¹ T. O. Beachcroft, “Traherne and the Cambridge Platonists,” Dublin Review, clxxxvi (1930), 290.

² In his Commonplace Book (Bodl. MS. Eng. poet. c. 42, s.v. “Cohaesion,” “Deitie,” and “Omnipresence,” foil. 26^v.2, 33.2-33^v.2, and 71^v.2-72.1) Traherne copied from More's Divine Dialogues (London, 1668), Dialogue 1, pp. 32, 66-67, 88-90, 93, 104-108, 112, 119, 132-133, and 157-160. On the basis of a quotation by Gladys Wade in her Thomas Traherne, Frances L. Colby divined that “Cohaesion” (fol. 26^v.2) was from the Dialogues, but she did not have access to Traherne's MS and did not know the extent of the borrowing (“Thomas Traherne and Henry More,” MLN, lxii, 1947, 490–492). On the Commonplace Book, cited hereafter as CB, see Carol L. Marks, “Thomas Traherne's Commonplace Book,” PBSA lviii (1964), 458-465.

³ More, “Psychathanasia,” i.i.18, in Complete Poems, ed. Alexander B. Grosart (Edinburgh, 1878), p. 45.

⁴ Gilbert Burnet, History of My Own Time, ed. Osmund Airy, i (Oxford, 1897), 331. “Mathematicks and the new philosophy were in great esteem” at Oxford, Burnet remarks (i, 342); but it is clear from his other comments that the old forms of thought still prevailed.

⁵ History, i, 330-331.

⁶ The Seventeenth Century Background (London, 1934), p. 138.

⁷ Curtis, Oxford and. Cambridge in Transition, 1558–1640 (Oxford, 1959), p. 222; Stewart, “Cambridge Platonists,” Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, ed. James Hastings, in (Edinburgh and New York, 1910), 168. Frederick J. Powicke notes that Valentine Cary “taught Arminianism” as Master of Christ's from 1609 to 1620 (The Cambridge Platonists, Cambridge, Mass., 1926, p. 5).

⁸ A Supplement to Burnet's History of My Own Time, ed. H. C. Foxcroft (Oxford, 1902), p. 464. On the Whichcote-Tuckney correspondence, see John Tulloch, Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh and London, 1874), ii, 59-80.

⁹ London, 1662, pp. 11-13. “S. P.” is usually identified as Simon Patrick.

¹⁰ Ibid., pp. 10, 14. Prov. xx.27 (“The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord”) was quoted frequently by Whichcote and used by Culverwel as the text for his only scholarly treatise, his Discourse of the Light of Nature. In the Church's Year-Book (hereafter cited as CYB), Traherne prays: “O H. Spirit … be Thou the Candle of the Lord shining in me that must never go out” (Bodl. MS. Eng. th. e. 51, fol. 50). See Carol L. Marks, “Traherne's Church's Year-Book,” PBSA, lx (1966), 31-72.

¹¹ Seventeenth Century Background, p. 134.

¹² Introd. to Henry More, Philosophical Poems (Manchester, 1931), p. xvii. See R. M. Ogilvie, Latin and Greek: A History of the Influence of the Classics on English Life from 1600 to 1918 (London, 1964), p. 16.

¹³ Thomas Baker's MS notes on Emmanuel College, quoted in Vivian de Sola Pinto, Peter Sterry (Cambridge, Eng., 1934), p. 10.

¹⁴ Letters on Several Subjects, ed. Edmund Elys (London, 1694), p. 27.

¹⁵ Two Choke and Useful Treatises: The One Lux Orientalis … (London, 1682), sig. B8.

¹⁶ Pinto, Sterry, p. 56. On the Ficinan view of heathen illuminali see P. O. Kristelier, The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, tr. Virginia Conant (New York, 1943), p. 15; Raymond Marcel, Marsile Ficin (Paris, 1958), pp. 603, 605; and Gunnar Aspelin, “Ralph Cudworth's Interpretation of Greek Philosophy,” tr. Martin S. Allwood, Göteborgs Högskolas Årsskrift, xlix (1943), 32-45.

