Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Semester of Degree Completion

1985

Thesis Director

M. Lee Steinmetz

Abstract

In Sermon IV of the Christographia Edward Taylor makes the following statement.

Man, the last in the creation, is the glory of all elementary nature. The image of God in man, the last draught of God upon him, is the glory of Man. Come to artifical instinces, and here it holds; All things of less considerations are first touched on, but that which is last entered on is of the greatest concern…And so it is in the things of God!

Because those things that are constantly fixed in “the last place” are the most complete and the most valued of their kind, those Preparatory Meditations which were written in the last of year of E. Taylor’s life and after his Treatise Concerning the Lord’s Supper can then be considered to have been written after much spiritual struggle with himself and others. His shift in Scriptural reference as well as his shift in metaphor and imagery can be traced to his struggles both spiritual and personal which came as a result of the liberalism taking place in the Puritan faith and thus in Taylor’s own congregation.

In his early Meditations most of Taylor’s Scripture references are New Testament references interspersed with references from Canticles; however in the last twelve years (Meditations 115-165) all except five of his Scriptural references are from the Old Testament book of Canticles. If dates in his personal life and dates of his Meditations are correlated, we can see that this gradual shift towards and ultimate concentration on Canticles began and became more evident during and after his disagreement with Solomon Stoddard about the growing liberalism in the Church.

From 1713 forward Taylor concentrates his Scripture references on the Old Testament book of Canticles, and the significance of the changes in his Church and his personal meditations is evident in his poetical elaboration from these references. A gradual process of change in this minister-man becomes obvious as one makes a comparison between the earlier Meditations and those written in his later years (specifically after 1713).

Prior to his conflict with Stoddard and others within the Puritan faith, Taylor’s Meditations are a reflection of man’s unworthiness and the redeeming love of Christ. He continually laments his inability to express this love of the Savior for unworthy man (himself). Much of his early meditative poetry is filled with metaphors of disease and the “huswifery” imagery so typical of Taylor and other Puritans. It is in his later Meditations that a definite change in metaphor and a specific use of one book as his Scriptural reference is evident. It is also in these later Meditations (after verbal battling from 1677-1712 with Solomon Stoddard) that he climaxes his Preparatory Meditations with the erotic and royal images of the Old Testament author of Canticles.

Because Taylor’s meditations were a private and unpublished series of Meditations and since so few of his sermons which were prepared prior to the Meditations are available, it is difficult to know what import they might have had to his contemporaries, but today’s reader with some study is aware that the Solomon Stoddard controversy did through the years have an influence in Taylor’s private meditational life.

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