Jesse Sharpe PhD thesis - Research@StAndrews:FullText ...

Herbert Discussing the Word 153
I did conceit a most delicious feast;
I had straight, and did as truly eat,
As ever did a welcome guest.
So faith is an act that works with the Incarnation and is a part of the Eucharist meal. It is
part of the movement God uses to bring humanity to himself. And following the tying of
faith with the Eucharist, Herbert then ties faith with scripture, and in particular he looks at
the fall of humanity and the birth of Christ as two points in which faith allows him to take
part:
Faith makes me any thing, or all
That I beleeve is in the sacred storie:
And where sinne placeth me in Adams fall,
Faith sets me higher in his glorie.
If I go lower in the book,
What can be lower then the common manger?
Faith puts me there with him, who sweetly took
Our flesh and frailtie, death and danger. (17-24)
It is interesting here that the inversion of high and low as a movement by God is to be
found again. While it is not surprising to read the lines ‘sinne placeth me in Adams fall, |
Faith sets me higher in his glorie’, the very next line shows that the ‘sets me higher’ is a
movement down when followed by the lines ‘If I go lower in the book, | What can be
lower then the common manger?’ The ‘glorie’ of God is found in a lowly act at the birth