Tag Archives: Meditation

Thomas Traherne, The Soul’s Communion with her Savior, Book 1.1.3

28 Saturday Jan 2023

Posted by in Thomas Traherne

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , ,

§. 3.

When the Angel came in unto her, and said, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among Women: she cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.[1]

I praise thy Holy Name[2],

O Blessed Jesus,

for the greatness of thine Eternal Love to this Holy Virgin,

 and to all mankind in her[3].

O make me sensible how highly I myself am favor’d in this great transaction[4],

since she was thus blessed among women[5],

that all the families of the farth might be blessed in her Seed[6].

A salutation of such infinite importance

doth worthily deserve to be frequently revolved in our minds[7],

which, being particularly brought to a private family in Jewry[8],

hath prov’d of universal concernment to the whole world[9].

O let me also taste and see [10]

how gracious the Lord hath been to my Soul:

No matter[11] for the favor of men,

so we find Grace with God[12].

[1] This is the next event in the Annunciation referenced in Luke 1:26-38.

[2]

            Bless the Lord, O my soul,

and all that is within me,

bless his holy name!

Psalm 103:1

Glory in his holy name;

let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!

1 Chronicles 16:10

Glory in his holy name;

let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice!

Psalm 105:3

[3] Traherne is making a parallel in this prayer between Mary and Abraham. In Genesis 12, when God calls Abram, he promises him that in him all the nations of the earth shall be blessed:

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Genesis 12:1–3. That worldwide blessing is in in Abraham’s greater son, Jesus. Mary, being the virgin mother of Jesus is the last link in that chain of blessing.

[4] Traherne here counts himself in the blessing. Mary has been blessed by being the mother of Jesus. The promise to Abraham is fulfilled in the birth of Jesus. The blessing and promised and the blessing fulfilled have now overflowed to Traherne (and so also to us).

[5] After she has become pregnant, Mary travels to visit Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John the Baptist:

41 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, 42 and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43 And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

Luke 1:41–43  

[6] Here he relates the promise to Abraham to the earlier promise made to Eve, by referring to Mary’s “seed”:

I will put enmity between you and the woman,

and between your offspring and her offspring;

                        he shall bruise your head,

and you shall bruise his heel.”

Genesis 3:15 (ESV)

[7] To just contemplate the truth of God is itself a good thing for the people of God.  Considering these things, or if you prefer, “meditate on these things” is absent element of our practice.

[8] The ancient Israelites.

[9] The scope of Jesus’ work is truly universal:

9 And they sang a new song, saying,

                        “Worthy are you to take the scroll

and to open its seals,

                        for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God

from every tribe and language and people and nation,

            10          and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,

and they shall reign on the earth.”

Revelation 5:9–10 (ESV)

[10]

            Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!

Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!

Psalm 34:8 (ESV)

[11]

Stop regarding man

in whose nostrils is breath,

for of what account is he?

Isaiah 2:22

[12] “No matter”, idiomatically, “who cares” what anyone thinks of me if I have found favor with God.

Edward Taylor, Meditation 36.6 What a strange stringe thing am I

24 Wednesday Nov 2021

Posted by in Edward Taylor

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , ,

The previous post on this poem may be found here.

How wond’rous rich art thou? Thy storehouse vast

Holds more ten thousand fold told ore and ore

Than this wide world can hold. The door unhasp.

And bring me thence a pardon out of therefore.

Thou stuffest the world so tight with present things

That thing to come, though crowd full hard, can’t in.

These things to come, tread on the heels of those.

The present breadth doth with the broad world run.

The depth and breadth of things to come out goes

Unto Time’s end which bloweth out the sun.

These breadth and length meet out eternity.

These are the things that in thy storehouse lie.

The Praise: Having come to the conclusion that he should marvel at the grace of God and thus seek a pardon for his continuing, Taylor now turn to praise the vastness of the God’s grace.  In these stanzas there seems two allusions to Paul. 

There are two general aspects of the wealth of good things God has to bestow. First, there is the matter of the sheer size:

            Thy storehouse vast

Holds more ten thousand fold told ore and ore

Than this wide world can hold….

Thou stuffest the world so tight with present things

That thing to come, though crowd full hard, can’t in.

