Tag Archives: Meditations

Edward Taylor, Oh Wealthy Theme.2

22 Wednesday Jul 2020

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What shall I say? Such rich fullness would

Make stammering tongues speak smoothly, and enshrine 

The dumb man’s mouth with silver streams like gold

Of eloquence making air to chime

Yet I am tongue-tied, stupid, senseless stand,

And drier drained than is my pen I hand.

There is an irony in this stanza: The theme of the fullness of Christ would make a “stammering tongue speak smoothly”. And yet, Taylor is unable to speak smoothly – the theme which would make the dumb speak, fails to make him – a man of some talent – able to speak at all. 

In fact, he does not merely fail to rise to the occasion, he fails completely: his speaking tongue is tied, he has less ability to write than his quill pen without ink.

There is another level of irony in this structure: lines 1-4 run smoothly, they are eloquent. The meter and sentence structure are free and the lines run easily. And so the thought of the theme creating eloquence is in fact eloquent. 

But when Taylor comes to himself, in the last two lines, the lines stammer. The fifth line is simply ungrammatical:

Yet I am tongue-tied, stupid, senseless stand,

If we remove the middle phrases it reads, Yet I am senseless stand. The necessary addition which must come before final clause (I… senseless stand) is missing, and so the line is tongue-tied. He is becoming stupid (unable to speak) in the act of considering his senselessness. 

Likewise the last night also ends with poor grammar – forced by the length of the line and the need for a rhyme:

And drier drained than is my pen I hand.

The last word must be “hold” “that is my pen I hold.” But “hold” will not rhyme, and so Taylor forces “Hand” into that space. Interestingly a modern writer would like use hold – if rhyme were the only rule being broken. But Taylor maintains the rhyme and kills the sense. It is a deft touch.

It would be easy to read this stanza as merely being ill-constructed, perhaps a draft waiting for the final version. But I think it is purposeful. I make that conclusion because the first four lines do run smoothly. It is in the act of considering his own lack of merit that the poem begins to “lack merit.” 

The poem in structure is what means by sense: I am a bad writer, and thus he writes poorly. He begins to write poorly as soon as the question of his ability presents itself. 

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation LVI, Upon Going Up an High Mountain (Part 2)

08 Tuesday May 2018

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But I fear that while I propound the difficulties which are great, as well as many, intending thereby to shake only the pillars of those men’s confidence who consider neither the length of the way, nor the hardness of the task by which salvation is attained; that I may dishearten others, who, after all their travel and labor complain that they have striven much and gained little; and the their hopes of laying hold on Eternal Life do rather languish than increase, doubting that the journey is much too lon for their short life to finish. Gladly therefore I would like up the hands which hang down and strengthen the feeble knees that they might be animated in the way and not despair of the end.

Now how can this be better done than by giving such signs and evidence that will best service to manifest their motion and proficiency ; the not discerning of which is the ground of those fears of theirs spending their strength in vain and their laboring for naught. And is not this more readily perceived by looking downward at those objects that are below, than by looking upwards to the heavens which will after all climbing to them seem to be still at the like distance as they were at first.

Suppose that a man after hard labor and toil in reaching the top of some high and steep cliff, should conclude that he had wearied himself to no purpose, in the gaining of a delightful prospect because the sun appears to be at the same distance and also of equal bigness as when he was at the bottom of it; or that the starts seem still to be bus as so many twinkling watch lights without the least increase of their dimensions or variation of their figure: Might he not be easily refuted by bidding him to look down to those plains from whence he had ascended and behold what narrow scantlings and proportions those stately buildings and towers were shrunk and contacted, whose greatness as well as beauty he erewhile so much admired?

And may I not with the like facility answer and resolve the discouraged Christian who calls into question the truth of his heavenly progress, because all those glorious objects which his faith eyes and soul desires to draw nigh unto seem still to be as remote from him as at his first setting out, by wishing him to consider whether he cannot say that though heavenly objects do not increase in their magnitude or luster by the approach that he makes to them, that yet all earthly objects do sensibly lose theirs by the distance that he is gone from them? 

