The previous post on this poem may be found here:

A cockle shell contains this world as well

As can this world thy liberalness contain.

And by thy will these present things all fall

Unto thy children for their present gain

And things to come too, to eternity.

Thou willedst them: they’re there by legacy.

Summary: God has filled with the world with a superabundance of good things. The good begins now and will continue on through eternity. 

Notes

A cockle shell is a clam shell. He makes a comparison here: You could more easily stuff the entire globe into a clamshell than you could fit all of the goodness of God into the world itself. 

The use of the simile was not unprecedented. Thomas Manton and Thomas Brooks both used the shell in much the same way, as an imagine of something impossible:

the divine nature is incomprehensible; angels clap their wings, and cover their faces. Finite cannot comprehend infinite, no more than a cockle-shell can the ocean.

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 20 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1874), 193.

Who can empty an ocean with a cockle-shell? And since the fall we are grown quite brutish; our conceits are not so monstrous in anything as in the worship of God.

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 5 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1871), 107.

We cannot empty the ocean with a cockle-shell; so neither can we exhaust the divine perfections by the shallow discourse of our reason. 

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 15 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1873), 215.

We are as well able to comprehend the sea in a cockle-shell, as we are able to comprehend the Almighty

Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 2 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1866), 178.

You shall as soon remove the earth, stop the sun in his course, empty the sea with a cockle-shell, make a world, and unmake yourselves, as any power on earth, or in hell, shall ever be able to hinder Christ from the performance of the office of a surety ….

Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 5 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1867), 360.

And by thy will

He repeats this concept in the last line of the stanza, Thou willedst them

Here is the doctrine of predestination as seen from the inside. Often the doctrine is discussed as a barrier to coming to God, as if there were someone who wished to the receive the grace of God and who was then turned away for lack of a “predestination ticket”.  As Jesus says in John 6:37, “Whoever comes to me I will never cast out.”

But predestination is not a matter of permission to enter. It is not door to keep one out, but rather should be seen as a net to keep one from being lost. While the good would be generally any blessing available to the believer, this poem in particular concerns the good of repentance and forgiveness. 

Repentance which is joined to forgiveness is itself a divine action:

thou canst as well raise the dead at pleasure, as thou canst repent at pleasure; thou canst as well make a world at pleasure, as thou canst repent at pleasure; thou canst as well stop the course of the sun at pleasure, as thou canst repent at pleasure; thou canst as well put the sea in a cockle-shell at pleasure, and measure the earth with a span at pleasure, as thou canst repent at pleasure

Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 4 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1867), 192.

When Taylor writes that God has willed the good to his children, that “good” necessarily includes repentance which brings about forgiveness. 

Thus, the poem itself, which is a matter of repentance, is a gift of God! In seeking good from God, he is performing the good God has done to and for him. The good which extends to eternity is here being built in the very act of writing this poem. Thus, the good sought by the poem is part of the good.