Meditation 46
Nay, my I Love, believe it? Shall my skeg
Be ray’d in thy white robes? My thatched old cribb
(Immortal purse hung on a mortal peg)
Wilt thou with fair’st array in heaven rig?
I’m but a jumble of gross elements 5
A snail horn where an evil spirit tents.
Notes
The subject of this meditation is Revelation 3:5, “He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.” In the context, this is a promise of Jesus given to those who are being tempted to fall away. This is given to those who will defile their garments:
Revelation 3:1–5 (KJV)
1 And unto the angel of the church in Sardis write; These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars; I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead. 2 Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God. 3 Remember therefore how thou hast received and heard, and hold fast, and repent. If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come on thee as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee. 4 Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with me in white: for they are worthy. 5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.
What is meant by the symbolism of the white robes?
II. OF THE WHITE ROBE ITSELF. It tells: 1. Of purity. “Blessed are the pure in heart.” Oh, the joy of this! It is good, when temptation comes, to be able to grip and grapple with it, and to gain victory over it, though after a hard struggle. Oh, how far better this than to miserably yield, and to be “led captive by Satan at his will”! But even this falls far below the blessedness which the white robe signifies. For it tells of an inward purity, like to his who said, “The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.” There was nothing in him on which the tempter’s power could fasten, and to rise up to this heart-purity is the glory and joy promised by the white robe. 2. Of victory. White was the symbol of this also, as well as of purity. He who went forth “conquering and to conquer” rode upon a white horse—so the vision declared. They who had come out of the great tribulation were clothed in “white robes,” and elsewhere we are told they had “overcome by the blood of the Lamb.” And this blessedness of victory the consecrated soul enjoys. “Sin shall not have dominion over” him. “In all things” he is “more than conqueror.” One of the very chiefest blessings of the Christian faith is that it makes the weak strong, and to them that have no might the faith of Christ increaseth strength. Facts of everyday Christian experience prove that it is so. 3. Of joy. White garments are the symbol of this also. And the truly consecrated heart shall know “the joy of the Lord.” The saints of God in all ages have found that “he giveth songs in the night.” Who should have joy if not the true-hearted Christian man?
Spence-Jones, H. D. M., editor. Revelation. Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1909, pp. 128–29.
Now to the poem itself:
Nay, my I Love, believe it? Shall my skeg
Be ray’d in thy white robes?
A skeg is a broken stump. This reminds of an image of a much different and much later poet’s self description:
Better to smile on all that smile, and show
There is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow.
-Among Schoolchildren, WB Yeats
How am I to believe that God will dress my broken body in glorious robes?
He then doubles the conceit by comparing himself to a thatched cottage, the poorest sort of home:
My thatched old cribb
(Immortal purse hung on a mortal peg)
Wilt thou with fair’st array in heaven rig?
Will you adorn a thatched “crib” – not even a house, more like an animal pen—with heavenly display: a “heaven’s rig”. The rig being the outfit for heaven.
Line three provides an interesting image of the nature of human life:
Immortal purse hung on a mortal peg
Taylor routinely makes ethical evaluations of himself, but rarely makes an ontological evaluation: what is the nature of human life? He may have taken the image from Isaiah:
Isaiah 22:22–25 (KJV)
22 And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. 23 And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place; and he shall be for a glorious throne to his father’s house. 24 And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father’s house, the offspring and the issue, all vessels of small quantity, from the vessels of cups, even to all the vessels of flagons. 25 In that day, saith the LORD of hosts, shall the nail that is fastened in the sure place be removed, and be cut down, and fall; and the burden that was upon it shall be cut off: for the LORD hath spoken it.
In this image glory is hung upon a peg which will be cut down. In Taylor, the immortal purse, the soul which cannot die and contains all the undying life of a human being is dependent upon a mortal peg, the body which will die (and will then be resurrected, glorious).
And a further description of human life:
I’m but a jumble of gross elements 5
A snail horn where an evil spirit tents.
Gross elements are physical elements; not in the strictly sense of chemists delineating “elements”, but a more general sense of parts. I am a jumble of water and dirt. I am snail. Not surprisingly, snails have a negative image among the Puritans, for example:
Sins of commission, as drunkenness, uncleanness, theft, swearing, murder; these make a great noise in the world, are taken notice of by all, and with the snail, leave a slime and filth behind them, wheresoever they are: but sins of omission, as not praying in our closets, not examining our own hearts, not relieving the poor and needy, not bringing up our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, &c.; these are more still and quiet, observed by few or none.