…. The present breadth doth with the broad world run.

The depth and breadth of things to come out goes

Unto Time’s end which bloweth out the sun.

These breadth and length meet out eternity.

Of particular interest is the phrase “breadth and length”. In a notable passage from Ephesians, Paul prays that his readers will obtain some experience and knowledge of the “breadth and length” of God’s riches:

14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; 17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. 

Ephesians 3:14–19.  One can understand these stanzas of Taylor’s poem as in a sense being an answer to Paul’s prayer. Taylor is meditating upon the great riches of God and is seeking to “comprehend” this wealth.

The knowledge here is the knowledge of “love of Christ” which is a redemptive love. The pardon which Taylor seeks is the wealth of God on display.

The general tenor of the Ephesians passage as well as the unusual phrase “breadth and length” form a basis for Taylor’s language in these stanzas. 

Second, there is a distinction between present thing and things to come. The “things to come” might be eschatological; but it is also possible that the “things to come” may only be what God has for us tomorrow. It is potentially a simple future. 

The allusion here comes from 1 Corinthians:

21 Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; 22 Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; 23 And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.

1 Corinthians 3:21–23. The basis of the allusion is found in (1) the giving of good things by God; and (2) the division between things present and things to come. Again, the good is the reconciliation, the forgiveness of God in Jesus Christ.

The stanzas, together with their allusions, constitute praise for the unfathomable goodness of God in giving good gifts to Taylor. He cannot comprehend the goodness of God, which matches with confusion over his own wretchedness. As explained previously, his continued wretchedness perplexes him, how can this be possible?

Finding no direct answer, he sees the problem in a new light, How unbelievably gracious God is to tolerate such sin!

And so here, he praises the unfathomable grace of God will extend through the ages until the sun, itself, is “blown out”.

God gives such abundant goodness, that the things which will come cannot find room, so full is the present with God’s goodness.

The prayer.

Within this effusive praise is one prayer: 

                        The door unhasp.

And bring me thence a pardon out of therefore.

Unlock the door and take out a pardon for me. You, God, have such wealth pardon me and I will praise you. In this, Taylor is following the pattern of Psalm 50:

      And call upon me in the day of trouble:

      I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me.

Psalm 50:15. Far from sounding like an impolite demand, the prayer for God open his storehouse and deliver a pardon to Taylor is encouraged by God. 

A father who loves his child desires to give good things to the child. It is not a burden but a joy:

remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive. 

Acts 20:35 God loves and desires to show love. The prayer for pardon is a prayer which God has promised to answer:

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 

1 John 1:9

Thomas Adams, The Sinner’s Mourning Habit.1 Contemplating God

13 Wednesday Oct 2021

Posted by in Job, Thomas Adams, Thomas Adams

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , ,

The verse for the sermon is Job 42:6, “Wherefore, I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” It is a curious verse coming at the end of Job. Just Job having been afflicted ends up repenting.  

Adams begins with the observation of the effect of affliction

Affliction is a winged chariot, that mounts up the soul toward heaven; or do we ever so rightly understand God’s majesty as when are not able to stand under our own misery.

There are many ways which God can use to get one’s attention, but affliction is most effective

But among them all, none despatcheth the business surer or sooner than affliction; if that fail to bring a man home, nothing can do it….Do we complain of incessant blows? Alas! He doth but his office, he waits for our repentance. Let us give him the messenger his errand, and he will begone. Let him take the proud man in hand, he will humble him; he can make the drunkard sober, the lascivious chaste, the angry patient, the covetous charitable; fetch the unthrift son back again to his father, whom a full purse had put into an itch of traveling. (Luke 15:17)

Having established that affliction should leave us to repentance, Adams considers three “degrees of mortification” of sin: the sickness, the death, and the burial of sin. 

The humility of Job which brings about this repentance comes from a knowledge of God:

To study God is the way to make a humble man; and a humble man is in the way to come unto God.

(Again, this is consonant with Kierkegaard’s contention that one finds God in confession of sin: the wonder of being confronted with the eternal God brings about this humility, a knowledge of one’s sinfulness. This a sort of confession and humiliation which cannot be brought about by the skill of some preacher; it is a humility which flows from knowing God.)

