Thomas Traherne · 7 of 19

The Second Century · Part 3

Love is so vastly delightful to Him that is Beloved, because it is the fountain of all affections, services, and endeavours; a spring of honour and liberality, and a secure pledge of future benefits. It is the sole title by which we reign in another’s bosom, and the only throne by which we are exalted, The body and soul of him that loves is his that is beloved, What then can Love deny? All greatness, power and dominion, befalleth him that is beloved, in the Soul that loveth him. So that while all the glorious creatures in all worlds love you, you reign in all Souls, are the image of God, and exalted like God in every bosom.

Though no riches follow, yet we are all naturally delighted with Love: both for what we receive, and for what we give. When we are beloved we receive the quintessence and glory of another’s Soul, the End of Heaven and Earth, the cream and flower of all perfections, the tribute of God Almighty, peace and welfare, pleasure and honour, help and safety, all in readiness. And something infinitely more, and which we are not able to express. When we are beloved, we attain the End of riches in an immediate manner, and having the end need not regard the means. For the end of riches is that we may be beloved. We receive power to see ourselves amiable in another’s soul; and to delight and please another person. For it is impossible to delight a luke-warm person, or an alienated affection with giving crowns and sceptres, so as we may a person that violently loves us with our very presence and affections.

By this we may discern what strange power God hath given to us by loving us infinitely. He giveth us a power more to please Him, than if we were able to create worlds and present them unto Him.

How happy we are that we may live in all, as well as one; and how all-sufficient Love is, we may see by this: The more we live in all, the more we live in one. For while He seeth us to live in all, we are a more great and glorious object unto Him; the more we are beloved of all, the more we are admired by Him; the more we are the joy of all, the more blessed we are to Him. The more blessed we are to Him, the greater is our blessedness. We are all naturally ambitious of being magnified in others, and of seeming great in others. Which inclination was implanted in us that our happiness might be enlarged by the multitude of spectators.

Love is the true means by which the world is enjoyed: Our love to others, and others’ love to us. We ought therefore above all things to get acquainted with the nature of Love. For Love is the root and foundation of nature: Love is the Soul of Life and Crown of rewards. If we cannot be satisfied in the nature of Love we can never be satisfied at all. The very end for which God made the world, was that He might manifest His Love. Unless therefore we can be satisfied with His Love so manifested, we can never be satisfied. There are many glorious excellencies in the material World, but without Love they are all abortive. We might spend ages in contemplating the nature of the sun, and entertain ourselves many years with the beauty of the stars, and services of the sea: but the Soul of Man is above all these, it comprehendeth all ages in a moment; and unless it perceive something more excellent, is very desolate. All worlds being but a silent wilderness, without some living thing more sweet and blessed after which it aspireth. Love in the fountain, and love in the end is the glory of the world and the Soul of Joy. Which it infinitely preferreth above all worlds, and delighteth in, and loveth to contemplate, more than all visible beings that are possible. So that you must be sure to see causes infinitely to be delighted with the Love of God, if ever you would be happy.

See causes also to be delighted in your love to men, and in the love of men to you. For the world serves you to this end, that you might love them and be beloved of them. And unless you are pleased with the end for which the world serves you, you can never be pleased with the means leading to that end. Above all things therefore contemplate the glory of loving men, and of being beloved of them. For this end our Saviour died, and for this end He came into the world, that you might be restored from hatred, which is the greatest misery. From the hatred of God and men which was due for sin, and from the misery of hating God and men; for to hate and be hated is the greatest misery. The necessity of hating God and men being the greatest bondage that Hell can impose.

When you love men, the world quickly becometh yours: and yourself become a greater treasure than the world is. For all their persons are your treasures, and all the things in Heaven and Earth that serve them, are yours. For those are the riches of Love, which minister to its Object.

You are as prone to love, as the sun is to shine; it being the most delightful and natural employment of the Soul of Man: without which you are dark and miserable. Consider therefore the extent of Love, its vigour and excellency, For certainly he that delights not in Love makes vain the universe, and is of necessity to himself the greatest burden. The whole world ministers to you as the theatre of your Love: It sustains you and all objects that you may continue to love them. Without which it were better for you to have no being. Life without objects is sensible emptiness, and that is a greater misery than Death or Nothing. Objects without Love are a delusion of life. The Objects of Love are its greatest treasures: and without Love it is impossible they should be treasures. For the Objects which we love are the pleasing Objects, and delightful things. And whatsoever is not pleasing and delightful to you can be no treasure: nay it is distasteful, and worse than nothing, since we had rather it should have no being.

