Fourth Stanza

Joy, joy, God Son’s the sinner’s Advocate

Doth plead the sinner guiltless and a saint.

But yet attorneys’ pleas spring from the state

The case is in: if bad it’s bad in plaint.

My papers do contain no pleas that do

Secure me from, but knock me down to woe.

Notes:

There are three propositions in this stanza. First, the Son as Advocate can plead the guilty innocent. How this possible is not yet raised. Second, a lawyer’s work can be no better than the material he has to work with. Third, the material I can supply only proves my guilt.

Proposition one:

Joy, joy, God Son’s the sinner’s Advocate

Doth plead the sinner guiltless and a saint.

Aside from the spondee of JOY JOY, these two lines run in regular iambs. There is a usesful alliteration on S which draws primary elements together: Son SinnerS, Sinner, guiltless, Saint.

The work of this advocate does not merely obtain a not-guilty plea. The sinner is not merely left off for insufficient evidence. Rather, the work of the Son transforms the sinner into a saint. He is not only “not guilty”, he is positively innocent.

Proposition two:

But yet attorneys’ pleas spring from the state

The case is in: if bad it’s bad in plaint.

The plea an attorney can enter in a trial is limited by the nature of the underlying facts: the plea “springs from the state the case in.”  To make the negative case clear: if it the facts are bad, the attorney’s plea (his “plaint”, as in “complaint”) is also bad. “If bad it’s bad in plaint” is a fine clause.

Proposition Three

My papers do contain no pleas that do

Secure me from, but knock me down to woe.

We now come to the poet’s particular situation. We have just been told that the quality of the plea will depend upon the quality of the facts. So what facts are here for the poet?

He looks to his legal papers, but there is nothing in the papers to absolve him.

My papers do contain no pleas that do

Secure me

What do the papers say:

The facts “but knock me down to woe.” Woe: that is condemnation.

Thus, the legal conflict is set in full: A lawyer can only plead what the facts permit. The facts here condemn. But the Son can somehow make a plea which can make the poet guiltless. How can this be? That is the matter of the remainder of the poem.