Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Plates
- Dedication
- General Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Church's Year-Book, Meditations and Devotions from the Resurrection to All Saints' Day
- A Serious and Pathetical Contemplation of the Mercies of God, in Several Most Devout and Sublime Thanksgivings for the same.
- A Letter Concerning this Book from the Publisher to the Bookseller
- To the Reader
- Some Books of Devotion ; Printed for Samuel Keble at the Turks-head in Fleet-street
- Thanksgivings for the Body
- Thanksgivings for the Soul
- Thanksgivings for the Glory of God's Works
- Thanksgivings for the Blessedness of God's Ways
- A Key to the Gate
- Thanksgivings for the Blessedness of his Laws
- Thanksgivings for the Beauty of his Providence
- Thanksgivings for the Wisdom of his WORD
- Appendix to the former Thanksgiving
- Thanksgivings for God's Attributes
- A Thanksgiving and Prayer for the NATION
- Textual Emendations and Notes
- Appendix
- Glossary
Thanksgivings for the Wisdom of his WORD
from A Serious and Pathetical Contemplation of the Mercies of God, in Several Most Devout and Sublime Thanksgivings for the same.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2016
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Plates
- Dedication
- General Preface
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Church's Year-Book, Meditations and Devotions from the Resurrection to All Saints' Day
- A Serious and Pathetical Contemplation of the Mercies of God, in Several Most Devout and Sublime Thanksgivings for the same.
- A Letter Concerning this Book from the Publisher to the Bookseller
- To the Reader
- Some Books of Devotion ; Printed for Samuel Keble at the Turks-head in Fleet-street
- Thanksgivings for the Body
- Thanksgivings for the Soul
- Thanksgivings for the Glory of God's Works
- Thanksgivings for the Blessedness of God's Ways
- A Key to the Gate
- Thanksgivings for the Blessedness of his Laws
- Thanksgivings for the Beauty of his Providence
- Thanksgivings for the Wisdom of his WORD
- Appendix to the former Thanksgiving
- Thanksgivings for God's Attributes
- A Thanksgiving and Prayer for the NATION
- Textual Emendations and Notes
- Appendix
- Glossary
Summary
The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand and seek God.
They are all gone aside, they are altogether become filthy, there is none that doth good, no not one. Ps. 14. 2, 3.
They know not, neither will they understand ; they walk on in darkness : All the foundations of the earth are out of course. Ps. 82. 5.
O Lord, thy word testifieth
What my experience seeth,
That the Sons of Men
Err in their hearts,
From thy holy Ways.
The Glory of thy Kingdom they cannot see;
The Blessedness of their Estate
None will regard ;
Nor behold the Brightness of
Thine eternal Treasures ;
Nor how near they are to
Thine eternal Love.
The glory of the Earth, is
Stained by Sin
Oppressed with Tares,
Spoiled with Briars and cursed Thorns,
Wherein according to the course of this World, according to the Prince of the Power of the Air, the Spirit that now worketh in the Children of Disobedience,
They all walk
In the Lusts of the Flesh,
In the vanity of the Mind,
Having the Understanding darkned,
Being alienated from the life of God,
Through the ignorance that is in them. Eph. 4. 17. 18.
With one consent they wander up and down,
To polluted streams,
And will not refresh their Soul,
With living Waters.
The riches of thy bounty,
Which with infinite liberality, Thou freely givest,
They disregard.
By that means turning the world into a desart Wilderness,
Of Owls and Dragons,
That thirst after happiness,
They know not what ;
Seek it they know not where ;
Find it no where.
They seek it in Gold, not in Thee ;
In Silver, In Apparel,
In Feasts, In Houses.
But in the high Estate, to which already they are by thee exalted, they find no pleasure.
The freedom of thy Love hideth it from their Eyes.
The Truth and Commonness of thy Glorious Works,
They cannot see.
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- Information
- The Works of Thomas Traherne<I>Church's Year-Book</I>, <I>A Serious and athetical Contemplation of the Mercies of GOD</I>, [<I>Meditations on the Six Days of the Creation</I>], pp. 400 - 410Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2009