That violence wherewith sometimes a man doteth upon one creature, is but a little spark of that love, even towards all, which lurketh in his nature. We are made to love, both to satisfy the necessity of our active nature, and to answer the beauties in every creature. By Love our Souls are married and solder’d to the creatures and it is our Duty like God to be united to them all. We must love them infinitely, but in God, and for God and God in them: namely all His excellencies manifested in them. When we dote upon the perfections and beauties of some one creature, we do not love that too much, but other things too little. Never was anything in this world loved too much, but many things have been loved in a false way: and all in too short a measure.

Suppose a river, or a drop of water, an apple or a sand, an ear of corn, or an herb: God knoweth infinite exellencies in it more than we: He seeth how it relateth to angels and men; how it proceedeth from the most perfect Lover to the most perfectly Beloved; how it representeth all His attributes; how it conduceth in its place, by the best of means to the best of ends: and for this cause it cannot be beloved too much. God the Author and God the End is to be beloved in it; Angels and men are to be beloved in it; and it is highly to be esteemed for all their sakes. O what a treasure is every sand when truly understood! Who can love anything that God made too much? What a world would this be, were everything beloved as it ought to be!

Suppose a curious and fair woman. Some have seen the beauties of Heaven in such a person. It is a vain thing to say they loved too much. I dare say there are ten thousand beauties in that creature which they have not seen: They loved it not too much, but upon false causes. Nor so much upon false ones, as only upon some little ones. They love a creature for sparkling eyes and curled hair, lily breasts and ruddy cheeks which they should love moreover for being God’s Image, Queen of the Universe, beloved by Angels, by Jesus Christ, an heiress of Heaven, and temple of the : a mine and fountain of all virtues, a treasury of graces, and a child of God. But these excellencies are unknown. They love her perhaps, but do not love God more: nor men as much: nor Heaven and Earth at all. And so, being defective to other things, perish by a seeming excess to that. We should be all Life and Mettle and Vigour and Love to everything; and that would poise us. I dare confidently say that every person in the whole world ought to be beloved as much as this: And she if there be any cause of difference more than she is. But God being beloved infinitely more, will be infinitely more our joy, and our heart will be more with Him, so that no man can be in danger by loving others too much, that loveth God as he ought.

The sun and stars please me in ministering to you. They please me in ministering to a thousand others as well as you. And you please me because you can live and love in the Image of God: not in a blind and brutish manner, as beasts do; by a mere appetite and rude propensity, but with a regulated well-ordered Love, upon clear causes, and with a rational affection, guided to divine and celestial ends. Which is to love with a Divine and Holy Love, Glorious and Blessed. We are all prone to love; but the art lies in managing our love: to make it truly amiable and proportionable. To love for God’s sake, and to this end, that we may be well-pleasing unto Him: to love with a design to imitate Him, and to satisfy the principles of intelligent nature, and to become honorable, is to love in a Blessed and Holy manner.

In one soul we may be entertained and taken up with innumerable beauties. But in the Soul of Man there are innumerable infinities. One soul in the immensity of its intelligence, is greater and more excellent than the whole world. The Ocean is but the drop of a bucket to it, the Heavens but a centre, the Sun obscurity, and all Ages but as one day. It being by its understanding a Temple of Eternity, and God’s omnipresence, between which and the whole world there is no proportion. Its Love is a dominion greater than that which Adam had in Paradise: and yet the fruition of it is but solitary. We need spectators, and other diversities of friends and lovers, in whose souls we might likewise dwell, and with whose beauties we might be crowned and entertained. In all whom we can dwell exactly, and be present with them fully. Lest therefore the other depths and faculties of our souls should be desolate and idle, they also are created to entertain us. And as in many mirrors we are so many other selves, so are we spiritually multiplied when we meet ourselves more sweetly, and live again in other persons.

