Alchemy in Imagery: Rosicrucian Influence on Edward Taylor’s Poetry

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Alchemy in Imagery Rosicrucian Influence on Edward Taylor’s Poetry

As a Puritan preacher, it is expected that Edward Taylor would include theological imagery in his poetry. What is not expected is the use of Rosicrucian representation in this imagery. The use of alchemical symbolism is prevalent in many of Taylor’s meditations. The intent of this paper is to show the Rosicrucian influence on Taylor’s poetry and explain how a Puritan preacher came to use alchemical and mystical imagery in the representation of Christian beliefs. This will be accomplished by showing that Taylor had access to Rosicrucian literature, made references to alchemy in his poetry, and by explicating one of Taylor’s poems to determine the use of imagery related to alchemy.

At twenty-six years of age, Taylor, “armed with a few letters of introduction, presented himself to Increase Mather… Mather must have welcomed him warmly, for Taylor spent the next three nights at Mather’s home.”(Grabo r. ed. 5) Taylor and Mather became close friends (Grabo r. ed. 1) allowing Taylor access to the Mather library and Rosicrucian texts (Freels). The Mather library incorporated numerous Alchemical works including Michael Maier’s Laws of the Fraternity of the Rosie Cross, Helmont’s Ortus Medicinae, Riverius’ Practice of Physick, to which Taylor delegates substantial space in his portfolio, John Dee’s Artis et Naturae cum Enlightenment and Roger Bacon’s Epistolae Fratris (Freels). Another possible source of Rosicrucian literature available to Taylor was the library of Connecticut Governor John Winthrop Jr., whose holdings were described as, “the most significant and extensive alchemical library in colonial America.” In 1787, Ezra Stiles, Taylor’s grandson and President of Yale University, recorded in his diary a legend concerning Winthrop’s prowess as an alchemist, displaying an interest in alchemy that his grandfather may have stimulated. “Ezra Stiles chose Taylor’s copy of the alchemical treatise, John Webster’s Metallographia , to write a short memoir dedicated to Taylor indicating perhaps a fond memory connected with Taylor’s enthusiasm for alchemy” (Stanford 508).

On May 5, 1671, Edward Taylor and four of his classmates [Hull, Mather, Sewall and Chauncy] at Harvard presented their final declamations. Taylor wrote 1 lines of heroic couplets for this occasion. Taylor’s declamation includes the first reference to alchemy written by a Puritan poet “no such spirits flow/ From mine alembick , neither have I skill/ To rain such honey falls out of my still” (Clack 1). Taylor later followed this, in Meditation 1., by describing the alchemist




The Boasting Spagyirst (Insipid Phlegm,

Whose Words out strut the Sky) vaunts he hath rife

The Water, Tincture, Lozenge, Gold, Gem,

Of Life itselfe. But here’s the Bread of Life.

I’le lay my Life, his Aurum Vitae Red

Is to my Bread of Life, worse than DEAD HEAD .

“In the first few lines of this passage Taylor chides the alchemist (“Boasting Spagyirst”) for his attempts to create stone transmutation (“Lozenge, Gold and Gem”) and the elixir vitae (“Water, Tincture … Of Life”)” (Clack 14). What is interesting is Taylor’s reference to “Aurum Vitae Red”. This refers to the liquid alchemists called the “Gold of Life” which was reported to prolong life, and in rare cases restore the dead. Although Taylor was familiar with the philosophy behind the transmutation of metals, he used the spiritual metaphors of alchemy to illustrate what he saw as the regenerating powers of God’s grace through the theanthropy of Christ” (14). This imagery, through the use of alchemical terminology, is prevalent in many of Taylor’s Meditations and other poems including for example; the use of vitae in Meditations 1., 1., .46, .60, .80, and .11 but also in the poem “The Effects of this Reply with a Fresh Assault from Satan” (Russell 56).

Meditation 1.7 is “perhaps the one meditation to which scholars frequently turn for an example of Taylor’s use of alchemical tropes” (15) due to it’s richness in alchemical imagery beginning with Christ as an alchemical still.

Thy Humane Frame, my Glorious Lord, I spy,

A Golden Still with Heavenly Choice drugs filld;

Thy Holy Love, the Glowing heate whereby,

The Spirit of Grace is graciously distilld.

Thy Mouth the Neck through which these spirits still.

My soul thy Violl make, and therewith fill.