Job’s humility flowed from two aspect of God’s nature: majesty and mercy. First majesty,

Of his majesty, which being so infinite, and beyond the comprehension of man, he considered by way or comparison, or relation to creatures [Since God’s majesty cannot be understood directly, God compares his strength to creatures which Job could know.]…Mathematicians wonder at the sun that, being so much bigger than the earth, doth not set it on fire and burn it to ashes; but here is the wonder that God being so infinitely great, and we so infinitely evil, we are not consumed.

And then mercy. If it were not for this mercy, we could not come to God. 

This meditation on his mercy, than which nothing more humbles a heart of flesh. 

We can understand a more powerful being withstanding us. But for one who has just cause against us, to show mercy in the midst of our knowledge of his power; that brings humility. 

It is a certain conclusion; no proud man knows God.

How humility makes this possible:

Humility is not only a virtue itself; but a vessel to contain other virtures: like embers, which keep the fire alive that is hidden under it. It emptieth itself by a modest estimation of its own worth, that Christ may fill it. It wrestleth with God, like Jacob, and wins by yielding; and the lower it stoops to the gound the more advantage it gets to obtain the blessing. All our pride, O Lord, is from the want of knowing thee.

This knowledge of God in turn brings about the repentance for and mortification of sin. 

At this point, it perhaps best to consider something which so often is missing in contemporary Christian life: the contemplation of God for his own sake. Americans (I cannot speak for others) want always to know what this information does; but is the practical application. 

Now application is a great thing. But one sort of application which is noticeably absent is the application of contemplation: Just steadily thinking one, mediating, considering the thought that God is ….

It is nature of persons, that we can know one another only through some attention. We may gain a very superficial knowledge of a word or a sight; but actual appreciation for another person requires time and attention. 

Perhaps our trouble with sin stems from too little knowledge of God. God is an abstraction; not personal. But a true knowledge of God would work humility and humility repentance. 

Here is a thought. God is Father. Even before creation (if it makes any sense to say “before” when it comes to God), God is Father. The creation is an overflow of the joy and love of the Father. Our redemption flows from the love of God for us. Our glorification flows from the headwaters of God’s love as Father. 

Sit alone with those thoughts. Consider that one truth and see what it brings about in you.

Edward Taylor, 28th Meditation.1

26 Saturday Sep 2020

Posted by in Edward Taylor, Literature, Puritan

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

The 28th Meditation of Edward Taylor takes as its text John 1:16. In context, the passage (as it would have stood in Taylor’s Bible) reads as follows:

14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. 15 John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. 16 And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. 18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. 

John 1:14–18  

The poem will center upon the receipt of the grace which is in the Word made Flesh. However, as is a consistent theme in Taylor, it begins with the distance from God and the disorder of mind. Although not discussed in this place, the noetic effect of sin – the disordering effect of sin upon the thoughts, affections and behavior – lies behind  his description of his sense as “bewildered” and his “befogged dark fancy”. 

It should be noted that the effects are not simply in a cause-and-effect relationship with some particular sinful action, but are inherent in any human being on this earth. The damage done by Adam’s fall is not completely removed prior to one’s death and personal resurrection.

The poem begins with a self-conscious discussion of the poem itself as a matter of praise, sending some “glory home”. But this glory is returned in small sums, “bits” rather than in “lumps.” (Incidentally, “lumps” does not have the negative connotations it does in contemporary vernacular.) The first stanza reads:

When I Lord, send some bits of glory home

(For lumps I lack) my messenger, I find,

Bewildered, lose his way being alone

In my befogged dark fancy, clouded mind.

Thy bits of glory packed in shreds of praise

My messenger doth lose, losing his ways.

The first line creates an interesting rhythmic effect by beginning with a Bacchic foot: “when I LORD” followed by a pause.  The unusual English rhythm ending on a stress followed by a pause is difficult to read. The awkwardness creates an emphasis on the words. The vocative, Lord, would normally stand at the beginning of a clause, “Lord, when I send ….” Thus, the relationship between “I” and “Lord” is foregrounded.

The remainder of the first line and the second then flow along more easily. However, the poem introduces a puzzling reference, “my messenger”. The messenger is the means by which he is returning glory to the Lord. The precise identity of the messenger is not otherwise clarified. What is the means by which he is sending glory home: the messenger is the poem itself.

