From the book
Centuries of Meditations
Thomas Traherne · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordA covenant is an ordered relation established by promise and obligation.
- In TraherneTraherne places the covenant within humanity's fourfold history of innocence, misery, grace, and glory.
- In this edition“Tenour” means the purport or governing terms of the covenant.
- A place to beginThe estate of grace is organized through the new covenant, its mediator, conditions, signs, and historical exhibition.
Meaning
A covenant is an ordered relation established by promise and obligation. In the cited theological outline the new covenant defines the estate of grace and its means of participation.
Use in the book
Traherne places the covenant within humanity's fourfold history of innocence, misery, grace, and glory. Studying it includes its tenor, the manner of its exhibition in Old and New Testament dispensations, its mediator, conditions of faith and repentance, and sacramental seals. The list explains why divinity can comprehend so many apparently separate subjects: they belong to the intelligible history of human restoration and enjoyment. The meditation offers a programme of study rather than a detailed doctrinal settlement of every listed question. Its final movement is personal, returning these subjects to the speaker's redeemed inheritance.
Places to read
- III.43The estate of grace is organized through the new covenant, its mediator, conditions, signs, and historical exhibition.
In this edition
“Tenour” means the purport or governing terms of the covenant. “Seals” are confirming signs in the outline, not literal wax seals attached to a manuscript in this scene.
Source note
Primary text: III.43. III.43 is the explicit covenant occurrence and is a syllabus-like outline, not a complete exposition of covenant theology.