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 Second Century

21

When Amasis the King of Egypt sent to the wise men of Greece, to know, Quid Pulcherrimum? upon due and mature consideration they answered, The World. The world certainly being so beautiful that nothing visible is capable of more. Were we to see it only once, the first appearance would amaze us. But being daily seen, we observe it not. Ancient philosophers have thought God to be the Soul of the World. Since therefore this visible World is the body of God, not His natural body, but which He hath assumed; let us see how glorious His wisdom is in manifesting Himself thereby. It hath not only represented His infinity and eternity which we thought impossible to, be represented by a body, but His beauty also, His wisdom, goodness, power, life and glory, His righteousness, love, and blessedness: all which as out of a plentiful treasury, may be taken and collected out of this world.

First, His infinity; for the dimensions of the world are unsearchable. An infinite wall is a poor thing to express His infinity. A narrow endless length is nothing: might be, and if it were, were unprofitable. But the world is round, and endlessly unsearchable every way. What astronomer, what mathematician, what philosopher did ever comprehend the measures of the world? The very Earth alone being round and globous, is illimited. It hath neither walls nor precipices, nor bounds, nor borders. A man may lose himself in the midst of nations and kingdoms. And yet it is but a centre compared to the universe. The distance of the sun, the altitude of the stars, the wideness of the heavens on every side passeth the reach of sight, and search of the understanding. And whether it be infinite or no, we cannot tell. The Eternity of God is so apparent in it, that the wisest of philosophers thought the world eternal. We come into it and leave it, as if it had neither beginning nor ending. Concerning its beauty I need say nothing. No man can turn unto it, but must be ravished with its appearance. Only thus much, since these things are so beautiful, how much more beautiful is the author of them? Which was the note and observation of the wise man in the Book of ⸻. But the beauty of God is invisible, it is all Wisdom, Goodness, Life and Love, Power, Glory, Blessedness &c. How therefore shall these be expressed in a material world? His wisdom is expressed in manifesting His infinity in such a commodious manner. He hath made a penetrable body in which we may stand, to wit the air, and see the Heavens and the regions of the Earth, at wonderful distances. His goodness is manifest in making that beauty so delightful, and its varieties so profitable. The air to breathe in, the sea for moisture, the earth for fertility, the heavens for influences, the Sun for productions, the stars and trees wherewith it is adorned for innumerable uses. Again His goodness is seen, in the end to which He guideth all this profitableness, in making it serviceable to supply our wants, and delight our senses: to enflame us with His love, and make us amiable before Him, and delighters in His blessedness. God having not only shewed us His simple infinity in an endless wall, but in such an illustrious manner, by an infinite variety, that He hath drowned our understanding in a multitude of wonders: transported us with delights and enriched us with innumerable diversities of joys and pleasures. The very greatness of our felicity convinceth us that there is a God.

22

His power is evident by upholding it all. But how shall His life appear in that which is dead? Life is the root of activity and motion: Did I see a man sitting in a chair, as long as he was quiet, I could not tell but his body was inanimate: but if he stirred, if he moved his legs, or stretched forth his arms, if he breathed or twinkled with his eyes, I could easily tell he had a soul within him. Motion being a far greater evidence of life, than all lineaments whatsoever. Colours and features may be in a dead picture, but motion is always attended with life. What shall I think therefore when the winds blow, the seas roar, the waters flow, the vapours ascend, the clouds fly, the drops of rain fall, the stars march forth in armies, the sun runneth swiftly round about the world? Can all these things move so without a life, or spring of motion? But the wheels in watches move, and so doth the hand that pointeth out the figures: this being a motion of dead things. Therefore hath God created living ones: that by lively motions, and sensible desires, we might be sensible of a Deity. They breathe, they see, they feel, they grow, they flourish, they know, they love. O what a world of evidences! We are lost in abysses, we now are absorpt in wonders, and swallowed up of demonstrations. Beasts, fowls, and fishes teaching and evidencing the glory of their creator. But these by an endless generation might succeed each other from everlasting. Let us therefore survey their order, and see by that whether we cannot discern their governor. The sun, and moon, and stars shine, and by shining minister influences to herbs and flowers. These grow and feed the cattle: the seas also and springs minister unto them, as they do unto fowls and fishes. All which are subservient unto man, a more noble creature endued with understanding to admire his Creator. Who being king and lord of this world, is able to prize all in a reflexive manner, and render praises for all with joy, living blessedly in the fruition of them. None can question the being of a Deity but one that is ignorant of man’s excellencies, and the glory of his dominion over all the creatures.

