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 Third Century

31

This taught me that those fashions and tinseled vanities, which you and I despised erewhile, fetching a little course about, became ours. ~~And that~~ That the Wisdom of God in them also was very conspicuous. For it becometh His Goodness to make all things treasures: and His Power is able to bring Light out of Darkness, and Good out of Evil. Nor would His love endure, but that I also should have a wisdom, whereby I could draw order out of confusion. So that it is my admiration and joy, that while so many thousand wander in Darkness, I am in the Light, and that while so many dote upon false treasures and pierce themselves through with many sorrows, I live in peace, and enjoy the delights of God and Heaven.

32

In respect of the matter, I was very sure that Angels and Cherubims could not bring unto me better tidings than were in the Scriptures contained, could I but believe them to be true, but I was dissatisfied about the manner, and that was the ground of my unbelief. For I could not think that God being Love would neglect His Son, and therefore surely I was not His son, nor He Love: because He had not ascertained me more carefully, that the Bible was His book from Heaven. Yet I was encouraged to hope well, because the matter was so excellent, above my expectation. And when I searched into it, I found the Way infinitely better than if all the Angels in Heaven had brought it to me.

33

Had the Angels brought it to me alone, these several inconveniences had attended the vision:–(1) It had been but one sudden act wherein it was sent me whereas now God hath been all ages in preparing it: (2) It had been done by inferior. ministers; whereas now it is done by God Himself: (3) Being Satan is able to transform himself into an Angel of Light, I had been still dubious, till having recourse to the excellency of the matter; by it I was informed and satisfied: (4) Being corrupted, that one miracle would have been but like a single spark upon green wood, it would have gone out immediately: whereas I needed ten thousand miracles to seal it, yea and to awaken me to the meditation of the matter that was revealed to me: (5) Had it been revealed no other way, all the world, had been dark and empty round about me: whereas now it is my joy and my delight and treasure, being full of knowledge, light, and glory: (6) Had it been revealed at no other time, God had now only been good unto me; whereas He hath manifested His love in all ages; and been carefully and most wisely revealing it from the beginning of the world: (7) Had He revealed it to no other person, I had been weak in faith, being solitary and sitting alone like a sparrow upon the house-top, who now have the concurrent and joint affections of Kingdoms and ages, Yea, notwithstanding the disadvantage of this weakness, I must have gone abroad; and published this faith to others; both in love to God, and love to men. For I must have done my duty, or the book would have done me no good, and love to God and men must have been my duty, for without that I could never be happy. Yea finally, had not the Book been revealed before, neither had God been glorious, nor I blessed, for He had been negligent of other persons, His goodness had been defective to all ages, whom now I know to be God by the universality of His love unto Mankind, and the perfection of His wisdom to every person.

34

To talk now of the necessity of bearing all calamities and persecutions in preaching is little; to consider the reproaches, mockings and derisions I must have endured of all the world, while they scoffed at me for pretending to be the only man that had a Book from Heaven is nothing: nor is it much to mention the impossibility of convincing others, all the world having been full of darkness, and God always silent before. All ages had been void of treasure had not the Bible been revealed till the other day, wherein now I can expatiate with perfect liberty, and everywhere see the Love of God to all mankind Love to me alone. All the world being adorned with miracles, prophets, patriarchs, apostles, martyrs, revelations from Heaven, lively examples, holy Souls, divine affairs for my enjoyment. The Glory of God and the Light of Heaven appearing everywhere, as much as it would have done in that seeming instant, had the Book I desired come unto me any other way.

35

You will not believe what a world of joy this one satisfaction and pleasure brought me. Thenceforth I thought the Light of Heaven was in this world: I saw it possible, and very probable, that I was infinitely beloved of Almighty God, the delights of Paradise were round about me, Heaven and Earth were open to me, all riches were little things; this one pleasure being so great that it exceeded all the joys of Eden. So great a thing it was to me, to be satisfied in the manner of God’s revealing Himself unto mankind. Many other enquiries I had concerning the manner of His revealing Himself, in all which I am infinitely satisfied.

36

Having been at the University, and received there the taste and tincture of another education, I saw that there were things in this world of which I never dreamed; glorious secrets, and glorious persons past imagination. There I saw that Logic, Ethics, Physics, Metaphysics, Geometry, Astronomy, Poesy, Medicine, Grammar, Music, Rhetoric all kind of Arts, Trades, and Mechanisms that adorned the world pertained to felicity; at least there I saw those things, which afterwards I knew to pertain unto it: and was delighted in it. There I saw into the nature of the Sea, the Heavens, the Sun, the Moon and Stars, the Elements, Minerals, and Vegetables. All which appeared like the King’s Daughter, all glorious within; and those things which my nurses, and parents, should have talked of there were taught unto me.

