Hast done the deed: and’t makes the heavens ring. (30)
Summary: The poet undertakes an interesting distance from himself throughout this poem. First, he has been operating from an interesting psychological point of view because he sees himself addicted helpless to sin and simultaneously sees himself from the outside as some sort of loathsome beast. He is an addict who cannot put down the needle and who in the same moment wretches for the vile creature he has become.
In this stanza the looks to find some relief, but knows it is impossible:
We e’re want [that is, whatever it is we lack] we cannot cry for.
There is something we need but there is no way to fulfill this need: we cannot even cry for it.
We cannot look to angels, because we need is from God, and angels cannot convey this to us. Only God himself can do so – and has done so. This unwarranted and unobtained benefit is a cause for joy.
Notes:
We cannot cry: Crying out in distress is the refrain of the book of Judges. The people of Israel repeatedly turn to idolatry. In response, God leaves them to their unfriendly neighbors. The Israelites then cry out to God, who in turn says them. In the beginning of chapter 2 (the book is not chronological), the Angel of the Lord “went up from Gilgal to Bochim.” Bochim is a Hebrew word which means “weeping.” The Angel tells the people that since they have refused to keep their covenant with God, God will no longer hear their cries and defend them.
Later in Judges 10:14, God again confronts the people who have turned from him. “God and cry out to the gods whom you have chosen; let them save you in the time of your distress.”
Taylor seems to have an illusion to these passages: I am so deeply embedded in sin that I cannot cry for help. In particular, the end of line 26 underscores this point: our cry – were able to make such a cry would be of no use, “we cannot have it thus.”
The Angels cannot convey: Even though angels are given as “ministering spirits set out to serve for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation” (Heb. 1:14) there are limits on the help they can convey.
The degree help needed by Taylor in his state of sin exceeds the assistance of angels. The lack of the human being in the state of sin exceeds some external aid. The language used to describe the condition of sin speaks to an irremediable condition.
The angels are said to have conveyed the law (Heb. 2:2, “the message declared by angels”). This seems to put something into human hands, but “by works of the law, no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin.”
The “golden pipes” of the angels in end only could convey knowledge of guilt.
But thou my Lord … hast done the deed: This speaks to the work of Jesus who destroyed sin and death, and him who had the power of death (Heb. 2:14).
Heart leap for joy and sing … “Rejoice in the Lord always and again I will say rejoice.” (Phil. 4:4)
And’t makes the heavens ring: “Let all God’s angels worship him.” Heb. 1:6.
Psalms 118:23-24
This is the Lord’s doing
It is marvelous in our eyes.
This is the day the Lord has made
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
Musical
What e’re we want, we cannot cry for, nay
If that we could, we could not have it thus.
These lines have an interesting rhetorical structure: A conditional, followed by an unconditional rejection: Whatever it is we need, we cannot have it. And even if we could have it, we cannot. The structure of the clauses is held together by the repetition of the word “we”: we want, we cannot cry, we could, we could.
But that is not the worst: there’s worse than this.
My taste is lost; no bite tastes sweet to me
But what is dipped all over in this dish.
Of rank rank poison: this my sauce must be.
Hell heaven, heaven hell, yea bitter sweet:
Poison’s my food: food poison in’t doth keep.
Summary: I have come to love the Devil’s sauce sin that I cannot enjoy anything without this poison. I love the poison. I am so upside down that I must have sin mixed in with everything I do.
Notes:
This gets at something which was very important in much Puritans were quite interested, the way in which sin both twisted the human being and at the same time created the desire for sin itself:
“The example in Romans 7:8 of Paul, who by his own account, was one of the most morally degenerate men who ever lived (Phil. 3:6; 1 Tim. 1:13, 15), provides a gateway for Goodwin to understand how no man or woman in a carnal state is free from inclination to all sin. The struggling man in Romans 7 was viewed by the Puritans as a Christian,32 but verse 8 has reference to Paul in his unconverted state. The sin in Paul in this verse is original sin, and original sin produced in him “all manner of concupiscence,” that is, all kinds of covetous lust or desire for things forbidden.33 As Edward Reynolds put it, “It is as natural to the heart to lust, as it is to the eye to see.”34 Self-love, instead of love to God, results from original sin.” Beeke, Joel R.; Jones, Mark. A Puritan Theology: Doctrine for Life (pp. 279-280). Reformation Heritage Books. Kindle Edition.
