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Tag Archives: John 1

Edward Taylor, 28th Meditation.3

08 Thursday Oct 2020

Posted by memoirandremains in Edward Taylor, Grace, Martin Luther, Puritan

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28th Meditation, Edward Taylor, Grace, John 1, Literature, poem, Poetry

Thou, thou my Lord, art full, top full of Grace,

The golden sea of grace whose springs thence come

And precious drills, boiling in every place.

Untap they cask and let my cup catch some

Although it is in an earthen vessel’s case

Let it no empty vessel be of grace.

This stanza begins with two stressed syllables separated by a pause: THOU — THOU my LORD…. The emphasis thus falls most heavily upon the addressee. This functions almost as a new invocation: he has asked to fill him, and here he repeats and makes even more emphatic the call for grace. 

In the second half of the line, Taylor does something similar where he repeats “full” with an emphasis falling on the second full (which is not merely full, but is “top full”). 

Although it is a “fault” with the line, it ends with an emphasized “grace”. The fault is that Taylor has put 6 stresses in a 5 stress line. Yet even though it is a technical fault, it helps underscore the desire of the poet. I truly need this. 

The second line smooths out with a fine alliteration of “g” from the end of the first line: grace … golden … grace.

The springs are rising up from the depth of the sea: the sea is so completely filled with grace, and grace wells-up continually so that the surface is “boiling” with rising streams of grace. And so matches the nature of the gospel of our grace: Our need is continual, but the grace of God in Jesus Christ is greater, inexhaustible. No matter the depth of our need, it cannot begin to exhaust the supply. 

A hymn has it

Grace, grace, God’s grace

Grace that is greater than all our sin.

The theology which underlies Taylor’s prayer in this poem: his own inability and need vs. Christ’s inexhaustive grace owes much to Luther’s statement in the Heidelberg Disputations no 18, “It is certain that one must utterly despair of oneself in order to be made fit to receive the grace of Christ.” Whether Taylor ever read the disputations, I do not know. But the theology set forth there was much developed by Lutheran and Reformed theologians and showed up theology which Taylor would have known.

He then uses the image of a cask filled with wine: He asks that the cask be tapped and that the grace flow into the empty, earthen vessel, until it is full:

Untap they cask and let my cup catch some

Although it is in an earthen vessel’s case

Let it no empty vessel be of grace.

If we go on at all

25 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by memoirandremains in Biblical Counseling, Discipleship, Faith, Galatians, John, Philippians, Union With Christ, William Romaine

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A Treatise on Faith, Communion, Faith, Good Works, Hope, John 1, John 14, life, Obedience, Philippians 3, Treatises on the life walk and triumph of faith, Union with Christ, Westminster Confession of Faith, William Romaine

It is easy to forget that all the Christian life must and can be only in Christ — in union and comunion with him. We forget this because we easily fall to the idea that our life is a doing of some-thing or other as a bare act, which, if performed, satisfies God. Such thoughts dishonor our Lord and suffocate our faith.

Sin suffuses through the entire human life, because sin — in one aspect — is the absence of the life of God. The human being without God is twisted, unnatural, sullen, without true hope or love. Redemption is to be in Christ.

Consider Paul’s words here; note the language to “be found in him”:

7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ
9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith-
10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Phil. 3:7-11. Or in Colossians 3, our life is with Christ in God: “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3). Our Paul writes elsewhere: our life is now the life of Christ in us: I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20.

The Christian life can never be a life without Christ, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4).

Sin is death necessarily. The death does not lie in the bare action — it lies in the Godlessness of sin. The Sahara desert has many attributes – especially that it contains no water. One dies of thirst in the desert, not because one does not move hand to mouth, open in the mouth and swallow. One dies because there is no water. Without water, the action is lifeless; it is a charade, a parody of drinking. Without God, even our best acts can never be more than parodies of life.

