Source: Project Gutenberg #23772; Internet Archive donnessermons00donn
Source URL: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/23772 ; https://archive.org/details/donnessermons00donn
Public domain basis: Public-domain seventeenth-century Donne texts; Donne's Sermons: Selected Passages, ed. Logan Pearsall Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1919), published before 1931.
Coverage: Partial: complete Devotions upon Emergent Occasions and Death's Duel (Gutenberg #23772), plus the 1919 Logan Pearsall Smith selection of passages from the sermons (Internet Archive OCR). Full sermons beyond Death's Duel are represented by excerpts only.


# Devotions upon Emergent Occasions; Together with Death's Duel

Produced by Stacy Brown, John Hagerson, Juliet Sutherland
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net


JOHN DONNE


DEVOTIONS

UPON EMERGENT OCCASIONS


_Together with_

DEATH'S DUEL


ANN ARBOR PAPERBACKS

_The University of Michigan Press_


First edition as an

ANN ARBOR PAPERBACK 1959

Published in the United States of America by the University of Michigan
and simultaneously in Toronto, Canada, by Ambassador Books, Ltd.


Manufactured in the United States of America


CONTENTS


THE LIFE OF DR. JOHN DONNE     v

DEVOTIONS                      1

DEATH'S DUEL                 161


_THE LIFE OF DR. JOHN DONNE_

(_Taken from the life by Izaak Walton_).


Master John Donne was born in London, in the year 1573, of good and
virtuous parents: and, though his own learning and other multiplied
merits may justly appear sufficient to dignify both himself and his
posterity, yet the reader may be pleased to know that his father was
masculinely and lineally descended from a very ancient family in Wales,
where many of his name now live, that deserve and have great reputation
in that country.

By his mother he was descended of the family of the famous and learned
Sir Thomas More, sometime Lord Chancellor of England: as also, from that
worthy and laborious Judge Rastall, who left posterity the vast Statutes
of the Law of this nation most exactly abridged.

He had his first breeding in his father's house, where a private tutor
had the care of him, until the tenth year of his age; and, in his
eleventh year, was sent to the University of Oxford, having at that time
a good command both of the French and Latin tongue. This, and some other
of his remarkable abilities, made one then give this censure of him:
That this age had brought forth another Picus Mirandula; of whom story
says, that he was rather born than made wise by study.

There he remained for some years in Hart Hall, having, for the
advancement of his studies, tutors of several sciences to attend and
instruct him, till time made him capable, and his learning expressed in
public exercises, declared him worthy, to receive his first degree in
the schools, which he forbore by advice from his friends, who, being for
their religion of the Romish persuasion, were conscionably averse to
some parts of the oath that is always tendered at those times, and not
to be refused by those that expect the titulary honour of their studies.

About the fourteenth year of his age he was transplanted from Oxford to
Cambridge, where, that he might receive nourishment from both soils, he
staid till his seventeenth year; all which time he was a most laborious
student, often changing his studies, but endeavouring to take no degree,
for the reasons formerly mentioned.

About the seventeenth year of his age he was removed to London, and then
admitted into Lincoln's Inn, with an intent to study the law, where he
gave great testimonies of his wit, his learning, and of his improvement
in that profession; which never served him for other use than an
ornament and self-satisfaction.

His father died before his admission into this society; and, being a
merchant, left him his portion in money. (It was £3,000.) His mother,
and those to whose care he was committed, were watchful to improve his
knowledge, and to that end appointed him tutors both in the mathematics,
and in all the other liberal sciences, to attend him. But, with these
arts, they were advised to instil into him particular principles of the
Romish Church; of which those tutors professed, though secretly,
themselves to be members.

They had almost obliged him to their faith; having for their advantage,
besides many opportunities, the example of his dear and pious parents,
which was a most powerful persuasion, and did work much upon him, as he
professeth in his preface to his "Pseudo-Martyr," a book of which the
reader shall have some account in what follows.

He was now entered into the eighteenth year of his age; and at that time
had betrothed himself to no religion that might give him any other
denomination than a Christian. And reason and piety had both persuaded
him that there could be no such sin as schism, if an adherence to some
visible Church were not necessary.

About the nineteenth year of his age, he, being then unresolved what
religion to adhere to, and considering how much it concerned his soul to
choose the most orthodox, did therefore,--though his youth and health
promised him a long life--to rectify all scruples that might concern
that, presently lay aside all study of the law, and of all other
sciences that might give him a denomination; and began seriously to
survey and consider the body of Divinity, as it was then controverted
betwixt the Reformed and the Roman Church. And, as God's blessed
Spirit did then awaken him to the search, and in that industry
did never forsake him--they be his own words (in his preface to
"Pseudo-Martyr")--so he calls the same Holy Spirit to witness this
protestation; that in that disquisition and search he proceeded with
humility and diffidence in himself; and by that which he took to be the
safest way; namely, frequent prayers, and an indifferent affection to
both parties; and, indeed, Truth had too much light about her to be hid
from so sharp an inquirer; and he had too much ingenuity not to
acknowledge he had found her.

Being to undertake this search, he believed the Cardinal Bellarmine to
be the best defender of the Roman cause, and therefore betook himself to
the examination of his reasons. The cause was weighty, and wilful delays
had been inexcusable both towards God and his own conscience: he
therefore proceeded in this search with all moderate haste, and about
the twentieth year of his age did show the then Dean of
Gloucester--whose name my memory hath now lost--all the Cardinal's works
marked with many weighty observations under his own hand; which works
were bequeathed by him, at his death, as a legacy to a most dear friend.

About a year following he resolved to travel: and the Earl of Essex
going first to Cales, and after the Island voyages, the first anno 1596,
the second 1597, he took the advantage of those opportunities, waited
upon his Lordship, and was an eye-witness of those happy and unhappy
employments.

But he returned not back into England till he had staid some years,
first in Italy and then in Spain, where he made many useful observations
of those countries, their laws and manner of government, and returned
perfect in their languages.

The time that he spent in Spain was, at his first going into Italy,
designed for travelling to the Holy Land, and for viewing Jerusalem and
the Sepulchre of our Saviour. But at his being in the furthest parts of
Italy, the disappointment of company, or of a safe convoy, or the
uncertainty of returns of money into those remote parts, denied him
that happiness, which he did often occasionally mention with a
deploration.

Not long after his return into England, that exemplary pattern of
gravity and wisdom, the Lord Ellesmere, then Keeper of the Great Seal,
the Lord Chancellor of England, taking notice of his learning,
languages, and other abilities, and much affecting his person and
behaviour, took him to be his chief secretary; supposing and intending
it to be an introduction to some more weighty employment in the State;
for which, his Lordship did often protest, he thought him very fit.

Nor did his Lordship, in this time of Master Donne's attendance upon
him, account him to be so much his servant as to forget he was his
friend; and, to testify it, did always use him with much courtesy,
appointing him a place at his own table, to which he esteemed his
company and discourse to be a great ornament.

He continued that employment for the space of five years, being daily
useful, and not mercenary to his friend. During which time he--I dare
not say unhappily--fell into such a liking, as,--with her
approbation,--increased into a love, with a young gentlewoman that lived
in that family, who was niece to the Lady Ellesmere, and daughter to Sir
George More, then Chancellor of the Garter and Lieutenant of the Tower.

Sir George had some intimation of it, and, knowing prevention to be a
great part of wisdom, did therefore remove her with much haste from that
to his own house at Lothesley, in the County of Surrey; but too late, by
reason of some faithful promises which were so interchangeably passed,
as never to be violated by either party.

These promises were only known to themselves; and the friends of both
parties used much diligence, and many arguments, to kill or cool their
affections to each other; but in vain, for love is a flattering mischief
that hath denied aged and wise men a foresight of those evils that too
often prove to be the children of that blind father; a passion that
carries us to commit errors with as much ease as whirlwinds move
feathers, and begets in us an unwearied industry to the attainment of
what we desire. And such an industry did, notwithstanding much
watchfulness against it, bring them secretly together,--I forbear to
tell the manner how,--and at last to a marriage too, without the
allowance of those friends whose approbation always was, and ever will
be necessary, to make even a virtuous love become lawful.

And that the knowledge of their marriage might not fall, like an
unexpected tempest, on those that were unwilling to have it so; and that
pre-apprehensions might make it the less enormous when it was known, it
was purposely whispered into the ears of many that it was so, yet by
none that could affirm it. But, to put a period to the jealousies of Sir
George--doubt often begetting more restless thoughts than the certain
knowledge of what we fear--the news was, in favour to Mr. Donne, and
with his allowance, made known to Sir George, by his honourable friend
and neighbour Henry, Earl of Northumberland; but it was to Sir George so
immeasurably unwelcome, and so transported him that, as though his
passion of anger and inconsideration might exceed theirs of love and
error, he presently engaged his sister, the Lady Ellesmere, to join with
him to procure her lord to discharge Mr. Donne of the place he held
under his Lordship. This request was followed with violence; and though
Sir George were remembered that errors might be over punished, and
desired therefore to forbear till second considerations might clear some
scruples, yet he became restless until his suit was granted and the
punishment executed. And though the Lord Chancellor did not, at Mr.
Donne's dismission, give him such a commendation as the great Emperor
Charles the Fifth did of his Secretary Eraso, when he parted with him to
his son and successor, Philip the Second, saying, "That in his Eraso, he
gave to him a greater gift than all his estate, and all the kingdoms
which he then resigned to him;" yet the Lord Chancellor said, "He parted
with a friend, and such a Secretary as was fitter to serve a king than a
subject."

Immediately after his dismission from his service, he sent a sad letter
to his wife to acquaint her with it; and after the subscription of his
name, writ,

    "John Donne, Anne Donne, Un-done;"

and God knows it proved too true; for this bitter physic of Mr. Donne's
dismission, was not enough to purge out all Sir George's choler, for he
was not satisfied till Mr. Donne and his sometime compupil in Cambridge,
that married him, namely, Samuel Brooke, who was after Doctor in
Divinity and Master of Trinity College--and his brother Mr. Christopher
Brooke, sometime Mr. Donne's chamber-fellow in Lincoln's Inn, who gave
Mr. Donne his wife, and witnessed the marriage, were all committed to
three several prisons.

Mr. Donne was first enlarged, who neither gave rest to his body or
brain, nor to any friend in whom he might hope to have an interest,
until he had procured an enlargement for his two imprisoned friends.

He was now at liberty, but his days were still cloudy; and, being past
these troubles, others did still multiply upon him; for his wife was--to
her extreme sorrow--detained from him; and though, with Jacob, he
endured not a hard service for her, yet he lost a good one, and was
forced to make good his title, and to get possession of her by a long
and restless suit in law, which proved troublesome and sadly chargeable
to him, whose youth, and travel, and needless bounty, had brought his
estate into a narrow compass.

It is observed, and most truly, that silence and submission are charming
qualities, and work most upon passionate men; and it proved so with Sir
George; for these, and a general report of Mr. Donne's merits, together
with his winning behaviour,--which, when it would entice, had a strange
kind of elegant irresistible art;--these, and time, had so
dispassionated Sir George, that, as the world had approved his
daughter's choice, so he also could not but see a more than ordinary
merit in his new son; and this at last melted him into so much
remorse--for love and anger are so like agues as to have hot and cold
fits; and love in parents, though it may be quenched, yet is easily
rekindled, and expires not till death denies mankind a natural
heat--that he laboured his son's restoration to his place; using to that
end both his own and his sister's power to her lord; but with no
success; for his answer was, "That though he was unfeignedly sorry for
what he had done, yet it was inconsistent with his place and credit, to
discharge and readmit servants at the request of passionate
petitioners."

Sir George's endeavour for Mr. Donne's readmission was by all means to
be kept secret:--for men do more naturally reluct for errors than submit
to put on those blemishes that attend their visible acknowledgment. But,
however, it was not long before Sir George appeared to be so far
reconciled as to wish their happiness, and not to deny them his paternal
blessing, but yet refused to contribute any means that might conduce to
their livelihood.

Mr. Donne's estate was the greatest part spent in many and chargeable
travels, books, and dear-bought experience: he out of all employment
that might yield a support for himself and wife, who had been curiously
and plentifully educated; both their natures generous, and accustomed to
confer, and not to receive, courtesies, these and other considerations,
but chiefly that his wife was to bear a part in his sufferings,
surrounded him with many sad thoughts, and some apparent apprehensions
of want.

But his sorrows were lessened and his wants prevented by the seasonable
courtesy of their noble kinsman, Sir Francis Wolly, of Pirford in
Surrey, who intreated them to a cohabitation with him; where they
remained with much freedom to themselves, and equal content to Him, for
some years; and as their charge increased--she had yearly a child--so
did his love and bounty.

Mr. Donne and his wife continued with Sir Francis Wolly till his death:
a little before which time Sir Francis was so happy as to make a perfect
reconciliation between Sir George and his forsaken son and daughter; Sir
George conditioning, by bond, to pay to Mr. Donne 800_l._ at a certain
day, as a portion with his wife, or 20_l._ quarterly for their
maintenance, as the interest for it, till the said portion was paid.

Most of those years that he lived with Sir Francis he studied the Civil
and Canon Laws; in which he acquired such a perfection, as was judged to
hold proportion with many, who had made that study the employment of
their whole life.

Sir Francis being dead, and that happy family dissolved, Mr. Donne took
for himself a house in Mitcham--near to Croydon in Surrey--a place noted
for good air and choice company: there his wife and children remained;
and for himself he took lodgings in London, near to Whitehall, whither
his friends and occasions drew him very often, and where he was as often
visited by many of the nobility and others of this nation, who used him
in their counsels of greatest consideration, and with some rewards for
his better subsistence.

Nor did our own nobility only value and favour him, but his acquaintance
and friendship was sought for by most Ambassadors of foreign nations,
and by many other strangers whose learning or business occasioned their
stay in this nation.

Thus it continued with him for about two years, all which time his
family remained constantly at Mitcham; and to which place he often
retired himself, and destined some days to a constant study of some
points of controversy betwixt the English and Roman Church, and
especially those of Supremacy and Allegiance: and to that place and such
studies he could willingly have wedded himself during his life; but the
earnest persuasion of friends became at last to be so powerful, as to
cause the removal of himself and family to London, where Sir Robert
Drewry, a gentleman of a very noble estate, and a more liberal mind,
assigned him and his wife an useful apartment in his own large house in
Drury Lane, and not only rent free, but was also a cherisher of his
studies, and such a friend as sympathized with him and his, in all their
joy and sorrows.

