Thomas Traherne · 14 of 19

The Fourth Century · Part 2

He conceived it his duty and much delighted in the obligation, that he was to treat every man in the whole world as representative of mankind and that he was to meet in him, and to pay unto him all the love of God, Angels and Men.

He thought that he was to treat every man in the person of Christ. That is both as if himself were Christ in the greatness of his love, and also as if the man were Christ, he was to use him having respect to all others. For the love of Christ is to dwell within, him, and every man is the object of it. God and he are to become one Spirit, that is one in will, and one in desire. Christ must live within him. He must be filled with the , which is the God of Love, he must be of the same mind with Christ. Jesus, and led by His Spirit. For on the other side he was well acquainted with this mystery—That every man being the object of our Saviour’s Love, was to be treated as our Saviour, Who hath said, Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these my brethren; ye have done it unto me. And thus he is to live upon Earth among sinners.

He had another saying‑He lives most like an Angel that lives least upon himself, and doth most good to others. For the Angels neither eat nor drink, and yet do good to the whole world. Now a man is an Angel. And he that lives in the midst of riches as a poor man himself, enjoying God and Paradise, or Christendom which is better, conversing with the poor, and seeing the value of their souls through their bodies, and prizing all things clearly with a due esteem, is arrived here to the estate of immortality. He cares little for the delicacies either of food or raiment himself, and delighteth in others. God, Angels, and Men are his treasures. He seeth through all the mists and veils of invention, and possesseth here beneath the true riches. And he that doth this always is a rare Phoenix. But he confessed that he had often cause to bewail his infirmities.

I speak not his practises but his principles. I should too much praise your friend did I speak his practises, but it is no shame for any man to declare his principles, though they are the most glorious in the world. Rather they are to be shamed that have no glorious principles, or that are ashamed of them. This he desired me to tell you because of modesty. But with all that indeed his practises are so short of these glorious principles, that to relate them would be to his shame; and that therefore you would never look upon him but as clothed in the of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless I have heard him often say, That he never allowed himself in swerving from any of these, and that he deeply every miscarriage and moreover firmly resolved as much as was possible never to err or wander from them again.

I heard him often say that and happiness were the same, and he quoted a mighty place of scripture‑All her ways are pleasantness and her paths are peace. But he delighted in giving the reason of scripture, and therefore said, That and wisdom in effect were one: for no man could be wise that knew excellent things without doing them. Now to do their is and to do them wisdom. No man therefore can be further miserable than he severeth from the ways of and wisdom.

If he might have had but one request of God Almighty, it should have been above all other, that he might be a blessing to mankind. That was his daily prayer above all his petitions. He wisely knew that it included all petitions; for he that is a blessing to mankind must be blessed, that he may be so, and must inherit all their affections, and in that their treasures. He could not help it. But he so desired to love them, and to be a joy unto them, that he protested often, that he could never enjoy himself, but as he was enjoyed of others, and that above all delight in all worlds, he desired to be a joy and blessing to others. Though for this he was not to be commended, for he did but right to God and Nature, who had implanted in all that inclination.

The desire of riches was removed from himself pretty early. He often protested, if he had a palace of gold and a paradise of delights, besides that he enjoyed; he could not understand a farthing worth of benefit that he should receive thereby unless in giving it away. But for others he sometimes could desire riches; till at last perceiving the root of covetousness in him, and that it would grow as long as it was shrouded under that mould, he rooted it quite up with this principle—Sometimes it may so happen, that to contemn the world in the whole lump was as acceptable to God as first to get it with solicitude and care, and then to retail it out in particular charities.

After this he could say with Luther, that covetousness could never fasten the least hold upon him. And concerning his friends even to the very desire of seeing them rich, he could say, as Phocion the poor Athenian did of his children: Either they will be like me or not; if they are like me they will not need riches; if they are not they will be but needless and hurtful superfluities.

He desired no other riches for his friends but those which cannot be abused; to wit the true treasures, God and Heaven and Earth and Angels and Men, &c. with the riches of wisdom and to enjoy them. And it was his principle‑That all the treasures in the whole world would not make a miser happy, a miser happy. A miser is not only a covetous man but a fool. Any needy man, that wanteth the world, is miserable. He wanteth God and all things.

