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← ExitCenturies of Meditations

The Third Century

89

In the 78th psalm, he commandeth all ages to record the ancient ways of God, and recommendeth them to our meditation, shewing the ordinance of God, that fathers should teach their children, and they another generation: which certainly since they are not to be seen in the visible world, but only in the memory and minds of men. The memory and mind are a strange region of celestial light, and a wonderful place, as well as a large and sublime one, in which they may be seen. What is contained in the souls of men being as visible to us as the very heavens.

90

In the 84th psalm he longeth earnestly after the Tabernacles of God, and preferreth a day in His courts above a thousand. Because there, as Deborah speaketh in her song, was the place of drawing waters, that is of repentance; and of rehearsing the righteous acts of the Lord, which it is more blessed to do than to inherit the palaces of wicked men.

91

Among the Gods there is none like unto Thee. Neither are there any works like unto Thy works. All nations whom Thou hast made, shall come and worship before Thee, O Lord, and shall glorify Thy name. For Thou art great, and doest wondrous things. Thou art God alone. This is a glorious meditation, wherein the psalmist gives himself liberty to examine the excellency of God’s works, and finding them infinitely great and above all that can be besides, rejoiceth and admireth the goodness of God, and resteth satisfied with complacency in them. That they were all his, he knew well, being the gifts of God made unto him, and that he was to have communion with God in the enjoyment of them. But their excellency was a thing unsearchable and their incomparableness above all imagination, which he found by much study to his infinite delectation.

92

In his other psalms he proceedeth to speak of the works of God over and over again: sometimes stirring up all creatures to praise God for the very delight he took in their admirable perfections, sometimes shewing. God’s goodness and mercy by them, and sometimes rejoicing himself and triumphing in them. By all this teaching us what we ought to do, that we might become divine and heavenly. In the 103rd psalm he openeth the nature of God’s present mercies, both towards himself in particular, and towards all in general, turning emergencies in this world into celestial joys. In the 104th psalm he insisteth wholly upon the beauty of God’s works in the creation, making all things in Heaven and Earth, and in the heaven of heavens, in the wilderness and the sea his private and personal delights. In the 105th and 106th psalms he celebrateth the ways of God in former ages with as much vehemency, zeal and pleasure as if they were new things, and as if he were present with them seeing their beauty and tasting their delight that very moment. In the 107th psalm he contemplates the ways of God in the dispensations of His providence, over travellers, sick men, seamen, &c., shewing that the way to be much in heaven is to be much employed here upon Earth in the meditation of divine and celestial things. For such are these, though they seem terrestrial. All which he concludeth thus: Whoso considereth these things, even he shall understand this lovingkindness of the Lord. In the 119th psalm, like an enamoured person, and a man ravished in spirit with joy and pleasure, he treateth upon Divine laws, and over and over again maketh mention of their beauty and perfection. By all which we may see what inward life we ought to lead with God in the Temple. And that to be much in the meditation of God’s works and ways and laws, to see their excellency, to taste their sweetness; to behold their glory, to admire, and rejoice and overflow with praises is to live in Heaven. But unless we have a communion with David in a rational knowledge of their nature and excellency, we can never understand the grounds of his complacency, or the depth of his resentments.

93

In our outward life towards men the psalmist also is an admirable precedent: In weeping for those that forget God’s law, in publishing His praises in the congregation of the righteous, in speaking of His testimonies without cowardice or shame even before princes, in delighting in the saints, in keeping promises though made to his hurt, in tendering the life of his enemies, and clothing himself with sack-cloth when they were sick, in showing mercy to the poor, in enduring the songs and mockings of the drunkards, in taking care to glorify the Author of all Bounty; with a splendid temple and musical instruments in this world, in putting his trust and confidence in God among all his enemies, evermore promoting His honour and glory, instructing others in the excellency of His ways, and endeavouring to establish His worship in Israel. Thus ought we to the best of our power to express our gratitude and friendship to so great a benefactor in all the effects of love and fidelity, doing His pleasure with all our might, and promoting His honour with all our power.

94

There are psalms more clear wherein he expresseth the joy he taketh in God’s works and the glory of them. Wherein he teacheth us at divers times and in divers manner to ponder on them. Among which the 145th psalm (and so onward to the last) are very eminent. In which he openeth the nature of God’s Kingdom, and so vigorously and vehemently exciteth all creatures to praise Him, and all men to do it with all kind of musical instruments by all expressions, in all nations for all things, as if ten thousand vents were not sufficient to ease his fulness, as if all the world were but one Celestial Temple in which he was delighted, as if all nations were present before him, and he saw God face to face in this earthly Tabernacle, as if his soul like an infinite ocean were full of joys, and all these but springs and channels overflowing. So purely, so joyfully, so powerfully he walked with God, all creatures, as they brought a confluence of joys unto him, being pipes to ease him.

