Edward Taylor, Meditation 39, conclusion

18 Wednesday May 2022

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Edward Taylor, Edward Taylor Meditation 39, Meditation 39, poem, Poem Analysis, Poetry, Poetry Analysis

Seventh & Eighth Stanzas

What shall I do, my Lord? What do, that I
May have thee plead my case? I fee thee will
With faith, repentance, and obediently
Thy service against satanic sins fulfill.
I’ll fight thy fields while live I do, although
I should be hacked in pieces by thy foe.

Make me thy friend, Lord, be my surety: I
Will be thy client, be my advocate.
My sins make thine; thy pleas make mine hereby.
Thou wilt me save, I will thee celebrate.
Thou’lt kill my sins that cut my heart within:
And my rough feet shall thy smooth praises sing.

The poem ends with a prayer and praise, with a petition and a promise. The seventh stanza begins with “What shall I do”. The 8th with “Make my thy friend.” Thus, 7 is the potential, 8 the actuality.

What shall I do, my Lord? What do, that I
May have thee plead my case?

Here is the last hesitation in the poem. After this point has been resolved, he will proceed with confidence that his trouble will be resolved. What can I offer to God that he should provide me such a defense?

This question and the answer he will provide echoes the prophet Micah:

Micah 6:6–8 (ESV)

What Does the LORD Require?
6 “With what shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
7 Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
8 He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?

What shall I do to come before God? The same scheme is here: What shall I do to receive christ as my Advocate? I fee thee will. “I fee thee” means I will pay you. A lawyer receives a “fee.” That is still the idiom of an attorneys’ payment.

   How will he pay?

With faith, repentance, and obediently
Thy service against satanic sins fulfill.
I’ll fight thy fields while live I do, although
I should be hacked in pieces by thy foe.

The language which follows is martial and political. The concept of faith is not a bare belief that something will be true, but rather an act of fealty to a King. I will submit my life to you. I will give you my faith, I will repent of not doing so, I will live in obedience in constant warfare with my sin: even if it should kill me.

This sort of language is not out of step with the general tenor of the Puritan (rough) contemporaries of Taylor. There is another way to understand Taylor’s promise at this point. In the current edition of Credomag, there is a discussion of how Jonathan Edwards understood saving faith. This might provide an alternative understanding to Taylor’s (and Edwards’) thinking on the question of faith:

“Edwards’s variance with his tradition on the issue of sola fide is seen even more clearly when we face the role of obedience in justification. In Part 1 of this series, I quoted Miscellany #218, entitled “Faith, Justifying,” where Edwards states the following:

“‘Tis the same agreeing or consenting disposition that according to the divers [sic] objects, different states or manner of exertion, is called by different names. When ‘tis exerted towards a Savior, [it is called] faith or trust…when toward unseen good things promised, faith and also hope; when towards a gospel or good news, faith; when towards persons excellent, love; when towards commands, obedience; when towards God with respect to changes, ‘tis properly called resignation; when with respect to calamities, submission.

“Edwards sees no difficulty blurring the distinction between faith and obedience. The Reformed tradition, on the other hand, held that faith alone, apart from obedience, apprehends Christ for justification in him. While faith alone justifies, faith is “not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces.””

If the idea more clearly expressed in Edwards is found in Taylor in a less developed form, then the idea in some form was “in the air” in some fashion and found its way to Edwards. I do not know the answer to the question, beyond suggesting there is a possibility of something here. It will be something to consider more carefully in future readings.

Make me thy friend, Lord, be my surety: I
Will be thy client, be my advocate.

Here he moves to the direct petition. But notice that he begins with “friend.” The love comes before the advocacy. God loves us first. “For God so love the world he gave ….” God’s love comes first in time. Moreover, James 2 tells us the obedient Abraham who believed God “was called a friend of God.” James 2:23.

A surety pays another’s debts. Forgiveness of debt is another way to consider sin: The parable of the unforgiving servant Matthew 18:21-35 speaks of forgiving sin in terms of forgiven debt.

We then finally come to the direct petition which has been the thrust of the poem, “be my advocate.” He does not doubt that the petition will be granted.

My sins make thine; thy pleas make mine hereby.

This is an allusion to

2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV)

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The direct substitution: Christ takes on our sin. In exchange, his righteousness pleads for us. To be righteous here has the sense of being declared to be innocent of a charge. Christ stands ready to plead our case:

1 John 2:1 (ESV)

My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

Thou wilt me save, I will thee celebrate.

This is an allusion to:

Psalm 50:15 (ESV)
and call upon me in the day of trouble;
I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.

We call upon God for salvation. God will deliver us. We will praise him. Interestingly, God will save him from God.

Thou’lt kill my sins that cut my heart within:

If by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. (Rom. 8:13) This is best line in the poem, both for sound and sense. There is the sharp consonants lt/k/c/t and the internal rhyme sins/within. God will kill that which is killing me.