At this time of Mr. Donne's and his wife's living in Sir Robert's house,
the Lord Hay was, by King James, sent upon a glorious embassy to the
then French King, Henry the Fourth; and Sir Robert put on a sudden
resolution to accompany him to the French Court, and to be present at
his audience there. And Sir Robert put on a sudden resolution to solicit
Mr. Donne to be his companion in that journey. And this desire was
suddenly made known to his wife, who was then with child, and otherwise
under so dangerous a habit of body as to her health, that she professed
an unwillingness to allow him any absence from her; saying, "Her
divining soul boded her some ill in his absence;" and therefore desired
him not to leave her. This made Mr. Donne lay aside all thoughts of the
journey, and really to resolve against it. But Sir Robert became
restless in his persuasions for it, and Mr. Donne was so generous as to
think he had sold his liberty when he received so many charitable
kindnesses from him, and told his wife so; who did therefore, with an
unwilling willingness, give a faint consent to the journey, which was
proposed to be but for two months; for about that time they determined
their return. Within a few days after this resolve, the Ambassador, Sir
Robert, and Mr. Donne, left London; and were the twelfth day got all
safe to Paris. Two days after their arrival there, Mr. Donne was left
alone in that room in which Sir Robert, and he, and some other friends
had dined together. To this place Sir Robert returned within half an
hour; and as he left, so he found, Mr. Donne alone; but in such an
ecstasy, and so altered as to his looks, as amazed Sir Robert to behold
him; insomuch that he earnestly desired Mr. Donne to declare what had
befallen him in the short time of his absence. To which Mr. Donne was
not able to make a present answer; but, after a long and perplexed
pause, did at last say, "I have seen a dreadful vision since I saw you:
I have seen my dear wife pass twice by me through this room, with her
hair hanging about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms: this I
have seen since I saw you." To which Sir Robert replied, "Sure, sir, you
have slept since I saw you; and this is the result of some melancholy
dream, which I desire you to forget, for you are now awake." To which
Mr. Donne's reply was: "I cannot be surer that I now live than that I
have not slept since I saw you: and am as sure that at her second
appearing she stopped and looked me in the face, and vanished." Rest and
sleep had not altered Mr. Donne's opinion the next day: for he then
affirmed this vision with a more deliberate, and so confirmed a
confidence, that he inclined Sir Robert to a faint belief that the
vision was true. It is truly said that desire and doubt have no rest;
and it proved so with Sir Robert; for he immediately sent a servant to
Drewry House, with a charge to hasten back and bring him word whether
Mrs. Donne were alive; and, if alive, in what condition she was as to
her health. The twelfth day the messenger returned with this
account:--That he found and left Mrs. Donne very sad and sick in her
bed; and that, after a long and dangerous labour, she had been delivered
of a dead child. And, upon examination, the abortion proved to be the
same day, and about the very hour, that Mr. Donne affirmed he saw her
pass by him in his chamber.

This is a relation that will beget some wonder, and it well may; for
most of our world are at present possessed with an opinion that visions
and miracles are ceased. And, though it is most certain that two lutes,
being both strung and tuned to an equal pitch, and then one played upon,
the other that is not touched, being laid upon a table at a fit
distance, will--like an echo to a trumpet--warble a faint audible
harmony in answer to the same tune; yet many will not believe there is
any such thing as a sympathy of souls; and I am well pleased that every
reader do enjoy his own opinion. But if the unbelieving will not allow
the believing reader of this story, a liberty to believe that it may be
true, then I wish him to consider many wise men have believed that the
ghost of Julius Cæsar did appear to Brutus, and that both St. Austin,
and Monica his mother, had visions in order to his conversion. And
though these and many others--too many to name--have but the authority
of human story, yet the incredible reader may find in the sacred story
(1 Sam. xxviii. 14) that Samuel did appear to Saul even after his
death--whether really or not, I undertake not to determine. And Bildad,
in the Book of Job, says these words (iv. 13-16): "A spirit passed
before my face; the hair of my head stood up; fear and trembling came
upon me, and made all my bones to shake." Upon which words I will make
no comment, but leave them to be considered by the incredulous reader;
to whom I will also commend this following consideration: That there be
many pious and learned men that believe our merciful God hath assigned
to every man a particular guardian angel to be his constant monitor,
and to attend him in all his dangers, both of body and soul. And the
opinion that every man hath his particular angel may gain some authority
by the relation of St. Peter's miraculous deliverance out of prison
(Acts xii. 7-10; 13-15), not by many, but by one angel. And this belief
may yet gain more credit by the reader's considering, that when Peter
after his enlargement knocked at the door of Mary the mother of John,
and Rhode, the maidservant, being surprised with joy that Peter was
there, did not let him in, but ran in haste and told the disciples, who
were then and there met together, that Peter was at the door; and they,
not believing it, said she was mad: yet, when she again affirmed it,
though they then believed it not, yet they concluded, and said, "It is
his angel."

More observations of this nature, and inferences from them, might be
made to gain the relation a firmer belief; but I forbear, lest I, that
intended to be but a relator, may be thought to be an engaged person for
the proving what was related to me; and yet I think myself bound to
declare that, though it was not told me by Mr. Donne himself, it was
told me--now long since--by a person of honour, and of such intimacy
with him, that he knew more of the secrets of his soul than any person
then living: and I think he told me the truth; for it was told with such
circumstances, and such asseveration, that--to say nothing of my own
thoughts--I verily believe he that told it me did himself believe it to
be true.

I return from my account of the vision, to tell the reader, that both
before Mr. Donne's going into France, at his being there, and after his
return, many of the nobility and others that were powerful at court,
were watchful and solicitous to the King for some secular employment for
him. The King had formerly both known and put a value upon his company,
and had also given him some hopes of a state-employment; being always
much pleased when Mr. Donne attended him, especially at his meals, where
there were usually many deep discourses of general learning, and very
often friendly disputes, or debates of religion, betwixt his Majesty and
those divines, whose places required their attendance on him at those
times: particularly the Dean of the Chapel, who then was Bishop
Montague--the publisher of the learned and eloquent Works of his
Majesty--and the most Reverend Doctor Andrews the late learned Bishop of
Winchester, who was then the King's Almoner.

About this time there grew many disputes, that concerned the Oath of
Supremacy and Allegiance, in which the King had appeared, and engaged
himself by his public writings now extant: and his Majesty discoursing
with Mr. Donne, concerning many of the reasons which are usually urged
against the taking of those Oaths, apprehended such a validity and
clearness in his stating the questions, and his answers to them, that
his Majesty commanded him to bestow some time in drawing the arguments
into a method, and then to write his answers to them; and, having done
that, not to send, but be his own messenger, and bring them to him. To
this he presently and diligently applied himself, and within six weeks
brought them to him under his own handwriting, as they be now printed;
the book bearing the name of "Pseudo-Martyr," printed anno 1610.

When the King had read and considered that book, he persuaded Mr. Donne
to enter into the Ministry; to which, at that time, he was, and
appeared, very unwilling, apprehending it--such was his mistaken
modesty--to be too weighty for his abilities.

Such strifes St. Austin had, when St. Ambrose endeavoured his conversion
to Christianity; with which he confesseth he acquainted his friend
Alipius. Our learned author--a man fit to write after no mean copy--did
the like. And declaring his intentions to his dear friend Dr. King, then
Bishop of London, a man famous in his generation, and no stranger to Mr.
Donne's abilities--for he had been Chaplain to the Lord Chancellor, at
the time of Mr. Donne's being his Lordship's Secretary--that reverend
man did receive the news with much gladness; and, after some expressions
of joy, and a persuasion to be constant in his pious purpose, he
proceeded with all convenient speed to ordain him first Deacon, and then
Priest not long after.

Presently after he entered into his holy profession, the King sent for
him, and made him his Chaplain in Ordinary, and promised to take a
particular care for his preferment.

And, though his long familiarity with scholars and persons of greatest
quality was such, as might have given some men boldness enough to have
preached to any eminent auditory; yet his modesty in this employment was
such, that he could not be persuaded to it, but went usually accompanied
with some one friend to preach privately in some village, not far from
London; his first sermon being preached at Paddington. This he did, till
his Majesty sent and appointed him a day to preach to him at Whitehall;
and, though much were expected from him, both by his Majesty and others,
yet he was so happy--which few are--as to satisfy and exceed their
expectations: preaching the Word so, as shewed his own heart was
possessed with those very thoughts and joys that he laboured to distil
into others: a preacher in earnest; weeping sometimes for his auditory,
sometimes with them; always preaching to himself like an angel from a
cloud, but in none; carrying some, as St. Paul was, to Heaven in holy
raptures, and enticing others by a sacred art and courtship to amend
their lives: here picturing a vice so as to make it ugly to those that
practised it; and a virtue so as to make it beloved, even by those that
loved it not; and all this with a most particular grace and an
unexpressible addition of comeliness.

That summer, in the very same month in which he entered into sacred
Orders, and was made the King's Chaplain, his Majesty then going his
progress, was entreated to receive an entertainment in the University of
Cambridge: and Mr. Donne attending his Majesty at that time, his Majesty
was pleased to recommend him to the University, to be made Doctor in
Divinity; Doctor Harsnett, after Archbishop of York, was then
Vice-Chancellor, who, knowing him to be the author of that learned book
the "Pseudo-Martyr," required no other proof of his abilities, but
proposed it to the University, who presently assented, and expressed a
gladness that they had such an occasion to entitle him to be theirs.

His abilities and industry in his profession were so eminent, and he so
known and so beloved by persons of quality, that within the first year
of his entering into sacred Orders, he had fourteen advowsons of several
benefices presented to him: but they were in the country, and he could
not leave his beloved London, to which place he had a natural
inclination, having received both his birth and education in it, and
there contracted a friendship with many, whose conversation multiplied
the joys of his life; but an employment that might affix him to that
place would be welcome, for he needed it.

Immediately after his return from Cambridge his wife died, leaving him a
man of a narrow, unsettled estate, and--having buried five--the careful
father of seven children then living, to whom he gave a voluntary
assurance never to bring them under the subjection of a step-mother;
which promise he kept most faithfully, burying with his tears all his
earthly joys in his most dear and deserving wife's grave, and betook
himself to a most retired and solitary life.

In this retiredness, which was often from the sight of his dearest
friends, he became crucified to the world, and all those vanities, those
imaginary pleasures, that are daily acted on that restless stage, and
they were as perfectly crucified to him.

His first motion from his house was to preach where his beloved wife lay
buried--in St. Clement's Church, near Temple Bar, London; and his text
was a part of the Prophet Jeremy's Lamentation: "Lo, I am the man that
have seen affliction."

In this time of sadness he was importuned by the grave Benchers of
Lincoln's Inn--who were once the companions and friends of his youth--to
accept of their Lecture, which, by reason of Dr. Gataker's removal from
thence, was then void; of which he accepted, being most glad to renew
his intermitted friendship with those whom he so much loved, and where
he had been a Saul,--though not to persecute Christianity, or to deride
it, yet in his irregular youth to neglect the visible practice of
it,--there to become a Paul, and preach salvation to his beloved
brethren.

About which time the Emperor of Germany died, and the Palsgrave, who had
lately married the Lady Elizabeth, the King's only daughter, was elected
and crowned King of Bohemia, the unhappy beginning of many miseries in
that nation.

King James, whose motto--_Beati pacifici_--did truly speak the very
thoughts of his heart, endeavoured first to prevent, and after to
compose, the discords of that discomposed State; and, amongst other his
endeavours, did then send the Lord Hay, Earl of Doncaster, his
Ambassador to those unsettled Princes; and, by a special command from
his Majesty, Dr. Donne was appointed to assist and attend that
employment to the Princes of the Union, for which the Earl was most
glad, who had always put a great value on him, and taken a great
pleasure in his conversation and discourse: and his friends at Lincoln's
Inn were as glad; for they feared that his immoderate study, and sadness
for his wife's death, would, as Jacob said, "make his days few," and,
respecting his bodily health, "evil" too: and of this there were many
visible signs.

About fourteen months after his departure out of England, he returned to
his friends of Lincoln's Inn, with his sorrows moderated, and his health
improved; and there betook himself to his constant course of preaching.

About a year after his return out of Germany, Dr. Carey was made Bishop
of Exeter, and by his removal, the Deanery of St. Paul's being vacant,
the King sent to Dr. Donne, and appointed him to attend him at dinner
the next day. When his Majesty was sat down, before he had eat any meat,
he said after his pleasant manner, "Dr. Donne, I have invited you to
dinner; and, though you sit not down with me, yet I will carve to you of
a dish that I know you love well; for, knowing you love London, I do
therefore make you Dean of St. Paul's; and, when I have dined, then do
you take your beloved dish home to your study, say grace there to
yourself, and much good may it do you."

Immediately after he came to his Deanery, he employed workmen to repair
and beautify the Chapel; suffering as holy David once vowed, "his eyes
and temples to take no rest till he had first beautified the house of
God."

The next quarter following when his father-in-law, Sir George
More,--whom time had made a lover and admirer of him--came to pay to him
the conditioned sum of twenty pounds, he refused to receive it; and
said--as good Jacob did, when he heard his beloved son Joseph was
alive--"'It is enough;' you have been kind to me and mine: I know your
present condition is such as not to abound, and I hope mine is, or will
be such as not to need it: I will therefore receive no more from you
upon that contract," and in testimony of it freely gave him up his bond.

Immediately after his admission into his Deanery the Vicarage of St.
Dunstan in the West, London, fell to him by the death of Dr. White, the
advowson of it having been given to him long before by his honourable
friend Richard Earl of Dorset, then the patron, and confirmed by his
brother the late deceased Edward, both of them men of much honour.

By these, and another ecclesiastical endowment which fell to him about
the same time, given to him formerly by the Earl of Kent, he was enabled
to become charitable to the poor, and kind to his friends, and to make
such provision for his children, that they were not left scandalous as
relating to their or his profession and quality.

The next Parliament, which was within that present year, he was chosen
Prolocutor to the Convocation, and about that time was appointed by his
Majesty, his most gracious master, to preach very many occasional
sermons, as at St. Paul's Cross, and other places. All which employments
he performed to the admiration of the representative body of the whole
Clergy of this nation.

He was once, and but once, clouded with the King's displeasure, and it
was about this time; which was occasioned by some malicious whisperer,
who had told his Majesty that Dr. Donne had put on the general humour of
the pulpits, and was become busy in insinuating a fear of the King's
inclining to popery, and a dislike of his government; and particularly
for the King's then turning the evening lectures into catechising, and
expounding the Prayer of our Lord, and of the Belief, and Commandments.
His Majesty was the more inclinable to believe this, for that a person
of nobility and great note, betwixt whom and Dr. Donne there had been a
great friendship, was at this very time discarded the court--I shall
forbear his name, unless I had a fairer occasion--and justly committed
to prison; which begot many rumours in the common people, who in this
nation think they are not wise unless they be busy about what they
understand not, and especially about religion.

The King received this news with so much discontent and restlessness
that he would not suffer the sun to set and leave him under this doubt;
but sent for Dr. Donne, and required his answer to the accusation; which
was so clear and satisfactory that the King said, "he was right glad he
rested no longer under the suspicion." When the King had said this, Dr.
Donne kneeled down, and thanked his Majesty, and protested his answer
was faithful, and free from all collusion, and therefore "desired that
he might not rise till, as in like cases, he always had from God, so he
might have from his Majesty, some assurance that he stood clear and fair
in his opinion." At which the King raised him from his knees with his
own hands, and "protested he believed him; and that he knew he was an
honest man, and doubted not but that he loved him truly." And, having
thus dismissed him, he called some Lords of his Council into his
chamber, and said with much earnestness, "My Doctor is an honest man;
and, my Lords, I was never better satisfied with an answer than he hath
now made me; and I always rejoice when I think that by my means he
became a Divine."