He thought also that no poverty could befall him that enjoyed Paradise. For when all the things are gone which man can give, a man is still as rich as Adam was in Eden, who was naked there. A naked man is the richest creature in all worlds, and can never be happy till he sees the riches of his very nakedness. He is very poor in knowledge that thinks Adam poor in Eden. See here how one principle helps another. All our disadvantages contracted by the fall are made up and recompensed by the Love of God.

‘Tis not change of place, but glorious principles well practised that establish Heaven in the life and soul. An angel will be happy anywhere, and a devil miserable, because the principles of the one are always good, of the other, bad. From the centre to the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills all is Heaven before God, and full of treasure; and he that walks like God in the midst of them, blessed.

Love God, Angels and Men, triumph in God’s works, delight in God’s laws, take pleasure in God’s ways in all ages, correct sins, bring good out of evil, subdue your lusts, order your senses, conquer the customs and opinions of men and render good for evil, you are in Heaven everywhere. Above the stars earthly things will be celestial joys, and here beneath will things delight you that are above the heavens, All things being infinitely beautiful in their places, and wholly yours in all their places. Your riches will be as infinite in value and excellency, as they are in beauty and glory, and that is, as they are in extent.

Thus he was possessor of the whole world, and held it his treasure, not only as the gift of God, but as the theatre of virtues. Esteeming it principally his because it upheld and ministered to many objects of his love and goodness. Towards whom, before whom, among whom he might do the work of fidelity and wisdom, exercise his courage and prudence, show his temperance and bring forth the fruits of faith and . For all those are the objects of our joy that are the objects of our care. They are our true treasures about whom we are wisely employed.

He had one maxim of notable concernment, and that was, That God, having reserved all other things in his own disposal, had left his heart to him. Those things that were in God’s care he would commit to God, those things that were committed to his, he would take care about. He said therefore, that he had but one thing to do, and that was to order and keep his heart which alone being well guided, would order all other things blessedly and successfully. The things about him were innumerable and out of his power, but they were in God’s power. And if he pleased God in that which was committed to him, God would be sure to please him in things without committed unto God. For He was faithful that had promised; in all that belonged unto Him God was perfect; all the danger being lest we should be imperfect in ours, and unfaithful in those things that pertain unto us.

Having these principles nothing was more easy than to enjoy the world. Which being enjoyed, he had nothing more to do, than to spend his life in praises and thanksgivings. All his care being to be sensible of God’s mercies, and to behave himself as the friend of God in the Universe. If anything were amiss, he still would have recourse to his own heart, and found nothing but that out of frame: by restoring which all things were rectified, and made delightful: As much as that had swerved from the rule of justice, equity and right, so far was he miserable, and no more so that by experience he found the words of the wise man true, and worthy of all acceptation: In all thy keeping, keep thy heart, for out of it core the issues of life and death.

One thing he saw, which is not commonly discerned, and that is, that God made man a free agent for his own advantage, and left him in the hand of his own counsel, that he might be the more glorious. It is hard, to conceive how much this tended to his satisfaction. For all the things in Heaven and Earth being so beautiful, and made, as it were, on purpose for his own enjoyment; he infinitely admired God’s wisdom, in that it salved his and all men’s exigencies, in which it fully answered his desires. For his desire was that all men should be happy as well as he. And he admired his goodness, which had enjoined no other duty, than what pertained to the more convenient fruition of the world which he had given: and at the marvellous excellency of His love, in committing that duty to the sons of men to be performed freely. For thereby He adventured such a power into the hands of His creatures, which Angels and Cherubims wonder at, and which when it is understood all Eternity will admire the bounty of giving. For He thereby committed to their hands a power to do that which He infinitely hated, which nothing certainly could move Him to entrust them with, but some infinite benefit which might be attained thereby, What that was, if you desire to know, it was the excellency, dignity and exaltation of His creature.