Creatures are multiplied, that our treasures may be multiplied, and their places enlarged, that the territories of our joys might be enlarged. With all which our souls may be present in immediate manner. For since the Sun which is a poor little dead thing, can at once shine upon many kingdoms, and be wholly present, not only in many cities and realms upon earth, but in all the stars in the firmament of Heaven; surely the soul which is a far more perfect sun, nearer unto God in excellency and nature, can do far more. But that which of all wonders is the most deep and incredible is, that a soul, whereas one would think it could measure but one soul, which is as large as it: can exceed that, and measure all souls, wholly and fully. This is an infinite wonder indeed. For admit that the powers of one soul were fathomless and infinite: are not the powers so also of another? One would think therefore that one soul should be lost in another: and that two souls should be exactly adequate. Yet indeed my soul can examine and search all the chambers and endless operations of another: being prepared to see innumerable millions.

Here is a glorious creature! But that which maketh the wonder infinitely infinite, is this: That one soul, which is the object of mine, can see all souls, and all the secret chambers, and endless perfections in every soul: yea, and all souls with all their objects in every soul: Yet mine can accompany all these in one soul and without deficiency exceed that soul and accompany all these in every other soul. Which shows the work of God to be deep and infinite.

Here upon Earth perhaps where our estate is imperfect this is impossible: but in Heaven where the soul is all Act it is necessary: for the soul is there all that it can be: Here it is to rejoice in what it may be. Till therefore the mists of error, and clouds of ignorance, that confine this sun be removed, it must be present in all kingdoms and ages virtually, as the Sun is by night, if not by clear sight and love, at least by its desire. Which are its influences and its beams, working in a latent and obscure manner on earth, above in a strong and clear.

The world serveth you therefore, in maintaining all people in all kingdoms, which are the Father’s treasures, and your as yet invisible joys, that their multitudes at last may come to Heaven, and make those innumerable thousands, whose hosts and employments will be your joy. Whose order, beauty, melody, and glory will be your eternal delights. And of whom you have many a sweet description in the Revelation. These are they of whom it is said: After this I beheld, and lo, a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations and kindred and people and tongues stood before the Throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands, and they cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the Throne, and to the Lamb: of which it is said, They fell down before the Lamb, having every one of them harps and golden vials full of odors which are the prayers of the , and they sung a new song saying Thou art worthy to take the Book, and to open the Seals thereof: for Thou wast slain, and hast us to God by Thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation, and hast made us unto our God Kings and Priests. Of whom it is said, I saw a sea of glass, and they, that had gotten the victory over the Beast standing on it, and they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty, just and true are Thy ways Thou King of . Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name. For Thou only art holy; for all Nations shall came and worship before Thee, because Thy judgments are made manifest.

That all the powers of your Soul shall be turned into Act in the Kingdom of Heaven is manifest by what John writeth, in the Isle Patmos: And I beheld and I heard the voice of many Angels round about the throne: and the Beasts and the Elders, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands: Saying, with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength and honour, and glory, and blessing, And every creature which is in Heaven and on Earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the Sea, And all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing, and Honour, and Glory, and Power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.

These things shall never be seen with your bodily eyes, but in a more perfect manner: You shall be present with them in your understanding. You shall be in them to the very centre and they in you. As light is in a piece of crystal, so shall you be with every part and excellency of them. An Act of the understanding is the presence of the Soul, which being no body but a living Act, is a pure spirit and mysteriously fathomless in its true dimensions. By an act of the understanding therefore be present now with all the creatures among which you live; and hear them in their beings and operations praising God in an heavenly manner. Some of them vocally, others in their ministry all of them naturally and continually. We infinitely wrong ourselves by laziness and confinement. All creatures in all nations, and tongues, and people praise God infinitely; and the more, for being your sole and perfect treasures. You are never what you ought till you go out of yourself and walk among them.

Were all your riches here in some little place: all other places would be empty. It is necessary therefore for your contentment and true satisfaction, that your riches be dispersed everywhere. Whether is more delightful; to have some few private riches in one, and all other places void; or to have all places everywhere filled with our proper treasures? Certainly to have treasures in all places. For by that means we are entertained everywhere with pleasures, are everywhere at home honored and delighted, everywhere enlarged and in our own possessions. But to have a few riches in some narrow bounds, though we should suppose a kingdom full, would be to have our delights limited, and infinite spaces dark and empty, wherein we might wander without satisfaction. So that God must of necessity to satisfy His love give us infinite treasures. And we of necessity seek for our riches in all places.

