Thomas Traherne · 9 of 19

The Third Century · Part 1

THE THIRD CENTURY

WILL you see the infancy of this sublime and celestial greatness? Those pure and virgin apprehensions I had from the womb, and that divine light wherewith I was born are the best unto this day, wherein I can see the Universe. By the Gift of God they attended me into the world, and by His special favour I remember them till now. they seem the greatest gifts His wisdom could bestow, for without them all other gifts had been dead and vain. They are unattainable by book, and therefore I will teach them by experience. Pray for them earnestly: for they will make you angelical, and wholly celestial. Certainly Adam in Paradise had not more sweet and curious apprehensions of the world, than I when I was a child.

All appeared new, and strange at first, inexpressibly rare and delightful and beautiful. I was a little stranger, which at my entrance into the world was saluted and surrounded with innumerable joys. My knowledge was Divine. I knew by intuition those things which since my Apostasy, I collected again by the highest reason. My very ignorance was advantageous. I seemed as one brought into the Estate of Innocence. All things were spotless and pure andglorious: yea, and infinitely mine, and joyful and precious, I knew not that there were any sins, or complaints or laws. I dreamed not of poverties, contentions or vices. All tears and quarrels were hidden from mine eyes. Everything was at rest, free and immortal. I knew nothing of sickness or death or rents or exaction, either for tribute or bread. In the absence of these I was entertained like an Angel with the works of God in their splendour and glory, I saw all in the peace of Eden; Heaven and Earth did sing my Creator’s praises, and could not make more melody to Adam, than to me: All Time was Eternity, and a perpetual . Is it not strange, that an infant should be heir of the whole World, and see those mysteries which the books of the learned never unfold?

The corn was orient and immortal wheat, which never should be reaped, nor was ever sown. I thought it had stood from everlasting to everlasting. The dust and stones of the street were as precious as gold: the gates were at first the end of the world. The green trees when I saw them first through one of the gates transported and ravished me, their sweetness and unusual beauty made my heart to leap, and almost mad with ecstasy, they were such strange and wonderful things: The Men! O what venerable and reverend creatures did the aged seem! Immortal Cherubims! And young men glittering and sparkling Angels, and maids strange seraphic pieces of life and beauty! Boys and girls tumbling in the street, and playing, were moving jewels. I knew not that they were born or should die; But all things abided eternally as they were in their proper places. Eternity was manifest in the Light of the Day, and something infinite behind everything appeared which talked with my expectation and moved my desire. The city seemed to stand in Eden, or to be built in Heaven. The streets were mine, the temple was mine, the people were mine, their clothes and gold and silver were mine, as much as their sparkling eyes, fair skins and ruddy faces. The skies were mine, and so were the sun and moon and stars, and all the World was mine; and I the only spectator and enjoyer of it. I knew no churlish proprieties, nor bounds, nor divisions: but all proprieties* and divisions were mine: all treasures and the possessors of them. So that with much ado I was corrupted, and made to learn the dirty devices of this world. Which now I unlearn, and become, as it were, a little child again that I may enter into the Kingdom of God.

* This word is used here and elsewhere in its original sense, where we should now say “properties.”

Upon those pure and virgin apprehensions which I had in my infancy, I made this poem:

That childish thoughts such jogs inspire,

Doth make my wonder, and His glory higher,

His bounty, and my wealth more great

It chews His Kingdom, and His work complete.

In which there is not anything,

Not meet to be the joy of Cherubim.

He in our childhood with us walks,

And with our thoughts mysteriously He talks;

He often visiteth our minds,

But cold acceptance in us ever finds:

We send Him often grieved away,

Who else would show us all His Kingdom’s joy.

O Lord, I wonder at Thy Love,

Which did my infancy so early move:

But more at that which did forbear

And move so long, though slighted many a year:

But most of all, at last that Thou

Thyself shouldst me convert, I scarce know how.

Thy gracious motions oft in vain

Assaulted me: my heart did hard remain

Longtime! I sent my God away

Grieved much, that He could not give me His joy.

I careless was, nor did regard

The End for which He all those thoughts prepared.

But now, with new and open eyes,

I see beneath, as if above the skies,

And as I backward look again

See all His thoughts and mine most clear arid plain.

He did approach, He me did woo;

I wonder that my God this thing would do,

From nothing taken first ,I was;

What wondrous things His glory brought to pass!

Now in the World I Him behold,

And me, enveloped in precious gold;

In deep abysses of delights,

In present hidden glorious benefits.