23

Above all, man discovereth the glory of God; who being himself Immortal, is the divinest creature. He hath a dominion over all the rest, and God over him: By him, the fountain of all these things is the end of them: for he can return to their Author deserved praises. Senses cannot resemble that which they cannot apprehend; nor express that which they, cannot resemble, but in a shady manner. But man is made in the Image of God, and therefore is a mirror and representative of Him. And therefore in himself he may see God, which is his glory and felicity. His thoughts and desires can run out to everlasting. His love can extend to all objects, his understanding is an endless light, and can infinitely be present in all places, and see and examine all beings, survey the reasons, surmount the greatness, exceed the strength, contemplate the beauty, enjoy the benefit, and reign over all it sees and enjoys like the Eternal Godhead. Here is an invisible power, an indivisible omnipresence, a spiritual supremacy, an inward, hidden, unknown being greater than all, a sublime and sovereign creature meet to live in communion with God, in the fruition of them.

24

That you are a man should fill you with joys, and make you to overflow with praises. The privilege of your nature being infinitely infinite. And that the world serves you in this fathomless manner, exhibiting the Deity, and ministering to your blessedness, ought daily to transport you with a blessed vision, into ravishments and ecstasies. What knowledge could you have had of God by an unprofitable wall though endless and infinite? For though as things now are, nothing can be, but it exhibits a Deity; as the Apostle saith, By things that are seen the invisible things of God are manifested, even His power and Godhead, because everything is a demonstration of His goodness and power; by its existence and the end to which it is guided: yet an endless wall could never manifest His being, were it present with you alone: for it would deny that infinity by its unprofitableness, which it showeth by its endlessness. The true exemplar of God’s infinity is that of your understanding, which is a lively pattern and idea of it. It excludeth nothing, and containeth all things, being a power that permitteth all objects to be, and is able to enjoy them. Here is a profitable endlessness of infinite value, because without it infinite joys and blessings would be lost, which by it are enjoyed. How great doth God appear, in wisely preparing such an understanding to enjoy His creatures; such an endless, invisible, and mysterious receiver! And how blessed and divine are you, to whom God hath not only simply appeared, but whom He hath exalted as an Immortal King among all His creatures!

101.Amasis (Ahmose II, king of Egypt 570-526 BC) appears in Plutarch’s Dinner of the Seven Wise Men, where the king of Ethiopia’s answers to questions Amasis had set him, what is oldest, greatest, most beautiful, are read out before the Greek sages, and Thales corrects them, saying that the most beautiful thing is the universe (Moralia 153c-d; kosmos, a word that also means order and ornament). Diogenes Laertius gives Thales the saying “most beautiful is the world, for it is God’s workmanship” (I.35). The Latin Quid Pulcherrimum?, “What is most beautiful?”, suggests that Traherne met the story in a Latin collection.

102.The World-Soul of Plato’s Timaeus (30b, 34b), where the cosmos is a living creature endowed with soul and reason, and of the Stoics, for whom God was the mind pervading the universe. In the manuscript Traherne went on, “If GOD then be the Soul of the World, the World is His Body”, and then struck the sentence out. The next sentence gives the guarded form, a body God has assumed, as the Son assumed human nature, and “not His natural body”.

103.Whether the universe is infinite was an open question. Giordano Bruno had taught an infinite universe of worlds, Descartes called the world indefinitely extended (Principles of Philosophy II.21), and Henry More argued for infinite space. Here Traherne leaves the matter undecided; compare II.81.

104.Aristotle, called simply the Philosopher in the schools, who argued that motion and time, and so the world, had no beginning and will have no end (Physics VIII.1; De Caelo I.10-12). Christian teachers rejected the conclusion on the authority of Genesis, and Aquinas held that reason alone cannot prove the world had a beginning, which is known by faith (Summa Theologiae I q.46 a.2).

105.Traherne left the name of the book blank, and in the manuscript the rest of the line is empty; Dobell printed the gap with a footnote. The wise man is Solomon, to whom the Wisdom of Solomon was ascribed, and the observation is Wisdom 13:3-5, “by the greatness and beauty of the creatures proportionably the maker of them is seen”. The book belongs to the Apocrypha, which the Church of England reads “for example of life” but not to establish doctrine (Article VI).

106.The objection that motion need not mean life, since clocks and watches move themselves. Hobbes put it most sharply at the opening of Leviathan (1651), asking why all automata, “engines that move themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch”, may not be said to “have an artificial life”. Traherne does not name him. He grants the point and turns to the motions of living things.

107.St Paul in Romans 1:20, quoted loosely. In the Authorised Version “the invisible things of him … are clearly seen” in the things that are made, “even his eternal power and Godhead”.

108.The claim answers those who denied that the mind has any idea of the infinite. Hobbes wrote that “there is no idea or conception of anything we call infinite” (Leviathan I.3), since whatever is imagined is finite. For Traherne the understanding, which excludes nothing and can contain all things, is itself the exemplar, or pattern, of infinity. Compare II.81.