Adoption, Doubt, and Presumption: From Perseverance to Assurance

What is it about?

This chapter situates Herbert’s deft balancing of assurance with doubt in the context of the early modern critique of certitude. Challenging the idea that Herbert rejected so-called covenant theology, Kuchar explains the complex interrelations among adoption, perseverance, assurance, and spiritual motions in two major Herbert lyrics. In doing so, he offers a nuanced account of why Herbert removed the emotionally devastating lyric “Perseverance” from the final version of The Temple in favor of lyrics such as “Assurance.” Following Hooker and Andrewes, “Perseverance” was written out of an awareness that despair sometimes arises as a result of spiritual presumption. In this respect, the standard view that Herbert rejected "Perseverance" on the grounds that it is too despairing is not incorrect so much as incomplete.

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