Diotimos Reading Desk

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← ExitCenturies of Meditations

The Third Century

81

Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify against thee. I am God, even thy God. I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings, to have been continually before me. I will take no bullock out of thy house, nor he-goats out of thy folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains, and the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry I would not tell thee; for the World is mine, and the fulness thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats? Offer unto God thanksgiving, and pay thy vows to the Most High. And call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. When I was a little child, I thought that everyone that lifted up his eyes to behold the sun, did me in looking on it, wonderful service. And certainly being moved thereby to praise my Creator, it was in itself a service wonderfully delightful. For since God so much esteemeth praises, that He preferreth them above thousands of rams and tens of thousands of rivers of oil: if I love Him with that inflamed ardour and zeal I ought His praises must needs be delightful to me above all services and riches whatsoever. That which hinders us from seeing the glory and discerning the sweetness of praises hinders us also from knowing the manner how we are concerned in them. But God knoweth infinite reasons, for which He preferreth them. If I should tell you what they are, you would be apt to despise them. Divine and heavenly mysteries being thirsted after till they are known, but by corrupted nature undervalued. Howbeit since grace correcteth the perverseness of nature, and tasteth in a better manner, it shall not be long, till somewhere we disclose them.

82

Are not praises the very end for which the world was created? Do they not consist as it were of knowledge, complacency, and thanksgiving? Are they not better than all the fowls and beasts and fishes in the world? What are the cattle upon a thousand hills but carcases, without creatures that can rejoice in God, and enjoy them? It is evident that praises are infinitely more excellent than all the creatures because they proceed from men and angels. For as streams do, they derive an excellency from their fountains, and are the last tribute that can possibly be paid to the Creator. Praises are the breathings of interior love, the marks and symptoms of an happy life, overflowing gratitude, returning benefits, an oblation of the soul, and the heart ascending upon the wings of divine affection to the Throne of God. God is a Spirit and cannot feed on carcases: but He can be delighted with thanksgivings, and is infinitely pleased with the emanations of our joy, because His works are esteemed, and Himself is admired. What can be more acceptable to love than that it should be prized and magnified? Because therefore God is love, and His measure infinite, He infinitely desires to be admired and beloved, and so our praises enter into the very secret of His Eternal Bosom, and mingle with Him who dwelleth in that light which is inaccessible. What strengths are there even in flattery to please a great affection? Are not your bowels moved, and your affections melted with delight and pleasure, when your soul is precious in the eye of those you love? When your affection is pleased, your love prized, and they satisfied? To prize love is the highest service in the whole world that can be done unto it. But there are a thousand causes moving God to esteem our praises, more than we can well apprehend. However, let these inflame you, and move you to praise Him night and day forever.

83

Of our Saviour it is said, Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldst not, but a body hast Thou prepared me, all Sacrifices being but types and figures of Himself, and Himself infinitely more excellent than they all. Of a broken heart also it is said, Thou desirest not sacrifice else I would give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise. One deep and serious groan is more acceptable to God than the creation of a world. In spiritual things we find the greatest excellency. As praises, because they are the pledges of our mutual affection, so groans, because they are the pledges of a due contrition, are the greatest sacrifices. Both proceed from love, and in both we manifest and exercise our friendship. In contrition we show our penitence for having offended, and by that are fitted to rehearse His praises. All the desire wherewith He longs after a returning sinner, makes Him to esteem a broken heart. What can more melt and dissolve a lover than the tears of an offending and returning friend? Here also is the saying verified, The falling out of lovers is the beginning of love, the renewing, the repairing, and the strengthening of it.

84

An enlarged soul that seeth all the world praising God, or penitent by bewailing their offences and converting to Him, hath his eye fixed upon the joy of Angels. It needeth nothing but the sense of God to inherit all things. We must borrow and derive it from Him by seeing His, and aspiring after it. Do but clothe yourself with Divine resentments and the world shall be to you the valley of vision, and all the nations and kingdoms of the world shall appear in splendour and celestial glory.

85

The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance, he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. But I will sing of Thy power, yea I will sing aloud of Thy mercy in the morning. For Thou hast been my defence in the day of my trouble. The deliverances of your former life are objects of your felicity, and so is the vengeance of the wicked. With both which in all times and places you are ever to be present in your memory and understanding. For lack of considering its objects the soul is desolate.