He was made Dean in the fiftieth year of his age, and in his
fifty-fourth year a dangerous sickness seized him, which inclined him to
a consumption; but God, as Job thankfully acknowledged, preserved his
spirit, and kept his intellectuals as clear and perfect as when that
sickness first seized his body; but it continued long, and threatened
him with death, which he dreaded not.

Within a few days his distempers abated; and as his strength increased
so did his thankfulness to Almighty God, testified in his most excellent
"Book of Devotions," which he published at his recovery; in which the
reader may see the most secret thoughts that then possessed his soul,
paraphrased and made public: a book that may not unfitly be called a
Sacred Picture of Spiritual Ecstasies, occasioned and applicable to the
emergencies of that sickness; which book, being a composition of
meditations, disquisitions, and prayers, he writ on his sick-bed; herein
imitating the holy Patriarchs, who were wont to build their altars in
that place where they had received their blessings.

This sickness brought him so near to the gates of death, and he saw the
grave so ready to devour him, that he would often say his recovery was
supernatural: but that God that then restored his health continued it to
him till the fifty-ninth year of his life: and then, in August 1630,
being with his eldest daughter, Mrs. Harvey, at Abury Hatch, in Essex,
he there fell into a fever, which, with the help of his constant
infirmity--vapours from the spleen--hastened him into so visible a
consumption that his beholders might say, as St. Paul of himself, "He
dies daily;" and he might say with Job, "My welfare passeth away as a
cloud, the days of my affliction have taken hold of me, and weary nights
are appointed for me."

Reader, this sickness continued long, not only weakening, but wearying
him so much, that my desire is he may now take some rest; and that
before I speak of his death thou wilt not think it an impertinent
digression to look back with me upon some observations of his life,
which, whilst a gentle slumber gives rest to his spirits, may, I hope,
not unfitly, exercise thy consideration.

His marriage was the remarkable error of his life; an error which,
though he had a wit able and very apt to maintain paradoxes, yet he was
very far from justifying it: and though his wife's competent years, and
other reasons, might be justly urged to moderate severe censures, yet he
would occasionally condemn himself for it: and doubtless it had been
attended with an heavy repentance, if God had not blessed them with so
mutual and cordial affections, as in the midst of their sufferings made
their bread of sorrow taste more pleasantly than the banquets of dull
and low-spirited people.

The recreations of his youth were poetry, in which he was so happy as if
nature and all her varieties had been made only to exercise his sharp
wit and high fancy; and in those pieces which were facetiously composed
and carelessly scattered,--most of them being written before the
twentieth year of his age--it may appear by his choice metaphors that
both nature and all the arts joined to assist him with their utmost
skill.

It is a truth, that in his penitential years, viewing some of those
pieces that had been loosely--God knows, too loosely--scattered in his
youth, he wished they had been abortive, or so short-lived that his own
eyes had witnessed their funerals; but, though he was no friend to them,
he was not so fallen out with heavenly poetry, as to forsake that; no,
not in his declining age; witnessed then by many divine sonnets, and
other high, holy, and harmonious composures. Yea, even on his former
sick-bed he wrote this heavenly hymn, expressing the great joy that then
possessed his soul, in the assurance of God's favour to him when he
composed it:--

    "AN HYMN

    "TO GOD THE FATHER

    "Wilt Thou forgive that sin where I begun,
      Which was my sin, though it were done before?
    Wilt Thou forgive that sin through which I run,
      And do run still, though still I do deplore?
    When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
                                  For I have more.

    "Wilt Thou forgive that sin, which I have won
      Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
    Wilt Thou forgive that sin which I did shun
      A year or two:--but wallow'd in a score?
    When Thou hast done, Thou hast not done,
                                  For I have more.

    "I have a sin of fear, that when I've spun
      My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
    But swear by Thyself, that at my death Thy Son
      Shall shine as He shines now, and heretofore;
    And having done that, Thou hast done,
                                  I fear no more."

I have the rather mentioned this hymn, for that he caused it to be set
to a most grave and solemn tune, and to be often sung to the organ by
the choiristers of St. Paul's Church, in his own hearing; especially at
the Evening Service; and at his return from his customary devotions in
that place, did occasionally say to a friend, "the words of this hymn
have restored to me the same thoughts of joy that possessed my soul in
my sickness, when I composed it. And, O the power of church-music! that
harmony added to this hymn has raised the affections of my heart, and
quickened my graces of zeal and gratitude; and I observe that I always
return from paying this public duty of prayer and praise to God, with an
unexpressible tranquillity of mind, and a willingness to leave the
world."

After this manner did the disciples of our Saviour, and the best of
Christians in those ages of the Church nearest to His time, offer their
praises to Almighty God. And the reader of St. Augustine's life may
there find, that towards his dissolution he wept abundantly, that the
enemies of Christianity had broke in upon them, and profaned and ruined
their sanctuaries, and because their public hymns and lauds were lost
out of their Churches. And after this manner have many devout souls
lifted up their hands and offered acceptable sacrifices unto Almighty
God, where Dr. Donne offered his, and now lies buried.

But now [1656], Oh Lord! how is that place become desolate!

Before I proceed further, I think fit to inform the reader, that not
long before his death he caused to be drawn a figure of the Body of
Christ extended upon an anchor, like those which painters draw, when
they would present us with the picture of Christ crucified on the cross:
his varying no otherwise than to affix Him not to a cross, but to an
anchor--the emblem of Hope;--this he caused to be drawn in little, and
then many of those figures thus drawn to be engraven very small in
Heliotropium stones, and set in gold; and of these he sent to many of
his dearest friends, to be used as seals, or rings, and kept as
memorials of him, and of his affection to them.

His dear friends and benefactors, Sir Henry Goodier and Sir Robert
Drewry, could not be of that number; nor could the Lady Magdalen
Herbert, the mother of George Herbert, for they had put off mortality,
and taken possession of the grave before him; but Sir Henry Wotton, and
Dr. Hall, the then--late deceased--Bishop of Norwich, were; and so were
Dr. Duppa, Bishop of Salisbury, and Dr. Henry King, Bishop of
Chichester--lately deceased--men, in whom there was such a commixture of
general learning, of natural eloquence, and Christian humility, that
they deserve a commemoration by a pen equal to their own, which none
have exceeded.

And in this enumeration of his friends, though many must be omitted, yet
that man of primitive piety, Mr. George Herbert, may not; I mean that
George Herbert, who was the author of "The Temple, or Sacred Poems and
Ejaculations." A book, in which by declaring his own spiritual
conflicts, he hath comforted and raised many a dejected and discomposed
soul, and charmed them into sweet and quiet thoughts; a book, by the
frequent reading whereof, and the assistance of that Spirit that seemed
to inspire the author, the reader may attain habits of peace and piety,
and all the gifts of the Holy Ghost and Heaven: and may, by still
reading, still keep those sacred fires burning upon the altar of so pure
a heart, as shall free it from the anxieties of this world, and keep it
fixed upon things that are above. Betwixt this George Herbert and Dr.
Donne, there was a long and dear friendship, made up by such a sympathy
of inclinations that they coveted and joyed to be in each other's
company; and this happy friendship was still maintained by many sacred
endearments; of which that which followeth may be some testimony.

    "TO MR. GEORGE HERBERT;

    "SENT HIM WITH ONE OF MY SEALS OF THE ANCHOR AND CHRIST.

    [Illustration]

    "_A Sheaf of Snakes used
    heretofore to be my Seal,
    which is the Crest of our
    poor family._"

    [Illustration]

    "Qui prius assuetus serpentum falce tabellas
      Signare, hæc nostræ symbola parva domus,
    Adscitus domui Domini----

    "Adopted in God's family, and so
    My old coat lost, into new Arms I go.
    The Cross, my Seal in Baptism, spread below,
    Does by that form into an Anchor grow.
    Crosses grow Anchors, bear as thou shouldst do
    Thy Cross, and that Cross grows an Anchor too.
    But He that makes our Crosses Anchors thus,
    Is Christ, who there is crucified for us.
    Yet with this I may my first Serpents hold;--
    God gives new blessings, and yet leaves the old--
    The Serpent, may, as wise, my pattern be;
    My poison, as he feeds on dust, that's me.
    And, as he rounds the earth to murder, sure
    He is my death; but on the Cross, my cure,
    Crucify nature then; and then implore
    All grace from Him, crucified there before.
    When all is Cross, and that Cross Anchor grown
    This Seal's a Catechism, not a Seal alone.
    Under that little Seal great gifts I send,
    Both works and pray'rs, pawns and fruits of a friend.
    O! may that Saint that rides on our Great Seal,
    To you that bear his name, large bounty deal.

    "John Donne."


    "IN SACRAM ANCHORAM PISCATORIS

    "GEORGE HERBERT.

    "Quod Crux nequibat fixa clavique additi,--
    Tenere Christum scilicet ne ascenderet,
    Tuive Christum--

    "Although the Cross could not here Christ detain,
    When nail'd unto't, but He ascends again;
    Nor yet thy eloquence here keep Him still,
    But only whilst thou speak'st--this Anchor will:
    Nor canst thou be content, unless thou to
    This certain Anchor add a Seal; and so
    The water and the earth both unto thee
    Do owe the symbol of their certainty.
    Let the world reel, we and all ours stand sure,
    This holy cable's from all storms secure.

    "George Herbert."

I return to tell the reader, that, besides these verses to his dear Mr.
Herbert, and that Hymn that I mentioned to be sung in the choir of St.
Paul's Church, he did also shorten and beguile many sad hours by
composing other sacred ditties; and he writ an Hymn on his death-bed,
which bears this title:--

    "AN HYMN TO GOD, MY GOD, IN MY SICKNESS.

    "_March 23, 1630._

    "Since I am coming to that holy room,
      Where, with Thy Choir of Saints, for evermore
    I shall be made Thy music, as I come
      I tune my instrument here at the door,
      And, what I must do then, think here before.

    "Since my Physicians by their loves are grown
      Cosmographers; and I their map, who lie
    Flat on this bed----

    "So, in His purple wrapt, receive my Lord!
      By these His thorns, give me His other Crown
    And, as to other souls I preach'd Thy word,
      Be this my text, my sermon to mine own,
      'That He may raise; therefore the Lord throws down.'"

If these fall under the censure of a soul, whose too much mixture with
earth makes it unfit to judge of these high raptures and illuminations,
let him know, that many holy and devout men have thought the soul of
Prudentius to be most refined, when, not many days before his death, "he
charged it to present his God each morning and evening with a new and
spiritual song;" justified by the example of King David and the good
King Hezekiah, who, upon the renovation of his years paid his thankful
vows to Almighty God in a royal hymn, which he concludes in these words:
"The Lord was ready to save; therefore I will sing my songs to the
stringed instruments all the days of my life in the Temple of my God."

The latter part of his life may be said to be a continued study; for as
he usually preached once a week, if not oftener, so after his sermon he
never gave his eyes rest, till he had chosen out a new text, and that
night cast his sermon into a form, and his text into divisions; and the
next day betook himself to consult the Fathers, and so commit his
meditations to his memory, which was excellent. But upon Saturday he
usually gave himself and his mind a rest from the weary burthen of his
week's meditations, and usually spent that day in visitation of friends,
or some other diversions of his thoughts; and would say, "that he gave
both his body and mind that refreshment, that he might be enabled to do
the work of the day following, not faintly, but with courage and
cheerfulness."

Nor was his age only so industrious, but in the most unsettled days of
his youth, his bed was not able to detain him beyond the hour of four in
a morning; and it was no common business that drew him out of his
chamber till past ten; all which time was employed in study; though he
took great liberty after it. And if this seem strange, it may gain a
belief by the visible fruits of his labours; some of which remain as
testimonies of what is here written: for he left the resultance of 1400
authors, most of them abridged and analysed with his own hand: he left
also six score of his sermons, all written with his own hand, also an
exact and laborious Treatise concerning self-murder, called Biathanatos;
wherein all the laws violated by that act are diligently surveyed, and
judiciously censured: a Treatise written in his younger days, which
alone might declare him then not only perfect in the Civil and Canon
Law, but in many other such studies and arguments, as enter not into the
consideration of many that labour to be thought great clerks, and
pretend to know all things.

Nor were these only found in his study, but all businesses that passed
of any public consequence, either in this or any of our
neighbour-nations, he abbreviated either in Latin, or in the language of
that nation, and kept them by him for useful memorials. So he did the
copies of divers Letters and Cases of Conscience that had concerned his
friends, with his observations and solutions of them; and divers other
businesses of importance, all particularly and methodically digested by
himself.

He did prepare to leave the world before life left him; making his Will
when no faculty of his soul was damped or made defective by pain or
sickness, or he surprised by a sudden apprehension of death: but it was
made with mature deliberation, expressing himself an impartial father,
by making his children's portions equal; and a lover of his friends,
whom he remembered with legacies fitly and discreetly chosen and
bequeathed. I cannot forbear a nomination of some of them; for methinks
they be persons that seem to challenge a recordation in this place; as
namely, to his brother-in-law, Sir Thomas Grimes, he gave that striking
clock, which he had long worn in his pocket; to his dear friend and
executor, Dr. King--late Bishop of Chichester--that Model of Gold of the
Synod of Dort, with which the States presented him at his last being at
the Hague; and the two pictures of Padre Paolo and Fulgentio, men of his
acquaintance when he travelled Italy, and of great note in that nation
for their remarkable learning.--To his ancient friend Dr. Brook--that
married him--Master of Trinity College in Cambridge, he gave the picture
of the Blessed Virgin and Joseph.--To Dr. Winniff who succeeded him in
the Deanery--he gave a picture called the Skeleton.--To the succeeding
Dean, who was not then known, he gave many necessaries of worth, and
useful for his house; and also several pictures and ornaments for the
Chapel, with a desire that they might be registered, and remain as a
legacy to his successors.--To the Earls of Dorset and Carlisle he gave
several pictures; and so he did to many other friends; legacies, given
rather to express his affection, than to make any addition to their
estates: but unto the poor he was full of charity, and unto many others,
who, by his constant and long continued bounty, might entitle themselves
to be his alms-people: for all these he made provision, and so largely,
as, having then six children living, might to some appear more than
proportionable to his estate. I forbear to mention any more, lest the
reader may think I trespass upon his patience: but I will beg his
favour, to present him with the beginning and end of his Will.