And so, as is common in Taylor, his poem is in part about the poem itself. His thinking which creates the poem is bewildered. His “befogged dark fancy” would be the weakness of his ability to conceive and create the poem.

And here comes the problem: he seeks to return some glory to the Lord within the praise which is the poem itself, but the glory falls out (is lost) from the poem:

Thy bits of glory packed in shreds of praise

My messenger doth lose, losing his ways.

Thomas Watson, 24 Helps to Read Scripture.8

13 Friday May 2016

Posted by in Meditation, Reading, Thomas Manton, Thomas Watson, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

The previous post in this series may be found here

VIII. Meditate upon what you read. Psalm 119:15: “I will meditate in thy precepts.” The Hebrew word to meditate, signifies to be intense in the mind. In meditation there must be a fixing of the thoughts upon the object.

Meditation means serious consideration. Rather than emptying the mind, it means to fill it. Thomas Manton has a useful expansion on the concept of meditating upon what one reads: give it entertainment, treat it like a guest:

Receive the word, give it a kind entertainment. There is an act of consideration; meditate upon it seriously, that truth may not float in the understanding, but sink into the heart: Luke 9:44, ‘Let these sayings sink down into your hearts.’ Believe it: the truth is a sovereign remedy; but there wanteth one ingredient to make it work, and that is faith: Heb. 4:2, ‘The word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it.’ There is an act of the will and affections, which is called, ‘a receiving the truth in love,’ 2 Thes. 2:10. Make room for it, that carnal affections may not vomit and throw it up again. Christ complaineth that ‘his word had no place in them,’ John 8:37, οὐ χωρεῖ ἐν ὑμῖν, like a queasy stomach possessed with choler, that casts up all that is taken into it: 1 Cor. 2:14, ‘A natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.’ Let it lodge, and quietly exercise a sovereign command over the soul.

Thomas Manton, The Complete Works of Thomas Manton, vol. 10, Sermons on the 17th Chapter of John, Sermon XI, (London: James Nisbet & Co., 1872), 237. We must to know the words if they are to have any effect upon us. Francis Bacon in his essay, On Studies, speaks of “digesting” a book:

Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a present wit: and if he read little, he had need have much cunning, to seem to know, that he doth not.

Watson concludes:

Luke 2:19: “Mary pondered those things.” Meditation is the concoction of Scripture; reading brings a truth into our head, meditation brings it into our heart; reading and meditation, like Castor and Pollux, must appear together. Meditation without reading is erroneous; reading without meditation is barren. The bee sucks the flower, and then works it into the hive, and so turns it into honey; by reading we suck the flower of the word, by meditation we work it into the hive of our mind, and so it turns to profit. Meditation is the bellows of the affection. Psalm 39:3: “While I was musing the fire burned.” The reason we come away so cold from reading the word, is because we do not warm ourselves at the fire of meditation.

Thomas Watson, “How We May Read the Scriptures with Most Spiritual Profit,” in The Bible and the Closet: Or How We May Read the Scriptures with the Most Spiritual Profit; and Secret Prayer Successfully Managed, ed. John Overton Choules (Boston: Gould, Kendall and Lincoln, 1842), 24–25.

 

 

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation XXIV

06 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by in Uncategorized, William Spurstowe

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , ,

The previous post in this series may be found here

21612400555_926fc3c611_o
Upon Gravity and Levity

The stoic philosophy was famous for paradoxes, strange opinions, improbable and beside common conceit [thinking] for which it was much admired by some an is greatly controlled and taxed by others. Howbeit, not Stoicism only but every art in course of life and learning has some paradoxes or other, the Christianity has many more which seem like nothing less than truth and yet are as true as strange.

What can be more contrary to the principles and maxims the philosophers then to hold that there is your grass from eight total privation to a habit? It was that which the Epicureans and the Stoics derided in Paul when he preached the resurrection from the dead, and yet Christians build all their happiness and confidence upon it.

What can seem to carry more contradiction in it and the saying of our Savior, He that will lose his life shall find it? And yet it is the truth of that importance whosoever follows not Christ counsel will certainly miss of life.

