Diotimos Reading Desk

Tap the page, move to the top or bottom edge, swipe down, or press Tab to reveal reading controls. Use the arrow keys or swipe sideways to turn pages.

← ExitCenturies of Meditations

The First Century

99

Wisely doth St. John say, We are the Sons of God; but the world knoweth us not because it knew Him not. He that knoweth not the Spirit of God, can never know a Son of God, nor what it is to be His child. He made us the sons of God in capacity by giving us a power to see Eternity, to survey His treasures, to love His children, to know and to love as He doth, to become righteous and holy as He is; that we might be blessed and glorious as He is. The Holy Ghost maketh us the Sons of God in act, when we are righteous as He is righteous, and Holy as He is holy. When we prize all the things in Heaven and Earth, as He prizeth Him, and make a conscience of doing it as He doth after His similitude; then are we actually present with them, and blessed in them, being righteous and holy as He is. Then the Spirit of God dwelleth in us, and then are we indeed the Sons of God, a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an Holy nation, a peculiar people, zealous of good works, shewing forth the praises of Him, who hath called us out of Darkness, into His marvellous Light.

100

Christ dwelling in our hearts by Faith is an Infinite Mystery, which may thus be understood: An object seen, is in the faculty seeing it, and by that in the Soul of the seer, after the best of manners: Whereas there are eight manners of in-being, the in-being of an object in a faculty is the best of all. Dead things are in a room containing them in a vain manner; unless they are objectively in the Soul of a seer. The pleasure of an enjoyer is the very end why things placed are in any place. The place and the thing placed in it, being both in the understanding of a spectator of them. Things dead in dead place effect nothing. But in a living Soul, that seeth their excellencies, they excite a pleasure answerable to their value, a wisdom to embrace them, a courage not to forsake them, a love of their Donor, praises and thanksgivings; and a greatness and a joy equal to their goodness. And thus all ages are present in my soul, and all kingdoms, and God blessed forever. And thus Jesus Christ is seen in me, and dwelleth in me, when I believe upon Him. And thus all Saints are in me, and I in them. And thus all Angels and the Eternity and Infinity of God are in me for evermore. I being the living temple and comprehensor of them. Since therefore all other ways of In-being would be utterly vain, were it not for this: And the Kingdom of God (as our Saviour saith, this way) is within you, let us ever think and meditate on Him, that His conception, nativity, life and death may be always within us. Let heaven and earth, men and angels, God and His creatures be always within us, that is in our sight, in our sense, in our love and esteem: that in the light of the Holy Ghost we may see the glory of His Eternal Kingdom, and sing the song of Moses, and the song of the Lamb saying, Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty, just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of Saints.

83.In power as against in act, the schoolmen’s pair after Aristotle’s potentiality and actuality. God gives the capacity to be His sons, and the Spirit makes men so in fact (see Key Words, capacity). St John’s words at the opening are 1 John 3:1-2, and the chosen generation and royal priesthood at the end are 1 Peter 2:9, with “zealous of good works” from Titus 2:14.

84.Aristotle distinguishes eight ways in which one thing is said to be in another (Physics IV.3, 210a14-24), as a part in the whole, the whole in its parts, the species in the genus, the genus in the species, form in matter, the affairs of a people in their ruler, a thing in its end, and a thing in a vessel or place, which he calls the most proper sense. Traherne ranks the being of an object in the faculty that sees it best of all. Dobell thought the word might possibly be read “right”, but the manuscript reads “eight”, and Aristotle’s count confirms it. Whereas here means while; of the eight ways, this is the best.

85.As objects of thought, present to the mind that knows them. This is the scholastic sense (a thing’s esse obiectivum, its being as an object), which Descartes still used when he spoke of the objective reality of an idea (Meditations III, 1641); it is almost the reverse of the modern sense.

86.One who comprehends, holding all things within. In scholastic theology the word also named the blessed who have attained the vision of God, as against wayfarers still on the road (Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III q.15 a.10). The living temple recalls 1 Corinthians 3:16, “ye are the temple of God”.

87.Revelation 15:3, the song of the redeemed who stand by the sea of glass, quoted word for word from “Great and marvellous are thy works”; its last words close the First Century (see the note at I.86). The kingdom of God within you, earlier in the meditation, is Luke 17:21, and Christ dwelling in the heart by faith, at its opening, Ephesians 3:17.