     "In the name of the blessed and glorious Trinity. Amen. I John
     Donne, by the mercy of Christ Jesus, and by the calling of the
     Church of England, Priest, being at this time in good health and
     perfect understanding--praised be God therefore--do hereby make my
     last Will and Testament in manner and form following:--

     "First, I give my gracious God an entire sacrifice of body and
     soul, with my most humble thanks for that assurance which His
     Blessed Spirit imprints in me now of the Salvation of the one, and
     the Resurrection of the other; and for that constant and cheerful
     resolution, which the same Spirit hath established in me, to live
     and die in the religion now professed in the Church of England. In
     expectation of that Resurrection, I desire my body may be
     buried--in the most private manner that may be--in that place of
     St. Paul's Church, London, that the now Residentiaries have at my
     request designed for that purpose, &c.--And this my last Will and
     Testament, made in the fear of God,--whose mercy I humbly beg, and
     constantly rely upon in Jesus Christ--and in perfect love and
     charity with all the world--whose pardon I ask, from the lowest of
     my servants, to the highest of my superiors--written all with my
     own hand, and my name subscribed to every page, of which there are
     five in number.

     "Sealed December 13, 1630."

Nor was this blessed sacrifice of charity expressed only at his death,
but in his life also, by a cheerful and frequent visitation of any
friend whose mind was dejected, or his fortune necessitous; he was
inquisitive after the wants of prisoners, and redeemed many from prison,
that lay for their fees or small debts: he was a continual giver to poor
scholars, both of this and foreign nations. Besides what he gave with
his own hand, he usually sent a servant, or a discreet and trusty
friend, to distribute his charity to all the prisons in London, at all
the festival times of the year, especially at the Birth and Resurrection
of our Saviour. He gave an hundred pounds at one time to an old friend,
whom he had known live plentifully, and by a too liberal heart and
carelessness became decayed in his estate; and when the receiving of it
was denied, by the gentleman's saying, "He wanted not;"--for the reader
may note, that as there be some spirits so generous as to labour to
conceal and endure a sad poverty, rather than expose themselves to those
blushes that attend the confession of it; so there be others, to whom
nature and grace have afforded such sweet and compassionate souls, as to
pity and prevent the distresses of mankind;--which I have mentioned
because of Dr. Donne's reply, whose answer was, "I know you want not
what will sustain nature; for a little will do that; but my desire is,
that you, who in the days of your plenty have cheered and raised the
hearts of so many of your dejected friends, would now receive this from
me, and use it as a cordial for the cheering of your own:" and upon
these terms it was received. He was an happy reconciler of many
differences in the families of his friends and kindred,--which he never
undertook faintly; for such undertakings have usually faint effects--and
they had such a faith in his judgment and impartiality, that he never
advised them to any thing in vain. He was, even to her death, a most
dutiful son to his mother, careful to provide for her supportation, of
which she had been destitute, but that God raised him up to prevent her
necessities; who having sucked in the religion of the Roman Church with
the mother's milk, spent her estate in foreign countries, to enjoy a
liberty in it, and died in his house but three months before him.

And to the end it may appear how just a steward he was of his Lord and
Master's revenue, I have thought fit to let the reader know, that after
his entrance into his Deanery, as he numbered his years, he, at the foot
of a private account, to which God and His Angels were only witnesses
with him,--computed first his revenue, then what was given to the poor,
and other pious uses; and lastly, what rested for him and his; and
having done that, he then blessed each year's poor remainder with a
thankful prayer; which, for that they discover a more than common
devotion, the reader shall partake some of them in his own words:--

So all is that remains this year [1624-5]--

"Deo Opt. Max. benigno largitori, á me, at ab iis quibus hæc à me
reservantur, gloria et gratia in æternum. Amen."

TRANSLATED THUS.

To God all Good, all Great, the benevolent Bestower, by me and by them,
for whom, by me, these sums are laid up, be glory and grace ascribed for
ever. Amen.

So that this year, [1626,] God hath blessed me and mine with--

"Multiplicatæ sunt super nos misericordiæ tuæ, Domine."

TRANSLATED THUS.

Thy mercies, Oh Lord! are multiplied upon us.

"Da, Domine, ut quæ ex immensâ bonitate tuâ nobis elargiri dignatus sis,
in quorumcunque manus devenerint, in tuam semper cedant gloriam. Amen."

TRANSLATED THUS.

Grant, Oh Lord! that what out of Thine infinite bounty Thou hast
vouchsafed to lavish upon us, into whosoever hands it may devolve, may
always be improved to thy glory. Amen.

"In fine horum sex annorum manet [1627-8-9]--

"Quid habeo quod non accepi a Domino? Largitur etiam ut quæ largitus est
sua iterum fiant, bono eorum usu; ut quemadmodum nec officiis hujus
mundi, nec loci in quo me posuit dignitati, nec servis, nec egenis, in
toto hujus anni curriculo mihi conscius sum me defuisse; ita et liberi,
quibus quæ supersunt, supersunt, grato animo ea accipiant, et beneficum
authorem recognoscant. Amen."

TRANSLATED THUS.

At the end of these six years remains--

What have I, which I have not received from the Lord? He bestows, also,
to the intent that what He hath bestowed may revert to Him by the proper
use of it: that, as I have not consciously been wanting to myself during
the whole course of the past year, either in discharging my secular
duties, in retaining the dignity of my station, or in my conduct towards
my servants and the poor--so my children for whom remains whatever is
remaining, may receive it with gratitude, and acknowledge the beneficent
Giver. Amen.

     *     *     *     *     *

But I return from my long digression.

We left the Author sick in Essex, where he was forced to spend much of
that winter, by reason of his disability to remove from that place; and
having never, for almost twenty years, omitted his personal attendance
on his Majesty in that month, in which he was to attend and preach to
him; nor having ever been left out of the roll and number of Lent
Preachers, and there being then--in January, 1630--a report brought to
London, or raised there, that Dr. Donne was dead; that report gave him
occasion to write the following letter to a dear friend:--

     "Sir,

     "This advantage you and my other friends have by my frequent
     fevers, that I am so much the oftener at the gates of Heaven; and
     this advantage by the solitude and close imprisonment that they
     reduce me to after, that I am so much the oftener at my prayers, in
     which I shall never leave out your happiness; and I doubt not,
     among His other blessings, God will add some one to you for my
     prayers. A man would almost be content to die--if there were no
     other benefit in death--to hear of so much sorrow, and so much good
     testimony from good men, as I--God be blessed for it--did upon the
     report of my death; yet I perceive it went not through all; for one
     writ to me, that some--and he said of my friends--conceived I was
     not so ill as I pretended, but withdrew myself to live at ease,
     discharged of preaching. It is an unfriendly, and, God knows, an
     ill-grounded interpretation; for I have always been sorrier when I
     could not preach, than any could be they could not hear me. It hath
     been my desire, and God may be pleased to grant it, that I might
     die in the pulpit; if not that, yet that I might take my death in
     the pulpit; that is, die the sooner by occasion of those labours.
     Sir, I hope to see you presently after Candlemas; about which time
     will fall my Lent Sermon at Court, except my Lord Chamberlain
     believe me to be dead, and so leave me out of the roll: but as long
     as I live, and am not speechless, I would not willingly, decline
     that service. I have better leisure to write, than you to read; yet
     I would not willingly oppress you with too much letter. God so
     bless you and your son, as I wish to

    "Your poor friend and Servant
      "In Christ Jesus,
          "J. Donne."


Before that month ended, he was appointed to preach upon his old
constant day, the first Friday in Lent: he had notice of it, and had in
his sickness so prepared for that employment, that as he had long
thirsted for it, so he resolved his weakness should not hinder his
journey; he came therefore to London some few days before his appointed
day of preaching. At his coming thither, many of his friends--who with
sorrow saw his sickness had left him but so much flesh as did only cover
his bones--doubted his strength to perform that task, and did therefore
dissuade him from undertaking it, assuring him, however, it was like to
shorten his life: but he passionately denied their requests, saying "he
would not doubt that that God, who in so many weaknesses had assisted
him with an unexpected strength, would now withdraw it in his last
employment; professing an holy ambition to perform that sacred work."
And when, to the amazement of some beholders, he appeared in the pulpit,
many of them thought he presented himself not to preach mortification by
a living voice, but mortality by a decayed body, and a dying face. And
doubtless many did secretly ask that question in Ezekiel (chap. xxxvii.
3), "Do these bones live? or, can that soul organise that tongue, to
speak so long time as the sand in that glass will move towards its
centre, and measure out an hour of this dying man's unspent life?
Doubtless it cannot." And yet, after some faint pauses in his zealous
prayer, his strong desires enabled his weak body to discharge his memory
of his preconceived meditations, which were of dying; the text being,
"To God the Lord belong the issues from death." Many that then saw his
tears, and heard his faint and hollow voice, professing they thought the
text prophetically chosen, and that Dr. Donne had preached his own
Funeral Sermon.

Being full of joy that God had enabled him to perform this desired duty,
he hastened to his house; out of which he never moved, till, like St.
Stephen, "he was carried by devout men to his grave."

The next day after his sermon, his strength being much wasted, and his
spirits so spent as indisposed him to business or to talk, a friend that
had often been a witness of his free and facetious discourse asked him,
"Why are you sad?" To whom he replied with a countenance so full of
cheerful gravity, as gave testimony of an inward tranquillity of mind,
and of a soul willing to take a farewell of this world, and said:--

     "I am not sad; but most of the night past I have entertained myself
     with many thoughts of several friends that have left me here, and
     are gone to that place from which they shall not return; and that
     within a few days I also shall go hence, and be no more seen. And
     my preparation for this change is become my nightly meditation upon
     my bed, which my infirmities have now made restless to me. But at
     this present time, I was in a serious contemplation of the
     providence and goodness of God to me; to me, who am less than the
     least of His mercies: and looking back upon my life past, I now
     plainly see it was His hand that prevented me from all temporal
     employment; and that it was His will I should never settle nor
     thrive till I entered into the Ministry; in which I have now lived
     almost twenty years--I hope to His glory,--and by which, I most
     humbly thank Him, I have been enabled to requite most of those
     friends which shewed me kindness when my fortune was very low, as
     God knows it was: and--as it hath occasioned the expression of my
     gratitude--I thank God most of them have stood in need of my
     requital. I have lived to be useful and comfortable to my good
     Father-in-law, Sir George More, whose patience God hath been
     pleased to exercise with many temporal crosses; I have maintained
     my own mother, whom it hath pleased God, after a plentiful fortune
     in her younger days, to bring to great decay in her very old age. I
     have quieted the consciences of many, that have groaned under the
     burden of a wounded spirit, whose prayers I hope are available for
     me. I cannot plead innocency of life, especially of my youth; but I
     am to be judged by a merciful God, who is not willing to see what I
     have done amiss. And though of myself I have nothing to present to
     Him but sins and misery, yet I know He looks not upon me now as I
     am of myself, but as I am in my Saviour, and hath given me, even at
     this present time, some testimonies by His Holy Spirit, that I am
     of the number of His Elect: I am therefore full of inexpressible
     joy, and shall die in peace."

I must here look so far back, as to tell the reader that at his first
return out of Essex, to preach his last sermon, his old friend and
physician, Dr. Fox--a man of great worth--came to him to consult his
health; and that after a sight of him, and some queries concerning his
distempers he told him, "That by cordials, and drinking milk twenty days
together, there was a probability of his restoration to health"; but he
passionately denied to drink it. Nevertheless, Dr. Fox, who loved him
most entirely, wearied him with solicitations, till he yielded to take
it for ten days; at the end of which time he told Dr. Fox, "He had drunk
it more to satisfy him, than to recover his health; and that he would
not drink it ten days longer, upon the best moral assurance of having
twenty years added to his life; for he loved it not; and was so far from
fearing Death, which to others is the King of Terrors, that he longed
for the day of his dissolution."

It is observed, that a desire of glory or commendation is rooted in the
very nature of man; and that those of the severest and most mortified
lives, though they may become so humble as to banish self-flattery, and
such weeds as naturally grow there; yet they have not been able to kill
this desire of glory, but that like our radical heat, it will both live
and die with us; and many think it should do so; and we want not sacred
examples to justify the desire of having our memory to outlive our
lives; which I mention, because Dr. Donne, by the persuasion of Dr. Fox,
easily yielded at this very time to have a monument made for him; but
Dr. Fox undertook not to persuade him how, or what monument it should
be; that was left to Dr. Donne himself.

A monument being resolved upon, Dr. Donne sent for a carver to make for
him in wood the figure of an urn, giving him directions for the compass
and height of it; and to bring with it a board, of the just height of
his body. "These being got, then without delay a choice painter was got
to be in readiness to draw his picture, which was taken as
followeth.--Several charcoal fires being first made in his large study,
he brought with him into that place his winding-sheet in his hand, and
having put off all his clothes, had this sheet put on him, and so tied
with knots at his head and feet, and his hands so placed as dead bodies
are usually fitted, to be shrouded and put into their coffin, or grave.
Upon this urn he thus stood, with his eyes shut, and with so much of the
sheet turned aside as might shew his lean, pale, and death-like face,
which was purposely turned towards the East, from whence he expected the
second coming of his and our Saviour Jesus." In this posture he was
drawn at his just height; and when the picture was fully finished, he
caused it to be set by his bedside, where it continued and became his
hourly object till his death, and was then given to his dearest friend
and executor Dr. Henry King, then chief Residentiary of St. Paul's, who
caused him to be thus carved in one entire piece of white marble, as it
now stands in that Church; and by Dr. Donne's own appointment, these
words were to be affixed to it as an epitaph:--

     JOHANNES DONNE

     SAC. THEOL. PROFESS. POST VARIA STUDIA, QUIBUS AB ANNIS TENERRIMIS
     FIDELITER, NEC INFELICITER INCUBUIT; INSTINCTU ET IMPULSU SP.
     SANCTI, MONITU ET HORTATU REGIS JACOBI, ORDINES SACROS AMPLEXUS,
     ANNO SUI JESU, MDCXIV. ET SUÆ ÆTATIS XLII. DECANATU HUJUS ECCLESIÆ
     INDUTUS, XXVII. NOVEMBRIS, MDCXXI. EXUTUS MORTE ULTIMO DIE MARTII,
     MDCXXXI. HIC LICET IN OCCIDUO CINERE, ASPICIT EUM CUJUS NOMEN EST
     ORIENS.

And now, having brought him through the many labyrinths and perplexities
of a various life, even to the gates of death and the grave; my desire
is, he may rest, till I have told my reader that I have seen many
pictures of him, in several habits, and at several ages, and in several
postures: and I now mention this because I have seen one picture of him,
drawn by a curious hand, at his age of eighteen, with his sword, and
what other adornments might then suit with the present fashions of youth
and the giddy gaieties of that age; and his motto then was--

    "How much shall I be changed
    Before I am changed!"