The Heavens and the Earth serve you, not only in shewing unto you your Father’s Glory, as all things without you are your riches and enjoyments, but as within you also, they magnify, beautify and illuminate your soul. For as the Sun-beams illuminate the air and all objects, yet are themselves also illuminated by them, so fareth it with the powers of your soul. The rays of the sun carry light in them as they pass through the air, but go on in vain till they meet an object: and there they are expressed. They illuminate a mirror, and are illuminated by it. For a looking-glass without them would be in the dark, and they without the glass unperceived. There they revive and overtake themselves, and represent the effigies from they came; both of the sun and heavens; and trees and mountains, if the glass be seated conveniently to receive them. Which were it not that the glass were present there, one would have thought even the ideas of them absent from the place. Even so your soul in its rays and powers is unknown: and no man would believe it present everywhere, were there no objects there to be discerned. Your thoughts and inclinations pass on and are unperceived, but by their objects are discerned to be present: being illuminated by them. For they are present with them and active about them. They receive and feel themselves, and by those objects live in employment, being turned into the figure and idea of them. For as light varieth upon all objects whither it cometh, and returneth with the form and figure of them: so is the soul transformed into the Being of its object. Like light from the Sun, its first effigies is simple life, the pure resemblance of its primitive fountain, but on the object which it meeteth it is quickly changed, and by understanding becometh all Things.

Objective treasures are always delightful: and though we travail endlessly, to see them all our own is infinitely pleasant and the further we go the more delightful. If they are all ours wholly and solely, and yet nevertheless every one’s too, it is the most delightful accident that is imaginable, for thereby two contrary humours are at once delighted, and two inclinations, that are both in our natures, yet seem contradictory, are at once satisfied. The one is the avaricious humour and love of propriety, whereby we refer all unto ourselves and naturally desire to have all alone in our private possession, and to be the alone and single end of all things. This we perceive ourselves because all universally and everywhere is ours. The other is the communicative humour that is in us, whereby we desire to have companions in our enjoyments to tell our joys, and to spread abroad our delights, and to be ourselves the joy and delight of other persons. For thousands enjoy all as well as we, and are the end of all: and God communicateth all to them as well as us. And yet to us alone, because He communicateth them to us, and maketh them our rich and glorious companions: to whom we may tell our joys, and be blessed again. How much ought we to praise God, for satisfying two such insatiable humours that are contrary to each other! One would think it impossible that both should be pleased, and yet His Divine Wisdom hath made them helpful and perfective to each other.

Infinite Love cannot be expressed in finite room: but must have infinite places wherein to utter and shew itself. It must therefore fill all Eternity and the Omnipresence of God with joys and treasures for my fruition. And yet it must be expressed in a finite room by making me able in a centre to enjoy them. It must be infinitely exprest in the smallest moment by making me able in every moment to see them all. It is both ways infinite, for my Soul is an infinite sphere in a centre. By this way you know that you are infinitely beloved: God hath made your spirit a centre in eternity comprehending all, and filled all about you in an endless manner with infinite riches: which shine before you and surround you with Divine and Heavenly enjoyments.

Few will believe the soul to be infinite: yet infinite* is the first thing which is naturally known. Bounds and limits are discerned only in a secondary manner. Suppose a man were born deaf and blind. By the very feeling of his soul, he apprehends infinite about him, infinite space, infinite darkness. He thinks not of wall and limits till he feels them and is stopped by them. That things are finite therefore we learn by our senses. But infinity we know and feel by our souls: and feel it so naturally, as if it were the very

*(?)Infinity.

essence and being of the soul. The truth of it is, it is individually in the soul: for God is there, and more near to us than we are to ourselves. So that we cannot feel our souls, but we must feel Him, in that first of properties, infinite space. And this we know so naturally, that it is the only primo et necessario cognitum in rerum naturâ: of all things the only first and most necessarily known. For we can unsuppose Heaven, and Earth and annihilate the world in our imagination, but the place where they stood will remain behind, and we cannot unsuppose or annihilate that, do what we can. Which without us is the chamber of our infinite treasures, and within us the repository and recipient of them.