Jonathan Edwards notes that even though there is such variety in the circumstances among human beings, there is one thing which invariably shows up, sin:
THE proposition laid down being proved, the consequence of it remains to be made out, viz. that the mind of man has a natural tendency or propensity to that event, which has been shewn universally and infallibly to take place (if this ben’t sufficiently evident of itself, without proof), and that this is a corrupt or depraved propensity.
Jonathan Edwards, Original Sin, ed. John E. Smith and Clyde A. Holbrook, Corrected Edition., vol. 3, The Works of Jonathan Edwards (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1997), 120. And:
The general continued wickedness of mankind, against such means and motives, proves each of these things, viz. that the cause is fixed, and that the fixed cause is internal, in man’s nature, and also that it is very powerful. It proves the first, namely, that the cause is fixed, because the effect is so abiding, through so many changes. It proves the second, that is, that the fixed cause is internal, because the circumstances are so various: the variety of means and motives is one thing that is to be referred to the head of variety of circumstances: and they are that kind of circumstances, which above all others proves this; for they are such circumstances as can’t possibly cause the effect, being most opposite to the effect in their tendency.
193. As Edwards’ explains in his Treatise Freedom of the Will, it is desire that binds the will. And thus this universal tendency to sin is the result of a universal desire.
What Taylor does so well in this stanza is to couple desire and poison into a single movement: We desire our destruction. There is an image from Jeremiah which helps here:
Jeremiah 2:23–25 (AV)
23 How canst thou say, I am not polluted, I have not gone after Baalim? see thy way in the valley, know what thou hast done: thou art a swift dromedary traversing her ways; 24 A wild ass used to the wilderness, that snuffeth up the wind at her pleasure; in her occasion who can turn her away? all they that seek her will not weary themselves; in her month they shall find her. 25 Withhold thy foot from being unshod, and thy throat from thirst: but thou saidst, There is no hope: no; for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go.
Taylor does not copy the image, but he does rely upon the concept.
Thomas Brooks provides a closer parallel:
Sin is from the greatest deceiver, it is a child of his own begetting, it is the ground of all the deceit in the world, and it is in its own nature exceeding deceitful. Heb. 3:13, ‘But exhort one another daily, while it is called To-day, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.’ It will kiss the soul, and pretend fair to the soul, and yet betray the soul for ever. It will with Delilah smile upon us, that it may betray us into the hands of the devil, as she did Samson into the hands of the Philistines. Sin gives Satan a power over us, and an advantage to accuse us and to lay claim to us, as those that wear his badge; it is of a very bewitching nature, it bewitches the soul, where it is upon the throne, that the soul cannot leave it, though it perish eternally by it.4 Sin so bewitches the soul, that it makes the soul call evil good, and good evil; bitter sweet and sweet bitter, light darkness and darkness light; and a soul thus bewitched with sin will stand it out to the death, at the sword’s point with God; let God strike and wound, and cut to the very bone, yet the bewitched soul cares not, fears no but will still hold on in a course of wickedness, as you may see in Pharaoh, Balaam, and Judas. Tell the bewitched soul that sin is a viper that will certainly kill when it is not killed, that sin often kills secretly, insensibly, eternally, yet the bewitched soul cannot, nor will not, cease from sin.
When the physicians told Theotimus that except he did abstain from drunkenness and uncleanness, &c., he would lose his eyes, his heart was so bewitched to his sins, that he answers, ‘Then farewell sweet light;’1 he had rather lose his eyes than leave his sin. So a man bewitched with sin had rather lose God, Christ, heaven, and his own soul than part with his sin. Oh, therefore, for ever take heed of playing or nibbling at Satan’s golden baits
Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 1 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1866), 15–16.