And if he can but so do, surely he has no cause of despairing to obtain heaven who has traveled so far on the way as to lose well near the sight of Earth. If once his faith has raised him to that height as to make the glory of the world disappear and to be as a thing of naught, it will quickly land him in heaven where his fears of miscarrying as well as his lassitude in working will be swallowed up in an everlasting rest. And he that did once believe more than he saw, shall forever see far more than he could have ever believed. 

Lord, therefore do you

Who gives power to the faith, 

And to them that have no might,

Increase strength to me

Who wait upon thee; 

Renew my strength

That I may mount up with wings as an eagle

And may run and not be weary

And walk and not faint,

Until come to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills

And behold thy face in glory.

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation XLIV

19 Sunday Mar 2017

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Upon a Physician Feeling the Pulse

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How often and how exactly do physicians feel the pulse of their patients? Not a day passes without a strict observation of the motion that it makes, according to which they judge both of the greatness and danger of the distemper, and what issues are like to be both in respect of life and death. They do not as other visitors, ask the patient how he does, but rather inform him how he is, and from the report which they make of his malady, his fears and hopes are more or less.

And yet how rarely do they feel their own pulse, who are so seemingly anxious about another’s. Days, weeks, months do elapse and pass away without any such studious heeding of themselves, as they continually in their profession exercise towards others. And yet happily and so doing they are as the priest in the temple who (as our Savior says) profane the Sabbath and are blameless.

But they osscaion me to think of the practice of many, who cannot so easily be acquitted; such you are severe observers of other men’s ways and actions and yet as great the neglecters of their own; who are far more glad that they can espy a fault than others, than grieve but it is committed: who presume to two look into the breast and To discover how the affections, which are the pulse of the soul, do beat and work in every duty.

And someday mistake the heat of their zeal as resembling a high and vehement pulse who strength comes not from health but from fever. And others, they condemn lukewarmness, an indifferency, whose affections they judged to be as weak and slow pulse, or is the springs of a watch that is well nigh down; which clicks and moves very faintly. In some again, they observed an inequality in their profession, which is accompanied with frequent stands and pauses that they make; like the asthmatic and short breaths persons, they run a while and blow longer, before they can move again. And upon these they look with this sad accountants as a physician does upon his patient as a false and intermittent pulse.

Few or none can be found to escape their censure, who observe the feelings of others, as some ancient critics did the imperfect verses of Homer, which they learned by heart, not at all regarding the many good. But what can be more contrary to law and rule of Christianity in such practices? How many prohibitions are gone out of the court of heaven to stay such a regular proceedings? Are we not by Christ forbidden to judge that we be not judged? To judge nothing before the time the Lord come?

And yet what if any man could know the true temper of the affections of others, as as fully as a position can distinguish between a well in sick pulse, would this knowledge be any great advantage onto him while he it Is both ignorant and regardless of his own estate? Would there bye find such joy and comforting himself as he that by an impartial examination of himself can discover the truth and sincerity of his own heart to Christ, though he can say nothing of others? Surely this man, as the hungry, would be filled with good things; when the other, as the rich, should be sent away empty.

He as the humble publican would be justified, when the other is the proud Pharisee should be condemned. Let others then physician like Study the condition of others, I shall look upon it as my duty and make it my work not to find out what others are, but what I am in regard of my unfeigned love and affection under Christ who has transcendently merited my love, when I am wholly unworthy of his.

The Spiritual Chymist: Meditation XLIII, Upon Time and Eternity

18 Saturday Feb 2017

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What is happiness that will expire, but misery at a distance?

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(Eugene Delacroix, Lion Rending Apart a Corpse)

The two estates of this and the other world are measured by time and by eternity as their just and proper measures, there being nothing in this world which is not as transient as time, nor in the other which is not as fixed and lasting as eternity. How inexpressibly then must be the good and evil, the happiness in the misery of those two estates differ from each other? [How different must good and evil, happiness and misery be in those two worlds].