Swinnock, George. The Works of George Swinnock, M.A. James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1868, pp. 326–27.
Shakespeare uses it as an insult in The Comedy of Errors:
Dromio—thou, Dromio—thou snail, thou slug,
thou sot.
Act II, Scene 2, 205
And it was recognized that snails do not really have horns:
By the licence of this figure we give names to many things which lacke names, as when we say, the water runne, which is improper, for to run, is proper to those creatures which have feete, and not water which hath none. By this forme we attribute hornes to a snaile, and feete to a stoole, & so likewise to many other things which do lacke their proper names.
Peachum, Henry. The Garden of Eloquence (1593): Tropes. Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, Inc., 1977.
And so I am a stump, an animal pen, something of immortal value kept aloft by something doomed to die, a jumble of dirt and water, a snail – and you are going to dress me in glorious robes? That is not to be believed.
Stop and consider the absurdity of the Christian hope: I am not in the least be glorious. I am going to die. I certainly can think of any reason that God would even pay attention to me much less make me glorious. I don’t’ expect any president or king or celebrity to even know who I am. Why would I expect God to know who I am and then bestow glory on something as frail and uninteresting as me? I am not among the most glorious of human beings.
“Applying an English cultural practice he had observed firsthand both in his homeland and New England, Taylor fashions a speaker whose vocabu- lary indicates his social rank. A cluster of words in the first stanza suggests the narrator’s position at the low end of the seventeenth-century English social scale. This cluster includes “Skeg,” “Cribb,” “Purss,” “rig,” “Horn” and prob- ably “Peg.” In Taylor’s day these words had different meanings depending on theirdistinctiveusewithinvarioussocialstrata.Consideredsingly,eachof their specific connotations in the monologue does not reveal much more about the speaker than a certain uncultivated awkwardness in self-expression. Con- sidered collectively, however, the close association of these words in the short span of the monologue’s opening lines intimates that the narrator is very familiar with the seventeenth-century argot of English criminals: “Skeg” (theft, plunder), “Cribb” (pilfer, hoax), “Purss” (loot), “rig” (rob, cheat), “Horn” (declared an outlaw), and “Peg” (indicted).”
http://avalon-pre.library.tamu.edu/bitstream/handle/1969.1/95601/V64-I3-33-Essay-Scheick.pdf?sequence=1
Stanza Two
A dirt ball dressed in milk white lawn and decked
In tissue tagged with gold, or ermine flush
That mocks the stars, and set them in a fret
To see themselves out shone, thus; oh they blush.
Wonders stand gastard here. But yet my Lord
This is but faint to what thou dost afford.
Notes:
Lawn (OED) A kind of fine linen or cotton. This fabric used for the sleeves worn by a bishop. Hence, the dignity or office of a bishop.
For “gastard” I can find nothing certain beyond the use as a place and family name. The meaning from its usage in the poem must mean something like “obvious” or “patent”. Well doing some further reading I have learned it means something like “aghast.”
A dirt ball dressed in milk white lawn and decked
In tissue tagged with gold, or ermine flush
That mocks the stars, and set them in a fret
To see themselves out shone, thus; oh they blush.
The initial phrase “dirt ball” sounds comical, because “dirt ball” is a colloquial insult at present. A ball of dirt as an epithet of a human being was used by Shakespeare. For instance, Moritmer in Henry VI has this self-reference, “this lump of clay.” In the Life and Death of King John, Henry referring to the dead John, says, “When this was now a king and now is clay?” To be clay is in these instances to be mortal. “From dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return.”
The poet sees himself as a ball of dirt which has been outfitted like royalty:
To be dressed in “white lawn” is to be dressed like a bishop, which would have been an august position in the world Taylor left in England. To be dressed in ermine is to be dressed as royalty.
The absurdity of the presentation is made even more absurd, in that the glory of these outfits makes him outshine stars. The stars, in their magnificence, look at this ridiculous sight, the glorious inglorious.
The glory of being decked out by God is greater than any natural glory –even of the stars. When they look upon this glory they blush for something more glorious than they is present.
Wonders stand gastard here. But yet my Lord
This is but faint to what thou dost afford.
There are wonders here, but they are nothing compared to what glory you provide (afford).
Stanza Three
I’m but a ball of dirt. Wilt thou adorn
Me with thy web wove in thy loom divine
The whitest web in glory, that the morn, 15
Nay that all angel glory, doth ore shine?
They wear no such: This whitest lawn most fine
Is only worn, my Lord, by thee and thine.
