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← ExitCenturies of Meditations

The Second Century

44

This Person differs in nothing, from the Father, but only in this that He is begotten of Him. He is Eternal with the Father, as glorious and as intelligent. He is of the same mind in everything in all worlds, loveth the same objects in as infinite a measure. Is the means by which the Father loveth, acteth, createth, redeemeth, governeth, and perfecteth all things. And the means also by which we see and love the Father: our strength and our eternity. He is the Mediator between God and His creatures. God therefore being willing to redeem us by His own blood, ( Acts 20 ) by Him redeemed us, and in His person died for us.

45

How wonderful is it that God by being Love should prepare a Redeemer to die for us? But how much more wonderful, that by this means Himself should be, and be God by being Love! By this means also He refineth our nature, and enableth us to purge out the poison and the filthy plague of Sin. For love is so amiable and desirable to the Soul that it cannot be resisted: Love is the Spirit of God. In Himself it is the Father, or else the Son, for the Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father: In us it is the Holy Ghost. The Love of God being seen, being God in us: Purifying, illuminating, strengthening, and comforting the soul of the seer. For God by shewing communicateth Himself to men and angels. And when He dwelleth in the soul, dwelleth in the sight. And when He dwelleth in the sight achieving all that love can do for such a soul. And thus the world serveth you as it is a mirror wherein you contemplate the Blessed Trinity. For it plainly sheweth that God is Love, and in His being Love you see the unity of the Blessed Trinity, and a glorious Trinity in the Blessed Unity.

46

In all Love there is some Producer, some Means, and some End: all these being internal in the thing itself. Love loving is the Producer, and that is the Father Love produced is the Means, and that is the Son For Love is the means by which a lover loveth. The End of these Means is Love: for it is love by loving: and that is the Holy Ghost. The End and the Producer being both the same, by the Means attained. For by loving Love attaineth itself and being. The Producer is attained by loving, and is the End of Himself. That Love is the end of itself, and that God loveth that He might be Love, is as evident to him that considers spiritual things, as the Sun. Because it is impossible there should be a higher end, or a better proposed. What can be more desirable than the most delightful operation; what more eligible, than the most glorious being; what further can be proposed than the most blessed and perfect life? Since God therefore chooseth the most perfect life, what can be more perfect than that life and that Being which is at once the Fountain, and the End of all things? There being in it the perpetual joy of giving and receiving infinite treasures. To be the Fountain of joys and blessings is delightful. And by being Love God is the Fountain of all worlds. To receive all and to be the End of all is equally delightful, and by being Love God receiveth, and is the End of all. For all the benefits that are done unto all, by loving all, Himself receiveth: What good could Heaven and Earth do Him, were it not for His Love to the children of men? By being what He is, which is Love unto all, He enjoyeth all.

47

What life can be more pleasant, than that which is delighted in itself, and in all objects; in which also all objects infinitely delight? What life can be more pleasant, than that which is blessed in all, and glorious before all? Now this life is the life of Love. For this end therefore did He desire to Love, that He might be Love. Infinitely delightful to all objects, infinitely delighted in all, and infinitely pleased in Himself, for being infinitely delightful to all, and delighted in all. All this He attaineth by Love. For Love is the most delightful of all employments. All the objects of Love are delightful to it, and Love is delightful to all its objects. Well then may Love be the end of loving, which is so complete. It being a thing so delightful, that God infinitely rejoiceth in Himself for being Love. And thus you see how God is the end of Himself. He doth what He doth, that He may be what He is. Wise and glorious and bountiful and blessed in being Perfect Love.

48

Love is so divine and perfect a thing, that it is worthy to be the very end and being of the Deity. It is His goodness, and it is His glory. We therefore so vastly, delight in Love, because all these excellencies and all other whatsoever lie within it. By Loving a Soul does propagate and beget itself. By Loving it does dilate and magnify itself. By Loving it does enlarge and delight itself. By Loving also it delighteth others, as by Loving it doth honour and enrich itself. But above all by Loving it does attain itself. Love also being the end of Souls, which are never perfect till they are in act what they are in power. They were made to love, and are dark and vain and comfortless till they do it. Till they love they are idle, or misemployed. Till they love they are desolate; without their objects, and narrow and little, and dishonourable: but when they shine by Love upon all objects, they are accompanied with them and enlightened by them. Till we become therefore all Act as God is, we can never rest, nor ever be satisfied.

49

Love is so noble that it enjoyeth others’ enjoyments, delighteth in giving all unto its object, and in seeing all given to its object. So that whosoever loveth all mankind, he enjoyeth all the goodness of God to the whole world: and endeavoureth the benefit of Kingdoms and Ages, with all whom He is present by Love, which is the best manner of presence that is possible.