What will happily appear more novel and strange then that which I shall now add by inverting the axiom and affirming this truth, Light things fall downwards, and heavy ascend upward. Lighter they are, the lower they sink; and the heavier they are, the higher they rise: and yet this riddle has a truth in it. In Scripture the wicked that must fall as low as hell are resembled the things of the greatest levity as well as vileness, dust, chaff, smoke, fame, scum; and the saints that must ascend as high as Heaven I likened to things of weight as well as worth: to wheat, the heaviest of which is the best; to gold, which is of metals the weightiest as well as richest; to gems and precious stones, that are valued by the number of carats which they weight, as well as by their luster with which they sparkle.

Yea, God has his balance to weigh men and their actions, as well as his touchstone to try them. He is a God of knowledge, by whom actions are weighed, says Hannah in her song. And if he find great men a lie and vanity upon the balance he will not spare them. What is the fear judgment did God execute upon Belshazzar who being weighed and found wanting was in the same night cast out of his kingdom and from the land of the living?

And what a dreadful sentence has Christ foretold shall come up on his mouth and they great day against those who have made a vain an empty profession of his Name; who are bid to depart from him and go accursed into everlasting fire, not for doing evil against his but for not doing of good onto them? A form of godliness without the power will condemn, as well as Real an open wickedness. To be found too light and God’s scale maybe a bar to heaven, as well as the load of many sins.

Oh remember who has said it, Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. How gladly then I would persuade Christians at the best way to climb to Jacobs ladder which has its foot on earth and its top in glory is to be fully laden with all fruits of holiness.

The burden of Christ is not a pressing weight but a winged thing which carries the soul upwards and helps it to soar aloft towards God himself. None are crowned with the greater glory or set up on higher grounds then they who have their fruit under true holiness above others.

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation XXIII, Upon a Multiplying Glass

03 Sunday Jan 2016

Posted by in Uncategorized, William Spurstowe

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , ,

320150546_91250d1740_o

“A Growing Sense of Cowstraphobia”

Photo courtesy of Erin Perry

What a vain in fictitious happiness with that be a poor man who had only a small piece of money should, by the looking outfit through a multiplying glass [something like a kaleidoscope] , please himself and believing that he is now secure from the fears of pressing wants, hey single piece being suddenly minted into many pounds, with which she can readily furnish himself with fuel to warm him, clothes to cover him, and food to satisfy him.

But alas, when he puts forth his hand to take a supply from what he beholds, you can feel nothing of what he sees; when the glass is gone that presented him such treasure, he can then see nothing but his first pittance which also becomes the less desirable because of the disappointment of his hopes.

Upon what better foundation does the felicity of the greater part of men stand, which is not fixed upon any true and spiritual good as its proper base, but up on the specious semblances of a corrupt and mutable fancy? What is it that rich men do promised themselves, who conceive riches to be a strong tower? They think they can laugh at famine, and when others like the poor Egyptians, whose substance is exhausted, sell themselves and their children for food, they can buy bread at a better rate. If enemies rise up against them, they question not but they can purchase at peace or victory. If sickness comes, oh how they can please themselves and thinking that their purse can command the physician’s skill and the drugster’s shops. Elixirs, cordials, magisterial powders, they concede before hand will be prescribed both as their diet and physic. And every Avenue of the body at which disease or death may threaten to enter chubby so fortified exit both of them shall receive an easy and quick repulse.

Now what are all these representations but the impostures of the glass of fancy, which like the colors and the rainbow have more of show than of entity.

Does not Solomon counsel men not to labor to be rich? And expostulate with them, Will you set your eyes up on that which is not? Does not our Savior call them deceitful riches? And Paul, uncertain riches? What then can they contribute to the real happiness of any man? Surely the transient sparks that with much difficulty are forced from the Flint, me as soon add light to the sun as riches can yield any solid comfort to the soul, or keep it away from lying down in the bed of darkness and sorrow.

