pleases, but is contented to have him in the character in which he manifests himself always guarding, with the utmost diligences against transgressing his will, and wandering, with daring presumptions from the right path. He by whom God is thus known perceiving how he governs all things, confides in him as his guardian and protector, and casts himself entirely upon his faithfulness,—perceiving him to be the source of every blessing, if he is in any strait or feels any want, he instantly recurs to his protection and trusts to his aid,—persuaded that he is good and merciful, he reclines upon him with sure confidence, and doubts not that, in the divine clemency, a remedy will be provided for his every time of need,—acknowledging him as his Father and his Lord he considers himself bound to have respect to his authority in all things, to reverence his majesty, aim at the advancement of his glory, and obey his commands,—regarding him as a just judge, armed with severity to punish crimes, he keeps the Judgment-seat always in his view. Standing in awe of it, he curbs himself, and fears to provoke his anger. Nevertheless, he is not so terrified by an apprehension of Judgment as to wish he could withdraw himself, even if the means of escape lay before him; nay, he embraces him not less as the avenger of wickedness than as the rewarder of the righteous; because he perceives that it equally appertains to his glory to store up punishment for the one, and eternal life for the other. Besides, it is not the mere fear of punishment that restrains him from sin. Loving and revering God as his father, honouring and obeying him as his master, although there were no hell, he would revolt at the very idea of offending him. (I.ii.2) 

Psalm 103

I read this during my devotions this morning, and it was a surreal experience - each verse brought with it a greater sense of joy. The psalm readily functions as a model of the kinds of things we can thank God for in our prayers. What struck me most was a paradox: God refrains from giving us anything that we deserve (the wages of our sin), yet gives us infinitely more as well (grace, even earthly blessings). It could easily translate into something metaphysical by the likes of Herbert or Donne. But since I'm no poet, it will have to remain as it is.

Thankful for days when the Holy Spirit is recognizably at work, ministering to our souls.

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And all that is within me, bless His holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget none of His benefits;
Who pardons all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases;
Who redeems your life from the pit,
Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion;
Who satisfies your years with good things,
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle.

The Lord performs righteous deeds
And judgments for all who are oppressed.
He made known His ways to Moses,
His acts to the sons of Israel.
The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.
He will not always strive with us,
Nor will He keep His anger forever.
He has not dealt with us according to our sins,
Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him.
As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
Just as a father has compassion on his children,
So the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.
For He Himself knows our frame;
He is mindful that we are but dust.

As for man, his days are like grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
When the wind has passed over it, it is no more,
And its place acknowledges it no longer.
But the lovingkindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him,
And His righteousness to children’s children,
To those who keep His covenant
And remember His precepts to do them.

The Lord has established His throne in the heavens,
And His sovereignty rules over all.
Bless the Lord, you His angels,
Mighty in strength, who perform His word,
Obeying the voice of His word!
Bless the Lord, all you His hosts,
You who serve Him, doing His will.
Bless the Lord, all you works of His,
In all places of His dominion;
Bless the Lord, O my soul!

My lovelinesse

I've made no secret of my love for the allegory of Beatrice and similar female literary figures. Today, I came across this piece from Herbert's Temple, and it complicates (in a good way) the human/divine mirror of love I find in these allegories. Earthly relationships can be exquisite pictures of that between God and Man, but there remains an ineffability to God's love for us that transcends anything we will ever experience on earth. To follow the train of thought in Hebrews, the best of this life still pales in comparison with the heavenly reality it anticipates. As Herbert's contemporary, Lewis Bayly wrote, "Whatsoever excellency thou hast seen in any creature, it is nothing but a sparkle of that which is in infinite perfection in God."

On another note, what led me to this poem has been an ongoing fight with complacency of late. This has been perhaps the most taxing semester I've yet had, and I'm living in the numbness of survival mode. I don't want the imminence of my deadlines, papers, and meetings to overshadow the reality of the grace I daily receive in the Gospel.

Why do I languish thus, drooping and dull,
                        As if I were all earth?
O give me quicknesse, that I may with mirth
                                          Praise thee brim-full!

The wanton lover in a curious strain
                        Can praise his fairest fair;
And with quaint metaphors her curled hair
                                          Curl o’re again.

Thou art my lovelinesse, my life, my light,
                        Beautie alone to me:
Thy bloudy death and undeserv’d, makes thee
                                          Pure red and white.

When all perfections as but one appeare,
                        That those thy form doth show,
The very dust, where thou dost tread and go,
                                          Makes beauties here;

Where are my lines then? my approaches? views?
                        Where are my window-songs?
Lovers are still pretending, & ev’n wrongs
                                          Sharpen their Muse:

But I am lost in flesh, whose sugred lyes
                        Still mock me, and grow bold:
Sure thou didst put a minde there, if I could
                                          Finde there it lies.

