God’s Determinations: The Joy Of Church Fellowship Rightly Attended

An Electronic Edition · Edward Taylor (1642-1729)

Original Source: The poetical works of Edward Taylor. Edited with an introduction and notes by Thomas H. Johnson. New York, Rockland editions, 1939.

Copyright 2003. This text is freely available provided the text is distributed with the header information provided.

Full Colophon Information

The Joy Of Church Fellowship Rightly Attended

In Heaven soaring up, I dropt an Eare  
On Earth: and oh! sweet Melody!  
And listening, found it was the Saints who were  
Encoacht for Heaven that sang for Joy.  
For in Christs Coach they sweetly sing, 5.
As they to Glory ride therein. 

Oh! joyous hearts! Enfir’de with holy Flame!  
Is speech thus tasseled with praise?  
Will not your inward fire of Joy contain,  
That it in open flames doth blaze?  
For in Christs Coach Saints sweetly sing, 5.
As they to Glory ride therein. 

And if a string do slip by Chance,  
They soon Do screw it up again: whereby  
They set it in a more melodious Tune  
And a Diviner Harmony. For in Christs  
Coach they sweetly sing, 5.
As they to Glory ride therein. 

In all their Acts, publick and private, nay,  
And secret too, they praise impart.  
But in their Acts Divine, and Worship, they  
With Hymns do offer up their Heart.  
Thus in Christs Coach they sweetly sing, 5.
As they to Glory ride therein. 

Some few not in; and some whose Time and Place  
Block up this Coaches way, do goe  
As Travellers afoot: and so do trace  
The Road that gives them right thereto;  
While in this Coach these sweetly sing, 5.
As they to Glory ride therein. 

Full Colophon Information

Genre: Poetry
Subjects: Puritans
Period: 1650-1700
Location: New England
Format: verse

This poem was completed ca. 1685but not published until 1939 in New York.

The text of the present edition was prepared from and proofed against The poetical works of Edward Taylor. Edited with an introduction and notes by Thomas H. Johnson (New York, Rockland editions, 1939). All preliminaries and notes have been omitted except those for which the author is responsible. All editorial notes have been omitted except those that indicate significant textual variations. Line and paragraph numbers contained in the source text have been retained. In cases where the source text displays no numbers, numbers are automatically generated. In the header, personal names have been regularized according to the Library of Congress authority files as "Last Name, First Name" for the REG attribute and "First Name Last Name" for the element value. Names have not been regularized in the body of the text.