¹⁷ Traherne did not use the first ed. (1650) of Everard's translation; see Marks, PBSA, lviii, 464, n. 12. He had read Hermes before be used Everard's version in CB, as the Ficino Notebook indicates. In his Centuries (C iv. 74-81) Traherne quoted sections from Pico della Mirandola's De dignitate hominis which in turn quoted Hermes (Centuries, Poems and Thanksgivings, ed. H. M. Margoliouth, 2 vols., Oxford, 1958). All quotations from Traherne's Centuries and poems are from this edition, Margoliouth's Introduction and the Centuries from Vol. i, and the poetical works from Vol. ii. References to the Centuries (C) use Roman numerals for the century, Arabic for the meditation. References to the poems consist of title, volume, and page (e.g., “Silence,” ii, 44).

¹⁸ Christian Ethicks (London, 1675), Ch. xxviii, sig. 2H5 (hereafter abbreviated CE). Traherne quotes Hermes on sigs. 2H5–2H7, 2H8.

¹⁹ CB, s.v. “Generation,” foil. 48b^v.2, 49. It is possible that these remarks by Traherne are copied from another (unknown) source. On these and related matters, see Carol L. Marks, “Thomas Traherne and Hermes Trismegistus,” RN, xix (1966), 118-131.

²⁰ A Discourse of the Freedom of the Will (London, 1675), p. 49. This is more graceful than Gale's account of the theory of ideas which Traherne copied in CB (fol. 55, s.v. “Idea”; Gale, The Court of the Gentiles, Part ii, Oxford, 1670, p. 181).

²¹ The Rise, Race, and Royalty of the Kingdom of God in the Soul of Man (London, 1683), p. 5.

²² Works (Aberdeen, 1751), i, Discourse xv, 251. This view was shared by the other Platonists; see D. P. Walker, The Decline of Hell: Seventeenth-Century Discussions of Eternal Torment (London, 1964), p. 150. Note that in CB, s.v. “Freedom” and “Libertie” (foil. 46^v.2, 62^v.1–2), Traherne copied a number of passages from Jackson's Arminian assertion of free will, all congruous with his own views.

²³ “Psychathanasia,” iii.iv.22, in Poems, ed. Grosart, p. 85.

²⁴ Discourse, p. 136.

²⁵ Ibid., p. 61, sig. c2^v, p. 114.

²⁶ More, Divine Dialogues … The Three First Dialogues (London, 1668), Dialogue 2, p. 298.

²⁷ Culverwel, An Elegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature, With Several Other Treatises, ed. William Dillingham (London, 1652), p. 54.

²⁸ Court of the Gentiles, ii, 293; quoted CR, s.v. “Reason,” fol. 82^v.1, and perhaps the passage Traherne referred to in a note s.v. “Light,” fol. 64.1: “The Light of Nature, vid. Reason.”

²⁹ Light of Nature, p. 55.

³⁰ Norman Sykes, From Sheldon to Secker (Cambridge, Eng., 1959), p. 162.

³¹ John Smith, “The Excellency and Nobleness of True Religion,” Select Discourses, ed. John Worthington (London, 1660), p. 383.

³² Works, i, Discourse xxiii, 370. To understand the orthodox distress, one must realize how new was the Platonists' assertion of reason; see Ernst Cassirer, The Platonic Renaissance in England, tr. James P. Pettegrove (Austin, Tex., 1953), pp. 38-41.

³³ Divine Dialogues … The Two Last Dialogues (London, 1668), Dialogue 5, p. 403.

³⁴ Smith, “The Existence and Nature of God,” Discourses, p. 138.

³⁵ More, A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings (London, 1662), p. viii.

³⁶ Works, i, Discourse ix, 151, 149.

³⁷ G. R. Cragg, From Puritanism to the Age of Reason (Cambridge, Eng., 1950), pp. 42-43.

³⁸ Whichcote, Works, i, Discourse xvii, 280; i, Discourse xxii, 355; ii, Discourse xxx, 82.