What shall we render unto God for this infinite space in our understandings? Since in giving us this He hath laid the foundation of infinite blessedness, manifested infinite love, and made us in capacity infinite creatures, In this He hath glorified and gratified infinite goodness exerted infinite power and made Himself thereby infinitely delightful, and infinitely great, in being Lord and Upholder of such infinite creatures. For being wholly everywhere, His omnipresence was wholly in every centre: and He could do no more than that would bear: Communicate Himself wholly in every centre. His nature and essence being the foundation of His power, and of our happiness: of His glory and our greatness: of His goodness, and our satisfaction. For we could never believe that He loved us infinitely unless He exerted all His power. For kata Dunamin (kata dunamin) one of the principal properties of Love: as well as ekeinou eneka (ekeinou eneka). To the utmost of its power, as well as for His sake.

He therefore hath not only made us infinite treasures only in extent: and souls infinite to see and enjoy them, which is to measure and run parallel with them but in depth also they are everywhere infinite being infinite in excellency. And the soul is a miraculous abyss of infinite abysses, an undrainable ocean, an unexhausted fountain of endless oceans, when it will exert itself to fill and fathom them. For if it were otherwise man is a creature of such noble principles and severe expectations, that could he perceive the least defect to be in the Deity, it would infinitely displease him: The smallest distaste, spreading like a cloud from a hand over all the Heavens. Neither will any pretence serve the turn to cover our cowardice, which we call modesty, in not daring to say or expect this of the Deity. Unless we expect this with infinite ardency, we are a lazy kind of creatures good for nothing. ‘Tis man’s and glory to desire absolute perfection in God, with a jealousy and care infinitely cruel: for when we so desire it, that without this we should be infinitely displeased, and altogether lost and desperate forever: finding God to have exceeded all our desires: it becometh the foundation of infinite Love. In the fruition of the fruits of which we are to live in communion with Him for evermore.

[Between 83 and 84 in the original MS. the following is written:]

Space perfects its stature

Affections its colors

Objects its lineaments

Actions its graces.

Your soul being naturally very dark, and deformed and empty when extended through infinite but empty space, the world serves you in beautifying and filling it with amiable ideas; for the perfecting of its stature in the eye of God. For the thorough understanding of which you must know, that God is a being whose power from all Eternity was prevented with Act. And that He is one infinite Act of KNOWLEDGE and WISDOM, which is infinitely beautified with many consequences of Love &c. Being one Act of Eternal Knowledge, He knows all which He is able to know, all objects in all worlds being seen in His understanding, His greatness is the presence of His soul with all objects in infinite spaces: and His brightness the light of Eternal Wisdom. His essence also is the Light of Things. For He is all eye and all ear. Being therefore perfect, and the mirror of all perfection, He hath commanded us to be perfect as He is perfect. And we are to grow up into Him till we are filled with the fulness of His Godhead. We are to be conformed to the Image of His glory: till we become the resemblance of His great exemplar. Which we then are, when our power is into Act, and covered with it, we being an Act of KNOWLEDGE and WISDOM as He is: When our Souls are present with all objects, and beautified with the ideas and figures of them all. For then shall we be MENTES as He is MENS. We being of the same mind with Him who is an infinite eternal mind. As both Plato and Cato with the Apostle, term Him.

Si Deus est Animus sit pura Mente Colendus.

If God, as verses say, a Spirit be

We must in Spirit like the Deity

Become: we must the Image of His mind

And union with it, in our Spirit find.

Heaven and Earth, Angels and Men, God and all things must be contained in our souls, that we may become glorious personages, and like unto Him in all our actions.

You know that Love receives a grandeur of value and esteem from the greatness of the person, from whom it doth proceed. The love of a King is naturally more delightful than the love of a beggar: the love of God more excellent than the love of a King. The love of a beautiful person is more pleasing than that of one deformed. The love of a wise man is far more precious than the love of a fool. When you are so great a creature as to fill ages and kingdoms with the beauty of your soul, and to reign over them like the Wisdom of the Father filling Eternity with Light and Glory, your love shall be acceptable and sweet and precious. The world therefore serveth you, not only in furnishing you with riches, and making you beautiful, and great and wise, when it is rightly used: but in doing that which doth infinitely concern you, in making your love precious. For above all things in all worlds you naturally desire most violently that your love should be prized: and the reason is, because that being the best thing you can do or give, all is worthless that you can do besides: and you have no more power left to be good, or to please, or to do anything, when once your love is despised.