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← ExitCenturies of Meditations

The Third Century

68

I saw moreover that it did not so much concern us what objects were before us, as with what eyes we beheld them, with what affections we esteemed them, and what apprehensions we had about them. All men see the same objects, but do not equally understand them. Intelligence is the tongue that discerns and tastes them, Knowledge is the Light of Heaven, Love is the Wisdom and Glory of God, Life extended to all objects is the sense that enjoys them. So that Knowledge, Life, and Love are the very means of all enjoyment, which above all things we must seek for and labour after. All objects are in God Eternal: which we by perfecting our faculties are made to enjoy. Which then are turned into Act, when they are exercised about their objects; but without them are desolate and idle; or discontented and forlorn. Whereby I perceived the meaning of the definition wherein Aristotle describeth Felicity, when he saith, Felicity is the perfect exercise of perfect virtue in a perfect Life. For that life is perfect when it is perfectly extended to all objects, and perfectly sees them, and perfectly loves them: which is done by a perfect exercise of virtue about them.

69

In Salem dwelt a glorious King, Raised from a shepherd’s lowly state; That did His praises like an angel sing Who did the World create. By many great and bloody wars He was advanced unto Thrones But more delighted in the stars Than in the splendour of his precious stones; Nor gold nor silver did his eye regard The Works of God were his sublime reward,

A warlike champion he had been, And many feats of chivalry Had done: in kingly courts his eye had seen A vast variety Of earthly joys: Yet he despis’d Those fading honours, and false pleasures Which are by mortals so much prized; And placed his happiness in other treasures No state of life which in this world we find Could yield contentment to his greater mind.

His fingers touched his trembling lyre, And every quavering string did yield A sound that filled all the Jewish quire, And echoed in the field. No pleasure was so great to him As in a silent night to see The moon and stars: A cherubim Above them, even here, he seem’d to be: Enflam’d with Love it was his great desire, To sing, contemplate, ponder, and admire.

He was a prophet, and foresaw Things extant in the world to come: He was a judge, and ruled by a law That than the honeycomb Was sweeter far: he was a sage, And all his people could advise; An oracle, whose every page Contained in verse the greatest mysteries; But most he then enjoyed himself when he Did as a poet praise the Deity.

A shepherd, soldier, and divine, A judge, a courtier, and a king, Priest, angel, prophet, oracle, did shine At once when he did sing. Philosopher and poet too Did in his melody appear; All these in him did please the view Of those that did his heavenly music hear And every drop that from his flowing quill Came down, did all the world with nectar fill

He had a deep and perfect sense Of all the glories and the pleasures That in God’s works are hid: the excellence Of such transcendent treasures Made him on earth an heavenly king, And filled his solitudes with joy; He never did more sweetly sing Than when alone, though that doth mirth destroy: Sense did his soul with heavenly life inspire, And made him seem in God’s celestial quire.

Rich, sacred, deep and precious things Did here on earth the man surround: With all the Glory of the King of Kings He was most strangely crowned. His clear soul and open sight Among the Sons of God did see Things filling Angels with delight: His ear did hear their heavenly melody, And when he was alone he all became That Bliss implied, or did increase his fame.

All arts he then did exercise; And as his God he did adore By secret ravishments above the skies He carried was before He died. His soul did see and feel What others know not; and became, While he before his God did kneel, A constant, heavenly, pure, seraphic flame. Oh that I might unto his throne aspire, And all his joys above the stars admire!

70

When I saw those objects celebrated in his psalms which God and Nature had proposed to me, and which I thought chance only presented to my view, you cannot imagine how unspeakably I was delighted, to see so glorious a person, so great a prince, so divine a sage, that was a man after God’s own heart, by the testimony of God Himself, rejoicing in the same things, meditating on the same, and praising God for the same. For by this I perceived we were led by one Spirit, and that following the clue of Nature into this labyrinth, I was brought into the midst of celestial joys: and that to be retired from earthly cares and fears and distractions that we might in sweet and heavenly peace contemplate all the Works of God, was to live in Heaven, and the only way to become what David was, a man after God’s own heart. There we might be enflamed with those causes for which we ought to love Him: there we might see those viands which feed the Soul with Angels’ food: there we might bathe in those streams of pleasure that flow at His right hand for evermore.

