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Thomas Traherne – Centuries of Meditations

It is not by going with the feet, but by journeys of the soul, that we travel thither.  By withdrawing our thoughts from wandering in the streets of this world, to contemplation and serious meditation… as fishes are drawn out of the water, as Jeremy was drawn out of the dungeon, as St Peters Sheet was drawn up into heaven, so shall we be drawn. But by what cords?  The cords of a man and the cords of love………………

We see the sky with our eyes and know the world with our senses.  But had we no eyes, nor senses, we should see infinity like the Holy Angels. 

The place wherein the world standeth, were it all annihilated, would still remain, the endless extent of which we feel so really and palpably, that we do not more certainly know the distinctions and figures, and bounds and distances of what we see, than the everlasting expansion of what we feel and behold within us. 

It is an object infinitely great and ravishing; as full of treasures as full of room and as fraught with joy as capacity.  To blind men it seemeth dark, but it is all glorious within, as infinite in light and beauty as extent and treasure

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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 God