These thoughts His goodness long before

Prepared as precious and celestial store

With curious art in me inlaid,

That childhood might itself alone be said

My Tutor, Teacher, Guide to be,

Instructed then even by the Deitie.

Our Saviour’s meaning, when He said, He must be born again and become a little child that will enter into the Kingdom of Heaven is deeper far than is generally believed. It is not only in a careless reliance upon Divine , that we are to become little children, or in the feebleness and shortness of our anger and simplicity of our passions, but in the peace and purity of all our soul. Which purity also is a deeper thing than is commonly apprehended. For we must disrobe ourselves of all false colours, and unclothe our souls of evil habits; all our thoughts must be infant-like and clear; the powers of our soul free from the leaven of this world, and disentangled from men’s conceits and customs. Grit in the eye or yellow jaundice will not let a man see those objects truly that are before it. And therefore it is requisite that we should be as very strangers to the thoughts, customs, and opinions of men in this world, as if we were but little children. So those things would appear to us only which do to children when they are first born. Ambitions, trades, luxuries, inordinate affections, casual and accidental riches invented since the fall, would be gone, and only those things appear, which did to Adam in Paradise, in the same light and in the same colours: God in His works, Glory in the light, Love in our parents, men, ourselves, and the face of Heaven: Every man naturally seeing those things, to the enjoyment of which he is naturally born.

Every one provideth objects, but few prepare senses whereby, and light wherein, to see them. Since therefore we are born to be a burning and shining light, and whatever men learn of others, they see in the light of others’ souls: I will in the light of my soul show you the Universe. Perhaps it is celestial, and will teach you how beneficial we may be to each other. I am sure it is a sweet and curious light to me: which had I wanted I would have given all the gold and silver in all worlds to have purchased. But it was the Gift of God and could not be bought with money. And by what steps and degrees I proceeded to that enjoyment of all Eternity which now I possess I will likewise shew you. A clear and familiar light it may prove unto you.

The first Light which shined in my Infancy in its primitive and innocent clarity was totally eclipsed insomuch that I was fain to learn all again. If you ask me how it was eclipsed? Truly by the customs and manners of men, which like contrary winds blew it out: by an innumerable company of other objects, rude, vulgar and worthless things, that like so many loads of earth and dung did overwhelm and bury it by the impetuous torrent of wrong desires in all others whom I saw or knew that carried me away and alienated me from it: by a whole sea of other matters and concernments that covered and drowned it: finally by the evil influence of a bad education that did not foster and cherish it. All men’s thoughts and words were about other matters, They all prized new things which I did not dream of. I was a stranger and unacquainted with them; I was little and reverenced their authority; I was weak, and easily guided by their example; ambitious also, and desirous to approve myself unto them. And finding no one syllable in any man’s mouth of those things, by degrees they vanished, my thoughts (as indeed what is more fleeting than a thought?) were blotted out; and at last all the celestial, great, and stable treasures to which I was born, as wholly forgotten, as if they had never been.

Had any man spoken of it, it had been the most easy thing in the world, to have taught me, and to have made me believe that Heaven and Earth was God’s House, and that He gave it me. That the Sun was mine, and that men were mine, and that cities and kingdoms were mine also: that Earth was better than gold, and that water, every drop of it was a precious jewel. And that these were great and living treasures and that all riches whatsoever else was dross in comparison. From I clearly find how docible our Nature is in natural things, were it rightly entreated. And that our misery proceedeth ten thousand times more from the outward bondage of opinion and custom, than from any inward corruption or depravation of Nature: And that it is not our parents’ loins, so much as our parents’ lives, that enthrals and blinds us. Yet is all our corruption derived from Adam inasmuch as all the evil examples and inclinations of the world arise from his sin. But I speak it in the and of our Lord Jesus Christ, in my pure primitive virgin Light, while my apprehensions were natural, and unmixed, I cannot remember but that I was ten thousand times more prone to good and excellent things than evil. But I was quickly tainted and fell by others.

It was a difficult matter to persuade me that the tinseled ware upon a hobby-horse was a fine thing. They did impose upon me, and obtrude their gifts that made me believe a ribbon or a feather curious. I could not see where was the curiousness or fineness: And to teach me that a purse of gold was at any value seemed impossible, the art by which it becomes so, and the reasons for which it is accounted so, were so deep and hidden to my inexperience. So that Nature is still nearest to natural things, and farthest off from preternatural; and to esteem that the reproach of Nature, is an error in them only who are unacquainted with it. Natural things are glorious, and to know them glorious but to call things preternatural, natural, monstrous. Yet all they do it, who esteem gold, silver, houses, lands, clothes, &c., the riches of Nature, which are indeed the riches of invention. Nature knows no such riches: but art and error make them. Not the God of Nature, but Sin only was the parent of them. The riches of Nature are our Souls and Bodies, with all their faculties, senses, and endowments. And it had been the easiest thing in the whole world to teach me that all felicity consisted in the enjoyment of all the world, that it was prepared for me before I was born, and that nothing was more divine and beautiful.