What is the duration of all earthly greatness in respect of the stability heavenly glory, but as a flash of lightning to a standing sun in the firmament; or is a spark ascending from the furnace to a never setting star? What are the most fiery trials of this life, either for intention [intensity] or length, onto the everlasting burnings and torchings of hell; but as the soft and gentle heat of a blushing face, onto the constant flames and torments of the bowels?

What are racks, stone, colic, strangury [a slow painful discharge of urine], convulsions, heaped together in an extreme horror, but as the simple grudgings of an ague to the desperate rage and anguish which the least bite of that worm that dies not [Mark 9:48] creates in the lowest faculty of the soul?

There are additions to things which are limited and diminuent [lessening] terms of that to which they are annexed and contain in them (as logicians speak) oppositum in oppsito one opposition in another. He that says, a dead man or a painted lion, by saying more, says less than if he had said but a man, or a lion only, without any such additions; it is all one in effect as if he had said no man, no lion. For a dead man is not a man, neither is a painted lion a lion. Such are the additions of time, which [when] put to good or evil, express less then if nothing had been added.

He that says, happiness for a season, or sorrow for a time, says less than if he instead happiness or sorrow only: for perfect happiness or sorrow cannot be circumscribed in the narrow limits of time, no more than immensity in the points of a space. What is happiness that will expire, but misery at a distance? Or what is sorrow that endures only for a time, but an evil supported by hope? But add eternity to good or evil, it makes the good to be infinitely better and and the evil to be infinitely worse.

Can I then do less than wonder that men, who carry eternal souls in their bosoms, such as are kin to Seraphim’s, yea, advanced to the participation of the divine nature, that are the immediate subjects of endless well or bless, should yet so live, Ac fi esset omnis eternitatas, as if Eternity were a fable; as if they had neither God to serve nor souls to save? May I not say, Be astonished O heavens at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate as the Lord himself did at Israel’s folly?

What greater stupidity can there be, than this which most are guilty of, to busy themselves, like Martha, about perishing trifles, and to neglect the one thing which is necessary? To be thoughtful of things below, and seldom think of Heaven, till death summon them to leave Earth? To make salvation the by-work [incidental, unimportant task] of their lives, and fulfilling of the appetites of the flesh their chiefest task and care?

Were it not a strange thing if a man, who is to be judged on the morrow, and to receive the sentence either of a cruel death or of a rich and honorable estate, could not keep in mind the concernments of the next approaching day, without tying some scarlet thread up on his finger as a significant ceremony to remember him? Or the writing of some caveats up on the posts of the prison, which might hint on to him what danger his life is in?

Is it not more strange that the weighty matters of eternal life or eternal death should not by their own greatness press the heart of man unto a constant remembrance of them, especially when he knows not what a day may bring forth?

Can a miscarriage of such a person be other than dreadful, when their follies as well as their pains show makes them to gnash their teeth and to curse themselves for the neglect of that great salvation which has been often tendered them in the Gospel? When they shall feel everlastingly what they could never be persuaded for to fear? When they shall be convinced that at a far cheaper rate they might have been Saints in Heaven rather than salamanders in hell?

Oh that I could therefore awaken and excite all those whom the present enjoyments of the world serve as opium to cast them into a deep sleep and will happily be angry with those that seek to raise them out of it, though they keep them from perishing in it.

How can I do better then in St. Chyrsostom’s expressions to this purpose: suppose a man, says he, much desirous of sleep and in his perfect mind, had an offer made of one night sweet rest up on the condition to be punished 100 years for it, would he accept of his sleep up on such terms?

Now, do they (who would be loath to be reputed fools) do far worse, that for the short fruition of a transient delights, hazard a double eternity, the loss of an eternity of blessedness and the sustaining of an eternity of miseries? For what other proportion can all earthly things bear to heavenly, in respect of the duration, and a few beatings of the pulse or twinklings of the eye onto myriads of ages?