And then we end with the self-reference to the poem (my rough feet) as itself the praise promised above.

And my rough feet shall thy smooth praises sing.

Thus, the poem ends with the certainty that the Advocate has in fact made and will make the defense. The poem is the evidence of the pardon obtained.

Edward Taylor, Meditation 39.4

03 Tuesday May 2022

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Fifth Stanza

I have no plea mine Advocate to give.

What now? He’ll anvil arguments great store

Out of his flesh and blood to make me live.

O dear bought arguments: good pleas therefor.

Nails made of heavenly steel, more choice than gold

Drove home, well clenched, eternally will hold.

Notes:

Since a lawyer is limited by the facts of the case (attorneys’ pleas spring from the state/

The case is in), and since this case is so dire, they “knock me down to woe”, the poet has nothing to help:

I have no plea mine Advocate to give.

There is nothing particularly musical about this line: it is a plain statement of fact. And this leaves him with the wholly prosaic question:

What now?

The first line and-a-half of this stanza contain no clever image, interesting musical devices. It is just a clear statement of fact. But when we turn to the Advocate’s work, the stanza becomes “poetic”. This is an interesting rhetorical tactic by Taylor, increasing the rhetorical fireworks when it comes to the Advocate’s work.

How will the Advocate plead for the poet, when the facts are against the poet?

He’ll anvil arguments great store

Out of his flesh and blood

The image striking: the argument will come from the Advocate’s own “flesh and blood”. Moreover, he will not merely take these arguments, they will be hammered like a blacksmith with iron at a furnace, He’ll anvil arguments.

The picture is grotesque and wonderful: how does not take an hammer and anvil to one’s own body? And yet it is out of the body of the Advocate that the defense is raised.

Here is a central mystery of the Christian claim. All human beings have a body which is ultimate derived from the body of Adam. All people are of one body: “And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth.” Acts 17:26 (ESV) Thus, in both a representative and physical sense, all human beings are born “in Adam”.

The Son of God is “made flesh”. (John 1:14) Christ then lives a sinless life, and yet suffers the death allotted to all of Adam’s descendants. Being innocent, and being representative, he bears the weight of the judgment against sin: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24 (ESV) In the end he is vindicated (as evidenced by this resurrection, Romans 1:4). Christ becomes a new Adam. (Rom. 5:12-19) As raised, he stands as a new humanity.

⁴²So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. ⁴³It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. ⁴⁴It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. ⁴⁵Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. ⁴⁶But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. ⁴⁷The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. ⁴⁸As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. ⁴⁹Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

1 Corinthians 15:42–49 (ESV) Much, much more could said on this point from the New Testament. But is without question the doctrine of the Apostles that the physical body of Christ in life, death, burial, and resurrection, becomes the plea for our salvation: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

2 Corinthians 5:21 (ESV) The way in which that life of Christ becomes our life is a further discussion. The point here is that Taylor says nothing but what the Bible teaches. In a roughly contemporary work, William Gurnal uses an image which reminds of the language here in Taylor:

“He lived and died for you; he will live and die with you; for mercy and tenderness to his soldiers, none like him. Trajan, it is said, rent his clothes to bind up his soldiers’ wounds; Christ poured out his blood as balm to heal his saints’ wounds; tears off his flesh to bind them up.”

William Gurnall and John Campbell, The Christian in Complete Armour (London: Thomas Tegg, 1845), 6.

These arguments made from the body of the advocate bring life, “to make me live.” As Paul writes: “But the words “it was counted to him” were not written for his sake alone, 24 but for ours also. It will be counted to us who believe in him who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, 25 who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” Romans 4:23–25 (ESV)

These arguments come at great cost, “O dear bought arguments”. They will also work, they are “good pleas.”

The final couplet makes an in ironic use of nails:

Nails made of heavenly steel, more choice than gold

Drove home, well clenched, eternally will hold.

At one level, “nails” references the strength of this argument: They are “heavenly steel.” They are more precious that gold. And they have been fit so well, that the argument will be valid for all eternity: “Drove home, well clenched, eternally will hold.”

The final line contains two pauses, which slows down and underscores the proposition raised: This argument will stand.

The use of nails as the image for the argument then alludes to the basis for the argument: Christ’s sacrificial death. He was nailed to the tree, and in so doing, our sins were nailed to the tree. In this seeming loss, there was victory:

11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.

Colossians 2:11–15 (ESV)

Edward Taylor, Meditation 39.1

25 Monday Apr 2022

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Edward Taylor, Meditation 39, poem, Poetry, Poetry Analysis, Puritan Poetry

My sin! My God, these cursed dregs

Green, yellow, blue streaked poison hellish, rank,

Bubs hatched in nature’s nest on serpent’s eggs,

Yelp, chirp, and cry; they set my soul a-cramp

I frown, chide, strike, and fight them, mourn and cry

To conquer them, but cannot them destroy.