O Adorable and Eternal God! Hast Thou made me a free agent! And enabled me if I please to offend Thee infinitely! What other end couldst Thou intend by this, but that I might please Thee infinitely! That having the power of pleasing or displeasing, I might be the friend of God! Of all exaltations in all worlds this is the greatest. To make a world for me was much, to prepare eternal joys for me was more. But to give me a power to displease thee, or to set a sin before Thy face, which Thou infinitely hatest, to profane Eternity, or to defile Thy works, is more stupendous than all these. What other couldst Thou intend by it but that I might infinitely please Thee? And having the power of pleasing or displeasing, might please Thee and myself infinitely, in being pleasing! Hereby Thou hast prepared a new fountain and torrent of joy greater than all that went before, seated us in the Throne of God, made us Thy companions, endued us with a power most dreadful to ourselves, that we might live in sublime and incomprehensible blessedness for evermore. For the satisfaction of our goodness is the most delight of which we are capable. And that by our own actions we should be well pleasing to Thee, is the greatest Felicity Nature can contain. O Thou who art infinitely delightful to the sons of men, make me, and the sons of men, infinitely delightful unto Thee. Replenish our actions with amiableness and beauty, that they may be answerable to thine, and like unto Thine in sweetness and value. That as Thou in all Thy works art pleasing to us, we in all our works may be so to Thee; our own actions as they are pleasing to Thee being an offspring of pleasures sweeter than all.

This he thought a principle at the bottom of Nature, That whatsoever satisfied the goodness of Nature, was the greatest treasure. Certainly men therefore err because they know not this principle. For all inclinations and desires in the soul flow from and tend to the satisfaction of goodness. ‘Tis strange that an excess of goodness should be the fountain of all evil. An ambition to please, a desire to gratify, a great desire to delight others being the greatest snare in the world. Hence is it that all hypocrisies and honours arise, I mean esteem of honours. Hence all imitations of human customs, hence all compliances and submissions to the and errors of this world. For men being mistaken in the nature of Felicity, and we by a strong inclination prone to please them, follow a multitude to do evil. We naturally desire to approve ourselves to them, and above all things covet to be excellent, to be greatly beloved, to be esteemed, and magnified, and therefore endeavour what they endeavour, prize what they prize, magnify what they desire, desire what they magnify: ever doing that which will render us accepted to them; and coveting that which they admire and praise, that so we might be delightful. And the more there are that delight in us the more great and happy we account ourselves.

This principle of nature, when you remove the rust it hath contracted by corruption, is pure gold; and the most orient jewel that shines in man. Few consider it either in itself, or in the design of the implanter. No man doubts but it is blessed to receive: to be made as glorious creature, and to have worlds given to one is excellent. But to be a glorious creature and to give, is a blessedness unknown. It is a kind of paradox in our Saviour, and not (as we read of) revealed upon earth, but to St. Paul from Heaven, It is more blessed to active than to receive. It is a blessedness too high to be understood. To give is the happiness of God; to receive, of man. But O the mystery of His loving kindness, even that also hath He imparted to us. Will you that I ascend higher? In giving us Himself, in giving us the world, in giving us our souls and bodies, he hath done much, but all this had been nothing, unless He had given us a power to have given Him, ourselves, in which is contained the greatest pleasure and honour. We love ourselves earnestly, and therefore rejoice to have palaces and kingdoms. But when we have these, yea Haven and Earth, unless we can be delightful and joyous to others they will be of no value. One soul to whom we may be pleasing is of greater worth than all dead things. Some unsearchable good lieth in this without which the other is but a vile and desolate estate; So that to have all worlds, with a certain sense that they are infinitely beautiful and rich and glorious is miserable , and leaves us forlorn, if all things are dead, or if ourselves are not Divine and illustrious creatures.

O the superlative Bounty of God! Where all power seemeth to cease, He proceedeth in goodness, and is wholly infinite, unsearchable, and endless. He seemeth to have made as many things depend upon man’s liberty, as His own. When all that could be wrought by the use of His own liberty were attained, by man’s liberty He attained more. This is incredible, but experience will make it plain. By His own liberty He could but create worlds and give Himself to creatures, make Images and endow them with faculties, or seat them in glory. But to see them obedient, or to enjoy the pleasure of their amity and praises, to make them fountains of actions like His own (without which indeed they could not be glorious) or to enjoy the beauty of their free imitation, this could by no means be without the liberty of His creatures intervening. Nor indeed could the world be glorious, or they blessed without this attainment. For can the world be glorious unless it be useful? And to what use could the world serve Him, if it served not those, that in this were supremely glorious that they could obey and admire and love and praise and imitate their Creator? Would it not be wholly useless without such creatures? In creating liberty therefore and giving it to His creatures He glorified all things: Himself, His work, and the subjects of His Kingdom.