Notes
Why would God take a human being, who is simply animated dirt and water, a ‘ball of dirt’, and raise this clay to such glory? That is the unanswerable question of the poem: This is the matter which constantly leaves Taylor speechless.
God receives no benefit from us. We can give nothing to God. In ourselves, we are not merely unable to provide God benefit, we are by nature hostile and fail to even conform to his commands very well.
When you look at pagan religions, the emphasis is on my having provided benefit to the spirit or god. I have earend a decent return from you, deity, it’s time for you to pay up.
But Christian view looks at humanity and sees sin and a body which can’t last all that long. Without any merit in ourselves, we stand amazed that God would give godo to us. This is not running ourselves down in a morbid self-attack. You see, a clear look at our misery does nothing to cause of to lose good. Despite our own misery, we are set to receive unimaginable good we could never earn. This is an inheritance, not a wage.
I’m but a ball of dirt. Wilt thou adorn
Me with thy web wove in thy loom divine
The whitest web in glory, that the morn, 15
Nay that all angel glory, doth ore shine?
Here “web” means the cloth woven on the loom. There is no negative connotation, as one might have when thinking of a spider web. Instead, think of something delicate and supremely beautiful from come God’s divine loom.
Why white?
First, something without defect or blemish; purity, like snow.
Second, light. When Jesus is on the Mount of Transfiguration, he is adorned with brilliant light.
Thus, God is going to adorn us in purity and brilliance.
Moreover, this will be a glory greater than any angel could ever display. In Hebrews 1, we learn that angels are ministering spirits, but they are not supreme. We human beings exalted with Jesus will be above angels. In 1 Corinthians 6:3, Paul mentions (in connection with the question resolving conflicts in the church) that we human beings will judge angels.
Here Taylor is amazed that our glory will be greater than the glory of angels.
Doth over shine: ore is a contraction of “over”.
They wear no such: This whitest lawn most fine
Is only worn, my Lord, by thee and thine.
Again, Lawn means fine cloth, particularly cloth worn by a bishop.
Angels are not permitted this material: it is only worn by the Lord and those who belong with him.
This is to be clothed in the righteousness of Christ. How am I righteous? Because Jesus is righteous and his righteousness is given to me (and my sin is counted against him).
Stanzas Four
This say’s no flurr of wit, no new coin’d shape
Of frolic fancy in a rampant brain. 20
It’s juice divine bled from the choicest grape
That ever Zion’s vineyard did maintain.
Such mortal bits immortalized shall wear
More glorious robes than glorious angels bear.
Notes:
This stanza answers the objection that Taylor’s belief that God will grant such glorious apparel to such a mere man, a ball of dirt:
This say’s no flurr of wit
This idea is not a mere clever flurry from a sharp wit.
no new coin’d shape
Of frolic fancy in a rampant brain.
It is no fanciful idea which his “frolic” has just made up, that is, “coined”. It is not the product of a brain which is running wild.
This is not just some insane idea I made up: I got this idea from God. I found this promise in Revelation 3:5
He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment.
Therefore, Taylor says this idea is the fruit of God’s work:
It’s juice divine bled from the choicest grape
That ever Zion’s vineyard did maintain.
While the general conceit exists that this idea comes from God, there is more depth in this particular image. First, this truth is “bled”. It is the product of Christ’s death. The matching of the red of wine, the blood of grapes, and the blood of Christ is not a difficult leap.
The concept of receiving from Zion’s vineyard is an image which goes back to Isaiah 5, which is also taken up by Jesus in Luke 20. The vineyard is God’s work, from which God expected a certain response from Israel. But Israel rebelled against God and sought to keep the vineyard for itself. Jesus being the heir whom the tenants kill.
Thus, this glory which shall be Taylor’s comes from the work of Christ. It is a purchase for him: He says, I’m not insane to believe this remarkable truth: I shall be clothed in this manner, because Christ has earned me this glory. It is the choicest work of God in Christ which makes this true.
Such mortal bits immortalized shall wear
More glorious robes than glorious angels bear.
Now, I am mortal: we human beings are just “mortal bits”. But to be mortal is not the end, we shall be immortalized, “This mortal must put on immortality” (1 Cor. 15:53). And having been made immortal shall become glorious. And the glory we shall we as the redeemed, the mortals made mortal, the corruptible made incorruptible will be more glorious than the glory of angels.
This is true, because the Angels are glorious servants; but the glory which human beings shall wear is the glory purchased by the work of Christ.
The next two stanzas are then given over to praise of this glory.
Stanza Five
Their web is wealthy, wove of wealthy silk 25
Well wrought indeed, it’s all branched taffity.