And this:
Many long to be meddling with the murdering morsels of sin, which nourish not, but rent and consume the belly, the soul, that receives them. Many eat that on earth that they digest in hell. Sin’s murdering morsels will deceive those that devour them. Adam’s apple was a bitter sweet; Esau’s mess was a bitter sweet; the Israelites’ quails a bitter sweet; Jonathan’s honey a bitter sweet; and Adonijah’s dainties a bitter sweet. After the meal is ended, then comes the reckoning. Men must not think to dance and dine with the devil, and then to sup with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; to feed upon the poison of asps, and yet that the viper’s tongue should not slay them
Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 1 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1866), 14.
Musical
But that is not the worst: there’s worse than this.
My taste is lost; no bite tastes sweet to me (20)
But what is dipped all over in this dish.
Of rank rank poison: this my sauce must be.
Hell heaven, heaven hell, yea bitter sweet:
Poison’s my food: food poison in’t doth keep.
The r’s and s’s work well together especially in the first line. “Worse than this” by itself is not a very promising “poetic” line. But the repetition of “worst/worse” “the worst there’s worse” also works. The next line picks up on these sound but now we the repetition of taste/tastes, and the sounds of “tastes sweet”, where the s’s and t’s: t-s-t-s-t. Line 21 again works on a alliteration: dipped-dish.
This alliteration within the individual line gives a feel of Anglo-Saxon poetry where alliteration is a primary means to hold a line together
Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,
monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah,
(Beowulf)
He uses the very same technique in the remainder of the stanza, but in the last two lines he uses the alliteration to underscore the reversals:
Of rank rank poison: this my sauce must be.
Hell heaven, heaven hell, yea bitter sweet:
Poison’s my food: food poison in’t doth keep.
Hl – hn / hn – hl
P-f/f-p
The word “poison” ties these lines together.
He marks the transition into this section by means of the repetition of “rank-rank” which slows the movement of the stanza. It is then offset by a colon and the sad, “This my sauce must be.” Note again the m-s/m-s repetition.
The line, “This my sauce must be” is a rather sad resignation. It reminds me of the tone of Hosea, “Ephraim is joined to idols;/Leave him alone.”
Final note: What is most devasting about the poet’s situation is that there is no rescue from this place. Even though he is destroying himself, he wants to be here. It is like finding someone in a prison and they refuse to leave.
Summary: Now every experience, everything which the poet experiences has been imbued with sin, which he refers to as “poison” or “venom.”
Notes: That Satan is referred to as a serpent is undisputed. In Genesis 3, the Tempter – although not explicitly referred to as Satan – is referred to as the Serpent, the most crafty of subtle beasts of the field (the field was the world outside the Garden). In Revelation 20:2, Satan is explicitly referred to as “that ancient serpent.”
The imagery of Satan as a cook is interesting and unusual. I cannot find any references to Satan as a cook. But, the image is on point because the original sin was brought about through eating. He did provide a dish for Adam and Eve.
Use of this image then makes for a fascinating overlay with original sin. That fruit from the Garden has now become an overlay for all subsequent human action.
All life must be lived in a manner which entails loving God with all heart, soul, mind, and strength. And no action of a human being ever approximates such a level of devotion. It is impossible for post-fall human conduct to ever be perfect.
This actually makes for a fascinating contrast with the current social mobs which attack any deviancy from orthodox thought and conduct. These mobs allow for zero tolerance, zero grace. But in contrast: Paul persecuted the Church; Peter denied Christ; David committed adultery and murder; et cetera. These are our saints. Taylor will get to the inexplicable grace of God – which so contrasts with the judgment of human beings.
Note also that this is not merely sinful but is poisonous: it is filled with venom. Thus, while it is food and desirable; it is also poisonous and spells my death.
Of special note must be the word “sopped”:
Oh! Sad-sad thing! Satan is now turned cook:
Sin is the sauce he gets for every dish.