And if that young, and his now dying picture were at this time set
together, every beholder might say, "Lord! how much is Dr. Donne already
changed, before he is changed!" And the view of them might give my
reader occasion to ask himself with some amazement, "Lord! how much may
I also, that am now in health, be changed before I am changed; before
this vile, this changeable body shall put off mortality!" and therefore
to prepare for it.--But this is not writ so much for my reader's
memento, as to tell him, that Dr. Donne would often in his private
discourses, and often publicly in his sermons, mention the many changes
both of his body and mind, especially of his mind from a vertiginous
giddiness; and would as often say, "His great and most blessed change
was from a temporal to a spiritual employment"; in which he was so
happy, that he accounted the former part of his life to be lost; and the
beginning of it to be, from his first entering into Sacred Orders, and
serving his most merciful God at His altar.

Upon Monday, after the drawing this picture, he took his last leave of
his beloved study; and, being sensible of his hourly decay, retired
himself to his bedchamber; and that week sent at several times for many
of his most considerable friends, with whom he took a solemn and
deliberate farewell, commending to their considerations some sentences
useful for the regulation of their lives; and then dismissed them, as
good Jacob did his sons, with a spiritual benediction. The Sunday
following, he appointed his servants, that if there were any business
yet undone, that concerned him or themselves, it should be prepared
against Saturday next; for after that day he would not mix his thoughts
with any thing that concerned this world; nor ever did; but, as Job, so
he "waited for the appointed day of his dissolution."

And now he was so happy as to have nothing to do but to die, to do which
he stood in need of no longer time; for he had studied it long, and to
so happy a perfection, that in a former sickness he called God to
witness (in his "Book of Devotions," written then), "He was that minute
ready to deliver his soul into his Hands, if that minute God would
determine his dissolution." In that sickness he begged of God the
constancy to be preserved in that estate for ever; and his patient
expectation to have his immortal soul disrobed from her garment of
mortality, makes me confident that he now had a modest assurance that
his prayers were then heard, and his petition granted. He lay fifteen
days earnestly expecting his hourly change; and in the last hour of his
last day, as his body melted away, and vapoured into spirit, his soul
having, I verily believe, some revelation of the beatifical vision, he
said, "I were miserable if I might not die"; and after those words,
closed many periods of his faint breath by saying often, "Thy kingdom
come, Thy will be done." His speech, which had long been his ready and
faithful servant, left him not till the last minute of his life, and
then forsook him, not to serve another master--for who speaks like
him,--but died before him; for that it was then become useless to him,
that now conversed with God on earth as Angels are said to do in heaven,
only by thoughts and looks. Being speechless, and seeing heaven by that
illumination by which he saw it, he did, as St. Stephen, "look
stedfastly into it, till he saw the Son of Man standing at the right
hand of God His Father"; and being satisfied with this blessed sight, as
his soul ascended, and his last breath departed from him, he closed his
own eyes, and then disposed his hands and body into such a posture, as
required not the least alteration by those that came to shroud him.

Thus variable, thus virtuous was the life; thus excellent, thus
exemplary was the death of this memorable man.

He was buried in that place of St. Paul's Church, which he had appointed
for that use some years before his death; and by which he passed daily
to pay his public devotions to Almighty God--who was then served twice a
day by a public form of prayer and praises in that place; but he was
not buried privately, though he desired it; for, beside an unnumbered
number of others, many persons of nobility, and of eminence for
learning, who did love and honour him in his life, did show it at his
death, by a voluntary and sad attendance of his body to the grave, where
nothing was so remarkable as a public sorrow.

To which place of his burial some mournful friends repaired, and, as
Alexander the Great did to the grave of the famous Achilles, so they
strewed his with an abundance of curious and costly flowers; which
course they--who were never yet known--continued morning and evening for
many days, not ceasing till the stones that were taken up in that Church
to give his body admission into the cold earth--now his bed of
rest--were again by the mason's art so levelled and firmed as they had
been formerly, and his place of burial undistinguishable to common view.

The next day after his burial some unknown friend, some one of the many
lovers and admirers of his virtue and learning, writ this epitaph with a
coal on the wall over his grave:--

    "Reader! I am to let thee know,
    Donne's body only lies below;
    For, could the grave his soul comprise,
    Earth would be richer than the skies!"

Nor was this all the honour done to his reverend ashes; for, as there be
some persons that will not receive a reward for that for which God
accounts Himself a debtor; persons that dare trust God with their
charity, and without a witness; so there was by some grateful unknown
friend, that thought Dr. Donne's memory ought to be perpetuated, an
hundred marks sent to his faithful friends and executors (Dr. King and
Dr. Montford), towards the making of his monument. It was not for many
years known by whom; but, after the death of Dr. Fox, it was known that
it was he that sent it; and he lived to see as lively a representation
of his dead friend as marble can express: a statue indeed so like Dr.
Donne, that--as his friend Sir Henry Wotton hath expressed himself--"It
seems to breathe faintly, and posterity shall look upon it as a kind of
artificial miracle."

He was of stature moderately tall; of a straight and
equally-proportioned body, to which all his words and actions gave an
unexpressible addition of comeliness.

The melancholy and pleasant humour were in him so contempered, that each
gave advantage to the other, and made his company one of the delights of
mankind.

His fancy was unimitably high, equalled only by his great wit; both
being made useful by a commanding judgment.

His aspect was cheerful, and such as gave a silent testimony of a clear
knowing soul, and of a conscience at peace with itself.

His melting eye showed that he had a soft heart, full of noble
compassion; of too brave a soul to offer injuries, and too much a
Christian not to pardon them in others.

He did much contemplate--especially after he entered into his sacred
calling--the mercies of Almighty God, the immortality of the soul, and
the joys of heaven: and would often say in a kind of sacred
ecstacy--"Blessed be God that He is God, only and divinely like
Himself."

He was by nature highly passionate, but more apt to reluct at the
excesses of it. A great lover of the offices of humanity, and of so
merciful a spirit that he never beheld the miseries of mankind without
pity and relief.

He was earnest and unwearied in the search of knowledge, with which his
vigorous soul is now satisfied, and employed in a continual praise of
that God that first breathed it into his active body: that body which
once was a temple of the Holy Ghost, and is now become a small quantity
of Christian dust:--

But I shall see it re-animated.

I.W.


    DEVOTIONS
    VPON
    Emergent Occasions and seuerall
    steps in my Sicknes.


Digested into

     1. MEDITATIONS _upon our Humane Condition_.

     2. EXPOSTULATIONS, _and Debatements with God_.

     3. PRAYERS, _upon the severall occasions, to him_.

     *     *     *     *     *

By IOHN DONNE, _Deane of S. Pauls_, London.

     *     *     *     *     *

London

Printed by _A. M._ for THOMAS IONES. 1624.


_TO THE MOST EXCELLENT PRINCE_,

PRINCE CHARLES.


_MOST EXCELLENT PRINCE_,

I have had three births; one, natural, when I came into the world; one,
supernatural, when I entered into the ministry; and now, a preternatural
birth, in returning to life, from this sickness. In my second birth,
your Highness' royal father vouchsafed me his hand, not only to sustain
me in it, but to lead me to it. In this last birth, I myself am born a
father: this child of mine, this book, comes into the world, from me,
and with me. And therefore, I presume (as I did the father, to the
Father) to present the son to the Son; this image of my humiliation, to
the lively image of his Majesty, your Highness. It might be enough, that
God hath seen my devotions: but examples of good kings are commandments;
and Hezekiah writ the meditations of his sickness, after his sickness.
Besides, as I have lived to see (not as a witness only, but as a
partaker), the happiness of a part of your royal father's time, so shall
I live (in my way) to see the happiness of the times of your Highness
too, if this child of mine, inanimated by your gracious acceptation, may
so long preserve alive the memory of

Your Highness humblest and devotedest,

JOHN DONNE.


CONTENTS

_The Stations of the Sickness_


                                                               PAGE

1. The first alteration, the first grudging of the sickness       7

2. The strength and the function of the senses, and other
   faculties, change and fail                                    12

3. The patient takes his bed                                     17

4. The physician is sent for                                     23

5. The physician comes                                           30

6. The physician is afraid                                       35

7. The physician desires to have others joined with him          43

8. The king sends his own physician                              50

9. Upon their consultation, they prescribe                       56

10. They find the disease to steal on insensibly, and endeavor
    to meet with it so                                           63

11. They use cordials, to keep the venom and the malignity
    of the disease from the heart                                69

12. They apply pigeons, to draw the vapours from the head        77

13. The sickness declares the infection and malignity thereof
    by spots                                                     83

14. The Physicians observe these accidents to have fallen
    upon the critical days                                       88

15. I sleep not day or night                                     96

16. From the bells of the church adjoining, I am daily
    remembered of my burial in the funerals of others           102

17. Now, this bell tolling softly for another, says to me,
    Thou must die                                               107

18. The bell rings out, and tells me in him, that I am dead     114

19. At last the physicians, after a long and stormy voyage,
    see land: They have so good signs of the concoction of
    the disease, as that they may safely proceed to purge       122

20. Upon these indications of digested matter, they proceed
    to purge                                                    131

21. God prospers their practice, and he, by them, calls
    Lazarus out of his tomb, me out of my bed                   138

22. The physicians consider the root and occasion, the
    embers, and coals, and fuel of the disease, and seek
    to purge or correct that                                    145

23. They warn me of the fearful danger of relapsing             152


_DEVOTIONS_

I

INSULTUS MORBI PRIMUS.

_The first Alteration, the first Grudging, of the Sickness._


I. MEDITATION.

Variable, and therefore miserable condition of man! this minute I was
well, and am ill, this minute. I am surprised with a sudden change, and
alteration to worse, and can impute it to no cause, nor call it by any
name. We study health, and we deliberate upon our meats, and drink, and
air, and exercises, and we hew and we polish every stone that goes to
that building; and so our health is a long and a regular work: but in a
minute a cannon batters all, overthrows all, demolishes all; a sickness
unprevented for all our diligence, unsuspected for all our curiosity;
nay, undeserved, if we consider only disorder, summons us, seizes us,
possesses us, destroys us in an instant. O miserable condition of man!
which was not imprinted by God, who, as he is immortal himself, had put
a coal, a beam of immortality into us, which we might have blown into a
flame, but blew it out by our first sin; we beggared ourselves by
hearkening after false riches, and infatuated ourselves by hearkening
after false knowledge. So that now, we do not only die, but die upon the
rack, die by the torment of sickness; nor that only, but are
pre-afflicted, super-afflicted with these jealousies and suspicions and
apprehensions of sickness, before we can call it a sickness: we are not
sure we are ill; one hand asks the other by the pulse, and our eye asks
our own urine how we do. O multiplied misery! we die, and cannot enjoy
death, because we die in this torment of sickness; we are tormented with
sickness, and cannot stay till the torment come, but pre-apprehensions
and presages prophesy those torments which induce that death before
either come; and our dissolution is conceived in these first changes,
quickened in the sickness itself, and born in death, which bears date
from these first changes. Is this the honour which man hath by being a
little world, that he hath these earthquakes in himself, sudden
shakings; these lightnings, sudden flashes; these thunders, sudden
noises; these eclipses, sudden offuscations and darkening of his senses;
these blazing stars, sudden fiery exhalations; these rivers of blood,
sudden red waters? Is he a world to himself only therefore, that he hath
enough in himself, not only to destroy and execute himself, but to
presage that execution upon himself; to assist the sickness, to antedate
the sickness, to make the sickness the more irremediable by sad
apprehensions, and, as if he would make a fire the more vehement by
sprinkling water upon the coals, so to wrap a hot fever in cold
melancholy, lest the fever alone should not destroy fast enough without
this contribution, nor perfect the work (which is destruction) except we
joined an artificial sickness of our own melancholy, to our natural, our
unnatural fever. O perplexed discomposition, O riddling distemper, O
miserable condition of man!


I. EXPOSTULATION.

If I were but mere dust and ashes I might speak unto the Lord, for the
Lord's hand made me of this dust, and the Lord's hand shall re-collect
these ashes; the Lord's hand was the wheel upon which this vessel of
clay was framed, and the Lord's hand is the urn in which these ashes
shall be preserved. I am the dust and the ashes of the temple of the
Holy Ghost, and what marble is so precious? But I am more than dust and
ashes: I am my best part, I am my soul. And being so, the breath of God,
I may breathe back these pious expostulations to my God: My God, my God,
why is not my soul as sensible as my body? Why hath not my soul these
apprehensions, these presages, these changes, these antidates, these
jealousies, these suspicions of a sin, as well as my body of a sickness?
Why is there not always a pulse in my soul to beat at the approach of a
temptation to sin? Why are there not always waters in mine eyes, to
testify my spiritual sickness? I stand in the way of temptations,
naturally, necessarily; all men do so; for there is a snake in every
path, temptations in every vocation; but I go, I run, I fly into the
ways of temptation which I might shun; nay, I break into houses where
the plague is; I press into places of temptation, and tempt the devil
himself, and solicit and importune them who had rather be left
unsolicited by me. I fall sick of sin, and am bedded and bedrid, buried
and putrified in the practice of sin, and all this while have no
presage, no pulse, no sense of my sickness. O height, O depth of misery,
where the first symptom of the sickness is hell, and where I never see
the fever of lust, of envy, of ambition, by any other light than the
darkness and horror of hell itself, and where the first messenger that
speaks to me doth not say, "Thou mayest die," no, nor "Thou must die,"
but "Thou art dead;" and where the first notice that my soul hath of her
sickness is irrecoverableness, irremediableness: but, O my God, Job did
not charge thee foolishly in his temporal afflictions, nor may I in my
spiritual. Thou hast imprinted a pulse in our soul, but we do not
examine it; a voice in our conscience, but we do not hearken unto it. We
talk it out, we jest it out, we drink it out, we sleep it out; and when
we wake, we do not say with Jacob, _Surely the Lord is in this place,
and I knew it not_: but though we might know it, we do not, we will not.
But will God pretend to make a watch, and leave out the spring? to make
so many various wheels in the faculties of the soul, and in the organs
of the body, and leave out grace, that should move them? or will God
make a spring, and not wind it up? Infuse his first grace, and not
second it with more, without which we can no more use his first grace
when we have it, than we could dispose ourselves by nature to have it?
But alas, that is not our case; we are all prodigal sons, and not
disinherited; we have received our portion, and mispent it, not been
denied it. We are God's tenants here, and yet here, he, our landlord,
pays us rents; not yearly, nor quarterly, but hourly, and quarterly;
every minute he renews his mercy, but we _will not understand, lest that
we should be converted, and he should heal us_.[1]


I. PRAYER.

O eternal and most gracious God, who, considered in thyself, art a
circle, first and last, and altogether; but, considered in thy working
upon us, art a direct line, and leadest us from our beginning, through
all our ways, to our end, enable me by thy grace to look forward to mine
end, and to look backward too, to the considerations of thy mercies
afforded me from the beginning; that so by that practice of considering
thy mercy, in my beginning in this world, when thou plantedst me in the
Christian church, and thy mercy in the beginning in the other world,
when thou writest me in the book of life, in my election, I may come to
a holy consideration of thy mercy in the beginning of all my actions
here: that in all the beginnings, in all the accesses and approaches, of
spiritual sicknesses of sin, I may hear and hearken to that voice, _O
thou man of God, there is death in the pot_,[2] and so refrain from that
which I was so hungerly, so greedily flying to. _A faithful ambassador
is health_,[3] says thy wise servant Solomon. Thy voice received in the
beginning of a sickness, of a sin, is true health. If I can see that
light betimes, and hear that voice early, _Then shall my light break
forth as the morning, and my health shall spring forth speedily_.[4]
Deliver me therefore, O my God, from these vain imaginations; that it is
an over-curious thing, a dangerous thing, to come to that tenderness,
that rawness, that scrupulousness, to fear every concupiscence, every
offer of sin, that this suspicious and jealous diligence will turn to an
inordinate dejection of spirit, and a diffidence in thy care and
providence; but keep me still established, both in a constant
assurance, that thou wilt speak to me at the beginning of every such
sickness, at the approach of every such sin; and that, if I take
knowledge of that voice then, and fly to thee, thou wilt preserve me
from falling, or raise me again, when by natural infirmity I am fallen.
Do this, O Lord, for his sake, who knows our natural infirmities, for he
had them, and knows the weight of our sins, for he paid a dear price for
them, thy Son, our Saviour, Christ Jesus. Amen.