Notes:

The poem begins with a pair of contrasting exclamations:

“My sin!” Followed instantly by “May God”. And are the two poles upon which the poet hangs, harangued by sin, pleading to God for help.

The insistence of the language here overcharges the meter. For instance, nearly every syllable must be read as accented, spoiling the iambic form. It is as if man is being attacked from all sides by every sort of monster.

Sin is described in terms of an infestation of vermin:

The sins are “cursed dregs” (cursed is two syllables). The vermin are of every color: “Green, yellow, blue”. The vermin is “streaked poison,” and “hellish.” He cannot contain his disgust, they are “rank,” “bubs” (larvae?). “Nature” has not yet been overtaken by the Romantics sentimental view of the wilderness. This would be particularly for a family on the edge of an immense and often dangerous wilderness, where dangerous animals abound and infection means death. The disgust is so great that the description is not quite clear: the bubs are hatched on (not from) serpent’s eggs.

Serpent serves two purposes: first, a serpent would be dangerous. Second, the Devil is a serpent. The Serpent in Paradise has now overrun the world and the poet’s soul.

When the pests break free, they “yelp, chirp, and cry”. They are of every sort whatsoever.

They injure his soul, “they set my soul a-cramp” (they give him cramps in his soul).

Nothing he does will destroy these sins:

I frown, chide, strike, and fight them, mourn and cry

To conquer them, but cannot them destroy.

In writing like this, he is the vein of John Owen writing in Mortification of Sin:

And, indeed, I might here bewail the endless, foolish labour of poor souls, who, being convinced of sin, and not able to stand against the power of their convictions, do set themselves, by innumerable perplexing ways and duties, to keep down sin, but, being strangers to the Spirit of God, all in vain. They combat without victory, have war without peace, and are in slavery all their days. They spend their strength for that which is not bread, and their labour for that which profiteth not.

This is the saddest warfare that any poor creature can be engaged in. A soul under the power of conviction from the law is pressed to fight against sin, but hath no strength for the combat. They cannot but fight, and they can never conquer; they are like men thrust on the sword of enemies on purpose to be slain. The law drives them on, and sin beats them back. Sometimes they think, indeed, that they have foiled sin, when they have only raised a dust that they see it not; that is, they distemper their natural affections of fear, sorrow, and anguish, which makes them believe that sin is conquered when it is not touched. By that time they are cold, they must to the battle again; and the lust which they thought to be slain appears to have had no wound.

John Owen, The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, vol. 6 (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, n.d.), 20.

Second Stanza

I cannot kill nor coop them up: my curb

‘S less than a snaffle in their mouth, my reins

They as a twine third, snap: by hell, they’re spurred:

And load my soul with swagging loads of pains.

Black imps, young devils, snap, bite, drag to bring

And pick me headlong hell’s dread whirlpool in.

Notes

The second stanza continues his despair.

I cannot kill nor coop them up: my curb

‘S less than a snaffle

Note the alliteration: Cannot, Kill, coop, curb, which switches to S in the second line. ‘S, less, Snaffle.

He can neither kill, nor can he restrain (coop, as in cooped in or a chicken coop) sins.

When he tries curb them by means of a rein put in their mouth, they “snap” the reins. They are monsters, “spurred” on by “hell” itself.

The damage is upon his soul: “load my soul with swagging loads of pains”.

This is an excellent. First, there is the use of the word “load” as both verb (load my soul) and noun (loads of pain). There is the alliteration on l & s: Load my SouL with Swagging Loads of pain. There is the alliteration on the long O: load, soul, load. The image is marvelous: the load is great that he swaying, staggering, “swagging” under the burden (to move slowly with a great weight, swaying from side-to-side).

These monsters not merely sins, they are devils seeking to kill in him hell’s whirlpool:

Black imps, young devils, snap, bite, drag to bring

And pick me headlong hell’s dread whirlpool in.

The insistence of his enemies is shown by the three quick verbs: snap, bite, drag. The last verb opens an entire clause “young devils … drag to bring and pick me headlong”.

There is also the strange detail: these are “young devils”. This seems to harken back to the image of the sins hatching on serpent eggs.

The language in these two stanzas reminds of phrases from The Tempest:

PROSPERO [to Caliban]

Hag-seed, hence!
Fetch us in fuel; and be quick, thou’rt best,
To answer other business. Shrug’st thou, malice?
If thou neglect’st or dost unwillingly
What I command, I’ll rack thee with old cramps,
Fill all thy bones with aches, make thee roar
That beasts shall tremble at thy din.

PROSPERO [To Ariel]

Fury, Fury! there, Tyrant, there! hark! hark!

CALIBAN, STEPHANO, and TRINCULO, are driven out

Go charge my goblins that they grind their joints

With dry convulsions, shorten up their sinews

With aged cramps, and more pinch-spotted make them

Than pard or cat o’ mountain.