Stanza Three

How many things are there now, who display’th?

How many acts each thing doth here dispense?

How many influences each thing hath?

How many contraries each influence?

How many contraries from things do flow?

From acts? From influences? Who can show?

Summary:  If all things are mine, then what is the full number of things. What are the endless relationships between all things? How does each part influence the rest?

Notes:

The individual lines present no real problem beyond the first line, “How many things are there now, who display’th?” The difficulty is with the word “who”: it could be God who “displays” all things. But more likely the “who” is being used as we would use “what” or “which”. Thus, the sense would be, “How many things are there displayed in the world?” 

For the sense of “display” we have the image from Calvin (likely known to Taylor) that the creation is the theater of God’s glory. Thus, the objects in the creation are displays of God.

How many acts each thing doth here dispense?

How many influences each thing hath?

How many contraries each influence?

These are scientific questions which were very much “live” at the time of Taylor. There was enormous curiosity into how the various objects in the world interrelated. When we think of the various conflicts with supposed witches, we also need to realize that the conceptions of witchcraft as influence at a distance is in effect bad science. Things which we confidently “know” would have been bare possibilities. 

Who can show? Who knows the answer. 

In tone, the stanza has a feel for the book of Job, particularly the concluding section wherein God asks Job a number of questions about the natural world, which Job is unable to answer in any form. The effect of this questioning in the poem is put the reader into a place where he (or she) must admit, “I do not know the answer. I do know the whole of the world, or the relationships between all things therein. How can show? Only God would know that answer.”

Stanza Four

How glorious then is he that doth all raise

Rule and dispose and make them all conspire

In their jars, junctures, good-bad ways

To meliorate the self-same objection higher?

Earth, water, fire, winds, herbs, trees, beasts and men,

Angels, and devils, bliss, blasts, advance one stem?

Stanza Five

Hell, earth, and heath with their whole troops, come

Contrary winds, grace, and disgrace, sour, sweet,

Wealth, want, health, sickness, to conclude in sum

All providences work in this good meet?

Who, who can do’t, but thou my Lord? And thou

Dost do this thing; yea, thou performst it now.

Summary: In a flurry of nouns and images, are poured out. The effect is an overwhelming jumble of events, all seeming to move in contrary purpose to one-another. Hell versus earth, contrary winds; water and fire; and so on. The important part comes in the middle of stanza five: “conclude in a sum”. God has knowledge of all things and in his providence brings all things for his glory: And thus will lead to the conclusion of how “all things are mine” can be a blessing.

Notes:

How glorious then is he that doth all raise

Rule and dispose and make them all conspire

Since it is impossible to know all things that are, it is a greater wonder that God can have sovereignty over all things: He rules, disposes of, and holds them in a conspiracy, they “conspire” toward a common end.

The doctrine of providence, which is asserted in these stanzas was of great importance to the Puritan world:

The doctrine of a special providence in disposing of all events, whether good or evil, is of great importance; it forms a fundamental truth in our holy religion; it is the strong pillar of the believer’s faith, it is the cardinal point in Christian experience, and contains one main ground of practical godliness.

Indeed, till we have given to this doctrine, not a cold assent of the head, but a cordial reception in the heart, it will be impossible for us to live as we ought in any condition, and specially in a scene so shifting as the present; we may content ourselves for a while, but we have no lasting or solid basis whereon to rest; we can never be thankful for present mercies, nor be patient under any troubles, nor cherish a scriptural hope of deliverance out of them.

Thomas Watson, Spiritual Life Delineated; With the Detection and Exposure of Some of the Popular Errors of the Day (London: R. B. Seeley and W. Burnside, 1838), 233. Upon the basis of a knowledge of God’s providence, one can be contented and see that all events which take place are for good.  As Thomas Boston was to write, “That the dispensations of providence are altogether perfect and faultless, however they appear to our carnal hearts.” Thomas Boston, The Whole Works of Thomas Boston: Sixty-Six Sermons, ed. Samuel M‘Millan, vol. 9 (Aberdeen: George and Robert King, 1851), 62. Boston will go ahead and argue the point. 

To make sense of this, we must realize that what is good is not always what is immediately pleasant. Sometimes what it good is also what is evil: Jesus was murdered on false charges and for political expedience, and yet the result of the good of humanity, the conquering of death, his exaltation as King. 

Taylor is anxious to exalt this contrary working of God

to conclude in sum

All providences work in this good meet?

Who, who can do’t, but thou my Lord?

Only God could strike a straight line with a crooked stick. This is a continual theme among Taylor co-religionists. Thomas Boston’s series of sermons, The Crook in the Lot consider this at length.

The language of these stanzas seems suggested by Psalms such as 148:

Psalm 148:7–10 (AV)

7 Praise the LORD from the earth, ye dragons, and all deeps: 8 Fire, and hail; snow, and vapour; stormy wind fulfilling his word: 9 Mountains, and all hills; fruitful trees, and all cedars: 10 Beasts, and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl: