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← ExitCenturies of Meditations

The Third Century

59

The Image of God implanted in us, guided me to the manner wherein we were to enjoy. For since we were made in the similitude of God, we were made to enjoy after His similitude. Now to enjoy the treasures of God in the similitude of God, is the most perfect blessedness God could devise. For the treasures of God are the most perfect treasures, and the manner of God is the most perfect manner. To enjoy therefore the treasures of God after the similitude of God is to enjoy the most perfect treasures in the most perfect manner. Upon which I was infinitely satisfied in God, and knew there was a Deity because I was satisfied. For in exerting Himself wholly in achieving thus an infinite Felicity He was infinitely delightful, great and glorious, and my desires so august and insatiable that nothing less than a Deity could satisfy them.

60

This spectacle once seen, will never be forgotten. It is a great part of the beatific vision. A sight of Happiness is Happiness. It transforms the Soul and makes it Heavenly, it powerfully calls us to communion with God, and weans us from the customs of this world. It puts a lustre upon God and all His creatures and makes us to see them in a Divine and Eternal Light. I no sooner discerned this but I was (as Plato saith, In summâ Rationis arce quies habitat) seated in a throne of repose and perfect rest. All things were well in their proper places, I alone was out of frame and had need to be mended. For all things were God’s treasures in their proper places, and I was to be restored to God’s Image. Whereupon you will not believe, how I was withdrawn from all endeavours of altering and mending outward things. They lay so well, methought, they could not be mended: but I must be mended to enjoy them.

61

The Image of God is the most perfect creature. Since there cannot be two Gods the utmost endeavour of Almighty Power is the Image of God. It is no blasphemy to say that God cannot make a God: the greatest thing that He can make is His Image: a most perfect creature, to enjoy the most perfect treasures, in the most perfect manner. A creature endued with the most divine and perfect powers, for measure, kind, number, duration, and excellency is the most perfect creature: able to see all eternity with all its objects, and as a mirror to contain all that it seeth: able to love all it contains, and as a Sun to shine upon its caves: able by shining to communicate itself in beams of affection and to illustrate all it illuminates with beauty and glory: able to be wise, holy, glorious, blessed in itself, as God is; being adorned inwardly with the same kind of beauty, and outwardly superior to all creatures.

62

Upon this I began to believe that all other creatures were such that God was Himself in their creation, that is Almighty Power wholly exerted: and that every creature is indeed as it seemed in my infancy, not as it is commonly apprehended. Every thing being sublimely rich and great and glorious. Every spire of grass is the work of His hand: And I in a world where everything is mine, and far better than the greater sort of children esteem diamonds and ~~pearls to be.~~ pearls. Gold and silver being the very refuse of Nature, and the worst things in God’s Kingdom: Howbeit truly good in their proper places.

63

To be satisfied in God is the highest difficulty in the whole world, and yet most easy to be done. To make it possible that we should be satisfied in God was an achievement of infinite weight, before it was attempted, and the most difficult thing in all worlds before it was achieved. For we naturally expect infinite things of God: and can be satisfied only with the highest reason. So that the best of all possible things must be wrought in God, or else we shall remain dissatisfied: But it is most easy at present, because God is. For God is not a being compounded of body and soul, or substance and accident, or power and act, but is all act; pure act, a Simple Being whose essence is to be, whose Being is to be perfect so that He is most perfect towards all and in all. He is most perfect for all and by all. He is in nothing imperfect, because His Being is to be perfect. It is impossible for Him to be God and imperfect: and therefore do we so ardently and infinitely desire His absolute perfection.

64

Neither is it possible to be otherwise. All His power being turned into Act, it is all exerted: infinitely and wholly. Neither is there any power in Him which He is not able and willing to use: or which He cannot wisely guide to most excellent ends. So that we may expect most angelical and heavenly rarities in all the creatures. Were there any power in God unemployed He would be compounded of Power and Act. Being therefore God is all Act, He is a God in this, that Himself is Power exerted. An infinite Act because infinite power infinitely exerted. An Eternal Act because infinite power eternally exerted. Wherein consisteth the generation of His Son, the perfection of His Love, and the immutability of God. For God by exerting Himself begot His Son, and doing wholly for the sake of His creatures, is perfect Love; and doing it wholly from all Eternity, is an Eternal Act, and therefore unchangeable.