Thoughts are the most present things to thoughts, and of the most powerful influence. My soul was only apt and disposed to great things; but souls to souls are like apples to apples, one being rotten rots another. When I began to speak and go, nothing began to be present to me, but what was present to me in their thoughts. Nor was anything present to me any other way, than it was so to them. The glass of imagination was the only mirror, wherein anything was represented or appeared to me. All things were absent which they talked not of. So I began among my play-fellows to prize a drum, a fine coat, a penny, a gilded book, &c., who before never dreamed of any such wealth. Goodly objects to drown all the knowledge of Heaven and Earth! As for the Heavens and the Sun and Stars they disappeared, and were no more unto me than the bare walls, So that the strange riches of man’s invention quite overcame the riches of Nature, being learned more laboriously and in the second place.

By this let nurses, and those parents that desire Holy Children learn to make them possessors of Heaven and Earth ; to remove silly objects from before them, to magnify nothing but what is great indeed, and to talk of God to them, and of His works and ways before they can either speak or go. For nothing is so easy as to teach the truth because the nature of the thing confirms the doctrine: As when we say the sun is glorious, a man is a beautiful creature, over beasts and fowls and fishes, the stars minister unto us, the world was made for you, &c. But to say this house is yours, and these lands are another man’s, and this bauble is a jewel and this gew-gaw a fine thing, thus rattle makes music, &c., is deadly barbarous and uncouth to a little child; and makes him suspect all you say, because the nature of the thing contradicts your words. Yet doth that blot out all noble and divine ideas, dissettle his foundation, render him uncertain in all things, and divide him from God. To teach him those objects are little , and that though God made them, by the ministry of man, yet better and more glorious things are more to be esteemed, is natural and easy.

By this you may see who are the rude and barbarous Indians: For there is no savage nation under the cope of Heaven, that is more absurdly barbarous than the Christian World. They that go naked and drink water and live upon roots are like Adam, or Angels in comparison of us. But they indeed that call beads and glass buttons jewels, and dress themselves with feather, and buy pieces of brass and broken hafts of knives of our merchants are somewhat like us. But we pass them in barbarous opinions, and monstrous apprehensions, which we nick-name civility and the mode, amongst us. I am sure those barbarous people that go naked, come nearer to Adam, God, and Angels in the simplicity of their wealth, though not in knowledge.

You would not think how these barbarous inventions spoil your knowledge. They put grubs and worms in men’s heads that are enemies to all pure and true apprehensions, and eat out all their happiness. They make it impossible for them, in whom they reign, to believe there is any excellency in the Works of God, or to taste any sweetness in the nobility of Nature, or to prize any common, though never so great a blessing. They alienate men from the Life of God, and at last make them to live without God in the World. To live the Life of God is to live to all the Works of God, and to enjoy them in His Image, from which they are wholly diverted that follow fashions. Their fancies are corrupted with other gingles.

Being swallowed up therefore in the miserable gulf of idle talk and worthless , thenceforth I lived among dreams and shadows, like a prodigal son feeding upon husks with swine. A comfortless wilderness full of thorns and troubles the world was, or worse: a waste place covered with idleness and play, and shops, and markets, and taverns. As for Churches they were things I did not understand, and schools were a burden so that there was nothing in the world worth the having, or enjoying, but my game and sport, which also was a dream, and being passed wholly forgotten. So that I had utterly forgotten all goodness, bounty, comfort, and glory: which things are the very brightness of the Glory of God for lack of which therefore He was unknown.

Yet sometimes in the midst of these dreams, I should come a little to myself, so far as to feel I wanted something, secretly to expostulate with God for not giving me riches, to long after an unknown happiness, to grieve that the World was so empty, and to be dissatisfied with my present state because it was vain and forlorn. I had heard of Angels, and much admired that here upon earth nothing should be but dirt and streets and gutters; for as for the pleasures that were in great men’s houses I had not seen them: and it was my real happiness they were unknown. For because nothing deluded me, I was the more inquisitive.