The value of the still is shown through its golden color and therefore, the value of the “Heavenly Choice drugs” that have been distilled by God’s “Holy Love, the Glowing heate.”

The distilled “Spirit of Grace” is the “Tincture” (or elixir vitae) found in stanza two. Taylor desires this to be distilled into his alembic soul.

Thy Speech the Liquour in thy Vessell stands,

Well ting’d with Grace a blessed Tincture, Loe,

Thy Words distilld, Grace in thy Lips pourd, and,

Give Graces Tincture in them where they go.

Thy words in graces tincture stilld, Lord, may

The Tincture of thy Grace in me Convay.

Four of these six lines refer to this “Tincture” of grace. Grace poured from the lips of God into Taylor, the “Vessell”, is used to renew his soul as stated by, “thy Grace in me Convay.”

Although Taylor chose Psalms 45, “Grace in thy lips is poured out,” as the text for this meditation, the reference to both the alchemical distillation process and the tincture are of particular interest. Paracelsus believed that the tincture had the power to transform base metal or base material into gold. According to Metallographia, the “essence of gold is threefold 1) Coeleste & est solutium, celestial and loosed, ) Elementare, fluid, and ) Metallicum, that which is corporeal. Further, it is to be known that the first ens, that is to say, the first composition of Gold, which as yet remains a liquor not coagulated, doth renew and restore whatsoever it takes … The Philosophers often make mention of another sort of aurum potabile, or the tincture of Gold, which is not drawn forth of common Gold, but forth from another subject; and this we touched where we spake of Astrilish [Celestial] Gold.” In this passage we can see how Taylor would have transformed the “Grand Elixir” or elixir vitae of the alchemists into a metaphor for the tincture of God’s grace.

In the final stanza of Meditation 1.7, Taylor moves from Christ’s words as tincture to Christ’s words as Gold.

That Golden Mint of Words, thy Mouth Divine,

Doth tip these Words, which by my Fall were spoiled;

And Dub with Gold dug out of Graces mine

That they thine Image might have in them foild.

Grace in thy Lips pourd out’s as Liquid Gold.

thy Bottle make my Soule, Lord, it to hold.

The association of grace with gold, “Golden Mints of Words”, “Gold dug out of Grace”, concludes in the image of “Grace” as “Liquid Gold” in which Taylor uses his own soul as an alchemical vessel to hold the precious substance. “Implicit in this passage is the idea that God’s “Grace” is tantamount to His joy and love given form in Christ” (16). To Taylor, this “Grace” becomes a most transmutative substance having the ability to redeem his soul. In this, Christ is the agent of transmutation through which the soul moves to a state of grace.

Making use of his Meditations, Taylor emphasizes this point “Christ is comparable with the philosopher’s stone, created by God-the-alchemist to regenerate the fallen soul” (16). In doing this, Taylor shows Christ, in His role as the philosopher’s stone, as moving Taylor from a state of despair in the beginning of most of his poems to a state of grace at the end. This Rosicrucian imagery is not limited to Taylor’s poetry. For example, Sermon X “contains alchemical vessel imagery, mentioning ‘Aqua Celestis,’ as a synonym for grace, and the ‘Summum Bonum’ to describe Christ as the ‘celestiall vessell Fild up to the brim with the church’” (Freels).

The presence of Rosicrucian literature in Puritan libraries indicates a gradual softening of Puritan attitudes toward the alchemical arts. Not only did such notable Puritans as Edward Taylor, Increase and Cotton Mather, John Winthrop Jr. and his son Wait Still Winthrop have knowledge of Rosicrucian works, but that Rosicrucian philosophy, particularly in relation to the healing arts, was a source of speculation and interest. We can conclude from texts known to be in his library, his close association with the Mathers’ and the Winthrops’, and statements made about him by his grandson, Ezra Stiles, that Edward Taylor had ample access to Rosicrucian literature. We can further conclude from the imagery in his Meditations, other poetry and sermon’s, that Taylor implored alchemical symbols as metaphors from which to describe such things as grace to his parishioners. Returning to Meditation 1.7 and Taylor’s image of the “Golden Still with Heavenly Choice drugs filld,” we are shown the extent of Taylor’s alchemical knowledge and his familiarity with Paracelsian [alchemical] medicine. The metaphors used by Taylor show Christ as the celestial physician whose sole purpose is to heal through grace.



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