I cannot bite a bit of bread or root
But what is sopped therein and venomish.
What is so perfect about the word is not merely the sound, but the meaning. Sin as a sauce has been poured over all of his food. He is not merely content to the sauce as it happens to be on his meat: he next uses bread to sop up all the remainders. What a vicious and brilliant vision of sin.
Musical: I rather like this stanza.
Look at all the alliteration on “s”:
Sad, sad, satan, sin, sause, diSh, sopped, venomISH, rightS, lost,
The phrase, “Sin is the Sause” is wonderfully balanced in concept, rhythm, and sound
SIN is the SAUCE
The first line SAD SAD THING SATan: the slow beat, the repetition of not merely S, but SA. “Sad thing” is a near rhyme to “Satan”
The third line of the santza switches to B and R and makes for a wonderful contrast to the sibilant S
I cannot bite a bit of bread or root
But
The alliteration draws the words together. The near rhyme of bite-bit, the movement from B to R in Bite, Bit, BRead, Root is brilliant.
21 Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; 22 Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours;
Paul is warning the congregation to cease to make the approval of other men the primary goal of life. They were seeking glory; and seemed to see Paul in a similar light. Paul specifically disclaims such glory and urges the congregation to look beyond such glory.
The weight of this poem and Taylor’s emphasis from the motto lie upon the fact that for the congregation “all things are yours.”
The poem works through a history of the world and brings this into a history of Taylor. At the first, he had Paradise he was “begraced with grace.” But that original innocence and blessing was lost. The poem will end with a prayer and a praise that in Christ he has received all things.
Begraced with glory, gloried with grace,
In Paradise I was, when all sweet shines
Hung dangling on this rosy world to face
Mine eyes, and nose, and charm mine ears with chimes.
All these were golden tills the which did hold (5)
My evidences wrapt in glorious folds.
Summary: The poet places in himself (impossibly) in Paradise before the Fall, where all was “very good” in the language of Genesis 1. Everything for him was “glorious”.
Notes:
Begraced with glory: Grace is unmerited, undeserved gift from God. Any good received from God is a grace. Glory is an aspect of God. The ideas are of beauty, blazing light, and honor; in contrast to the broken, fallenness of a world of sin and shame. So to be given grace is to give one glory.
The line is a antimetabole: “Repetition of words, in successive clauses, in reverse grammatical order.” http://rhetoric.byu.edu Grace – glory – glory – Grace.
In Paradise I was: This can only be accessed by means of imagination. Thus, by means of imagination the poet is accessing this place out of time.
All sweet shines: everything good.
Golden tills: a “till” is a box for keeping money or valuables. The phrase is ambiguous, because it is unclear precisely what constitutes the till: did his sense bear such things or does he refer to the beauty of the various things which perceives?
My evidences: This is an interesting phrase, evidence of what. This line from a near contemporary Thomas Watson may help, “The saints’ graces are weapons to defend them, wings to elevate them, jewels to enrich them, spices to perfume them, stars to adorn them, cordials to refresh them: and does not all this work for good? The graces are our evidences for heaven; is it not good to have our evidences at the hour of death?” Thomas Watson, A Divine Cordial; The Saint’s Spiritual Delight; The Holy Eucharist; and Other Treatises, The Writings of the Doctrinal Puritans and Divines of the Seventeenth Century (The Religious Tract Society, 1846), 18.
The combination of “grace” and “evidence” (a not uncommon concept in Puritan theology of the Taylor’s period) is apparent in this first stanza. To be graced is to have an evidence. While his vision of this beauty could be seen as an evidence that is in Paradise, I think it better to see the experience of such bliss as evidence of the grace. The glory evidences the grace; and the grace makes possible both the glory and the sight of glory.
The evidences here are wrapped in “glorious folds”.
Musical: The first word should be read “be-grac-ed” as three syllables for the line to scan properly. The play on the “g” sound in grace, glory, gold, works quite well in this stanza.