You may feel in yourself how conducive this is to your highest happiness. For that you should be exalted to the fruition of worlds, and in the midst of innumerable most glorious creatures, be vile and ingrateful, injurious and dishonourable, hateful and evil, is the greatest misery and dissatisfaction imaginable. But to be the joy and delight of innumerable thousands, to be admired as the similitude of God, to be amiable and honourable, to be an illustrious and beautiful creature, to be a blessing, O the good we perceive in this! O the suavity! O the contentation! O the infinite and unspeakable pleasure! Then indeed we reign and triumph when we are delighted in. Then are we blessed when we are a blessing. When all the world is at peace with us and takes pleasure in us, when our actions are delightful, and our persons lovely, when our spirits amiable, and our affections inestimable, then are we exalted to the Throne of Glory. For things when they are useful are most glorious, and it is impossible for you or me to be useful but as we are delightful to God and His attendants. And that the Head of the World, or the End for which all worlds were made should be useless, as it is improportioned to the glory of the means, and methods of His exaltation, so is it the reproach of His nature and the utter undoing of all His glory. It is improportionable to the beauty of His ways, Who made the world, and to the expectation of His creatures.

By this you may see, that the works or actions flowing from your own liberty are of greater concernment to you than all that could possibly happen besides. And that it is more to your happiness what you are, than what you enjoy. Should God give Himself and all worlds to you, and you refuse them, it would be to no purpose. Should He love you and magnify you, should He give His Son to die for you, and command all Angels and Men to love you, should He exalt you in His Throne, and give you dominion over all His works, and you neglect them it would be to no purpose. Should He make you in His Image, and employ all His wisdom and power to fill Eternity with treasures, and you despise them, it would be in vain. In all these things you have to do; and therefore your actions are great and magnificent, being of infinite importance in all eyes; while all creatures stand in expectation what will be the result of your liberty. Your exterior works, are little in comparison of these. And God infinitely desires you should demean yourself wisely in these affairs, that is, rightly. Esteeming and receiving what He gives, with veneration and joy and infinite thanksgiving. Many other works there are, but this is the great work of all works to be performed. Consider whether more depends upon God’s love to you, or your love to Him. From His love all the things in Heaven and Earth flow unto you; but if you love neither Him nor them, you bereave yourself of all, and make them infinitely evil and hurtful to you. So that upon your love naturally depends your own excellency and the enjoyment of His. It is by your love that you enjoy all His delights, and are delightful to Him.

It is very observable by what small principles infusing them in the beginning God attaineth infinite ends. By infusing the principle of self-love He bath made a creature capable of enjoying all worlds: to whom, did he not love himself, nothing could be given. By infusing grateful principles, and inclinations to thanksgiving He hath made the creature capable of more than all worlds, yea, of more than enjoying the Deity in a simple way: though we should suppose it to be infinite. For to enjoy God as the fountain of infinite treasures, and as the giver of all, is infinite pleasure: but He by His wisdom infusing grateful principles, hath made us upon the very account of self-love to love Him more than ourselves. And us, who without self-love could not be pleased at all, even as we love ourselves He halt so infinitely pleased, that we are able to rejoice in Him, and to love Him more than ourselves. And by loving Him more than ourselves, in very gratitude and honour, to take more pleasure in His felicity, than in our own, by which way we best enjoy Him. To see His wisdom, goodness, and power employed in creating all worlds for our enjoyment, and infinitely magnified in beautifying them for us, and governing them for us satisfies our self-love; but with all it so obligeth us that in love to Him, which it createth in us, it maketh us more to delight in those attributes as they are His, than as they are our own. And the truth is, without this we could not fully delight in them, for the most excellent and glorious effect of all had been unachieved. But now there is an infinite union between Him and us, He being infinitely delightful to us, and we to Him. For He infinitely delighteth to see creatures act upon such illustrious and eternal principles, in a manner so divine, heroic, and most truly blessed; and we delight in seeing Him giving us the power.

That I am to receive all the things in Heaven and Earth is a principle not to be slighted. That in receiving I am to behave myself in a Divine and illustrious manner, is equally glorious. That God and all Eternity are mine is surely considerable: that I am His, is more. How ought I to adorn myself, who am made for his enjoyment? If man’s heart be a rock of stone, these things ought to be engraven in it with a pen of a diamond, and every letter to be filled up with gold that it may eternally shine in Him and before Him! Wherever we are living, whatever we are doing, these things ought always to be felt within him. Above all trades, above all occupations this is most sublime. This is the greatest of all affairs. Whatever else we do, it is only in order to this end that we may live conveniently to enjoy the world, and God within it; which is the employment including and crowning all: the celestial life of a glorious creature, without which all other estates are servile and impertinent.