³⁹ Smith, “The True Way or Method of Attaining to Divine Knowledge,” Discourses, p. 2.

⁴⁰ Light of Nature, p. 85. See Sykes's acute analysis of the problem of natural religion (From Sheldon to Secker, pp. 158-161).

⁴¹ On the admittedly slender evidence of imagery, scattered references in the Centuries, and the scientific jottings in CB, s.v. “Cold,” fol. 27.1.

⁴² P. 24.

⁴³ Cragg, From Puritanism, p. 53.

⁴⁴ “Anti-fanatical Religion and Free Philosophy,” Essay 7 in Essays on Several Important Subjects in Philosophy and Religion (London, 1676), p. 9. This essay provides an apologia for the Cambridge men by way of a continuation of Bacon's New Atlantis.

⁴⁵ Sprat, History of the Royal Society, ed. and introd. Jackson I. Cope and Harold Whitmore Jones (St. Louis, Mo., and London, 1959), p. 33.

⁴⁶ More, Divine Dialogues, Dialogue 2, p. 279.

⁴⁷ Culverwei, “Spiritual Opticks,” printed with Light of Nature (separate pagination), p. 188.

⁴⁸ “Excellency of Religion,” Discourses, p. 434.

⁴⁹ Jackson, Divine Essence … The First Part, p. 191; quoted CB, s.v. “Libertie,” fol. 62^v.1.

⁵⁰ Sterry, Discourse, p. 102 (mispaginated “100”).

⁵¹ MS essay “Of the Nature of a Spirit,” quoted in Pinto, Sterry, pp. 161-162.

⁵² The Breaking of the Circle, rev. ed. (New York, 1960), p. 197.

⁵³ Antidote against Atheism, in Collection, p. 16.

⁵⁴ Nicolson, Circle, p. 163 (speaking of More); on Traherne, see p. 201.

⁵⁵ Rise, Race, and Royalty, p. 24.

⁵⁶ Nicolson, Circle, p. 201. On infinity and capacity in Traherne's thought, see Ellrodt, Les Poètes mélaphysiques anglais, ii, 334-343, 371-372.

⁵⁷ “Psychathanasia,” ii.iii.28, in Poems, ed. Grosart, p. 65.

⁵⁸ “The Worth of Souls,” printed with Light of Nature (separate pagination), p. 201.

⁵⁹ Hermes Trismegistus, His Divine Pymander, in Seventeen Books. Together with his Second Book Called Asclepius …, tr. John Everard (London, 1657), iv.89; quoted by Traherne, CE, Ch. xxviii, sig. 2H5; CB, s.v. “Man,” fol. 65.1.

⁶⁰ Pymander, vii.47, x.120, 122, 124; quoted CE, Ch. xxviii, sigs. 2H6-2H6^V; CB, s.v. “Capacity,” fol. 23^v.1. Cf. passages quoted in Marks, “Traherne's Church's YearBook,” pp. 68-69.

⁶¹ CB, fol. 33.2. Traherne is here quoting and paraphrasing from More's Divine Dialogues, pp. 108, 112. More's description of space in his Enchiridion Metaphysicum (1671) coincides with Traherne's in CB (see Cassirer, Platonic Renaissance, pp. 149-150). The remaining quotations from CB given below are from foil. 33.2 and 33^v.1-2. Cf. CYB, fol. 37^v, where Traherne speaks of human souls, “whose Materials are not Dead & Empty Space, but Life & Understanding Honor & Affection.”

⁶² Divine Dialogues, p. 88; Traherne quoted this on fol. 33.2; now it reappears on fol. 33^v.1.

⁶³ Glanvill, Two … Treatises … Lux Orienlalis, pp. 116-117. Cf. Sterry's Preface to his Discourse, sig. c4: divine love contains “all Variety Originally in it self, sending forth from it self, and diffusing it self through all!” Pinto, Sterry, pp. 90-91, says that this “Unity in Diversity [is] the great principle that pervades the whole of Sterry's theology.”