Be then timely wise ye wordings in a frequent consideration of your eternal being, that you may not pass away your life and a dream of happiness and awake in the horror of a begun eternity in misery. Say onto yourself, are we not in the world the child conceived is in the womb, not to abide there but to come out in a due time to a more full and free life?

Why then do we fondly think of building tabernacles here? Why do we so please ourselves in our present condition, as to be wholly regardless of our future? Is not death such a combat as we never entering to but once, and therein are either saved or slain eternally?

Do we think that our glory shall ascend after us and screen us from God’s fiery indignation? Will our riches purchase heaven or bribe hell? Will the first born of our body be accepted for this sin of our soul? What is it that makes our cares and fears so preposterous, are we anxious for tomorrow and thoughtless of eternity? We fear the grave and mock at hell, we dread the lightning, and slight the thunderbolt.

O methinks such pungent interrogations should startle the most secure if they would but put conscience up on an answer and not, like Pilate, only asked the question and then go their way. It is men’s living by sense that is the stone of stumbling upon which they ruin themselves: some surfeit and overcharge themselves with sensual delights, as that their intellectuals are wholly lost to all acts of reason; others who have jealousies concerning their future estates, are more willing to venture what the issue will be, then undergo an impartial trial; they fear more what sentence conscience will pass, and the condemnation that God will inflict.

Few there be that put time and eternity in the balance, and weigh them one against the other, or consider that life, is a vapor, a wind, a span, at most, which the further it is stretched, the more painful it is. And that eternity is a bottomless gulf which no line can fathom, no time can reach, no tongue can express. It is a duration always present, a being always in being, an everlasting now; it swallows up all revolution of ages, as Pharaoh’s lean kine did you eat up the fat, which when they had eaten them up, you could not be known that they had eaten them, but were still as at the beginning.

What strange thing can we imagine that in its duration would not be affected? A tear let fall from the damned once in 10,000 years would fill the earth with far more water than it was covered with in the Deluge. A dust taken from the mountains, and even parts of the world, were in that like intervals level of the universe [the slow accumulation of dust throughout the entire world would eventually fill in every canyon and ocean], and turn into a plain, and yet there would be still an eternity behind.

Never, never, is the killing word that breaks the heart of all these hopeless prisoners that library in the flames of hell. Suppositions and possibilities which I tremble to think of, if they might be but turned into promises on to them of the termination of their anguish and torment, O how would their hearts revive within them and how thankful he would they acknowledge God’s goodness onto them.

Oh glorious Lord, who art the Ancient of Days,
the Rock of Ages,
the Father of Eternity,
teach me to number my days that I may apply my heart unto true wisdom,
that I may walk in the way of life which is above to the wise,
and depart from hell beneath.

Upon the Motion of the Sun on a Dyall (The Spiritual Chymist

12 Thursday Jan 2017

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The previous post in this series from William Spurstowe’s 1666 book of meditation may be found here.

MEDITATION XXXVI

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It was the saying of one, who was none of the least of philosophers, to him that asked him what he was born for? That it was to contemplate the Sun: But though it not be the end of man’s breath, yet it may well be the object of his thoughts, in regard both of its beauty and motion.

Holy David takes notice of them both in the same Psalm, in which he compared the sun for its lusters to a bridegroom coming out of his chambers clothed in such shining array as may draw the eyes of spectators toward him. And for it swiftness to a strong champion, who runs his prescribed course, both speedily and unweariedly.

Tully in his Academical Questions, said, Tanta invitation fervor ut jus celeritous quanta fit ne cogitate quid posset. It is whirled about with that vehemency that the greatness of the sun’s speed cannot be easily imagined.

Is it not been a riddle, that at the same time when it travel thousands of miles in the heavens, it should make so slow motion and progress on the dial as to not move above the breath of an inch or two? To the quickest ey its motion is imperceptible, and so it moves, as we can only say at has moved, not that it does move.

Now from whence comes this inequality, but from the vast disproportion between the heavens and the earth, the one being but as a center or small prick to an immense circumference.

