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← ExitCenturies of Meditations

The First Century

53

O the nobility of Divine Friendship! Are not all His treasures yours, and yours His? Is not your very Soul and Body His: is not His life and felicity yours is not His desire yours? Is not His will yours? And if His will be yours, the accomplishment of it is yours, and the end of all is your perfection. You are infinitely rich as He is: being pleased in everything as He is. And if His will be yours, yours is His. For you will what He willeth, which is to be truly wise and good and holy. And when you delight in the same reasons that moved Him to will, you will know it. He willed the Creation not only that He might Appear but Be: wherein is seated the mystery of the Eternal Generation of His Son. Do you will it as He did, and you shall be glorious as He. He willed the happiness of men and angels not only that He might appear, but be good and wise and glorious. And He willed it with such infinite desire, that He is infinitely good: infinitely good in Himself, and infinitely blessed in them. Do you will the happiness of men and angels as He did, and you shall be good, and infinitely blessed as He is. All their happiness shall be your happiness as it is His. He willed the glory of all ages, and the government and welfare of all Kingdoms, and the felicity also of the highest cherubims. Do you extend your Will like Him and you shall be great as He is, and concerned and happy in all these. He willed the redemption of mankind, and therefore is His Son Jesus Christ an infinite treasure. Unless you will it too, He will be no treasure to you. Verily you ought to will these things so ardently that God Himself should be therefore your joy because He willed them. Your will ought to be united to His in all places of His dominion. Were you not born to have communion with Him? And that cannot be without this heavenly union. Which when it is what it ought is Divine and Infinite. You are God’s joy for willing what He willeth. He loves to see you good and blessed. And will not you love to see Him good? Verily, if ever you would enjoy God, you must enjoy His goodness: All His goodness to all His hosts in Heaven and Earth. And when you do so, you are the universal heir of God and all things. God is yours and the whole world. You are His, and you are all; or in all, and with all.

54

He that is in all, and with all, can never be desolate. All the joys and all the treasures, all the counsels, and all the perfections; all the angels, and all the saints of God are with him. All the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them are continually in his eye. The patriarchs, prophets, and Apostles are always before Him. The councils and the fathers, the bishops and the doctors minister unto him. All temples are open before him, the melody of all quires reviveth him, the learning of all universities doth employ him, the riches of all palaces delight him, the joys of Eden ravish him, the revelations of St. John transport him, the creation and the day of Judgment please him, the Hosannas of the church militant and the Hallelujahs of the Saints Triumphant fill him, the splendour of all coronations entertain him, the joys of Heaven surround him, and our Saviour’s cross, like the Centre of Eternity, is in him; it taketh up his thoughts, and exerciseth all the powers of his soul, with wonder, admiration, joy and thanksgiving. The Omnipresence of God is his House, and Eternity his habitation.

55

The contemplation of Eternity maketh the Soul immortal. Whose glory it is, that it can see before and after its existence into endless spaces. Its Sight is its presence. And therefore is the presence of the understanding endless, because its Sight is so. O what glorious creatures should we be could we be present in spirit with all Eternity! How wise, would we esteem this presence of the understanding, to be more real than that of our bodies! When my soul is in Eden with our first parents, I myself am there in a blessed manner. When I walk with Enoch, and see his translation, I am transported with him. The present age is too little to contain it. I can visit Noah in his ark, and swim upon the waters of the deluge. I can see Moses with his rod, and the children of Israel passing through the sea; I can enter into Aaron’s Tabernacle, and admire the mysteries of the holy place. I can travel over the Land of Canaan, and see it overflowing with milk and honey; I can visit Solomon in his glory, and go into his temple, and view the sitting of his servants, and admire the magnificence and glory of his kingdom. No creature but one like unto the Holy Angels can see into all ages. Sure this power was not given in vain, but for some wonderful purpose; worthy of itself to enjoy and fathom. Would men consider what God hath done, they would be ravished in spirit with the glory of His doings. For Heaven and Earth are full of the majesty of His glory. And how happy would men be could they see and enjoy it! But above all these our Saviour’s cross is the throne of delights. That Centre of Eternity, that Tree of Life in the midst of the Paradise of God!

56

There we are entertained with the wonder of all ages. There we enter into the heart of the universe. There we behold the admiration of Angels. There we find the price and elixir of our joys. As on every side of the earth all heavy things tend to the centre; so all nations ought on every side to flow in unto it. It is not by going with the feet, but by journeys of the Soul, that we travel thither. By withdrawing our thoughts from wandering in the streets of this World, to the contemplation and serious meditation of His bloody sufferings. Where the carcase is thither will the eagles be gathered together. Our eyes must be towards it, our hearts set upon it, our affections drawn, and our thoughts and minds United to it. When I am lifted up, saith the Son of Man, I will draw all men unto me. As fishes are drawn out of the water, as Jeremie was drawn out of the dungeon, as St. Peter’s sheet was drawn up into Heaven; so shall we be drawn by that sight from Ignorance and Sin, and Earthly vanities, idle sports, companions, feasts and pleasures, to the joyful contemplation of that Eternal Object. But by what cords? The cords of a man, and the cords of Love.

