Ninth Stanza

 Hope’s day-peep dawns hence through this chink. Christ’s name

Propitiation is for sin. Lord, take                                                                 50

It so for mine. Thus quench thy burning flame

In that clear stream that from his side forth brake.

I can no comfort take while thus I see

Hells’ cursed imps thus jetting strut in me.

Notes

What is the chink? It is the realization that he has not utterly succumbed and broke under the realization of his sin. If I can see my sin as this wicked, and if I have not despaired to the point of death, then perhaps something is holding me together? In this darkness

Hope’s day-peep dawns hence through this chink.

It is interesting here that the doctrine of assurance is holding him up. Assurance is the understanding that Christ is a sufficient remedy for me. There was a debate through out the Middle Ages as to whether assurance required some special grace, some supernatural assurance. It is not full blow assurance, but rather the day-peep of assurance. Thomas Goodwin, an English Puritan wrote of this: “There is stamped upon the heart of a Christian some secret hint or whisper of mercy to him; I do not say it riseth to assurance, for then it would quell all doubtings.… The soul oftentimes in itself cloth not so discern as to reflect upon it, but yet it is full enough to carry the heart after Christ, and never to leave him.” Quoted in R. M. Hawkes, “The Logic of Assurance in English Puritan Theology,” Westminster Theological Journal 52, no. 2 (1990): 250.

Here Taylor is leaning on the subjective psychological aspect of assurance, I have some ground for hope even here, and then is calling upon that assurance to plead forgiveness and thus further assurance:

                        Christ’s name

Propitiation is for sin. Lord, take                                                                 50

It so for mine.

It is not in himself, that he has thoroughly discounted. It is all in Christ. And in this he pleads his case. Notice he does not mitigate his sin in the least, but rather aggravates his own guilt and then wonders that even one as himself could not be destroyed with subjective guilt. That is because he has hope in another.

                                    Thus quench thy burning flame

In that clear stream that from his side forth brake.

I can no comfort take while thus I see

Hells’ cursed imps thus jetting strut in me.

The “burning flame” is doing double duty. At one level it is the certain judgment coming for sin. But it is also the subjective experience of and fear of that coming judgment. He sees Hell coming and feels hell.

The “clear stream” is the wound of Christ on the cross. The blood and water which flowed forth is the stream which douses judgment’s fire.

His prayer begins with the faint light of hope and is a prayer for assurance and forgiveness.