Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries Part 36

Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries Part 36

"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. . . . My very ignorance was advantageous. I seemed as one brought into the Estate of Innocence. All things were spotless and pure and glorious: 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 {325} 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 G.o.d in their splendour and glory, I saw all 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 Sabbath. 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.

. . . So that with much ado I was corrupted, and made to learn the dirty devices of this world. Which {326} now I unlearn, and become, as it were, a little child again that I may enter into the Kingdom of G.o.d."[10]

How like an Angel came I down!

How bright are all things here!

When first among His works I did appear O how their Glory did me crown!

The World resembled His _Eternity_ In which my soul did walk; And everything that I did see Did with me talk.[11]

Long time before I in my mother's womb was born, A G.o.d preparing did this glorious store, The world, for me adorne.

Into this Eden so divine and fair So wide and bright, I come His son and heir.[12]

Like Vaughan, who, in his "angel-infancy," could

In these weaker glories spy Some shadows of eternity,

and who

Felt through all this fleshly dress Bright shoots of everlastingness,[13]

Traherne not only saw, in his paradise-innocence, the glory of the earth and sky--the streets paved with golden stones, and boys and girls with lovely shining faces--but he also felt that he was part of a deeper world which lay about his infancy and wooed him with love.

O Lord I wonder at Thy Love, Which did my Infancy so early move.[14]

And out of this childhood experience, which many a meditative child can match, he insists that G.o.d visited him.

He did Approach, He did me woo; I wonder that my G.o.d this thing would do.

He in our childhood with us walks, And with our thoughts Mysteriously He talks; He often visiteth our Minds.[15]

{327}

I know of no one who has borne a louder testimony than Traherne to the divine inheritances and spiritual possibilities of the new-born child, or who has more emphatically denied the fiction of total depravity: "I speak it in the presence of G.o.d," he says, "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 p.r.o.ne to good and excellent things than to evil."[16] And he adds this impressive word on the doctrine of inheritance: "It is not our parents' loins, so much as our parents' lives, that enthrals and blinds us."[17]

After a happy childhood, during which "The Earth did undertake the office of a Priest,"[18] and when his soul was

A living endless eye Just bounded with the sky, Whose power, whose act, whose essence was to see,[19]

he entered Brasenose College, Oxford, in the year 1652, being made B.A.

in 1656, M.A. in 1661, and Bachelor of Divinity in 1669. He was admitted in 1657 to the Rectory of Credenhill, near Hereford, where he remained for about ten years, and in 1667 he was made chaplain to Sir Orlando Bridgman, in whose service he died in 1674, and was buried "under the reading-desk" in the church at Teddington near Hampton Court.

During his lifetime he published _Roman Forgeries_ (1673), an unimportant work, and had begun the publication of his _Christian Ethics_, which appeared, after his death, in 1675. His _Poems_ and his _Centuries of Meditations_ remained in MS. unknown until they were discovered in a London bookstall about the year 1897, and their authorship was proved by Bertram Dobell who published the _Poems_ in 1903, and the _Centuries of Meditations_ in 1908. There still remains in MS. an octavo volume of meditations and devotions.

Traherne's poems show that he always dwelt near the {328} gate of Heaven and was easily aware of the "ancient Light of Eden." An accidental bit of gossip, reported in John Aubrey's _Miscellanies_, indicates that he was subject to psychical experiences of an unusual sort, and the poet himself has reported an impressive crisis-experience when he chose his destiny and settled his preference for inward treasures, even though it meant, as with George Fox, the wearing of a leather suit.

"When I came into the country, and being seated among silent trees, and meads and hills, had all my time in mine own hands, I resolved to spend it all, whatever it cost me, in the search of happiness, and to satiate that burning thirst which Nature had enkindled in me from my youth. In which I was so resolute, that I chose rather to live upon ten pounds a year, and to go in leather clothes, and feed upon bread and water, so that I might have all my time clearly to myself, than to keep many thousands per annum in an estate of life where my time would be devoured in care and labour. And G.o.d was so pleased to accept of that desire, that from that time to this, I have had all things plentifully provided for me, without any care at all, my very study of Felicity making me more to prosper, than all the care in the whole world. So that through His blessing I live a free and a kingly life as if the world were turned again into Eden, or much more, as it is at this day."[20]

Like his predecessors in this faith, Traherne is never tired of declaring the infiniteness of the human soul. Eternity is in the human heart, if only the way of the open door is taken, if only the eyes are opened to see. G.o.d, he says, has made our spirits "centres in eternity," opening upon "innumerable infinities." The Ocean is but a drop of a bucket to the immensity of the soul, with its abysmal deeps and its immeasurable capacities. It is the very essence and being of the soul to feel infinity, for "G.o.d is ever more near to us than we are to ourselves, so that we cannot feel our own souls without feeling Him."[21] "You are never," he says, "your true self, till you live {329} by your soul more than by your body, and you never live by your soul until you feel its incomparable excellence."[22] Its n.o.bility is revealed by its insatiable hungers, its surpa.s.sing dignity is declared by its endless wants, its inability to live by bread alone. "As by the seed we conjecture what plant will arise, and know by the acorn what tree will grow forth, or by the eagle's egg what kind of bird; so do we by the powers of the soul upon earth, know what kind of Being, Person, and Glory will be in the Heavens, where its latent powers shall be turned into Act, its inclinations shall be completed, and its capacities filled."[23]