But this thy web more white by far than milk
Spun on thy wheel twine of thy deity
Wove in thy web, fulled in thy mill by hand
Makes them in their bravery seem taned. 30
Notes
Taffeta (taffity):
mid-14c., “fine, smooth, lustrous silk cloth,” also taffata, from Old French taffetas (early 14c.), from Italian taffeta or Medieval Latin taffata, ultimately from Persian taftah “silk or linen cloth,” noun use of past participle of taftan “to twist, spin, weave, interlace,” from Iranian *tap-. Applied to different fabrics in different eras
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=taffeta
Full: to wash, bleach
Mark 9:3 (KJV)
3 And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them.
Brave here does not refer to courage precisely. Rather it is exhibition, making a fine show.
The sense of this stanza is straightforward: the glory with which the Lord will cloth the saint is greater than the glory possessed by angels. In comparison, the angel’s glory looks brown to the dazzling white light given by God.
The most difficult line is 28:
Spun on thy wheel, twine of thy deity
It is necessary to make a hard break at wheel:
The web is spun on thy wheel
The “twine” that is the yarn or thread of the cloth is made from thy Deity.
Next is the trouble of the second half of this line: The web is made from the Deity of Christ.
Exactly how Taylor understands this proposition is not completely clear from one line of a poem. The relevant allusion is here:
2 Peter 1:2–4 (KJV)
2 Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, 3 According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: 4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
Some references to those who belong in the same orbit as Taylor:
This does not imply that such a sinner becomes divine and is a partaker of the very being and attributes of God. From a divine perspective God is incommunicable, and finite man from his perspective cannot comprehend God’s Being, the Godhead being infinite, simple, and thus indivisible. Therefore, if man in some measure were a partaker of the divine Being itself or of one of the divine attributes, he would consequently be a partaker of the entire Godhead itself, and thus man would be God. However, when we speak of the image and likeness of God in man, we are merely referring to a reflection of some of God’s attributes, which are infinite, indivisible, and incommunicable in God Himself. There is some measure of congruency between these attributes and the image of God in man; however, not as if there were full equality, but merely by way of faint similitude
à Brakel, Wilhelmus. The Christian’s Reasonable Service. Edited by Joel R. Beeke, Translated by Bartel Elshout, vol. 1, Reformation Heritage Books, 1992, p. 90.
- CHRIST’S RIGHTEOUSNESS. ’Tis most agreeable to the tenor of the Scripture that believers shall partake with Christ in that exaltation and glory which the Father gives him in reward for his obedience, his doing the work which he did in the world by the Father’s appointment. The whole mystical Christ shall be rewarded for this, which is the same thing as the having Christ’s righteousness imputed to them.
Edwards, Jonathan. The “Miscellanies”: (Entry Nos. 501–832). Edited by Ava Chamberlain and Harry S. Stout, vol. 18, Yale University Press, 2000, p. 51.
The glory of the believer in glory is not the glory of his own merit but the glory of Christ. It is a reflected and borrowed glory. This makes sense of the incredulity of the poet asking, “How could this be true?”
Stanza Six
This web is wrought by the best and noblest art
That heaven doth afford of twine most choice
All branched with richly flowered in every part
With all the sparkling flowers of Paradise.
To be thy wear alone who hast no peer 35
And robes for glorious saints to thee most dear.
Notes:
This stanza merely continues the praise of the glory of the robe.
The reference to “flowers of Paradise” is interesting. Paradise is the world to come.
The glory of the cloth and robe belongs to Christ with whom there is no equal:
To be thy wear alone who hast no peer
And yet this glory is shared:
And robes for glorious saints to thee most dear.
Stanza Seven
Wilt thou, my Lord, dress my poor wither’d stump
In this rich web whose whiteness doth excell
The snow, though ‘tis most black? And shall my lump
Of clay wear more than e’re on angels fell? 40
What shall my bit of dirt bedecked so fine
That shall angelic glory all out shine?
Notes:
The thrust of this stanza asks, Is this possible? Will you really dress me, a
Withered stump
A lump of clay
A bit of dirt
With glory:
This rich robe whose whiteness doth excel
[a robe more glorious] than e’re on angels fell [ever angels wore]
That shall angelic glory all out shine
Stanza Eight
Shall things thus run? Then Lord, my tumberill
Unload of all its dung, and make it clean
And load it with thy wealthiest grace until 45
Its wheels to crack, or axletree complain.
I fain would have it cart thy harvest in,
Before it’s loosed from its axlepin.