Once I remember (I think I was about 4 years old when) I thus reasoned with myself, sitting in a little obscure room in my father’s poor house: If there be a God, certainly He must be infinite in Goodness: and that I was prompted to, by a real whispering instinct of Nature. And if He be infinite in Goodness, and a perfect Being in Wisdom and Love, certainly He must do most glorious things, and give us infinite riches; how comes it to pass therefore that I am so poor? Of so scanty and narrow a fortune, enjoying few and obscure comforts? I thought I could not believe Him a God to me, unless all His power were employed to glorify me. I knew not then my Soul, or Body; nor did I think of the Heavens and the Earth, the rivers and the stars, the sun or the seas: all those were lost, and absent from me. But when I found them made out of nothing for me, then I had a God indeed, whom I could praise, and rejoice in.

Sometimes I should be alone, and without employment, when suddenly my Soul would return to itself, and forgetting all things in the whole world which mine eyes had seen, would be carried away to the ends of the earth: and my thoughts would be deeply engaged with enquiries: How the Earth did end? Whether walls did bound it, or sudden precipices? Or whether the Heavens by degrees did come to touch it; so that the face of the Earth and Heaven were so near, that a man with difficulty could creep under? Whatever I could imagine was inconvenient, and my reason being posed was quickly wearied. What also upheld the Earth (because it was heavy) and kept it from falling; whether pillars, or dark waters? And if any of these, what then upheld those, and what again those, of which I saw there would be no end? Little did I think that the Earth was round, and the world so full of beauty, light, and wisdom. When I saw that, I knew by the perfection of the work there was a God, and was satisfied, and rejoiced. People underneath, and fields and flowers, with another sun and another day, pleased me mightily: but more when I knew it was the same sun that served them by night, that served us by day.

Sometimes I should soar above the stars, and enquire how the Heavens ended, and what was beyond them? Concerning which by no means could I receive satisfaction. Sometimes my thoughts would carry me to the Creation, for I had heard now, that the World which at first I thought was eternal, had a beginning: how therefore that beginning was, and why it was, why it was no sooner, and what was before, I mightily desired to know. By all which I easily perceive that my Soul was made to live in communion with God, in all places of His dominion, and to be satisfied with the highest reason in all things, After which it so eagerly aspired, that I thought all the gold and silver in the world but dirt, in comparison of satisfaction in any of these. Sometimes I wondered why men were made no bigger? I would have had a man as big as a giant, a giant as big as a castle, and a castle as big as the Heavens. Which yet would not serve: for there was infinite space beyond the Heavens, and all was defective and but little in comparison; and for him to be made infinite, I thought it would be to no purpose, and it would be inconvenient. Why also there was not a better sun, and better stars, a better sea, and better creatures I much admired. Which thoughts produced that poem upon moderation, which afterwards was written. Some part of the verses are these,

In making bodies Love could not express

Itself, or art, unless it made them less.

O what a monster had in man been seen,

Had every thumb or toe a mountain been!

What worlds must he devour when he did eat?

What oceans drink! yet could not all his meat,

Or stature, make him like an angel shine;

Or make his Soul in Glory more Divine.

A Soul it is that makes us truly great,

Whose little bodies make us more complete.

An understanding that is infinite,

An endless, wide, and everlasting sight,

That can enjoy all things and nought exclude,

Is the most sacred greatness may be viewed.

’Twas inconvenient that his bulk should be

An endless hill; he nothing then could see:

No figure have, no motion, beauty, place,

No colour, feature, member, light, or .

A body like a mountain is but cumber.

An endless body is but idle lumber:

It spoils converse, and time itself devours,

While meat in vain, in feeding idle powers;

Excessive bulk being most injurious found,

To those conveniences which men have crowned:

His wisdom did His power here repress,

God made man greater while He made him less.

The excellencies of the Sun I found to be of another kind than that splendour after which I sought, even in unknown and invisible services: and that God by moderation wisely bounding His almighty power, had to my eternal amazement and wonder, made all bodies far greater than if they were infinite: there not being a sand nor mote in the air that is not more excellent than if it were infinite. How rich and admirable then is the Kingdom of God, where the smallest is greater than an infinite treasure! Is not this incredible? Certainly to the placets and doctrines of the schools: Till we all consider, That infinite worth shut up in the limits of a material being, is the only way to a real infinity. God made nothing infinite in bulk, but everything there where it ought to be. Which, because moderation is a virtue observing the golden mean, in some other parts of the former poem, is thus expressed.

His Power bounded, greater is in might,

Than if let loose, ‘twere wholly infinite.