Not only in a primitive Eden, but in the world as we know it, with its black and white, man always bears within himself the mark of a heavenly origin, and has the quickening Seed of G.o.d in the depth of his soul: "The Image of G.o.d is seated in the lineaments of the soul." Man is the greatest of all miracles; he is "a mirror of all Eternity."[24] His thoughts run out to everlasting; he is made for spiritual supremacy and has within himself an inner, hidden life greater than anything else in the universe.[25] We are "nigh of kin to G.o.d" and "nigh of kin

To those pure things we find In His great mind Who made the world."[26]

There is

A Spiritual World standing within An Universe enclosed in Skin.[27]

With the same enthusiasm with which he proclaims the divine origin and the heavenly connections of the soul, Traherne also proclaims the glory and beauty of the visible world as a revelation of G.o.d.

Eternity stooped down to nought And in the earth its likeness sought.[28]

The world is not G.o.d, for He is Spirit, but the world is "a glorious mirror" in which the verities of religion are {330} revealed and in which the face of G.o.d is at least partially unveiled.[29] It is here in this "mirror" that the clairvoyant eye discovers G.o.d's being, perceives His wisdom, goodness, and power, guesses out the footsteps of His love, and finds promises and pledges of the larger fulfilment of that love. Here in the world, which is full of "remainders of Paradise," is surely the visible porch or gate of Eternity.[30] It is easy to believe that G.o.d has given us His Son when once we have seen the richness of the world which He has given us.[31] But the world is never "ours" until we learn how to see it and enjoy it in its beauty, even in the most common things, and until we discover that all its service and all its excellency are spiritual: "Pigs eat acorns, but neither consider the sun that gave them life, nor the influences of the heavens by which they were nourished, nor the very root of the tree from whence they came. This being the work of Angels who in a wide and clear light see even the sea that gave them [the acorns] moisture: And feed upon that acorn spiritually while they know the ends for which it was created, and feast upon all these as upon a World of Joys within it: while to ignorant swine that eat the sh.e.l.l it is an empty husk of no taste nor delightful savour."[32]

Men, as well as angels, can learn to use the world spiritually--can learn to see how rough, common things are part of "the divine exchequer"; how a grain of sand exhibiteth the wisdom of G.o.d and manifesteth His glory.[33] With this prelude, Traherne gives his glowing account of the true, spiritual way to enjoy the world.

"Your enjoyment of the world is never right, till every morning you awake in Heaven; see yourself in your Father's Palace; and look upon the skies, the earth, and the air as Celestial Joys: having such a reverend esteem of all, as if you were among the Angels. The bride of a monarch, in her husband's chamber, hath no such causes of delight as you.

"You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself {331} floweth in your veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the stars: and perceive yourself to be the sole heir of the whole world, and more than so, because men are in it who are every one sole heirs as well as you. Till you can sing and rejoice and delight in G.o.d, as misers do in gold, and Kings in sceptres, you never enjoy the world.

"Till your spirit filleth the whole world, and the stars are your jewels; till you are as familiar with the ways of G.o.d in all Ages as with your walk and table; till you are intimately acquainted with that shady nothing out of which the world was made; till you love men so as to desire their happiness with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own; till you delight in G.o.d for being good to all; you never enjoy the world. Till you more feel it than your private estate, and are more present in the hemisphere, considering the glories and the beauties there, than in your own house; till you remember how lately you were made, and how wonderful it was when you came into it: and more rejoice in the palace of your glory, than if it had been made but to-day morning.

"Yet further, you never enjoy the world aright, till you so love the beauty of enjoying it, that you are covetous and earnest to persuade others to enjoy it. And so perfectly hate the abominable corruption of men in despising it, that you had rather suffer the flames of h.e.l.l than willingly be guilty of their error. . . . The world is a mirror of infinite beauty, yet no man sees it. It is a Temple of Majesty, yet no man regards it. It is a region of Light and Peace, did not men disquiet it. It is the Paradise of G.o.d. It is more to man since he is fallen than it was before. It is the place of Angels and the Gate of Heaven. When Jacob waked out of his dream, he said, 'G.o.d is here, and I wist it not. How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the House of G.o.d, and the Gate of Heaven.'"[34]

But notwithstanding his exuberant and overflowing joy in creation, Traherne is conscious that the world has {332} its "dreggy parts," that it has been "muddied" by man's misuse of it, and that the havoc of sin is apparent. The light which shined in infancy becomes eclipsed as the customs and manners of life close down over it and cover it. Men's mouths are full of talk of fleeting, vulgar, and worthless things, and they speak no syllable of those celestial and stable treasures which form the only wealth of life. The emphasis in education is on the wrong things. So with much ado the innocent child is "corrupted and made to learn the dirty devices of the world," which he must again unlearn and become a little child once more in the Kingdom of G.o.d.[35]