Oh how happy and regular also with the lives and actions of men be if after the same manner they were moved heavenly and earthly objects? To the one with the swiftness like that of the sun in the firmament: to the other with any insensibleness like to that of the Sun upon the dial. Surely such a disproportion does the differing worth and excellency between the one and the other just leave challenge in our pursuit of them.

Is it not meet that he who cast a single glance of his eyes to the creature, should bestow a thousand looks upon his Savior? And when he creeps to one as a snail, to fly to the other as the Eagle to the carcass. He alone moves to God as much as he ought, who moves to him as much as he can, and strives to repair the imperfection of that motion what the real dislike and regret of the slowness of his own heart to the best of goods.

If the rule by which man walk must be bounded or dilated according to the object to which they move, where shall we find that person that does proportions the outgoings of his soul and his care, desires, or industry? If the standard and measure of goodness should be taken, from the unwearidness of men’s travels, from the strength of their affections, or from the fixed bent of the resolutions to obtain what they desire to themselves as their end: who must not put the crown of blessedness up on the head of the creature which ought to be set at the foot of the Creator?

Who must not then conclude that it is better building tabernacles here and seeking a country which is above? Do not man contract their hearts to the things of Heaven and dilate them to what is below? Do they not run and pants to the very breathing out of their souls after perishing vanities, when they cannot be drawn to set one foot toward spiritual and divine excellencies? Do they not take the wings of the morning and fly to the utmost end of the earth in their musings and thoughts to find out riches that will not profit in the day of wrath? When their essays to heaven or as weak as the grasshoppers, who only give a small spurt upwards and then fall down to the earth again.

Oh that I could with plenty of tears bemoan that monstrous ataxia enter verse and his which sin has wrought in the most noble parts of man. Was not the agility of mind giving on to him by God, that he might have his conversation in heaven though his abode was on earth? And that he might entering to the holy of holy’s, not like the high priest wants year, but in every prayer in duty like a winged angel to behold the face of God, and to look into those things that are within the veil? But now alas! He can only, like the lapsed angel, compass the earth to and fro in his thoughts, and to send it as low in his lasts.

Oh my God, continually this sad change which sin has made in me, not so much destroying my faculties, as perverting them; I have not lost the use of them, but the rectitude of them. I am no more weary of sending, and a swift stream of running; the same weight of sin that hinders me from running the race which is set before me, hurry’s meeting to evil and makes me, through the impulses of St. an, to gather strength by an accessory impression. In the birth of sin I am like the Hebrew women, lively and quick of delivery; but in the bringing forth of whatever is good, like the slow Egyptian that needs the aid of the midwife.

I beg of thee holy Lord to heal my distress by thy grace,
And to renew me in the spirit of my mind
That I may run the way of thy commandments,
When thou hast enlarged my heart.

The Spiritual Chymist, Meditation XXXV: Upon a Prison

21 Wednesday Dec 2016

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Seneca has a saying, Precogitani mali mollie ictus, that the stroke of a forethought evil is more gentle and soft then if it were wholly unexpected; which suits well with St. Peter’s counsel to the scattered believers not to think of their fiery trial as if some strange and new thing happened to them. A wise suffer therefore must do is a wise builder, sit down first and count the cost, lest afterwards he exposed himself to shame and scorn. He must first view a prison in his mind before he enter it with his body, and thoroughly weight what it is he must forgo, and what he must undergo, or else he will soon, like Issachar, crouch under his burden and faint in the day of adversity, his strength and being small.

For the change with your prison makes is the greatest that can befall any, next to the grave, and is but a little short of it, if not equal onto it. Who can set down the several sad evils which attend it in distinct particulars? And who can sum them up into a total, that will not amount onto a death? Is not liberty, which every being naturally affects, turned into bondage? Is not the society of friends, which is the sauce, if not the food of life, changed into solitude? Is not light, whose approaches were anciently saluted with welcome like, industriously shut out to make both bonds in solitude the more irksome? Is not every cent offended with objects that are displeasing on to them? What does the eye behold but the face of the grim jailer? What does the touch feel and less it be hard fetters and cold walls? What is the smell affected with, unless it be a loathsome stench? What does the ear here, but the rattling of chains or the grounds of some for breathing out their last? What is the food that is tasted, unless it be the bread of adversity and the water of affliction?