II. POST ACTIO LÆSA.

_The Strength and the function of the senses, and other faculties,
change and fail._


II. MEDITATION.

The heavens are not the less constant, because they move continually,
because they move continually one and the same way. The earth is not the
more constant, because it lies still continually, because continually it
changes and melts in all the parts thereof. Man, who is the noblest part
of the earth, melts so away, as if he were a statue, not of earth, but
of snow. We see his own envy melts him, he grows lean with that; he will
say, another's beauty melts him; but he feels that a fever doth not melt
him like snow, but pour him out like lead, like iron, like brass melted
in a furnace; it doth not only melt him, but calcine him, reduce him to
atoms, and to ashes; not to water, but to lime. And how quickly? Sooner
than thou canst receive an answer, sooner than thou canst conceive the
question; earth is the centre of my body, heaven is the centre of my
soul; these two are the natural places of these two; but those go not
to these two in an equal pace: my body falls down without pushing; my
soul does not go up without pulling; ascension is my soul's pace and
measure, but precipitation my body's. And even angels, whose home is
heaven, and who are winged too, yet had a ladder to go to heaven by
steps. The sun which goes so many miles in a minute, the stars of the
firmament which go so very many more, go not so fast as my body to the
earth. In the same instant that I feel the first attempt of the disease,
I feel the victory; in the twinkling of an eye I can scarce see;
instantly the taste is insipid and fatuous; instantly the appetite is
dull and desireless; instantly the knees are sinking and strengthless;
and in an instant, sleep, which is the picture, the copy of death, is
taken away, that the original, death itself, may succeed, and that so I
might have death to the life. It was part of Adam's punishment, _In the
sweat of thy brows thou shalt eat thy bread_: it is multiplied to me, I
have earned bread in the sweat of my brows, in the labour of my calling,
and I have it; and I sweat again and again, from the brow to the sole of
the foot, but I eat no bread, I taste no sustenance: miserable
distribution of mankind, where one half lacks meat, and the other
stomach!


II. EXPOSTULATION.

David professes himself a dead dog to his king Saul,[5] and so doth
Mephibosheth to his king David,[6] and yet David speaks to Saul, and
Mephibosheth to David. No man is so little, in respect of the greatest
man, as the greatest in respect of God; for here, in that, we have not
so much as a measure to try it by; proportion is no measure for
infinity. He that hath no more of this world but a grave; he that hath
his grave but lent him till a better man or another man must be buried
in the same grave; he that hath no grave but a dunghill, he that hath no
more earth but that which he carries, but that which he is, he that hath
not that earth which he is, but even in that is another's slave, hath as
much proportion to God, as if all David's worthies, and all the world's
monarchs, and all imagination's giants, were kneaded and incorporated
into one, and as though that one were the survivor of all the sons of
men, to whom God had given the world. And therefore how little soever I
be, as _God calls things that are not, as though they were_, I, who am
as though I were not, may call upon God, and say, My God, my God, why
comes thine anger so fast upon me? Why dost thou melt me, scatter me,
pour me like water upon the ground so instantly? Thou stayedst for the
first world, in Noah's time, one hundred and twenty years; thou stayedst
for a rebellious generation in the wilderness forty years, wilt thou
stay no minute for me? Wilt thou make thy process and thy decree, thy
citation and thy judgment, but one act? Thy summons, thy battle, thy
victory, thy triumph, all but one act; and lead me captive, nay, deliver
me captive to death, as soon as thou declarest me to be enemy, and so
cut me off even with the drawing of thy sword out of the scabbard, and
for that question, How long was he sick? leave no other answer, but that
the hand of death pressed upon him from the first minute? My God, my
God, thou wast not wont to come in whirlwinds, but in soft and gentle
air. Thy first breath breathed a soul into me, and shall thy breath blow
it out? Thy breath in the congregation, thy word in the church, breathes
communion and consolation here, and consummation hereafter; shall thy
breath in this chamber breathe dissolution and destruction, divorce and
separation? Surely it is not thou, it is not thy hand. The devouring
sword, the consuming fire, the winds from the wilderness, the diseases
of the body, all that afflicted Job, were from the hands of Satan; it is
not thou. It is thou, thou my God, who hast led me so continually with
thy hand, from the hand of my nurse, as that I know thou wilt not
correct me, but with thine own hand. My parents would not give me over
to a servant's correction, nor my God to Satan's. I am _fallen into the
hands of God_ with David, and with David I see that his mercies are
great.[7] For by that mercy, I consider in my present state, not the
haste and the despatch of the disease, in dissolving this body, so much
as the much more haste and despatch, which my God shall use, in
re-collecting and re-uniting this dust again at the resurrection. Then I
shall hear his angels proclaim the _Surgite mortui_, Rise, ye dead.
Though I be dead, I shall hear the voice; the sounding of the voice and
the working of the voice shall be all one; and all shall rise there in a
less minute than any one dies here.


II. PRAYER.

O most gracious God, who pursuest and perfectest thine own purposes, and
dost not only remember me, by the first accesses of this sickness, that
I must die, but inform me, by this further proceeding therein, that I
may die now; who hast not only waked me with the first, but called me
up, by casting me further down, and clothed me with thyself, by
stripping me of my self, and by dulling my bodily senses to the meats
and eases of this world, hast whet and sharpened my spiritual senses to
the apprehension of thee; by what steps and degrees soever it shall
please thee to go, in the dissolution of this body, hasten, O Lord, that
pace, and multiply, O my God, those degrees, in the exaltation of my
soul toward thee now, and to thee then. My taste is not gone away, but
gone up to sit at David's table, _to taste, and see, that the Lord is
good_.[8] My stomach is not gone, but gone up, so far upwards toward the
_supper of the Lamb_, with thy saints in heaven, as to the table, to the
communion of thy saints here in earth. My knees are weak, but weak
therefore that I should easily fall to and fix myself long upon my
devotions to thee. _A sound heart is the life of the flesh_;[9] and a
heart visited by thee, and directed to thee, by that visitation is a
sound heart. _There is no soundness in my flesh, because of thine
anger._[10] Interpret thine own work, and call this sickness correction,
and not anger, and there is soundness in my flesh. _There is no rest in
my bones, because of my sin_;[11] transfer my sins, with which thou art
so displeased, upon him with whom thou art so well pleased, Christ
Jesus, and there will be rest in my bones. And, O my God, who madest
thyself a light in a bush, in the midst of these brambles and thorns of
a sharp sickness, appear unto me so that I may see thee, and know thee
to be my God, applying thyself to me, even in these sharp and thorny
passages. Do this, O Lord, for his sake, who was not the less the King
of heaven for thy suffering him to be crowned with thorns in this world.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Matt. xiii. 15.

[2] 2 Kings, iv. 40.

[3] Prov. xiii. 17.

[4] Isaiah, lviii. 8.

[5] 1 Sam. xxiv. 15.

[6] 2 Sam. ix. 8.

[7] 2 Sam. xxiv. 14.

[8] Psalm xxxiv. 8.

[9] Prov. xiv. 30.

[10] Psalm xxxviii. 3.

[11] Psalm xxxviii. 3.


III. DECUBITUS SEQUITUR TANDEM.

_The patient takes his bed._


III. MEDITATION.

We attribute but one privilege and advantage to man's body above other
moving creatures, that he is not, as others, grovelling, but of an
erect, of an upright, form naturally built and disposed to the
contemplation of heaven. Indeed it is a thankful form, and recompenses
that soul, which gives it, with carrying that soul so many feet higher
towards heaven. Other creatures look to the earth; and even that is no
unfit object, no unfit contemplation for man, for thither he must come;
but because man is not to stay there, as other creatures are, man in his
natural form is carried to the contemplation of that place which is his
home, heaven. This is man's prerogative; but what state hath he in this
dignity? A fever can fillip him down, a fever can depose him; a fever
can bring that head, which yesterday carried a crown of gold five feet
towards a crown of glory, as low as his own foot to-day. When God came
to breathe into man the breath of life, he found him flat upon the
ground; when he comes to withdraw that breath from him again, he
prepares him to it by laying him flat upon his bed. Scarce any prison so
close that affords not the prisoner two or three steps. The anchorites
that barked themselves up in hollow trees and immured themselves in
hollow walls, that perverse man that barrelled himself in a tub, all
could stand or sit, and enjoy some change of posture. A sick bed is a
grave, and all that the patient says there is but a varying of his own
epitaph. Every night's bed is a type of the grave; at night we tell our
servants at what hour we will rise, here we cannot tell ourselves at
what day, what week, what month. Here the head lies as low as the foot;
the head of the people as low as they whom those feet trod upon; and
that hand that signed pardons is too weak to beg his own, if he might
have it for lifting up that hand. Strange fetters to the feet, strange
manacles to the hands, when the feet and hands are bound so much the
faster, by how much the cords are slacker; so much the less able to do
their offices, by how much more the sinews and ligaments are the looser.
In the grave I may speak through the stones, in the voice of my friends,
and in the accents of those words which their love may afford my memory;
here I am mine own ghost, and rather affright my beholders than instruct
them; they conceive the worst of me now, and yet fear worse; they give
me for dead now, and yet wonder how I do when they wake at midnight, and
ask how I do to-morrow. Miserable, and (though common to all) inhuman
posture, where I must practise my lying in the grave by lying still, and
not practise my resurrection by rising any more.


III. EXPOSTULATION.

My God and my Jesus, my Lord and my Christ, my strength and my
salvation, I hear thee, and I hearken to thee, when thou rebukest thy
disciples, for rebuking them who brought children to thee; _Suffer
little children to come to me_, sayest thou.[12] Is there a verier child
than I am now? I cannot say, with thy servant Jeremy, _Lord, I am a
child, and cannot speak_; but, O Lord, I am a sucking child, and cannot
eat; a creeping child, and cannot go; how shall I come to thee? Whither
shall I come to thee? To this bed? I have this weak and childish
frowardness too, I cannot sit up, and yet am loth to go to bed. Shall I
find thee in bed? Oh, have I always done so? The bed is not ordinarily
thy scene, thy climate: Lord, dost thou not accuse me, dost thou not
reproach to me my former sins, when thou layest me upon this bed? Is not
this to hang a man at his own door, to lay him sick in his own bed of
wantonness? When thou chidest us by thy prophet for lying in _beds of
ivory_[13], is not thine anger vented; not till thou changest our beds
of ivory into beds of ebony? David swears unto thee, _that he will not
go up into his bed, till he had built thee a house_.[14] To go up into
the bed denotes strength, and promises ease; but when thou sayest, _that
thou wilt cast Jezebel into a bed_, thou makest thine own comment upon
that; thou callest the bed tribulation, great tribulation.[15] How shall
they come to thee whom thou hast nailed to their bed? Thou art in the
congregation, and I in a solitude: when the centurion's servant lay sick
at home,[16] his master was fain to come to Christ; the sick man could
not. Their friend lay sick of the palsy, and the four charitable men
were fain to bring him to Christ; he could not come.[17] Peter's wife's
mother lay sick of a fever, and Christ came to her; she could not come
to him.[18] My friends may carry me home to thee, in their prayers in
the congregation; thou must come home to me in the visitation of thy
Spirit, and in the seal of thy sacrament. But when I am cast into this
bed my slack sinews are iron fetters, and those thin sheets iron doors
upon me; and, _Lord, I have loved the habitation of thine house, and the
place where thine honour dwelleth_.[19] I lie here and say, _Blessed are
they that dwell in thy house_;[20] but I cannot say, _I will come into
thy house_; I may say, _In thy fear will I worship towards thy holy
temple_;[21] but I cannot say in thy holy temple. And, _Lord, the zeal
of thy house eats me up_,[22] as fast as my fever; it is not a
recusancy, for I would come, but it is an excommunication, I must not.
But, Lord, thou art Lord of hosts, and lovest action; why callest thou
me from my calling? _In the grave no man shall praise thee_; in the door
of the grave, this sick bed, no man shall hear me praise thee. Thou hast
not opened my lips that my mouth might show thee thy praise, but that my
mouth might show forth thy praise. But thine apostle's fear takes hold
of me, _that when I have preached to others, I myself should be a
castaway_;[23] and therefore am I cast down, that I might not be cast
away. Thou couldst take me by the head, as thou didst Habbakuk, and
carry me so; by a chariot, as thou didst Elijah,[24] and carry me so;
but thou carriest me thine own private way, the way by which thou
carriedst thy Son, who first lay upon the earth and prayed, and then had
his exaltation, as himself calls his crucifying; and first descended
into hell, and then had his ascension. There is another station (indeed
neither are stations but prostrations) lower than this bed; to-morrow I
may be laid one story lower, upon the floor, the face of the earth; and
next day another story, in the grave, the womb of the earth. As yet God
suspends me between heaven and earth, as a meteor; and I am not in
heaven because an earthly body clogs me, and I am not in the earth
because a heavenly soul sustains me. And it is thine own law, O God,
that _if a man be smitten so by another, as that he keep his bed, though
he die not, he that hurt him must take care of his healing, and
recompense him_[25]. Thy hand strikes me into this bed; and therefore,
if I rise again, thou wilt be my recompense all the days of my life, in
making the memory of this sickness beneficial to me; and if my body fall
yet lower, thou wilt take my soul out of this bath, and present it to
thy Father, washed again, and again, and again, in thine own tears, in
thine own sweat, in thine own blood.


