Reformation Spirituality: The Religion of George Herbert (review)

Calvinism, according to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, is "a lamb in wolf's skin" — "horrible for the race, but full of consolation to the suffering individual." Taking Coleridge's formulation as his slogan, Gene Edward Veith offers still another portrait of George Herbert as a Protestant Poet, a poet who both embraces and illuminates the perplexing but ultimately consoling doctrines of Calvin. While such an approach to Herbert through Protestant theology is now widespread enough to no longer merit the label "revisionist," Veith's book is singular in its attempt to explain Calvin through Herbert and Herbert through Calvin as well as to reconstruct "phenomenologically" the spiritual experience of the Reformation. The attempt proves successful in many respects, particularly in justifying Calvin's ways to man. But as Veith's title suggests, one should not approach Reformation Spirituality: The Religion of George Herbert hoping to find particularly compelling, original, or authoritative readings of Herbert's poetry.