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← ExitCenturies of Meditations

The Second Century

66

That violence wherewith sometimes a man doteth upon one creature, is but a little spark of that love, even towards all, which lurketh in his nature. We are made to love, both to satisfy the necessity of our active nature, and to answer the beauties in every creature. By Love our Souls are married and solder’d to the creatures and it is our Duty like God to be united to them all. We must love them infinitely, but in God, and for God and God in them: namely all His excellencies manifested in them. When we dote upon the perfections and beauties of some one creature, we do not love that too much, but other things too little. Never was anything in this world loved too much, but many things have been loved in a false way: and all in too short a measure.

67

Suppose a river, or a drop of water, an apple or a sand, an ear of corn, or an herb: God knoweth infinite exellencies in it more than we: He seeth how it relateth to angels and men; how it proceedeth from the most perfect Lover to the most perfectly Beloved; how it representeth all His attributes; how it conduceth in its place, by the best of means to the best of ends: and for this cause it cannot be beloved too much. God the Author and God the End is to be beloved in it; Angels and men are to be beloved in it; and it is highly to be esteemed for all their sakes. O what a treasure is every sand when truly understood! Who can love anything that God made too much? His infinite goodness and wisdom and power and glory are in it. What a world would this be, were everything beloved as it ought to be!

68

Suppose a curious and fair woman. Some have seen the beauties of Heaven in such a person. It is a vain thing to say they loved too much. I dare say there are ten thousand beauties in that creature which they have not seen: They loved it not too much, but upon false causes. Nor so much upon false ones, as only upon some little ones. They love a creature for sparkling eyes and curled hair, lily breasts and ruddy cheeks which they should love moreover for being God’s Image, Queen of the Universe, beloved by Angels, redeemed by Jesus Christ, an heiress of Heaven, and temple of the Holy Ghost: a mine and fountain of all virtues, a treasury of graces, and a child of God. But these excellencies are unknown. They love her perhaps, but do not love God more: nor men as much: nor Heaven and Earth at all. And so, being defective to other things, perish by a seeming excess to that. We should be all Life and Mettle and Vigour and Love to everything; and that would poise us. I dare confidently say that every person in the whole world ought to be beloved as much as this: And she if there be any cause of difference more than she is. But God being beloved infinitely more, will be infinitely more our joy, and our heart will be more with Him, so that no man can be in danger by loving others too much, that loveth God as he ought.

69

The sun and stars please me in ministering to you. They please me in ministering to a thousand others as well as you. And you please me because you can live and love in the Image of God: not in a blind and brutish manner, as beasts do; by a mere appetite and rude propensity, but with a regulated well-ordered Love, upon clear causes, and with a rational affection, guided to divine and celestial ends. Which is to love with a Divine and Holy Love, Glorious and Blessed. We are all prone to love; but the art lies in managing our love: to make it truly amiable and proportionable. To love for God’s sake, and to this end, that we may be well-pleasing unto Him: to love with a design to imitate Him, and to satisfy the principles of intelligent nature, and to become honorable, is to love in a Blessed and Holy manner.

70

In one soul we may be entertained and taken up with innumerable beauties. But in the Soul of Man there are innumerable infinities. One soul in the immensity of its intelligence, is greater and more excellent than the whole world. The Ocean is but the drop of a bucket to it, the Heavens but a centre, the Sun obscurity, and all Ages but as one day. It being by its understanding a Temple of Eternity, and God’s omnipresence, between which and the whole world there is no proportion. Its Love is a dominion greater than that which Adam had in Paradise: and yet the fruition of it is but solitary. We need spectators, and other diversities of friends and lovers, in whose souls we might likewise dwell, and with whose beauties we might be crowned and entertained. In all whom we can dwell exactly, and be present with them fully. Lest therefore the other depths and faculties of our souls should be desolate and idle, they also are created to entertain us. And as in many mirrors we are so many other selves, so are we spiritually multiplied when we meet ourselves more sweetly, and live again in other persons.

71

Creatures are multiplied, that our treasures may be multiplied, ~~and~~ their places enlarged, that the territories of our joys might be enlarged. With all which our souls may be present in immediate manner. For since the Sun which is a poor little dead thing, can at once shine upon many kingdoms, and be wholly present, not only in many cities and realms upon earth, but in all the stars in the firmament of Heaven; surely the soul which is a far more perfect sun, nearer unto God in excellency and nature, can do far more. But that which of all wonders is the most deep ~~and incredible~~ is, that a soul, whereas one would think it could measure but one soul, which is as large as it: can exceed that, and measure all souls, wholly and fully. This is an infinite wonder indeed. For admit that the powers of one soul were fathomless and infinite: are not the powers so also of another? One would think therefore that one soul should be lost in another: and that two souls should be exactly adequate. Yet ~~indeed~~ my soul can examine and search all the chambers and endless operations of another: being prepared to see innumerable millions.