Man being to live in the Image of God, and thus of necessity to become productive of glorious actions, was made good, that he might rejoice in the fruits, which himself did yield. That goodness which by error and corruption becomes a snare, being in the clear and pure estate of innocency, the fountain and the channel of all his joys.

Thus you see how God has perfectly pleased me: it ought also to be my care perfectly to please Him. He has given me freedom, and adventured the power of sinning into my hands: it ought to be a principle engraven in me, to use it nobly, to be illustrious and faithful, to please Him in the use of it, to consult His honour, and having all the creatures in all worlds by His gift ministering unto me, to behave myself as a faithful friend to so great a Majesty, so bountiful a Lord, so Divine a Benefactor. Nothing is so easy as to yield one’s assent to glorious principles, nothing so clear in upright nature, nothing so obscure to find in perverted, nothing so difficult to practise at all. In the rubbish of Nature they are lost, though when they are found by any one, and shewn, like jewels they shine by their native splendour.

If you ask, what is become of us since the fall? because all these things now lately named semi to pertain to the estate of innocence; truly now we have super-added treasures, Jesus Christ, and are restored to the exercise of the same principles, upon higher obligations: I will not say with more advantage, though perhaps obligations themselves are to us advantage. For what enabled Adam to love God? Was it not that God loved him? What constrained him to be averse from God? Was it not that God was averse from him? When he was fallen he thought God would hate him, and be his enemy eternally. And this was the miserable bondage that enslaved him. But when he was restored, O the infinite and eternal change! His very love to himself made him to praise His eternal Love: I mean his Redeemer’s. Do we not all love ourselves? Self-love maketh us to love those that love us, and to hate all those that hate us. So that obligations themselves are to us advantage. How we come to lose those advantages I will not stand here to relate. In a clear light it is certain no man can perish. For God is more delightful than He was in Eden. Then He was as delightful as was possible, but he had not that occasion, as by Sin was afforded, to superadd many more delights than before. Being more delightful and more amiable, He is more desirable, and may now be more easily, yea strongly beloved: for the amiableness of the object enables us to love it.

It was your friend’s delight to meditate the principles of upright nature, and to see how things stood in Paradise before they were muddied, and blended, and confounded. For now they are lost and buried in ruins, nothing appearing but fragments, that are worthless shreds and parcels of them. To see the entire piece ravisheth the Angels. It was his desire to recover them and to exhibit them again to the eyes of men. Above all things he desired to see those principles which a stranger in this world would covet to behold upon his first appearance. And that is, what principles those were by which the inhabitants of this world are to live blessedly and to enjoy the same. He found them very easy, and infinitely noble: very noble, and productive of unspeakable good, were they well pursued. We have named them, and they are such as these: A man should know the blessings he enjoyeth: A man should prize the blessings which he knoweth: A man should be thankful for the benefits which he prizeth: A man should rejoice in that for which he is thankful. These are easy things, and so are those also which are drowned in a deluge of errors and customs; That blessings the more they are, are the sweeter; the more they serve, if lovers and friends, the more delightful, yet these are the hard lessons, in a perverse and retrograde world, to be practised: and almost the only lessons necessary to its enjoyment.

He was a strict and severe applier of all things to himself, and would first have his self-love satisfied, and then his love of all others. It is true that self-love is dishonourable, but then it is when it is alone. And self-endedness is mercenary, but then it is when it endeth in oneself. It is more glorious to love others, and more desirable, but by natural means to be attained. That pool must first be filled that shall be made to overflow. He was ten years studying before he could satisfy his self-love. And now finds nothing more easy than to love others better than oneself: and that to love mankind so is the comprehensive method to all Felicity. For it makes a man delightful to God and men, to himself and spectators, and God and men delightful to him, and all creatures infinitely in them. But as not to love oneself at all is brutish, or rather absurd and stonish, (for the beasts do love themselves) so hath God by rational methods enabled us to love others better than ourselves, and thereby made us the most glorious creatures. Had we not loved ourselves at all, we could never have been obliged to love anything. So that self-love is the basis of all love. But when we do love ourselves, and self-love is satisfied infinitely in all its desires and possible demands, then it is easily led to regard the Benefactor more than itself, and for His sake overflows abundantly to all others. So that God by satisfying my self-love, hath enabled and engaged me to love others.