Lord, cleare thy gift, that with a constant wit
                        I may but look towards thee:
Look onely; for to love thee, who can be,
                                         What angel fit?

George Herbert, "Dulnesse"

The old and new men

Oh, to vex me, contraries meet in one:
Inconstancy unnaturally hath begot
A constant habit; that when I would not
I change in vows, and in devotion.
As humorous is my contrition
As my profane love, and as soon forgot:
As riddlingly distempered, cold and hot,
As praying, as mute; as infinite, as none.
I durst not view heaven yesterday; and today
In prayers and flattering speeches I court God:
Tomorrow I quake with true fear of his rod.
So my devout fits come and go away
Like a fantastic ague; save that here
Those are my best days, when I shake with fear.

John Donne, Holy Sonnet #19

-----

I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good. For I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man, but I see a different law in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin.

Romans 7.21-25

April

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale fowles maken melodye,
That slepen al the night with open ye,
(So priketh hem nature in hir corages:
Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmers for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, couthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The holy blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seke. 

Canterbury Tales, prologue

Why Keach is better than Milton

[Enjoying how scandalized I am by my own title]

I've had a roller-coaster relationship with Paradise Lost, going from intimidation to love to uneasiness (if you want to talk about the "living" quality of the Great Books, there you go). With Spenser done, my Renaissance class is going through Milton, and this fourth encounter with the poem has confirmed the wariness of my last experience by highlighting all the theological shenanigans taking place. I have two factors to thank for this: the astute insight of my professor and the inevitable comparisons that arise in my ongoing work with Keach's counterpart, The Glorious Lover.

What has struck me most forcefully in recent days is the parallelism between the two poems' depiction of the Divine Council (PL III and GL I.1) between the Father and the Son concerning the salvation of humanity. Both poets choose to depict the members of the Godhead as actual characters, which I find to be a daring move. This is perhaps less so with Milton, who is known for being...adventurous...in his theology, maintaining several pet heterodoxies (Arianism and Arminianism, to name a few); Keach, however, was a card-carrying Calvinist, and one of the tenets of Reformed theology in the seventeenth century was its rejection of (usually visual) representations of God, on the grounds of the second commandment. For context, when Keach's contemporary, Bunyan, desires a divine presence in his work, he restricts himself to personifying functions of God, i.e. the Interpreter, who represents the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit in the soul of man. So for Keach to follow Milton by including God Himself in the pages of his fictional - albeit allegorically didactic - poem is without any precedent that I am aware of in such theologically-conservative circles.

However, this is where the similarities between the two poems come to an end. I'll admit, the first time I read Paradise Lost, I fell in love with the passage where the Son volunteers to redeem mankind; Milton is clearly showcasing his skill for conjuring pathos from his readers. Despite the moment's artistic heights, a close reading of the scene presents several issues. [This would probably be better if I included the two texts side-by-side, but as I have neither the technical skills nor the space for such a thing, any curious reader will have to find them for him/herself.]

• Pervasive within Milton's text is a rejection of the doctrine of Predestination, which, while it comes as no surprise, raises a great number of questions concerning the logic of Milton's depiction of God (as demonstrated by the general angst of my classmates this morning): How does His simple foreknowledge of the events to come "absolve" Him from claims that He violates the will of mankind or the inevitability of the Fall? Milton falls into the trap of equating untouched human will with legitimate freedom.
• His explanation for God's motive for showing mercy to mankind is bizarre. The fallen angels will remain in their doomed state because they knowingly brought this on themselves. Man, however, because he was deceived by Satan, remains eligible for grace from God. Milton undermines both mankind's responsibility for the Fall and also the orthodox understanding of mercy as something utterly undeserved.
• Perhaps the most glaring departure from the biblical framework, Milton's council includes the entire angelic population of Heaven; they too are given the opportunity to redeem mankind, but none of them are willing to take the challenge (thus the famous "all the heavenly choir stood mute,/And silence was in heaven" ll. 217-218). Angels were never qualified to be mediators between God and man; redemption could only be accomplished by a representative of both parties. Furthermore, this open-ended offer turns the plan of redemption into a reactionary decision on God's part: Satan has caused a problem that God now has to fix.

So much for Milton. This is getting long, and other homework awaits, so Keach will have to wait another day.