Notes
In doing so research on the word “tumbril” I found: “His rickety “tumberill” (a wagon that can be tilted to dump a load) aptly represents his filth-filled body subject to decay and death.”
It was an essay by William J. Scheick a professor at U Texas (https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/english/faculty/wjs123) and thus, and obviously more academically distinguished than me. However, despite his erudition, I found this discussion from his essay demonstrative of someone looking at Taylor’s theological world from the outside:
“The possibility of such a rapid transformation in economic and social standing may reflect Taylor’s late-Renaissance awareness of the economic blurring of clearly demarcated social ranks. In spiritual terms, however, the poet also affirms the older hierarchical distinction between rulers and subjects. In crude socio-economic terms the narrator wonders how could he, someone of such low social rank, possibly be chosen for such an astonishing largesse? At the core of his vacillation between belief and doubt is the fundamental question Calvinists were routinely urged to ponder concerning their possible elevation in spiritual standing through divine election.”
This demonstrates the fundamental misunderstanding of the Reformation and Calvin in particular when it comes to the matters of election and depravity. One thing which is wildly misunderstood is the doctrine of Assurance. A fundamental change of the Reformation concerned the doctrine of assurance. Taylor is not wondering whether he will be saved. He is not tormented over whether he is elect: He is astounded that he is.
Every poem Taylor ends with rejoicing in his standing before God. He never struggles with election: he marvels over grace. These are fundamentally different point, which is routinely misunderstood by the academic world (I recall this precise misunderstanding during my days as a lit major).
Second, Christ is King. The social issue is not diminished in a democracy: granted there is a grotesque lack of fear and reverence among Christians, but that is not inherent in the Gospel itself. It is simultaneously the deepest friendship and love and the greatest condescension possible: one beyond comprehension.
The prayer which Taylor raises in this stanza is a prayer premised upon the preceding justification: Since I have been elected, since I am justified make in fact what I am in position. There is positional sanctification: we are made saints in standing. There is also progressive sanctification: Make me what I have already become. Make my life consistent with my profession.
Empty me of my sin:
Then Lord, my tumberill
Unload of all its dung,
And having be relieved this sinful practice and thought cleanse me:
and make it clean
Then fill me with grace, the work of the Spirit, until I begin to break under this holiness and grace:
And load it with thy wealthiest grace until 45
Its wheels to crack, or axletree complain.
I fain would have it cart thy harvest in,
Before it’s loosed from its axlepin.
This prayer is premised upon the fact of his election: It is wondering whether he has been chosen. It is groaning under remanent sin.
The misreading is to utterly misunderstand Taylor’s God. Taylor is not struggling and in fear as to whether God loves him. He is baffled that God would.
Why then the intensity of the prayer? Here is another thing which seems to be misunderstood from someone looking outside. The hinderance on sanctification is a matter of desire. Sinful desire strains in one direction. The manner to overcome sin is not to kill emotion but to replace one love with a greater love, one desire with a greater desire. Taylor is looking upon his sin in hatred and looking upon the goodness of God so as to hone and develop the desire in the right direction.
The poem itself is a spiritual discipline. We are watching Taylor direct his desires in a new direction by looking upon the hatefulness of sin and the inexplicable goodness of God. When he sees his unworthiness, it makes him love God the more.
My own reading of the poem is to trace out Taylor’s own work in sanctification. I think along behind him so that He can teach me how to hate sin and love God and thus hope that my own desires will be confirmed in the proper direction.
This makes sense of the final stanza:
Then screw my Strings up to thy tune that I
May load thy Glory with my Songs of praise.
Make me thy shalm, thy praise my songs, whereby
My mean shoshannim may thy michtams raise.
And when my Clay ball’s in thy White robes dresst
My tune perfume thy praise shall with the best.
Notes:
Shalm: an oboe
shoshannim Hebrew: lily. Used in Song of Songs
michtams:
Michtam. KJV rendering of miktam, a musical cue, in the titles of Psalms 16; 56; 57; 58; 59, and 60.
See MIKTAM.
KJV The King James Version
Elwell, Walter A., and Barry J. Beitzel. “Michtam.” Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible, vol. 2, Baker Book House, 1988, p. 1456.
Give me a heart to sing you praise – which is precisely what the instant poem is:
Then screw my Strings up to thy tune that I
May load thy Glory with my Songs of praise.
Make me thy shalm, thy praise my songs, whereby
My mean shoshannim may thy michtams raise.
And when I have been glorified, I will praise you better:
And when my Clay ball’s in thy White robes dresst
My tune perfume thy praise shall with the best.