95

His soul recovered its pristine liberty, and saw through the mud walls of flesh and blood. Being alive, he was in the spirit all his days. While his body therefore was inclosed in this world, his soul was in the temple of Eternity, and clearly beheld the infinite life and omnipresence of God: Having conversation with invisible, spiritual, and immaterial things, which were its companions, itself being invisible, spiritual and immaterial. Kingdoms and Ages did surround him, as clearly as the hills and mountains: and therefore the Kingdom of God was ever round about him. Everything was one way or other his sovereign delight and transcendent pleasure, as in Heaven everything will be everyone’s peculiar treasure.

96

He saw these things only in the light of faith, and yet rejoiced as if he had seen them by in the Light of Heaven, which argued the strength and glory of his faith. And whereas he so rejoiced in all the nations of the earth for praising God, he saw them doing it in the light of prophesy, not of history: Much more therefore should we rejoice, who see these prophecies fulfilled, since the fulfilling of them is so blessed, divine, and glorious, that the very prevision of their accomplishment transported and ravished this glorious person. But we wither and for lack of sense shrivel up into nothing, who should be filled with the delights of ages.

97

By this we understand what it is to be the Sons of God, and what it is to live in communion with Him, what it is to be advanced to His Throne, and to reign in His Kingdom, with all these other glorious and marvellous expressions that are applied to men in the Holy Scriptures. To be the Sons of God is not only to enjoy the privileges and the freedom of His house, and to bear the relation of children to so great a Father, but it is to be like Him, and to share with Him in all His glory, and in all His treasures. To be like Him in spirit and understanding, to be exalted above all creatures as the end of them, to be present as He is by sight and love, without limit and without bound, with all His works, to be Holy towards all and wise towards all, as He is. Prizing all His goodness in all with infinite ardour, that as glorious and eternal kings being pleased in all, we might reign over all for evermore.

246.Psalm 78:1-7, where God commanded the fathers to make his works “known to their children” (78:5). The praise of memory as a strange region of celestial light recalls Augustine’s “fields and spacious palaces of memory” (Confessions X.8.12); strange is wonderful.

247.Judges 5:11, “in the places of drawing water, there shall they rehearse”, from the song of Deborah, prophetess and judge (Judges 4-5). Reading the drawing of water as repentance is Traherne’s own; it may recall 1 Samuel 7:6, where Israel drew water, poured it out before the Lord and confessed, We have sinned. Psalm 84:1-2 and 10 lie behind the rest, with the psalm’s tents of wickedness raised to palaces.

248.Psalm 86:8-10, following the KJV except that O Lord drops out of verse 8; delectation, at the end of the meditation, is delight.

249.A survey of Psalm 103 (“Bless the LORD, O my soul”, on God’s mercies), 104 (the creation), 105 and 106 (the history of Israel), 107 (God’s care of wanderers, prisoners, the sick and seamen) and 119 (the longest psalm, on the beauty of the law). The quotation of Psalm 107:43 is free; the KJV has “Whoso is wise, and will observe these things”. Emergencies are events as they arise, without the modern sense of crisis.

250.Dobell notes that resentments is used “in its original and proper sense of a deep feeling or sentiment”, not grievance or indignation. The word has appeared at I.85 and III.84 (see Key Words, resentments).

251.Precedent is example, pattern. Each clause rests on a text, tears for those who break the law (Psalm 119:136), speaking before kings unashamed (119:46), delight in the saints (16:3), keeping an oath sworn “to his own hurt” (15:4), sparing Saul’s life (1 Samuel 24 and 26; tendering is cherishing), sackcloth for his sick enemies (Psalm 35:13), mercy to the poor (41:1), being “the song of the drunkards” (69:12), and gathering the materials and musicians for the Temple (1 Chronicles 22-25).

252.Psalms 145-150, the last six of the Psalter, in which sun, moon and stars (148) and every instrument (150) are called to praise. Vents are outlets, as in Job 32:19, “my belly is as wine which hath no vent”; pipes are conduits, and perhaps musical pipes as well. This earthly Tabernacle is the body (2 Corinthians 5:1).

253.The body as a cottage of clay, after Job 4:19, “them that dwell in houses of clay”; pristine is original, belonging to the first state. Conversation, a few lines on, is familiar company and dealing, its first use in the book (see Key Words, converse), and the things invisible are those of 2 Corinthians 4:18, “the things which are not seen are eternal”.

254.The schoolmen distinguished the light of faith, by which believers assent to what they do not see, from the light of glory (Latin lumen gloriae) by which the blessed see God (Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I q.12 a.5). Traherne first wrote that David rejoiced as if he had seen these things by Intuition, which is the Light of Heaven, then struck the words through and wrote in above; compare the child who knew by intuition at III.2.