III. PRAYER.

O most mighty and most merciful God, who, though thou have taken me off
of my feet, hast not taken me off of my foundation, which is thyself;
who, though thou have removed me from that upright form in which I could
stand and see thy throne, the heavens, yet hast not removed from me that
light by which I can lie and see thyself; who, though thou have weakened
my bodily knees, that they cannot bow to thee, hast yet left me the
knees of my heart; which are bowed unto thee evermore; as thou hast made
this bed thine altar, make me thy sacrifice; and as thou makest thy Son
Christ Jesus the priest, so make me his deacon, to minister to him in a
cheerful surrender of my body and soul to thy pleasure, by his hands. I
come unto thee, O God, my God, I come unto thee, so as I can come, I
come to thee, by embracing thy coming to me, I come in the confidence,
and in the application of thy servant David's promise, _that thou wilt
make all my bed in my sickness_;[26] all my bed; that which way soever I
turn, I may turn to thee; and as I feel thy hand upon all my body, so I
may find it upon all my bed, and see all my corrections, and all my
refreshings to flow from one and the same, and all from thy hand. As
thou hast made these feathers thorns, in the sharpness of this sickness,
so, Lord, make these thorns feathers again, feathers of thy dove, in the
peace of conscience, and in a holy recourse to thine ark, to the
instruments of true comfort, in thy institutions and in the ordinances
of thy church. Forget my bed, O Lord, as it hath been a bed of sloth,
and worse than sloth; take me not, O Lord, at this advantage, to terrify
my soul with saying, Now I have met thee there where thou hast so often
departed from me; but having burnt up that bed by these vehement heats,
and washed that bed in these abundant sweats, make my bed again, O Lord,
and enable me, according to thy command, _to commune with mine own heart
upon my bed, and be still_[27]; to provide a bed for all my former sins
whilst I lie upon this bed, and a grave for my sins before I come to my
grave; and when I have deposited them in the wounds of thy Son, to rest
in that assurance, that my conscience is discharged from further
anxiety, and my soul from further danger, and my memory from further
calumny. Do this, O Lord, for his sake, who did and suffered so much,
that thou mightest, as well in thy justice as in thy mercy, do it for
me, thy Son, our Saviour, Christ Jesus.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] Matt. xix. 13.

[13] Amos, vi. 4.

[14] Psalm cxxxii. 3.

[15] Rev. ii. 22.

[16] Matt. viii. 6.

[17] Matt. viii. 4.

[18] Matt. viii. 14.

[19] Psalm xxvi. 8.

[20] Psalm lxxxiv. 4.

[21] Psalm v. 7.

[22] Psalm lxix. 9.

[23] 1 Cor. ix. 27.

[24] 2 Kings, ii. 11.

[25] Exodus, xxi. 18.

[26] Psalm xli. 3.

[27] Psalm iv. 4.


IV. MEDICUSQUE VOCATUR.

_The physician is sent for._


IV. MEDITATION.

It is too little to call man a little world; except God, man is a
diminutive to nothing. Man consists of more pieces, more parts, than the
world; than the world doth, nay, than the world is. And if those pieces
were extended, and stretched out in man as they are in the world, man
would be the giant, and the world the dwarf; the world but the map, and
the man the world. If all the veins in our bodies were extended to
rivers, and all the sinews to veins of mines, and all the muscles that
lie upon one another, to hills, and all the bones to quarries of stones,
and all the other pieces to the proportion of those which correspond to
them in the world, the air would be too little for this orb of man to
move in, the firmament would be but enough for this star; for, as the
whole world hath nothing, to which something in man doth not answer, so
hath man many pieces of which the whole world hath no representation.
Enlarge this meditation upon this great world, man, so far as to
consider the immensity of the creatures this world produces; our
creatures are our thoughts, creatures that are born giants; that reach
from east to west, from earth to heaven; that do not only bestride all
the sea and land, but span the sun and firmament at once; my thoughts
reach all, comprehend all. Inexplicable mystery; I their creator am in a
close prison, in a sick bed, any where, and any one of my creatures, my
thoughts, is with the sun, and beyond the sun, overtakes the sun, and
overgoes the sun in one pace, one step, everywhere. And then, as the
other world produces serpents and vipers, malignant and venomous
creatures, and worms and caterpillars, that endeavour to devour that
world which produces them, and monsters compiled and complicated of
divers parents and kinds; so this world, ourselves, produces all these
in us, in producing diseases, and sicknesses of all those sorts:
venomous and infectious diseases, feeding and consuming diseases, and
manifold and entangled diseases made up of many several ones. And can
the other world name so many venomous, so many consuming, so many
monstrous creatures, as we can diseases of all these kinds? O miserable
abundance, O beggarly riches! how much do we lack of having remedies for
every disease, when as yet we have not names for them? But we have a
Hercules against these giants, these monsters; that is, the physician;
he musters up all the forces of the other world to succour this, all
nature to relieve man. We have the physician, but we are not the
physician. Here we shrink in our proportion, sink in our dignity, in
respect of very mean creatures, who are physicians to themselves. The
hart that is pursued and wounded, they say, knows an herb, which being
eaten throws off the arrow: a strange kind of vomit. The dog that
pursues it, though he be subject to sickness, even proverbially, knows
his grass that recovers him. And it may be true, that the drugger is as
near to man as to other creatures; it may be that obvious and present
simples, easy to be had, would cure him; but the apothecary is not so
near him, nor the physician so near him, as they two are to other
creatures; man hath not that innate instinct, to apply those natural
medicines to his present danger, as those inferior creatures have; he is
not his own apothecary, his own physician, as they are. Call back
therefore thy meditation again, and bring it down: what's become of
man's great extent and proportion, when himself shrinks himself and
consumes himself to a handful of dust; what's become of his soaring
thoughts, his compassing thoughts, when himself brings himself to the
ignorance, to the thoughtlessness, of the grave? His diseases are his
own, but the physician is not; he hath them at home, but he must send
for the physician.


IV. EXPOSTULATION.

I have not the righteousness of Job, but I have the desire of Job: _I
would speak to the Almighty, and I would reason with God_.[28] My God,
my God, how soon wouldst thou have me go to the physician, and how far
wouldst thou have me go with the physician? I know thou hast made the
matter, and the man, and the art; and I go not from thee when I go to
the physician. Thou didst not make clothes before there was a shame of
the nakedness of the body, but thou didst make physic before there was
any grudging of any sickness; for thou didst imprint a medicinal virtue
in many simples, even from the beginning; didst thou mean that we should
be sick when thou didst so? when thou madest them? No more than thou
didst mean, that we should sin, when thou madest us: thou foresawest
both, but causedst neither. Thou, Lord, promisest here trees, _whose
fruit shall be for meat, and their leaves for medicine_.[29] It is the
voice of thy Son, _Wilt thou be made whole?_[30] that draws from the
patient a confession that he was ill, and could not make himself well.
And it is thine own voice, _Is there no physician?_[31] that inclines
us, disposes us, to accept thine ordinance. And it is the voice of the
wise man, both for the matter, physic itself, _The Lord hath created
medicines out of the earth, and he that is wise shall not abhor
them_,[32] and for the art, and the person, the physician cutteth off a
long disease. In all these voices thou sendest us to those helps which
thou hast afforded us in that. But wilt not thou avow that voice too,
_He that hath sinned against his Maker, let him fall into the hands of
the physician_;[33] and wilt not thou afford me an understanding of
those words? Thou, who sendest us for a blessing to the physician, dost
not make it a curse to us to go when thou sendest. Is not the curse
rather in this, that only he falls into the hands of the physician, that
casts himself wholly, entirely upon the physician, confides in him,
relies upon him, attends all from him, and neglects that spiritual
physic which thou also hast instituted in thy church. So to fall into
the hands of the physician is a sin, and a punishment of former sins;
so, as Asa fell, who in his disease _sought not to the Lord, but to the
physician_.[34] Reveal therefore to me thy method, O Lord, and see
whether I have followed it; that thou mayest have glory, if I have, and
I pardon, if I have not, and help that I may. Thy method is, _In time of
thy sickness, be not negligent_: wherein wilt thou have my diligence
expressed? _Pray unto the Lord, and he will make thee whole._[35] O
Lord, I do; I pray, and pray thy servant David's prayer, _Have mercy
upon me, O Lord, for I am weak; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are
vexed_:[36] I know that even my weakness is a reason, a motive, to
induce thy mercy, and my sickness an occasion of thy sending health.
When art thou so ready, when is it so seasonable to thee, to
commiserate, as in misery? But is prayer for health in season, as soon
as I am sick? Thy method goes further: _Leave off from sin, and order
thy hands aright, and cleanse thy heart from all wickedness_.[37] Have
I, O Lord, done so? O Lord, I have; by thy grace, I am come to a holy
detestation of my former sin. Is there any more? In thy method there is
more: _Give a sweet savour, and a memorial of fine flour, and make a fat
offering, as not being_.[38] And, Lord, by thy grace, I have done that,
sacrificed a little of that little which thou lentest me, to them for
whom thou lentest it: and now in thy method, and by thy steps, I am come
to that, _Then give place to the physician, for the Lord hath created
him; let him not go from thee, for thou hast need of him_.[39] I send
for the physician, but I will hear him enter with those words of Peter,
_Jesus Christ maketh thee whole_;[40] I long for his presence, but I
look _that the power of the Lord should be present to heal me_.[41]


IV. PRAYER.

O most mighty and most merciful God, who art so the God of health and
strength, as that without thee all health is but the fuel, and all
strength but the bellows of sin; behold me under the vehemence of two
diseases, and under the necessity of two physicians, authorized by thee,
the bodily, and the spiritual physician. I come to both as to thine
ordinance, and bless and glorify thy name that, in both cases, thou hast
afforded help to man by the ministry of man. Even in the new Jerusalem,
in heaven itself, it hath pleased thee to discover a tree, which is _a
tree of life there, but the leaves thereof are for the healing of the
nations_.[42] Life itself is with thee there, for thou art life; and all
kinds of health, wrought upon us here by thine instruments, descend from
thence. _Thou wouldst have healed Babylon, but she is not healed._[43]
Take from me, O Lord, her perverseness, her wilfulness, her
refractoriness, and hear thy Spirit saying in my soul: Heal me, O Lord,
for I would be healed. _Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah his wound;
then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to King Jareb, yet could not
he heal you, nor cure you of your wound._[44] Keep me back, O Lord, from
them who misprofess arts of healing the soul, or of the body, by means
not imprinted by thee in the church for the soul, or not in nature for
the body. There is no spiritual health to be had by superstition, nor
bodily by witchcraft; thou, Lord, and only thou, art Lord of both. Thou
in thyself art Lord of both, and thou in thy Son art the physician, the
applier of both. _With his stripes we are healed_,[45] says the prophet
there; there, before he was scourged, we were healed with his stripes;
how much more shall I be healed now, now when that which he hath already
suffered actually is actually and effectually applied to me? Is there
any thing incurable, upon which that balm drops? Any vein so empty as
that that blood cannot fill it? Thou promisest to heal the earth;[46]
but it is when the inhabitants of the earth _pray that thou wouldst heal
it_. Thou promisest to heal their waters, but _their miry places and
standing waters_, thou sayest there, _thou wilt not heal_.[47] My
returning to any sin, if I should return to the ability of sinning over
all my sins again, thou wouldst not pardon. Heal this earth, O my God,
by repentant tears, and heal these waters, these tears, from all
bitterness, from all diffidence, from all dejection, by establishing my
irremovable assurance in thee. _Thy Son went about healing all manner of
sickness._[48] (No disease incurable, none difficult; he healed them in
passing). _Virtue went out of him, and he healed all_,[49] all the
multitude (no person incurable), he healed them _every whit_[50] (as
himself speaks), he left no relics of the disease; and will this
universal physician pass by this hospital, and not visit me? not heal
me? not heal me wholly? Lord, I look not that thou shouldst say by thy
messenger to me, as to Hezekiah, _Behold, I will heal thee, and on the
third day thou shalt go up to the house of the Lord_.[51] I look not
that thou shouldst say to me, as to Moses in Miriam's behalf, when Moses
would have had her healed presently, _If her father had but spit in her
face, should she not have been ashamed seven days? Let her be shut up
seven days, and then return_;[52] but if thou be pleased to multiply
seven days (and seven is infinite) by the number of my sins (and that is
more infinite), if this day must remove me till days shall be no more,
seal to me my spiritual health, in affording me the seals of thy church;
and for my temporal health, prosper thine ordinance, in their hands who
shall assist in this sickness, in that manner, and in that measure, as
may most glorify thee, and most edify those who observe the issues of
thy servants, to their own spiritual benefit.

FOOTNOTES:

[28] Job, xiii. 3.

[29] Ezek. xlvii. 12.

[30] John, v. 6.

[31] Jer. viii. 22.

[32] Ecclus. xxxviii. 4.

[33] Ecclus. xxxviii. 15.

[34] 1 Chron. xvi. 12.

[35] Ecclus. xxxviii. 9.

[36] Psalm vi. 2.

[37] Ecclus. xxxviii. 10.

[38] Ecclus. xxxviii. 11.

[39] Ecclus. xxxviii. 12.

[40] Acts, ix. 34.

[41] Luke, v. 17.

[42] Rev. xxii. 2.

[43] Jer. li. 9.

[44] Hosea, v. 13.

[45] Isaiah, liii. 5.

[46] 2 Chron. vii. 14.

[47] Ezek. xlvii. 11.

[48] Matt. iv. 23.

[49] Luke, vi. 19.

[50] John, vii. 23.

[51] 2 Kings, xx. 5.

[52] Num. xii. 14.


V. SOLUS ADEST.

_The physician comes_


V. MEDITATION.

As sickness is the greatest misery, so the greatest misery of sickness
is solitude; when the infectiousness of the disease deters them who
should assist from coming; even the physician dares scarce come.
Solitude is a torment which is not threatened in hell itself. Mere
vacuity, the first agent, God, the first instrument of God, nature, will
not admit; nothing can be utterly empty, but so near a degree towards
vacuity as solitude, to be but one, they love not. When I am dead, and
my body might infect, they have a remedy, they may bury me; but when I
am but sick, and might infect, they have no remedy but their absence,
and my solitude. It is an excuse to them that are great, and pretend,
and yet are loath to come; it is an inhibition to those who would truly
come, because they may be made instruments, and pestiducts, to the
infection of others, by their coming. And it is an outlawry, an
excommunication upon the patient, and separates him from all offices,
not only of civility but of working charity. A long sickness will weary
friends at last, but a pestilential sickness averts them from the
beginning. God himself would admit a figure of society, as there is a
plurality of persons in God, though there be but one God; and all his
external actions testify a love of society, and communion. In heaven
there are orders of angels, and armies of martyrs, and in that house
many mansions; in earth, families, cities, churches, colleges, all
plural things; and lest either of these should not be company enough
alone, there is an association of both, a communion of saints which
makes the militant and triumphant church one parish; so that Christ was
not out of his diocess when he was upon the earth, nor out of his temple
when he was in our flesh. God, who saw that all that he made was good,
came not so near seeing a defect in any of his works, as when he saw
that it was not good for man to be alone, therefore he made him a
helper; and one that should help him so as to increase the number, and
give him her own, and more society. Angels, who do not propagate nor
multiply, were made at first in an abundant number, and so were stars;
but for the things of this world, their blessing was, Increase; for I
think, I need not ask leave to think, that there is no phoenix;
nothing singular, nothing alone. Men that inhere upon nature only, are
so far from thinking that there is any thing singular in this world, as
that they will scarce think that this world itself is singular, but that
every planet, and every star, is another world like this; they find
reason to conceive not only a plurality in every species in the world,
but a plurality of worlds; so that the abhorrers of solitude are not
solitary, for God, and Nature, and Reason concur against it. Now a man
may counterfeit the plague in a vow, and mistake a disease for religion,
by such a retiring and recluding of himself from all men as to do good
to no man, to converse with no man. God hath two testaments, two wills;
but this is a schedule, and not of his, a codicil, and not of his, not
in the body of his testaments, but interlined and postscribed by others,
that the way to the communion of saints should be by such a solitude as
excludes all doing of good here. That is a disease of the mind, as the
height of an infectious disease of the body is solitude, to be left
alone: for this makes an infectious bed equal, nay, worse than a grave,
that though in both I be equally alone, in my bed I know it, and feel
it, and shall not in my grave: and this too, that in my bed my soul is
still in an infectious body, and shall not in my grave be so.