71

That hymn of David in the eighth Psalm was supposed to be made by night, wherein he celebrateth the Works of God; because he mentioneth the moon and stars, but not the sun in his meditation. When I consider the Heavens which Thou hast made, the moon and stars, which are the works of Thy fingers, what is man that Thou art mindful of him, or the Son of man that Thou visitest him? Thou hast made him a little lower than the Angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou hast given him dominion over the works of Thy hands, Thou hast Put all things in subjection under his feet; all sheep and oxen, yea and the beasts of the field; the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the sea. This glory and honour wherewith man is crowned ought to affect every person that is grateful, with celestial joy: and so much the rather because it is every man’s proper and sole inheritance.

72

His joyful meditation in the nineteenth psalm directeth every man to consider the glory of Heaven and Earth. The Heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone throughout all the earth, and their voice to the end of the world. In them hath He set a tabernacle for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run his race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven and his circuit to the ends of it; and nothing is hid from the heat thereof. From thence he proceedeth to the laws of God, as things more excellent in their nature than His works. The Law of the Lord is perfect, converting the Soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever; the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Whereby he plainly showeth that Divine and Kingly delights are in the laws and works of God to be taken by all those that would be angelical and celestial creatures. For that in the Kingdom of Heaven every one being disentangled from particular relations and private riches, as if he were newly taken out of nothing to the fruition of all Eternity, was in these alone to solace himself as his peculiar treasures.

223.Traherne compresses Aristotle’s definition of happiness as “activity of soul in accordance with virtue” in “a complete life” (Nicomachean Ethics I.7, 1098a16-18), repeated in the Politics as the complete activity and use of virtue (VII.13, 1332a). This is the one place in the book where Aristotle is named.

224.Salem is Jerusalem (Psalm 76:2). The poem draws David’s life from Scripture, the shepherd taken from the sheepfolds (1 Samuel 16:11-13; Psalm 78:70-71), the warrior who “made great wars” (1 Chronicles 22:8), the champion who met Goliath in single combat (1 Samuel 17), the harper who played before Saul (1 Samuel 16:23), and the king who appointed the Levites as singers and players (1 Chronicles 15:16), the Jewish quire or choir. Seventy-three psalms are headed as David’s in the Hebrew, and he was held to be the author of the Psalter.

225.Dobell records that Traherne first wrote removed from all annoy and then struck the words through, writing the present reading above them, as the manuscript shows. The first version praised solitude as freedom from trouble; the revision grants that solitude destroys mirth for most men, and so makes David’s joy alone the stranger. Annoy, as at III.47, is trouble, vexation.

226.1 Samuel 13:14, repeated in Acts 13:22, where God “gave testimony” of David, “I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after mine own heart”. The clue of Nature, below, is a ball of thread, the clue by which Theseus found his way out of the Cretan labyrinth; Angels’ food is the manna of Psalm 78:25.

227.Psalm 8:3-8. Traherne rearranges verse 3 (KJV “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars”), writes or the Son of man for and the son of man, as Hebrews 2:6 does, and Thou hast given him dominion for Thou madest him to have dominion. Several phrases come from the Prayer Book Psalter, not the KJV, in subjection under his feet (as also Hebrews 2:8), the fowls of the air and the fishes of the sea; passeth through the paths of the sea is the KJV’s, with sea for seas. That the psalm was made by night, since it names the moon and stars but not the sun, is an inference long repeated by commentators. Hebrews 2:6-9 reads the psalm of Christ.

228.Psalm 19:1-6, then 19:7-10 after Traherne’s comment. The departures from the KJV are small, Their line is gone throughout all the earth, and their voice for gone out through all the earth, and their words, his race for a race, to the ends of it for unto the ends of it, and nothing is hid for there is nothing hid. Paul applies verse 4 to the preaching of the Gospel (Romans 10:18). Peculiar treasures, at the end, are private possessions, as Israel is God’s “peculiar treasure” (Exodus 19:5).