86

My soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is. To see Thy power and Thy glory so as I have seen Thee in the Sanctuary. Because Thy loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise Thee. Thus will I bless Thee while I live, I will lift up my hands in Thy name. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise Thee with joyful lips. O Thou that hearest prayer, unto Thee shall all flesh come. Blessed is the man whom Thou choosest and causest to approach unto Thee, that he may dwell in Thy courts. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Thy house, even of Thy Holy Temple. See how in the 65th psalm he introduceth the meditation of God’s visible works sweetly into the Tabernacle and maketh them to be the fatness of His house, even of His Holy Temple. God is seen when His love is manifested. God is enjoyed when His love is prized. When we see the glory of His wisdom and goodness and His power exerted, then we see His glory. And these we cannot see till we see their works. When therefore we see His works, in them as in a mirror we see His glory.

87

Make a joyful noise unto God, all ye lands, sing forth the honour of His name, make His praise glorious. Say unto God, how terrible art Thou in Thy works? Through the greatness of Thy power shall Thine enemies submit themselves unto Thee. All the earth shall worship Thee, and sing unto Thee, they shall sing to Thy name. Come and see the works of God, He is terrible in his doing towards the children of men. The prospect of all Nations praising Him is far sweeter than the prospect of the fields or silent Heavens serving them, though you see the skies adorned with stars, and the fields covered with corn and flocks of sheep and cattle. When the eye of your understanding shineth upon them, they are yours in Him, and all your joys.

88

God is my King, of old working salvation in the midst of the Earth. He divided the sea by His strength. He brake the heads of Leviathan in pieces. His heart is always abroad in the midst of the earth; seeing and rejoicing in His wonders there. His soul is busied in the ancient works of God for His people Israel. The day is thine, the night also is thine, Thou hast prepared the Light and the Sun. Thou hast set all the borders of the earth. Thou hast made summer and winter. He proposeth more objects of our felicity in which we ought to meet the goodness of God, that we might rejoice before Him. The day and night, the light and the sun are God’s treasures, and ours also.

237.Psalm 50:7-15, close to the KJV. The psalm’s turn from sacrifice to thanksgiving (verse 14) is the text for the meditations on praise that follow. Thousands of rams and tens of thousands of rivers of oil, below, is Micah 6:7.

238.The definition by heaped images is the manner of George Herbert’s sonnet Prayer (I) in The Temple (1633), which begins “Prayer the Church’s banquet, Angels’ age”. Complacency, earlier, is delight, the pleasure taken in a thing, and an oblation is an offering. That light which is inaccessible, below, is 1 Timothy 6:16, nearer the Latin Vulgate’s lucem inaccessibilem than the KJV’s “light which no man can approach unto”.

239.Hebrews 10:5, which quotes Psalm 40:6 in its Greek form, the Septuagint’s a body hast thou prepared me; the Hebrew, which the KJV follows in the psalm, has mine ears hast thou opened. The second quotation is David’s penitential Psalm 51:16-17 (else I would give it for else would I give it), whose last verse is among the sentences read at the opening of Morning and Evening Prayer.

240.A proverb from Terence, amantium irae amoris integratio est, lovers’ quarrels are the renewal of love (Andria 555), known in English from Richard Edwards’s song in The Paradise of Dainty Devices (1576), with its refrain “The falling out of faithful friends renewing is of love”.

241.Isaiah 22:1, 5, where the valley of vision is Jerusalem under an oracle of judgment; Traherne makes it a place of seeing. Divine resentments are divine feelings, the sense God has of things (see Key Words, resentments, and the note at III.92).

242.Psalm 58:10, from one of the psalms that call down judgment on enemies, joined to Psalm 59:16, where Traherne leaves out and refuge after defence. That the saints rejoice in God’s just judgments is also the song of Revelation 19:1-2.

243.Psalm 63:1-5, headed in the KJV as written “when he was in the wilderness of Judah”, beginning after the opening words O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee; then Psalm 65:2 and 4. Traherne’s point is that Psalm 65 goes on from the Temple to rain, rivers, corn and flocks (65:9-13). In them as in a mirror recalls 2 Corinthians 3:18, “beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord”.

244.Psalm 66:1-5, from the KJV with trifling changes (and sing unto Thee for and shall sing unto thee). Terrible is awe-inspiring, to be feared, as in Psalm 47:2 at III.79; the prospect that follows is the view.

245.Psalm 74:12-14 and 16-17, leaving out the dragons of verse 13, the end of verse 14 and all of verse 15, and turned from the psalm’s address to God into the third person, He divided the sea for Thou didst divide the sea, He brake for thou brakest. Leviathan, the sea-monster of Job 41 and Isaiah 27:1, is traditionally read here as Egypt broken at the Red Sea. Abroad, in Traherne’s comment, is out of doors, ranging far.