57

As eagles are drawn by the scent of a carcase, as children are drawn together by the sight of a lion, as people flock to a coronation, and as a man is drawn to his beloved object, so ought we. As the sick are drawn by the credit of a physician, as the poor are drawn by the liberality of a King, as the devout are drawn by the fame of the Holy, and as the curious are drawn by the noise of a miracle, so ought we. As the stones were drawn to the building of Thebes by the Melody of Amphion, as the hungry are drawn with the desire of a feast, and the pitiful, drawn to a woeful spectacle, so ought we. What visible chains or cords draw those? What invisible links allure? They follow all, or flock together of their own accord. And shall not we much more! Who would not be drawn to the Gate of Heaven, were it open to receive him? Yet nothing compels him, but that which forceth the Angels, Commodity and Desire. For those are things which the Angels desire to look into. And of men it is written, They shall look on Him whom they have pierced. Verily the Israelites did not more clearly see the brazen serpent upon the pole in the wilderness, than we may our Saviour upon the Cross. The serpent was seen with their eyes, the slayer of the serpent is seen with our Souls. They had less need to see the one, than we to see the other.

58

The Cross is the abyss of wonders, the centre of desires, the school of virtues, the house of wisdom, the throne of love, the theatre of joys, and the place of sorrows; It is the root of happiness, and the gate of Heaven.

59

Of all the things in Heaven and Earth it is the most peculiar. It is the most exalted of all objects. It is an Ensign lifted up for all nations, to it shall the Gentiles seek, His rest shall be glorious: the dispersed of Judah shall be gathered together to it, from the four corners of the earth. If Love be the weight of the Soul, and its object the centre, all eyes and hearts may convert and turn unto this Object: cleave unto this centre, and by it enter into rest. There we might see all nations assembled with their eyes and hearts upon it. There we may see God’s goodness, wisdom and power: yea His mercy and anger displayed. There we may see man’s sin and infinite value. His hope and fear, his misery and happiness. There we might see the Rock of Ages, and the Joys of Heaven. There we may see a Man loving all the world, and a God dying for mankind. There we may see all types and ceremonies, figures and prophecies. And all kingdoms adoring a malefactor: An innocent malefactor, yet the greatest in the world. There we may see the most distant things in Eternity united: all mysteries at once couched together and explained. The only reason why this Glorious Object is so publicly admired by Churches and Kingdoms, and so little thought of by particular men, is because it is truly the most glorious: It is the Rock of Comforts and the Fountain of Joys. It is the only supreme and sovereign spectacle in all Worlds. It is a Well of Life beneath in which we may see the face of Heaven above: and the only mirror, wherein all things appear in their proper colours: that is, sprinkled in the blood of our Lord and Saviour.

45.The classical ideal of friendship applied to God. “Friends have all things in common” was a Greek proverb (Plato, Phaedrus 279c; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VIII.9), and Abraham was called “the Friend of God” (James 2:23). Hence the questions that follow, whether all His treasures are not yours and yours His.

46.Plato says that the man given to learning and true thoughts must think immortal and divine things and so share in immortality as far as human nature can (Timaeus 90b-c); Aristotle, that men ought “so far as possible to achieve immortality” by the life of the intellect (Nicomachean Ethics X.7, 1177b33).

47.Matthew 24:28, “For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together”. Christ spoke it of His coming, but an old reading, found in Jerome and Hilary, took the carcase for Christ in His Passion and the eagles for the saints, and so Traherne uses it here and at I.57.

48.Hosea 11:4, “I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love”. The whole meditation turns on drawing. Christ’s “I will draw all men unto me” is John 12:32; Jeremiah (Jeremie) was drawn up with cords out of the dungeon (Jeremiah 38:13), and the great sheet of St Peter’s vision was taken up into heaven (Acts 10:11-16).

49.In Greek legend Amphion, son of Zeus and Antiope, built the walls of Thebes by playing his lyre, at whose sound the stones moved of their own accord into place; Horace tells it as a type of the civilising power of poetry (Art of Poetry 394-6).

50.Numbers 21:8-9, where Moses set a serpent of brass upon a pole and the bitten Israelites who looked on it lived; Christ took it as a figure of His own lifting up (John 3:14). The slayer of the serpent is Christ, the seed of the woman who bruises the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15). Just before, those who “look on Him whom they have pierced” are from Zechariah 12:10 (John 19:37), the angels’ desire to look into these things is 1 Peter 1:12, and Commodity is advantage, profit.

51.Augustine’s image, pondus meum amor meus, my love is my weight (Confessions XIII.9.10). As a stone tends downward and fire upward, each seeking its own place, so the soul is carried by its love towards what it loves and rests only there. Traherne makes the Cross that centre; compare the earth’s centre at I.2 and I.56. The Ensign lifted up earlier in the meditation is Isaiah 11:10-12.