And is it not then wonderful but such a condition is this, which is the very valley and shadow of death, should be passed through without any distracting fears, without heartbreaking sorrows, yea, with great rejoicing in such tribulations?

It is true, but some there be who, like sullen hawks, Live up on the frets and bear many of these things out of the stoutness of their stomach and their natural courage. But alas! this is not to suffer as a Christian, who does not suffer out of obstinacy, but out of conscience; who is not supported by his own inherent strength, but by the power of God, which puts forth itself and such glorious effects ofttimes as that it makes a greater change in the prison for the better, than ever the vilest prison can make in the prisoner for the worse.

Is it not the presence of the king that makes the court, left the house never be so mean where he resides? He that shall read in the book of the Revelations of the city or place that had no temple in it no sun or moon to shine in it, and then break off, which sooner conjecture that he was beginning the description of some forlorn place under the North Pole, then of the heavenly Jerusalem: but when he shall understand that God and the Lamb are the Temple of it, and the glory of God and the Lamb are the eternal light shining in it, he will then say, as an awakened Jacob, Surely this none other but the house of God and the place where himself dwelleth.

Such like thoughts must that man have other prison who knows no more of it than what it is an appearance, a place of bondage, solitude, darkness, and sore wants. But he who has an this condition wants experienced the presence of God in it, how differently will he speak of it? Have not many saints when shut up in a dungeon dated their letters to their friends from their palace, their delectable orchard, from their delicious Paradise? Have they not in their solitude been ravished by the sweetness of the communion they have had with God, who alone has been better than 1000 friends? Have they not been filled with hidden manna in their souls, when their bodies have been pinched with the sharpness of famine? Have they not in the midst of their conflicts cried out, If it be thus sweet to suffer for Christ, how full of joy unspeakable will be to reign with him?

May I not say to the timorous Christian as God did once to Israel, Fear not to go down into Egypt, for I will go down with thee into Egypt, and I will surely bring thee up again. Fear not to go into a prison in which God will be with you, and out of which he will deliver you with joy and triumph. It matters not what your pressures be if God put under his everlasting arms, or who your enemies be if he be your friend: or what your comfort speak if he be your comforter.

And this I may add that commonly in the greatest straits he shows the greatest love, as waters run strongest and the narrowest passages.

As the sufferings of Christ (saith Paul) abound in us,
so our consolation aboundeth by Christ.
O therefore say as David did,
Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death
I will fear none evil;
for thou art with me,
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

The previous post from this book meditations by William Spurstowe, published in 1666 may be found here

Marcus Aurelius, End of Book One, 17.8-9

16 Friday Dec 2016

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Whenever I was inclined to help someone in poverty or any other need, I never heard that there was no money from which I could supply the need; yet it never fell out that I needed to receive something like that from another person.

That my wife was so quick to listen, so affectionate, so unaffected!

There were always enough tutors for my children to thrive.

That by means of dreams it was given the aid to not spit blood nor suffer vertigo; and that in Caieta: “just as needed.”

And that once I desired philosophy, I did not fall into the hands of any sophist, nor sit with the authors, nor untie syllogisms, nor concern myself with meteorology. Fro all these things need the gods help and good luck.

Among the Quadi at the Granua.

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Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 17.7

14 Wednesday Dec 2016

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These are some additional benefits which Marcus Aurelius counted as having received from the gods: the strength of his body; two instances of controlling his behavior; spending time with his mother.

That my body prevailed against such a life as this.

That I did not touch Benedicta or Theodotus: but when erotic passion happened, I returned to health.

While Rusticus repeatedly irritated me, I did nothing for which I would later repent.

It came about that the one who gave me birth, died young; nevertheless she lived with me during her final years.

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