Edward Taylor, Meditation 36.7, What a strange, strange am I

08 Wednesday Dec 2021

Posted by memoirandremains in Edward Taylor

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Edward Taylor, Edward Taylor Meditation 36, Meditation 36, poem, Poetry Analysis, Predestination

The previous post on this poem may be found here:

A cockle shell contains this world as well

As can this world thy liberalness contain.

And by thy will these present things all fall

Unto thy children for their present gain

And things to come too, to eternity.

Thou willedst them: they’re there by legacy.

Summary: God has filled with the world with a superabundance of good things. The good begins now and will continue on through eternity.

Notes

A cockle shell is a clam shell. He makes a comparison here: You could more easily stuff the entire globe into a clamshell than you could fit all of the goodness of God into the world itself.

The use of the simile was not unprecedented. Thomas Manton and Thomas Brooks both used the shell in much the same way, as an imagine of something impossible:

the divine nature is incomprehensible; angels clap their wings, and cover their faces. Finite cannot comprehend infinite, no more than a cockle-shell can the ocean.

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 20 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1874), 193.

Who can empty an ocean with a cockle-shell? And since the fall we are grown quite brutish; our conceits are not so monstrous in anything as in the worship of God.

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 5 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1871), 107.

We cannot empty the ocean with a cockle-shell; so neither can we exhaust the divine perfections by the shallow discourse of our reason.

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 15 (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1873), 215.

We are as well able to comprehend the sea in a cockle-shell, as we are able to comprehend the Almighty

Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 2 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1866), 178.

You shall as soon remove the earth, stop the sun in his course, empty the sea with a cockle-shell, make a world, and unmake yourselves, as any power on earth, or in hell, shall ever be able to hinder Christ from the performance of the office of a surety ….

Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 5 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1867), 360.

And by thy will

He repeats this concept in the last line of the stanza, Thou willedst them

Here is the doctrine of predestination as seen from the inside. Often the doctrine is discussed as a barrier to coming to God, as if there were someone who wished to the receive the grace of God and who was then turned away for lack of a “predestination ticket”. As Jesus says in John 6:37, “Whoever comes to me I will never cast out.”

But predestination is not a matter of permission to enter. It is not door to keep one out, but rather should be seen as a net to keep one from being lost. While the good would be generally any blessing available to the believer, this poem in particular concerns the good of repentance and forgiveness.

Repentance which is joined to forgiveness is itself a divine action:

thou canst as well raise the dead at pleasure, as thou canst repent at pleasure; thou canst as well make a world at pleasure, as thou canst repent at pleasure; thou canst as well stop the course of the sun at pleasure, as thou canst repent at pleasure; thou canst as well put the sea in a cockle-shell at pleasure, and measure the earth with a span at pleasure, as thou canst repent at pleasure

Thomas Brooks, The Complete Works of Thomas Brooks, ed. Alexander Balloch Grosart, vol. 4 (Edinburgh; London; Dublin: James Nichol; James Nisbet and Co.; G. Herbert, 1867), 192.

When Taylor writes that God has willed the good to his children, that “good” necessarily includes repentance which brings about forgiveness.

Thus, the poem itself, which is a matter of repentance, is a gift of God! In seeking good from God, he is performing the good God has done to and for him. The good which extends to eternity is here being built in the very act of writing this poem. Thus, the good sought by the poem is part of the good.

Predestination & Prostitutes

23 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by memoirandremains in Culture, Evangelism, Predestination

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Center Church, Culture, Evangelism, Korea, Predestination, Prostitues, Tim Keller

When we present to the Gospel to people in other cultures (and the “other” may be from a different part of the country, or a different background — as well as a different country). We need to be careful to assume our own cultural prejudices will apply. Keller gives an example involving the ideas of “freedom” (which Americans like), “honor” (which Americas willingly trade for “fame”), “kings” (which Americas only like in movies & magazines), predestination (which Americans think is evil & insane):

In general, Western societies make an idol out of individual freedom and embrace love and acceptance as attributes of God. Grace and forgiveness sound attractive, but sin and retributive judgment are difficult to accept. In other cultures that make an idol of honor, the Christian idea of deep human depravity is self-evident, while the biblical concepts of free grace and forgiveness are seen as weakness or injustice. Retribution is critical, not only to maintain dignity, but also to keep order in society. People in these cultures are naturally more comfortable with the sovereignty, justice, and holiness of God.

A real-life example of this dynamic comes from a discussion with a Korean-American pastor, Dr. Stephen Um, in which we talked about a book that contended that people could not accept the idea of a God who judged and sent people to hell. Stephen responded that the statement was culturally narrow.

He related how his grandfather struggled with Christianity. His grandfather had no objection to the idea of hell. He had seen firsthand how evil human beings could be, and he had no problem with a God who judged people for their actions. His real concern was with the concept of free grace— that forgiveness could be extended to someone regardless of what they had done in the past. His culture did not value this idea, and so the “A” doctrine to him (the acceptable belief) was not God’s love but God’s justice. Free grace was the doctrine he found objectionable.

He then gave an example involving work with prostitutes in Korea:

No one denies there are biblical texts that talk about God predestining and electing people to believe in him, though there is plenty of controversy about what these passages exactly mean. In our Western, democratic, egalitarian culture, the idea of God’s sovereignty and his control of all things is definitely a “B” doctrine [an idea which is not acceptable in a culture]. We don’t like those parts of the Bible that talk about God being completely in charge of history, or those parts where he opens the hearts of those chosen for eternal life (Acts 13: 48; 16: 14).

So when sharing the gospel, we avoid this doctrine at all costs. For most of us in the West, predestination is not just a “B” doctrine; it’s a “C” [completely unacceptable to even consider within a culture] doctrine!

This missionary, however, realized that this was not necessarily true in mid-twentieth-century Korea. So he told the prostitutes about a God who is a King. Kings, he said, have a sovereign right to act as they saw fit. They rule — that’s just what kings do. And this great divine King chooses to select people out of the human race to serve him, simply because it is his sovereign will to do so. Therefore, his people are saved because of his royal will, not because of the quality of their lives or anything they have done. This made sense to the women.

They had no problem with idea of authority figures acting in this way — it seemed natural and right to them. But this also meant that when people were saved, it was not because of pedigree or virtue or effort, but because of the will of God (cf. John 1: 13). Their acceptance of this belief opened up the possibility of understanding and accepting the belief in salvation by grace.

Keller, Timothy J. (2012-09-04). Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City (Kindle Locations 3379-3391). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.