Away from me then you flattering vanities and gilded nothings of the world, get you to the bats and the moles and try what beauteous rays you can dart into their eyes. I will hence no more the hold you in the glass of fancy, but in the glass of the Word which discovers that you were always vanity and vexation, no objects of trust in times of strait, or the price of deliverance in the day of wrath. It is me thinks observable that four times in Scripture the saying is repeated, that riches and treasures profit nothing in the day of wrath (twice in the book of Proverbs, and then again by the two prophets, Ezekiel and Zephaniah). Doubtless these holy men knew
What are universal proneness there is in the minds of most to exalt riches above righteousness, And to think that by them Heaven might be purchased and the flames of hell bribed. How else could such words ever drop from the mouth of any, That they made a covenant with Death and were add an agreement with Hell to pass from them?

Lord,
Keep me from imagining
To save my soul by merchandize
Or of entitling myself any other way of inheritance of Heaven
Than by the blood of Christ
Who is my Life,
My riches
My rejoicing
My true confidenc

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation XIX: Upon a Greek Accent

02 Wednesday Dec 2015

Posted by in Biblical Counseling, Confession, Humility, Meditation, Repentance, William Spurstowe

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , ,

From William Spurstowe, The Spiritual Chymist, 1666. The prior post is this series is here.

Delphi (XIX)

Accents are by the Hebrews aptly called Sapores, tastes or savors that speech or [those] word without some observance of them are like Job’s white of an egg, without salt, insipid, and unpleasant. In the Greek they derive their name from the due tenor, or tuning of words, and in that tongue words are not pronounced according to the long or short vowels, but according to the accent set up on them, which directs the rise or fall, the length or brevity of their pronunciation.

Now, what accents are to Greek words, that methinks circumstances are to sins, which, as so many moral accents do fitly serve to show there just and certain dimensions, and teach us aright to discern how great or small they be. And he, that without respect had onto them, does judge of that bigness of sins, is like to error as much as a man that should take upon him, without mathematical instruments, to give it exactly the greatness of the heavenly bodies, and to pronounce of altitudes, distances, aspects, and other appearances, by the scanning of the eye.

Is this not the Scripture way to set out sin, by the place, time, continuance in it, and repetitions of it? They provoked him at the Red Sea, where they saw the mighty works of his power, and making the deep to be their path to Canaan, and the Egyptian’s grave. They tempted him in the wilderness, where their food, drink, clothes, were all made up by miracles. The clouds yielding them meat [their food], the dry rock water, and their garments not waxing old.

Does he not aggravate them, by the long space of their continuance in them, saying that they grieved him 40 years? Does he not number the times of their reiterated, murmurings and rebellions, and make it as a ground for his justice to destroy them?

Necessary therefore it is, that in the duty of self-examination, and reviews of the book of conscience, we do not only read over the naked facts which have been done by us, but that we look into those apices peccati, little dots and tittles which are set up on the head of many sins(the circumstances I mean with which they are committed) or else we shall never read that book aright, or learn to know what sins are great or what small. The fact and circumstances are both noted in the journals of conscience, though they be not equally legible. And he that is truly penitent will make it a chief part of his work to find out one as well as the other, as being the best means both to get the heart broken for and from sin.

What shame? What fear? What carefulness? What revenge will a serious sight of the several aggravations that meet in the interpretation of a sin move up and stir the heart of the sinner? Will he not say, what a beast am I to sin against so clear a light? To break so often my own vows, to defer so long my repentance and rising again? What revenge shall I now take of myself to witness my indignation? What carefulness shall I exercise to evidence the truth of my return? With diligence shall I use to redeem my lost time, who have joined the morning of the task and the evening of the day together? These, and such like thoughts, will sin, when it is read as it is written, and accented in the conscience produce.

But a general knowledge and sight of it, without such particularities, will neither make nor leave any impressions but what they are both slight and confused.

Do thou therefore, holy God,
teach me to understand the errors of my ways aright,
And by the light of thy Spirit
Make me to see that circumstances in sins are not motes, but beams,
and greatly intend their guilt — if not their bulk.
That so I may mourn for those sins which carnal men conceive to be but so many black nothings;
And abhor myself for those corruptions in which they indulge themselves.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 1.11 — The One Percent

28 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by in Greek, Greek Translation, Marcus Aurelius

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , ,

4057752371_f2485e3ec7_o

From Fronto
To understand what sort of witchery, subtlety, and hypocrisy belong to tyranny — and how common traits are to those like us who are called patricians, who at times lack natural affections.

Greek Text and Notes

Continue reading →