72

Here is a glorious creature! But that which maketh the wonder infinitely infinite, is this: That one soul, which is the object of mine, can see all souls, and all the secret chambers, and endless perfections in every soul: yea, and all souls with all their objects in every soul: Yet mine can accompany all these in one soul and without deficiency exceed that soul and accompany all these in every other soul. Which shows the work of God to be deep and infinite.

73

Here upon Earth perhaps where our estate is imperfect this is impossible: but in Heaven where the soul is all Act it is necessary: for the soul is there all that it can be: Here it is to rejoice in what it may be. Till therefore the mists of error, and clouds of ignorance, that confine this sun be removed, it must be present in all kingdoms and ages virtually, as the Sun is by night, if not by clear sight and love, at least by its desire. Which are its influences and its beams, working in a latent and obscure manner on earth, above in a strong and clear.

74

The world serveth you therefore, in maintaining all people in all kingdoms, which are your Father’s treasures, and your as yet invisible joys, that their multitudes at last may come to Heaven, and make those innumerable thousands, whose hosts and employments will be your joy. Whose order, beauty, melody, and glory will be your eternal delights. And of whom you have many a sweet description in the Revelation. Those are they of whom it is said: After this I beheld, and lo, a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations and kindred and people and tongues stood before the Throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands, and they cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the Throne, and to the Lamb: of which it is said, They fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps and golden vials full of odors which are the prayers of the Saints, and they sung a new song saying Thou art worthy to take the Book, and to open the Seals thereof: for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation, and hast made us unto our God Kings and Priests. Of whom it is said, I saw a sea of glass, and they, that had gotten the victory over the Beast standing on it, and they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, 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. Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name. For Thou only art holy; for all Nations shall come and worship before Thee, because Thy judgments are made manifest.

75

That all the powers of your Soul shall be turned into Act in the Kingdom of Heaven is manifest by what Saint John writeth, in the Isle Patmos: And I beheld and I heard the voice of many Angels round about the throne: and the Beasts and the Elders, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands: Saying, with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength and honour, and glory, and blessing, And every creature which is in Heaven and on Earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the Sea, And all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and Honour, and Glory, and Power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.

134.Traherne’s form of Augustine’s order of love (ordo amoris). Augustine defines virtue briefly as “the order of love” (City of God XV.22) and would have creatures loved in God, “if souls please you, let them be loved in God” (Confessions IV.12.18). The fault lies not in loving too much but in loving out of order, and too little.

135.A sand is a single grain of sand, as in I.27. Dobell compared this meditation with Blake’s “To see a World in a Grain of Sand” (Auguries of Innocence, written about 1803), a likeness of vision and not of influence, since the Centuries was unknown until 1908.

136.The Platonic ascent from one beautiful body to beauty itself, taught by Diotima in the Symposium (210a-212a) and made the courtier’s creed by Bembo in the fourth book of Castiglione’s The Courtier. Traherne keeps the woman’s beauty and multiplies its causes instead of leaving it behind.

137.Isaiah 40:15, “the nations are as a drop of a bucket”, said there of the nations before God and here of the ocean before the soul; the same verse gave I.19 its dust of the balance.

138.In virtue or power, by its effects, though not by actual presence (the schoolmen’s virtualiter). The sun below the horizon still works on the earth by its influences, the powers thought to stream from the heavenly bodies.

139.Three passages of Revelation in the Authorised Version, quoted closely, 7:9-10 (the great multitude), 5:8-10 (the new song of the elders and the four beasts, that is, living creatures) and 15:2-4 (the song of Moses and of the Lamb, already heard at I.100). In the second Traherne drops the beasts and elders as subject, so that the multitude sings, and in the third he leaves out the words “mingled with fire” and the victory over the beast’s image, mark and number. Vials are bowls; odours are incense.

140.The island in the Aegean where the seer of Revelation received his visions (Revelation 1:9), taken by tradition, and by Traherne, to be St John the Apostle. The passage quoted is Revelation 5:11-13, nearly word for word.