Yes it is worse to not do “good works” — and yet such good works will fall short of the beauty they were meant to convey:

VII. Works done by unregenerate men, although for the matter of them they may be things which God commands, and of good use both to themselves and others; yet, because they proceed not from a heart purified by faith; nor are done in a right manner, according to the Word; nor to a right end, the glory of God; they are therefore sinful and can not please God, or make a man meet to receive grace from God. And yet their neglect of them is more sinful, and displeasing unto God.

Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 16.

In short, our life must be in and through Christ. Our life must be in love and fellowship of union and communion — and that union and communion can be only be conveyed and received by means of a lively faith. As Romaine writes

“If we go on at all, it is by communion with him. We can receive only out of his fulness, grace for grace, to make us willing and able to go forward. Our fellowship with him is in every part and in every moment of our walk, and this is as necessary as our fellowship with the air and elements of this world is to every thing that concerns our natural walk. Our wisdom to guide our steps, our progress in the way, our courage and strength, our warfare and victory, every grace and every blessing is received by faith, and is the effect of our communion with Jehovah Jesus. We trust in his word, we rely on his arm, we wait on his faithfulness, and so go forward; for he makes good what he had promised to give us in our walk, which confirms the peace of God, establishes our hearts in his love, increases our faith, and thereby makes our daily walk more comfortable to us, and more glorious to him.”

William Romaine “Treatises on the life, walk, and triumph of faith.”

Edward Taylor: What Feast is This.1

28 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by memoirandremains in Edward Taylor, Isaiah, Lord's Supper, Meditation, Puritan

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1 Corinthians 11:23-26, 1 John 4, Communion, Edward Taylor, Genesis 2, Genesis 3, incarnation, Isaiah, Isaiah 25, John 1, John 1:14, Lord's Supper, love, Marriage Feast, Marriage Supper of the Lamb, Matthew 25, Meditation, Poetry, Puritan, Puritan Poetry, Revelation 19, Self-Examination, Thankfulness, What Feast is This

What Feast is This?

Isaiah 25 is a poem of praise to God for reversing the power of sin and death. The power of wicked who use violence to crush the poor and powerless will be undone and also the power of death which animates the oppression will itself be destroyed (the poem is written in a “prophetic perfect” — that is, it represents a future state, but speaks of it in past time: it is a thing so sure as to be counted complete before it happens in time).

In place of death, God will raise a feast; rather than a funeral, there will be a marriage celebration:

6 On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. 7 And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations. 8 He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken. 9 It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the LORD; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

This image of a feast replacing death is used by Jesus to speak of the coming world (Matthew 8:11 & 25:1-13). The Bible ends with the invitation to a marriage feast (Revelation 19:9). Thus, the Bible opens (Genesis 2:24) and closes with a marriage. Death has intervened (Genesis 3), but God has overcome death in the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus.

Taylor takes this imagery of the feast in celebration of death being overcome and uses it to contemplate the Lord’s Supper (communion):

A Deity of Love incorporate
My Lord, lies in thy flesh, in dishes stable
Ten thousand times more rich than golden plate
In golden service on thy table,
To feast thy people with. What feast is this!
Where richest love lies cooked in e’ry dish?

Deity of love incorporate: The Son of God incarnate: John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”. John 3:16, “For God so love the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes on him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
1 John 4:9-10: 9 “In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

Dishes stable/Where richest love lies cooked in e’ry dish: This is a reference to the communion service (the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper):

23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread,24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

1 Corinthians 11:23-26.

In short, Taylor sees himself before the Lord’s Table (another name for communion), where the feast is the Lord whose death overcomes death. By means this meditation, he is seeking to see “spiritually” (if you will) — to see the truth of thing, itself; and bring his heart to a state to relish it rightly.

Stable/table: The second lines contains 11 syllables, the fourth, 9.

My Lord, lies in thy flesh: the accent should fall on “lies” & “flesh” -“–`-`-`-

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