The taint, however, is not in the native structure of the soul, it is not through a biological transmission, it is due to false training--it is from the parents' lives rather than their loins. Let parents, he says, who desire holy children learn to make them possessors of divine things _betimes_. It is "deadly barbarous and uncouth" to "put grubs and worms" into little children's minds, to teach them to say this house is mine, this bauble is a jewel, this gew-gaw is a fine thing, this rattle makes music, when they ought to be made instead to see the spiritual glory of the earth and sky, the beauty of life, the sweetness and n.o.bility of Nature, and to live joyously, like birds, in union and communion with G.o.d. I am sure, he concludes, that barbarous people that go naked come nearer to Adam, G.o.d, and the Angels, in the simplicity of their wealth, than do many among us who partake of what we nick-name civility and mode.[36] The entire work of redemption is, thus, to restore man to himself, to bring him once more to the Tree of Life, to enable him to discover the glory all about him, to reveal to him the real values of things, and to bring to birth within him an immortal love. The true healing of the soul is always through the birth of love. Before a soul loves, it lives only to itself; as soon as love is born it lives beyond itself and finds its life in the object of its love. It is Christ who first reveals the full measure of love, who makes us see the one adequate Object of love, and who {333} forges within our human spirits the invisible bonds of a love that binds us forever to Him who so loved us. Here in Him--"a Man loving all the world, a G.o.d dying for mankind"[37]--we see that we are infinitely beloved, that the foundations of an eternal Friendship are laid, that G.o.d is infinitely p.r.o.ne to love, and that true love spares nothing for the sake of what it loves--"O miraculous and eternal G.o.dhead suffering on a Cross for me!"[38] "That Cross is a tree set on fire with invisible flame which illuminateth all the world. The flame is love: the love in His bosom that died upon it."[39]

But there is no salvation for us in the Cross until it kindles the same flame of love in us, until that immeasurable love of His becomes an irresistible power in us, so that we henceforth live unto Him that loved us. It must, if it is to be efficacious, shift all our values and set us to loving as He loved--"He who would not in the same cases do the same things Jesus Christ hath done can never be saved," for love is never timorous.[40] The love of Christ is to dwell within us and every man is to be the object of it. G.o.d and we are to become one spirit, that is, one in will and one in desire. Christ must live within us. We must be filled with the Holy Ghost, which is the G.o.d of Love; we must be of the same mind with Christ Jesus and led by His Spirit, and we must henceforth treat every man in respect to the greatness of Christ's love--this is salvation in Traherne's conception of it, and holiness and happiness are the same thing.[41] The Cross has not done its complete work for us until we can say: "O Christ, I see thy crown of thorns in every eye; thy bleeding, naked, wounded body in every soul; thy death liveth in every memory; thy crucified person is embalmed in every affection; thy pierced feet are bathed in every one's tears and it is my privilege to enter with thee into every soul."[42]

However contemplative and mystical the bent of Traherne's mind may have been, he always finds the {334} terminus of spiritual life in action, indeed, in brotherly service, in what he calls "blessed operations."

Speaking apparently of himself, he finely says: "He thought it a vain thing to see glorious principles buried in books, unless he did remove them into his understanding; and a vain thing to remove them into his understanding unless he did revive them and raise them up with continual _exercise_. Let this therefore be the first principle of your soul--that to have no principles or to live beside them is equally miserable. Philosophers are not those that speak but do great things."[43] "It is," he writes in words which sound like those of his contemporary Winstanley, "it is an indelible principle of Eternal truth, that practice and exercise is the Life of all. Should G.o.d give you worlds and laws and treasures, and worlds upon worlds, and Himself also in the Divinest manner, if you will be lazy you lose all. The soul is made for action and cannot rest till it be employed. . . . If therefore you would be happy, your life must be as full of operation as G.o.d of treasure."[44]

Love, once kindled in the soul, is the mother of all heroic actions; love knows how to abound and overflow--the man who has lighted his life from Christ's love is constant in trials, patient in sufferings, courageous in a.s.saults, prudent in difficulties, victorious and triumphant in action.[45]

Traherne shares with Boehme and with the Cambridge Platonists the view that Eternity is as much here as anywhere. Those Christians, he thinks, who put off felicity and defer their enjoyment with long delays "are to be much suspected."[46] "'Tis not," so he states his law, "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 G.o.d, and full of {335} treasure; and he that walks like G.o.d in the midst of them is blessed."[47] "You are in Heaven everywhere."[48] The real business of life, as he elsewhere declares, is to "piece this life with the life of Heaven, to see it as one with all Eternity, a part of it, a life within it,"[49]

which reminds us of Vaughan's great words:

I saw Eternity the other night Like a great ring of pure and endless light, As calm as it was bright: And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years, Driv'n by the spheres, Like a vast shadow mov'd; in which the world And all her train were hurl'd.[50]

And with much penetration Traherne tells us that Eternity is not an endless addition of "times "--a weak infinite series of durations, but rather a Reality in which all true realities abide, and which retains in a present now all beginnings and all endings.[51] Eternity is just the real world for which we were made and which we enter through the door of love.

It is a spiritual world within, A living world and nearer far of kin To G.o.d than that which first He made.