⁶⁴ [George Rust], A Letter of Resolution Concerning Origen and the Chief of his Opinions, ed. Marjorie Hope Nicolson (New York, 1933), p. 46. On the attribution of the Letter to Rust, see Walker, Decline of Hell, pp. 125-126.

⁶⁵ “Excellency of Religion,” Discourses, p. 431.

⁶⁶ Discourse, sig. c4^v, pp. 118, 119. On Sterry, see Walker, Decline of Hell, pp. 104-121; and on this “abominable fancy,” Walker, pp. 29-32. Pinto traces Sterry's idea of “Contrariety” back to the Jewish Cabbala (Sterry, p. 107).

⁶⁷ Decline of Hell, pp. 3-8, 69. The heretical “denial of eternal torment” which appeared during the Commonwealth was a product of Cromwell's religious tolerations (Walker, p. 104).

⁶⁸ “Excellency of Religion,” Discourses, pp. 446-447.

⁶⁹ Whichcote, Works, ii, Discourse xxxvi, 157. Cf. Walker, pp. 68-69.

⁷⁰ Ralph Cudworth, A Sermon Preached to the Honourable Society of Lincolnes-Inne (London, 1664), p. 34.

⁷¹ Sterry, Rise, Race, and Royalty, p. 320.

⁷² In CB, s.v. “Desire,” fol. 34^v.1, Traherne copied some passages from Jackson's Treatise Containing the Originall of Unbeliefe (London, 1625), pp. 456-458, 462, 464, which express sentiments similar to his own.

⁷³ “A Christians Conflicts,” Discourses, p. 470; cf. pp. 136-137, 420, 445.

⁷⁴ “Anti-fanatical Religion,” Essays, p. 21.

⁷⁵ The A pology …, suffixed to A Modest Enquiry into the Mystery of Iniquity (London, 1664), p. 533.

⁷⁶ An Account of the Nature and Extent of the Divine Dominion & Goodnesse (Oxford, 1666), pp. 27-28.

⁷⁷ The Appearance of God to Man in the Gospel, and the Gospel Change (London, 1710), pp. 207-208. The belief that love is God's main attribute was “a most unusual view” in this period, Walker notes in his discussion of Sterry (Decline of Hell, p. 110).

⁷⁸ See, for example, CE, Ch. xxvi, sigs. 2F3^V-2F4, and the poems “Shadows in the Water” and “On Leaping over the Moon,” ii, 127–132. Cf. Rosalie L. Colie: “Traherne was among the last serious thinkers to value paradox and to rely on it, in fact to force the fulcrum of his thought to rest upon its delicate balance” (“Thomas Traherne and the Infinite,” HLQ, xxi, 1957, 77).

⁷⁹ Rise, Race, and Royalty, p. 141; Sterry repeats this point, p. 240. Pinto discusses Sterry's imagery on pp. 70-78, mentioning Plato and Plotinus as sources on p. 77. Angela Russell compares Traherne's and Sterry's imagery in her Oxford B.Litt. thesis, “A Study of Thomas Traherne's Christian Ethicks” (1952), pp. 146-147.

⁸⁰ Traherne, CB, s.v. “Silence,” fol. 88.1; the remark was apparently provoked by a quotation from Gale just copied by Traherne.

⁸¹ Discourse, pp. 151,22-23.

⁸² CE, Ch. xxx, sigs. 2K5, 2K5^v. Cf. Sterry, Discourse, sig. d2, p. 95; and his The Comings Forth of Christ (London, 1650), p. 18: “When Two Lutes are rightly tuned one to another; touch a String upon One Lute, and the same String upon the other Lute will answer it with a like Sound. Iesus Christ, and a Saint are thus tuned by mutuall Love, each to other.”

⁸³ Rise, Race, and Royalty, pp. 268-269.

⁸⁴ The Clouds in Which Christ Comes (London, 1648), p. 25. It would distort Sterry's philosophy to deny him appreciation of the natural world. In fact he comes close to Traherne in describing how the spiritual eye should perceive nature (see Pinto, Sterry, p. 195), and “for him as for Traherne the visible universe was invested with a perennial splendour” (Pinto, p. 115).