Devotion and theology

Iain Murray on Martyn Lloyd-Jones' ministry during the Blitz:

"In these, and other sermons, his call to Christians was to think aright about God. That must come first. Not even prayer is to be put before it: 'We talk far too much about our faith, and about our prayers. If we only concentrated upon the power of God.' His concern was that his hearers should not simply derive comfort from passages of Scripture but that they should think theologically. This point is constantly to the fore. In his sermons on 'Paul's Order of the Day' he demonstrates that Christian resolution is a very different thing from what the world calls 'courage,' it arises rather from knowing 'the faith'. Speaking from the words, 'Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong' (1 Cor. 16:13), he said:

We must stand in this faith by reminding ourselves of it constantly, by reading and bunking about it, by meditating concerning it. This is something for which I would plead at the present time. We must return to a consideration of the terms of the faith. This is specifically necessary, perhaps, for those who are Evangelicals. I plead, in other words, for a revival of the study of theology...It is not enough to cultivate the devotional life.  

It is essential to 'stand fast in the faith' when we are assailed by doubt. And it is essential as against feelings. If we trust to our feelings, and to our moods, the time will come when we shall be feeling miserable. We shall wake up in the morning feeling tired and lethargic, and the question will come to us, Why go on with it? I do not feel like going on with it. There is only one answer when you feel like that. It is the faith, the truth - it is our only means of happiness. It is essential also as against the facts of life. There come 'the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune', illness comes, disappointment comes, difficult circumstances arise, a world war takes place, our profession is lost, our business is gone, sorrow knocks at the door of your home, and someone dearer than life is taken away, death comes, either in battle, or on the sea, or in the air, or quietly in a room. How can I face the facts of life? There is but one way. 'Stand fast in the faith.' It has envisioned all these things. It has provided for them all; it covers them all. It is faith for life. It is faith for death. It is the faith for all eternity. 'Stand fast in the faith'."

 (D.M. Lloyd-Jones: The Fight of Faith, 30)

Interrupting all the early modernism

I don't know if I ever thought I'd get to the place in life where Jane Austen is modern literature to me, but here I am. My JA class is currently reading Mansfield Park, which I have always hated. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've mentioned my impatience for the inane love triangle here at some point in the mists of ancient blog history. Anyway, whilst reading it today, I came across this lovely moment, and I almost liked Fanny and Edmund. There's a double pastoralism undergirding the scene: Edmund and Fanny have just defended the ministerial life to Mary Crawford, and the setting is a starry summer evening in the country. I don't think I'll ever be able to overlook Fanny's high-maintenance (on display yet again here), but the circumstances made me able to simply laugh at it.

Fanny agreed to it, and had the pleasure of seeing him continue at the window with her, in spite of the expected glee; and of having his eyes soon turned, like hers, towards the scene without, where all that was solemn, and soothing, and lovely, appeared in the brilliancy of an unclouded night, and the contrast of the deep shade of the woods. Fanny spoke her feelings. “Here’s harmony!” said she; “here’s repose! Here’s what may leave all painting and all music behind, and what poetry only can attempt to describe! Here’s what may tranquillise every care, and lift the heart to rapture! When I look out on such a night as this, I feel as if there could be neither wickedness nor sorrow in the world; and there certainly would be less of both if the sublimity of Nature were more attended to, and people were carried more out of themselves by contemplating such a scene.”

“I like to hear your enthusiasm, Fanny. It is a lovely night, and they are much to be pitied who have not been taught to feel, in some degree, as you do; who have not, at least, been given a taste for Nature in early life. They lose a great deal.”

“You taught me to think and feel on the subject, cousin.”

“I had a very apt scholar. There’s Arcturus looking very bright.”

“Yes, and the Bear. I wish I could see Cassiopeia.”

“We must go out on the lawn for that. Should you be afraid?”

“Not in the least. It is a great while since we have had any star-gazing.”

 (ch. 11) 

The Great Exchange

From an artistic standpoint, this passage has a tough crowd following all the Spenser quotes I've been leaving here recently. But the sentiment struck me, and it's been a while since Keach had airtime, so there you go. His Glorious Lover is a fascinating poem, and very much a product of his century (romance/epic hybrid allegorizing theological - and occasionally political - concerns). It follows the Reformed tradition of reading the Song of Solomon/Psalm 45 as types of Christ and the Church. So although it's a little clunky, I've enjoyed reading it.

But here, ‘tis like, some may desire to know

The Cause why he abas’d himself so low?

The Answer to which Query’s very plain;

His Errand so requir’d, if he'd obtain

The Soul, for whom his Country he did leave,

He of his Glory must himself bereave.

‘Twas Love that brought him into this disguise,

To come incognito to haughty Eyes,

To lay aside awhile, his Robes of State,

And thus in Pilgrims Weeds upon her wait:

Without this Form assum’d, these Rags put on,

The mighty Work could never have been done.

She grov’ling lay below, unable quite

Once to aspire unto his Glorious Sight.

Therefore must he a Garb suitable take

To raise her up, and his dear Consort make;

He must descend, that she might mount above,

And joyn in a fit Entercourse of Love.

(The Glorious Lover I.ii.136-153)