50

God is present by Love alone. By Love alone He is great and glorious. By Love alone He liveth and feeleth in other persons. By Love alone He enjoyeth all the creatures, by Love alone He is pleasing to Himself, by love alone He is rich and blessed. O why dost not thou by Love alone seek to achieve all these, by Love alone attain another self, by Love alone live in others, by Love attain thy glory? The Soul is shrivelled up and buried in a grave that does not Love. But that which does love wisely and truly is the joy and end of all the world, the King of Heaven, and the Friend of God, the shining Light and Temple of Eternity: The Brother of Christ Jesus, and one Spirit with the Holy Ghost.

51

Love is a far more glorious Being than flesh and bones. If thou wilt it is endless, and infinitely more sweet than thy body can be to thee and others. Thy body is confined, and is a dull lump of heavy clay, by which thou art retarded, rather than dost move: It was given thee to be a lantern only to the candle of Love that shineth in thy Soul; by it thou dost see and feel and eat and drink: but the end of all is that thou mightest be as God is: a joy and blessing by being Love. Thy Love is illimited. Thy Love can extend to all objects. Thy Love can see God and accompany His Love throughout all Eternity. Thy Love is infinitely profitable to thyself and others. To thyself, for thereby mayest thou receive infinite good things. To others, for thereby thou art prone to do infinite good to all. Thy body can receive but few pleasures. Thy Love can feed upon all: take into itself all worlds, and all Eternities above all worlds and all the joys of God before and after. Thy flesh and bones can do but little good: nor that little unless as by Love it is inspired and directed. A poor carcase thy body is; but love is delightful and profitable to thousands. O live therefore by the more noble part. Be like Him who baptizeth with fire. Feel thy spirit, awaken thy Soul, be an enlarged Seraphim, an infinite Good, or like unto Him.

52

The true WAY we may go unto His Throne, and can never exceed, nor be too high. All hyperboles are but little pigmies, and diminutive expressions, in comparison of the Truth. All that Adam could propose to himself or hope for was laid up in store for him, in a better way than he could ask or think: but in seeking for it a false way he lost all; what he had in hope, and what he had in fruition. To be as Gods, we are prompted to desire by the instinct of nature. And that we shall be by Loving all as He doth. But by loving Him what, O what, shall we be? By loving Him according to the greatness of His love unto us, according to His amiableness, as we ought, and according to the obligations that lie upon us, we shall be no man can devise what. We shall love Him infinitely more than ourselves, and therefore live infinitely more in Him than in ourselves, and be infinitely more delighted with His Eternal Blessedness than our own. We shall infinitely more delight ⸻ than ourselves. All worlds, all Angels, all men, all kingdoms, all creatures will be more ours in Him than in ourselves: so will His Essence and Eternal Godhead. Oh Love what hast Thou done!

53

And He will so love us, when all this beauty of Love is within us, that though we by our love to Him seem more blessed in His blessedness than He, He is infinitely more blessed than we even in our blessedness. We being so united to each other ~~by living in each other~~ that nothing can divide us for evermore.

121.Traherne’s own reference, to Acts 20:28 (see the note at I.62). Because it speaks of God’s own blood the verse was a standard proof of Christ’s deity in the controversy with the Socinians (see II.33).

122.The Athanasian Creed, appointed in the Prayer Book to be said at Morning Prayer on certain feasts, “we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity”. The same Creed, on the co-equal glory and co-eternal majesty of the three Persons, lies behind II.41’s “equal in Time and Glory”.

123.Aristotle’s distinction between power or potency, what a thing can be or do, and act, what it actually is or does (see Key Words, capacity). God alone is all act, with nothing unrealised in Him (Aristotle, Metaphysics XII.6-7; Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I q.3 a.1-2, where God is actus purus, “pure act”). Souls are perfected as their powers pass into act. Compare II.39.

124.The friend as another self is Aristotle’s (Nicomachean Ethics IX.4, 1166a31), taken up by Cicero, for whom the true friend is “as it were a second self” (De Amicitia 80). By love the soul finds itself again in another.

125.Proverbs 20:27, “The spirit of man is the candle of the LORD, searching all the inward parts”. The body is the lantern, the case of horn or glass that shields the flame and lets its light through.

126.The seraphim of Isaiah 6:2-7, whose Hebrew name means burning ones, stand highest of the nine orders of angels in Dionysius the Areopagite (Celestial Hierarchy VII) and were thought to burn with the love of God. Hence the call just before to be like Christ, who baptizes “with the Holy Ghost, and with fire” (Matthew 3:11). Like many writers of his day Traherne uses the Hebrew plural as a singular.

127.The serpent’s promise in Genesis 3:5, “ye shall be as gods”. The desire is natural and right, Traherne says; Adam sought it by a false way, and love is the true one. The manuscript reads Gods, keeping the echo, where Dobell printed God.

128.The dash marks a word that Dobell could not read; he printed a blank with a footnote saying so. The sentence is squeezed in between the lines of the manuscript, and the short word after “Delight” appears to be struck through, so that Traherne may have meant the sentence to run on without it. The sense, from what precedes, is to delight in Him more than in ourselves.