65

With this we are delighted because it is absolutely impossible that any Power dwelling with Love should continue idle. Since God therefore was infinitely and eternally communicative, all things were contained in Him from all Eternity. As Nazianzen in his 38th Oration admirably expresseth it in those words, “Because it was by no means sufficient for GOODNESS to move only in the contemplation of itself: but it became what was GOOD to be diffused and propagated, that more might be affected with the benefit (for this was the part of the Highest GOODNESS:) first He thought upon angelical and celestial virtues, and that thought was the work which he wrought by the WORD and fulfilled by the SPIRIT. Atque ita Secundi Splendores procreati sunt primi splendoris Administri. And so were there second splendours created, and made to minister to the first splendour, so that all motions, successions, creatures, and operations with their beginnings and ends were in Him from Everlasting. To whom nothing can be added because from all Eternity He was whatsoever to all Eternity He can be. All things being now to be seen and contemplated in His bosom; and advanced therefore into a Diviner Light, being infinitely older, and more precious than we were aware. Time itself being in God eternally.

66

Little did I imagine that, while I was thinking these things, I was conversing with God. I was so ignorant that I did not think any man in the World had had such thoughts before. Seeing them therefore so amiable I wondered not a little, that nothing was spoken of them in former ages: but as I read the Bible I was here and there surprised with such thoughts, and found by degrees that these things had been written of before, not only in the Scriptures, but in many of the Fathers, and that this was the way of communion with God in all Saints, as I saw clearly in the person of David. Methought a new light darted in into all his psalms, and finally spread abroad over the whole Bible. So that things which for their obscurity I thought not in being were there contained: things which for their greatness were incredible were made evident, and things obscure plain. God by this means bringing me into the very heart of His Kingdom.

67

There I saw Moses blessing the Lord for the precious things of Heaven, for the dew and for the deep that coucheth beneath: and for the precious fruits brought forth by the Sun, and for the precious things put forth by the moon: and for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills; and for the precious things of the earth, and fulness thereof. There I saw Jacob with awful apprehensions admiring the glory of the world, when awaking out of his dream, he said, How dreadful is this place. This is none other than the House of God, and the Gate of Heaven. There I saw God leading forth Abraham, and showing him the stars of Heaven; and all the countries round about him, and saying, All these will I give thee, and thy seed after thee. There I saw Adam in Paradise, surrounded with the beauty of Heaven and Earth, void of all earthly comforts, to wit, such as were devised, gorgeous apparel, palaces, gold and silver, coaches, musical instruments, &c; and entertained only with celestial joys, the sun and moon and stars, beasts and fowls and fishes, trees and fruits, and flowers, with the other naked and simple delights of nature. By which I evidently saw that the way to become rich and blessed was not by heaping accidental and devised riches to make ourselves great in the vulgar manner, but to approach more near, and to see more clearly with the eye of our understanding, the beauties and glories of the whole world: and to have communion with the Deity in the riches of God and Nature.

217.Latin, “Rest dwells in the highest citadel of Reason.” The sentence is not a known quotation from Plato, but the image is his. In the Timaeus (70a) reason governs the passions from the head as from a citadel, and Cicero reports that Plato placed reason “in the head as in a citadel” (Tusculan Disputations I.20). Traherne probably knew the saying from a Latin paraphrase or a commonplace book. Out of frame, below, is disordered, out of joint.

218.The schoolmen held that omnipotence reaches everything that does not imply a contradiction (Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I q.25 a.3), and that nothing but God can be infinite in essence (I q.7 a.2); a made God would be both created and uncreated. Illustrate, later in the meditation, is to make illustrious, to shed lustre on (Latin illustrare).

219.The doctrine of divine simplicity. Aquinas argues that God is not a body, nor composed of matter and form, of substance and accident, or of potency and act, and that in him essence and existence are the same (Summa Theologiae I q.3 a.1-7); for God as actus purus, pure act, see the note at II.48. The formula glosses God’s name in Exodus 3:14, “I AM THAT I AM”. III.64 draws the consequence, that power left unused in God would make Him compounded of power and act.

220.Gregory of Nazianzus (about 329-390), bishop and theologian, one of the Cappadocian Fathers, preached Oration 38 at Constantinople for the feast of Christ’s birth, about 380. Traherne renders section 9, evidently from a Latin version, on the goodness that could not rest in contemplating itself but must be poured out, so that God first conceived the angels; Gregory’s words end with the first splendour, and what follows is Traherne’s. He copies one sentence in Latin and translates it himself. Virtues are powers, the angelic orders (Latin virtutes); the first splendour is God, the second splendours the angels who serve him.

221.Deuteronomy 33:13-16, Moses’ blessing of the land of Joseph, “for the dew, and for the deep that coucheth beneath”. In Deuteronomy Moses blesses the tribe with these gifts; Traherne makes him bless the Lord for them. Coucheth is lies crouched.

222.Genesis 28:17 (see the note at I.31); awful apprehensions are perceptions full of awe. The promise to Abraham joins Genesis 15:5, the stars, and 13:14-15, the land, with thy seed after thee from 17:8. All these will I give thee is nearest to the renewal of the promise to Isaac, “unto thy seed, I will give all these countries” (Genesis 26:3).