37

Nevertheless some things were defective too. There was never a tutor that did professly teach Felicity, though that be the mistress of all other sciences. Nor did any of us study these things but as aliena, which we ought to have studied as our own enjoyments. We studied to inform our knowledge, but knew not for what end we so studied. And for lack of aiming at a certain end we erred in the manner. Howbeit there we received all those seeds of knowledge that were afterwards improved; and our souls were awakened to a discerning of their faculties, and exercise of their powers.

38

The manner is in everything of greatest concernment. Whatever good thing we do, neither can we please God, unless we do it well: nor can He please us, what. ever good He does, unless He do it well. Should He give us the most perfect things in Heaven and Earth to make us happy, and not give them to us in the best of all possible manners, He would but displease us; and it were impossible for Him to make us happy. It is not sufficient therefore for us to study the most excellent things unless we do it in the most excellent of manners. And what that is, it is impossible to find, till we are guided thereunto by the most excellent end, with a desire of which I flagrantly burned.

39

The best of all possible ends is the Glory of God, but happiness was that I thirsted after. And yet I did not err, for the Glory of God is to make us happy. Which can never be done but by giving us most excellent natures and satisfying those natures: by creating all treasures of infinite value, and giving them to us in an infinite manner, to wit, both in the best that to omnipotence was possible. This led me to enquire whether all things were excellent, and of perfect value, and whether they were mine in propriety?

40

It is the Glory of God to give all things to us in the best of all possible manners. To study things therefore under the double notion of interest and treasure, is to study all things in the best of all possible manners. Because in studying so we enquire after God’s Glory, and our own happiness. And indeed enter into the way that leadeth to all contentments, joys, and satisfactions, to all praises triumphs and thanksgivings, to all virtues, beauties, adorations and graces, to all dominion, exaltation, wisdom, and glory, to all Holiness, Union, and Communion with God, to all patience, and courage and blessedness, which it is impossible to meet any other way. So that to study object for ostentation, vain knowledge or curiosity is fruitless impertinence, tho’ God Himself and Angels be the object. But to study that which will oblige us to love Him, and feed us with nobility and goodness toward men, that is blessed. And so is it to study that which will lead us to the Temple of Wisdom, and seat us in the Throne of Glory.

197.For God’s bringing good out of evil see the note at I.78. Light out of Darkness is the first day of creation as Paul reads it (2 Corinthians 4:6). Fetching a little course about, above, is making a small circuit, and those who pierce themselves through with many sorrows are the lovers of money in 1 Timothy 6:10.

198.Assured me, made me certain (Old French acertener, from certain). Dobell remarks that the word, strange as it looks, “is here used quite properly and according to its derivation”; to ascertain a person of a thing was to assure him of it.

199.2 Corinthians 11:14, “Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light”, so that a private revelation brought by an angel could always be a deception. The lone sparrow upon the house-top in (7) is from Psalm 102:7, the prayer of one afflicted and alone; the green wood in (4) is unseasoned timber that will not take a spark.

200.Range at large, wander freely (Latin exspatiari, to stray from the path). The company that follows, prophets, apostles and martyrs, recalls the Te Deum sung at Morning Prayer, “The glorious company of the Apostles praise thee”.

201.Traherne was admitted a commoner of Brasenose College, Oxford, on 1 March 1653 and took his BA in October 1656 (MA 1661, BD 1669). Oxford was then under the Commonwealth, and Brasenose, in the words of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, was “governed with a zealous puritanism”. Tincture is a tinge or dye, and also the alchemists’ transforming essence.

202.The arts course of the universities, built on the medieval trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric) and quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy) with Aristotle’s three philosophies, natural, moral and metaphysical. The King’s Daughter, all glorious within, at the end of the meditation, is Psalm 45:13, quoted again at III.77.

203.Professly is professedly, as a declared subject. To call felicity the mistress of all other sciences recalls Aristotle, for whom the science of the human good is the master art that orders all the others (Nicomachean Ethics I.2, 1094a-b). Aliena, in the next sentence, is Latin for things belonging to others, matters foreign to oneself.

204.Traherne makes God’s glory and man’s happiness one end. The Westminster Shorter Catechism (1647) begins “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him for ever”; Irenaeus had written that “the glory of God is a living man” (Against Heresies IV.20.7). In propriety, at the end of the meditation, is as one’s own property (see the note at III.3).

205.Bernard of Clairvaux distinguishes those who seek knowledge only to know (curiosity), to be known (vanity) or to sell it (avarice) from those who seek it to build up others (charity) or themselves (prudence) (Sermons on the Song of Songs 36.3). Impertinence is irrelevance, what does not pertain to the end.