He could have made an endless sea by this,

But then it had not been a sea of bliss.

Did waters from the centre to the skies

Ascend, ’twould drown whatever else we prize.

The ocean bounded in a finite shore,

Is better far because it is no more.

No use nor glory would in that be seen,

His power made it endless in esteem.

Had not the Sun been bounded in its sphere,

Did all the world in one fair flame appear,

And were that flame a real Infinite

’Twould yield no profit, splendor, nor delight.

Its corps confined, and beams extended be

Effects of Wisdom in the Deity.

One star made infinite would all exclude,

An earth made infinite could ne’er be viewed:

But one being fashioned for the other’s sake,

He, bounding all, did all most useful make

And which is best, in profit and delight

Tho’ not in bulk, they all are infinite.

These liquid, clear satisfactions were the emanations of the highest reason, but not achieved till a long time afterwards. In the meantime I was sometimes, though seldom, visited and inspired with new and more vigorous desires after that bliss which Nature whispered and suggested to me. Every new thing my curiosity, and raised my expectation. I remember once the first time I came into a magnificent or noble dining room, and was left there alone, I rejoiced to see the gold and state and carved imagery, but when all was dead, and there was no motion, I was weary of it, and departed dissatisfied. But afterwards, when I saw it full of lords and ladies, and music and dancing, the place which once seemed not to differ from a solitary den, had now entertainment, and nothing of tediousness but pleasure in it. By which I perceived (upon a reflection made long after) that men and women are when well understood a principal part of our true felicity. By this I found also that nothing that stood still, could by doing so be a part of Happiness: and that affection, though it were invisible, was the best of motions. But the august and glorious exercise of virtue, was more solemn and divine, which Yet I saw not. And that all Men and Angels should appear in heaven.

Another time in a lowering and sad evening, being alone in the field, when all things were dead and quiet, a certain want and horror fell upon me, beyond imagination. The unprofitableness and silence of the place dissatisfied me; its wideness terrified me; from the utmost ends of the earth fears surrounded me. How did I know but dangers might suddenly arise from the East, and invade me from the unknown regions beyond the seas? I was a weak and little child, and had forgotten there was a man alive in the earth. Yet something also of hope and expectation comforted me from every border. This taught me that I was concerned in all the world: and that in the remotest borders the causes of peace delight me, and the beauties of the earth when seen were made to entertain me: that I was made to hold a communion with the secrets of Divine in all the world: that a remembrance of all the joys I had from my birth ought always to be with me: that the presence of Cities, Temples, and Kingdoms ought to sustain me, and that to be alone in the world was to be desolate and miserable. The comfort of houses and friends, the clear of treasures everywhere, God’s care and love, His goodness, wisdom, and power, His presence and watchfulness in all the ends of the earth, were my strength and for ever: and that these things being absent to my eye, were my joys and consolations, as present to my understanding as the wideness and emptiness of the Universe which I saw before me.

When I heard of any new kingdom beyond the seas, the light and glory of it pleased me immediately, it rose up within me, and I was enlarged wonderfully. I entered into it, I saw its commodities, rarities, springs, meadows, riches, inhabitants, and became possessor of that new room, as if it had been prepared for me, so much was I magnified and delighted in it. When the Bible was read, my spirit was present in other ages. I saw the light and splendour of them: the land of Canaan, the Israelites entering into it, the ancient glory of the Amorites, their peace and riches, their cities, houses, vines and fig-trees, the long prosperity of their kings, their milk and honey, their slaughter and destruction, with the joys and triumphs of God’s people; all which entered into me, and God among them. I saw all and felt all in such a lively manner, as if there had been no other way to those places, but in spirit only. This showed me the liveliness of interior presence, and that all ages were for most glorious ends, accessible to my understanding, yea with it, yea within it. For without changing place in myself I could behold and enjoy all those: Anything when it was proposed, though it was a thousand ages ago, being always before me.

When I heard any news I receivd it with greediness and delight, because my expectation was awakened with some hope that my happiness and the thing I wanted was concealed in it. Glad tidings, you know, from a far country brings us our salvation: and I was not deceived. In Jury was Jesus killed, and from Jerusalem the Gospel came. Which when I once knew, I was very confident that every kingdom contained like wonders and causes of joy, though that was the fountain of them. As it was the firstfruits, so was it the pledge of what I shall receive in other countries. Thus also when any curious cabinet, or secret in chemistry geometry, or physic was offered to me, I diligently looked into it, but when I saw it to the bottom and not my happiness I despised it. These imaginations and this thirst of news occasioned these reflections.