V. EXPOSTULATION.

O God, my God, thy Son took it not ill at Martha's hands, that when he
said unto her, _Thy brother Lazarus shall rise again_,[53] she
expostulated it so far with him as to reply, _I know that he shall rise
again in the resurrection, at the last day_; for she was miserable by
wanting him then. Take it not ill, O my God, from me, that though thou
have ordained it for a blessing, and for a dignity to thy people, _that
they should dwell alone, and not be reckoned among the nations_[54]
(because they should be above them), and that _they should dwell in
safety alone_[55] (free from the infestation of enemies), yet I take thy
leave to remember thee, that thou hast said too, _Two are better than
one_; and, _Woe be unto him that is alone when he falleth_;[56] and so
when he is fallen, and laid in the bed of sickness too. _Righteousness
is immortal_;[57] I know thy wisdom hath said so; but no man, though
covered with the righteousness of thy Son, is immortal so as not to die;
for he who was righteousness itself did die. I know that the Son of
Righteousness, thy Son, refused not, nay affected, solitariness,
loneness,[58] many, many times; but at all times he was able to command
_more than twelve legions of angels_[59] to his service; and when he did
not so, he was far from being alone: for, _I am not alone_, says he,
_but I, and the Father that sent me_.[60] I cannot fear but that I
shall always be with thee and him; but whether this disease may not
alien and remove my friends, so that _they stand aloof from my sore, and
my kinsmen stand afar off_,[61] I cannot tell. I cannot fear but that
thou wilt reckon with me from this minute, in which, by thy grace, I see
thee; whether this understanding, and this will, and this memory may not
decay, to the discouragement and the ill interpretation of them that see
that heavy change in me, I cannot tell. It was for thy blessed, thy
powerful Son alone, _to tread the wine-press alone, and none of the
people with him_.[62] I am not able to pass this agony alone, not alone
without thee; thou art thy spirit, not alone without thine; spiritual
and temporal physicians are thine, not alone without mine; those whom
the bands of blood or friendship have made mine, are mine; and if thou,
or thine, or mine, abandon me, I am alone, and woe unto me if I be
alone. Elias himself fainted under that apprehension, _Lo, I am left
alone_;[63] and Martha murmured at that, said to Christ, _Lord, dost not
thou care that my sister hath left me to serve alone?_[64] Neither could
Jeremiah enter into his lamentations from a higher ground than to say,
_How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people_.[65] O my God,
it is the leper that thou hast condemned to live alone;[66] have I such
a leprosy in my soul that I must die alone; alone without thee? Shall
this come to such a leprosy in my body that I must die alone; alone
without them that should assist, that should comfort me? But comes not
this expostulation too near a murmuring? Must I be concluded with that,
that Moses _was commanded to come near the Lord alone_;[67] that
solitariness, and dereliction, and abandoning of others, disposes us
best for God, who accompanies us most alone? May I not remember, and
apply too, that though God came not to Jacob till he found him alone,
yet when he found him alone, he wrestled with him, and lamed him;[68]
that when, in the dereliction and forsaking of friends and physicians, a
man is left alone to God, God may so wrestle with this Jacob, with this
conscience, as to put it out of joint, and so appear to him as that he
dares not look upon him face to face, when as by way of reflection, in
the consolation of his temporal or spiritual servants, and ordinances he
durst, if they were there? But a _faithful friend is the physic of life,
and they that fear the Lord shall find him_.[69] Therefore hath the Lord
afforded me both in one person, that physician who is my faithful
friend.


V. PRAYER.

O eternal and most gracious God, who calledst down fire from heaven upon
the sinful cities but once, and openedst the earth to swallow the
murmurers but once, and threwest down the tower of Siloam upon sinners
but once; but for thy works of mercy repeatedst them often, and still
workest by thine own patterns, as thou broughtest man into this world,
by giving him a helper fit for him here; so, whether it be thy will to
continue me long thus, or to dismiss me by death, be pleased to afford
me the helps fit for both conditions, either for my weak stay here, or
my final transmigration from hence. And if thou mayst receive glory by
that way (and by all ways thou mayst receive glory), glorify thyself in
preserving this body from such infections as might withhold those who
would come, or endanger them who do come; and preserve this soul in the
faculties thereof from all such distempers as might shake the assurance
which myself and others have had, that because thou hast loved me thou
wouldst love me to my end, and at my end. Open none of my doors, not of
my heart, not of mine ears, not of my house, to any supplanter that
would enter to undermine me in my religion to thee, in the time of my
weakness, or to defame me, and magnify himself with false rumours of
such a victory and surprisal of me, after I am dead. Be my salvation,
and plead my salvation; work it and declare it; and as thy triumphant
shall be, so let the militant church be assured that thou wast my God,
and I thy servant, to and in my consummation. Bless thou the learning
and the labours of this man whom thou sendest to assist me; and since
thou takest me by the hand, and puttest me into his hands (for I come to
him in thy name, who in thy name comes to me), since I clog not my hopes
in him, no, nor my prayers to thee, with any limited conditions, but
inwrap all in those two petitions, _Thy kingdom come, thy will be done_,
prosper him, and relieve me, in thy way, in thy time, and in thy
measure. Amen.

FOOTNOTES:

[53] John, xi. 23.

[54] Num. xxiii. 9.

[55] Deut. xxxiii. 28.

[56] Eccles. iv. 10.

[57] Wisd. i. 15.

[58] Matt. xiv. 23.

[59] Matt. xxvi. 13.

[60] John, viii. 16.

[61] Psalm xxxviii. 11.

[62] Isaiah, lxiii. 3.

[63] 1 Kings, xiv. 14.

[64] Luke, x. 40.

[65] Lam. i. 1.

[66] Lev. xiii. 46.

[67] Exod. xiv. 2.

[68] Gen. xxxii. 24. 25.

[69] Ecclus. vi. 16.


VI. METUIT.

_The physician is afraid._


VI. MEDITATION.

I observe the physician with the same diligence as he the disease; I see
he fears, and I fear with him; I overtake him, I overrun him, in his
fear, and I go the faster, because he makes his pace slow; I fear the
more, because he disguises his fear, and I see it with the more
sharpness, because he would not have me see it. He knows that his fear
shall not disorder the practice and exercise of his art, but he knows
that my fear may disorder the effect and working of his practice. As the
ill affections of the spleen complicate and mingle themselves with every
infirmity of the body, so doth fear insinuate itself in every action or
passion of the mind; and as wind in the body will counterfeit any
disease, and seem the stone, and seem the gout, so fear will counterfeit
any disease of the mind. It shall seem love, a love of having; and it is
but a fear, a jealous and suspicious fear of losing. It shall seem
valour in despising and undervaluing danger; and it is but fear in an
overvaluing of opinion and estimation, and a fear of losing that. A man
that is not afraid of a lion is afraid of a cat; not afraid of starving,
and yet is afraid of some joint of meat at the table presented to feed
him; not afraid of the sound of drums and trumpets and shot and those
which they seek to drown, the last cries of men, and is afraid of some
particular harmonious instrument; so much afraid as that with any of
these the enemy might drive this man, otherwise valiant enough, out of
the field. I know not what fear is, nor I know not what it is that I
fear now; I fear not the hastening of my death, and yet I do fear the
increase of the disease; I should belie nature if I should deny that I
feared this; and if I should say that I feared death, I should belie
God. My weakness is from nature, who hath but her measure; my strength
is from God, who possesses and distributes infinitely. As then every
cold air is not a damp, every shivering is not a stupefaction; so every
fear is not a fearfulness, every declination is not a running away,
every debating is not a resolving, every wish that it were not thus, is
not a murmuring nor a dejection, though it be thus; but as my
physician's fear puts not him from his practice, neither doth mine put
me from receiving from God, and man, and myself, spiritual and civil and
moral assistances and consolations.


VI. EXPOSTULATION.

My God, my God, I find in thy book that fear is a stifling spirit, a
spirit of suffocation; that _Ishbosheth could not speak, nor reply in
his own defence to Abner, because he was afraid_.[70] It was thy servant
Job's case too, who, before he could say anything to thee, says of thee,
_Let him take his rod away from me, and let not his fear terrify me,
then would I speak with him, and not fear him; but it is not so with
me_.[71] Shall a fear of thee take away my devotion to thee? Dost thou
command me to speak to thee, and command me to fear thee; and do these
destroy one another? There is no perplexity in thee, my God; no
inextricableness in thee, my light and my clearness, my sun and my moon,
that directest me as well in the night of adversity and fear, as in my
day of prosperity and confidence. I must then speak to thee at all
times, but when must I fear thee? At all times too. When didst thou
rebuke any petitioner with the name of importunate? Thou hast proposed
to us a parable of a judge[72] that did justice at last, because the
client was importunate, and troubled him; but thou hast told us plainly,
that thy use in that parable was not that thou wast troubled with our
importunities, but (as thou sayest there) _that we should always pray_.
And to the same purpose thou proposest another,[73] that if I press my
friend, when he is in bed at midnight, to lend me bread, though he will
not rise because I am his friend, yet because of mine importunity he
will. God will do this whensoever thou askest, and never call it
importunity. Pray in thy bed at midnight, and God will not say, I will
hear thee to-morrow upon thy knees, at thy bedside; pray upon thy knees
there then, and God will not say, I will hear thee on Sunday at church;
God is no dilatory God, no froward God; prayer is never unseasonable,
God is never asleep, nor absent. But, O my God, can I do this, and fear
thee; come to thee and speak to thee, in all places, at all hours, and
fear thee? Dare I ask this question? There is more boldness in the
question than in the coming; I may do it though I fear thee; I cannot do
it except I fear thee. So well hast thou provided that we should always
fear thee, as that thou hast provided that we should fear no person but
thee, nothing but thee; no men? No. Whom? _The Lord is my help and my
salvation, whom shall I fear?_[74] Great enemies? Not great enemies, for
no enemies are great to them that fear thee. _Fear not the people of
this land, for they are bread to you_;[75] they shall not only not eat
us, not eat our bread, but they shall be our bread. Why should we fear
them? But for all this metaphorical bread, victory over enemies that
thought to devour us, may we not fear, that we may lack bread literally?
And fear famine, though we fear not enemies? _Young lions do lack and
suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good
thing._[76] Never? Though it be well with them at one time, may they not
fear that it may be worse? _Wherefore should I fear in the days of
evil?_[77] says thy servant David. Though his own sin had made them
evil, he feared them not. No? not if this evil determine in death? Not
though in a death; not though in a death inflicted by violence, by
malice, by our own desert; _fear not the sentence of death_,[78] if thou
fear God. Thou art, O my God, so far from admitting us that fear thee to
fear others, as that thou makest others to fear us; as _Herod feared
John, because he was a holy and a just man, and observed him_.[79] How
fully then, O my abundant God, how gently, O my sweet, my easy God, dost
thou unentangle me in any scruple arising out of the consideration of
thy fear! Is not this that which thou intendest when thou sayest, _The
secret of the Lord is with them that fear him_;[80] the secret, the
mystery of the right use of fear. Dost thou not mean this when thou
sayest, _we shall understand the fear of the Lord_?[81] Have it, and
have benefit by it; have it, and stand under it; be directed by it, and
not be dejected with it. And dost thou not propose that church for our
example when thou sayest, the church of Judea _walked in the fear of
God_;[82] they had it, but did not sit down lazily, nor fall down
weakly, nor sink under it. There is a fear which weakens men in the
service of God. _Adam was afraid, because he was naked._[83] They who
have put off thee are a prey to all. They may fear, for _Thou wilt laugh
when their fear comes upon them_, as thou hast told them more than
once.[84] And thou wilt make them fear where no cause of fear is, as
thou hast told them more than once too.[85] There is a fear that is a
punishment of former wickednesses, and induces more. Though some said of
thy Son, Christ Jesus, _that he was a good man, yet no man spake openly
for fear of the Jews_. Joseph was his disciple, _but secretly, for fear
of the Jews_.[86] The disciples kept some meetings, but with doors shut
for fear of the Jews. O my God, thou givest us fear for ballast to carry
us steadily in all weathers. But thou wouldst ballast us with such sand
as should have gold in it, with that fear which is thy fear; for _the
fear of the Lord is his treasure_.[87] He that hath that lacks nothing
that man can have, nothing that God does give. Timorous men thou
rebukest: _Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?_[88] Such thou
dismissest from thy service with scorn, though of them there went from
Gideon's army twenty-two thousand, and remained but ten thousand.[89]
Such thou sendest farther than so; thither from whence they never
return: _The fearful and the unbelieving, into that burning lake which
is the second death_.[90] There is a fear and there is a hope, which are
equal abominations to thee; for, they were confounded because they
hoped,[91] says thy servant Job; because they had misplaced, miscentred
their hopes, they hoped, and not in thee, and such shall fear, and not
fear thee. But in thy fear, my God, and my fear, my God, and my hope, is
hope, and love, and confidence, and peace, and every limb and ingredient
of happiness enwrapped; for joy includes all, and fear and joy consist
together, nay, constitute one another. _The women departed from the
sepulchre_,[92] the women who were made supernumerary apostles, apostles
to the apostles; mothers of the church, and of the fathers, grandfathers
of the church, the apostles themselves; the women, angels of the
resurrection, went from the sepulchre with fear and joy; they ran, says
the text, and they ran upon those two legs, fear and joy; and both was
the right leg; they joy in thee, O Lord, that fear thee, and fear thee
only, who feel this joy in thee. Nay, thy fear, and thy love are
inseparable; still we are called upon, in infinite places, to fear God,
yet the commandment, which is the root of all is, Thou shalt love the
Lord thy God; he doeth neither that doeth not both; he omits neither,
that does one. Therefore when thy servant David had said that _the fear
of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom_,[93] and his son had repeated it
again,[94] he that collects both calls this fear the root of wisdom;
and, that it may embrace all, he calls it wisdom itself.[95] A wise man,
therefore, is never without it, never without the exercise of it;
therefore thou sentest Moses to thy people, _that they might learn to
fear thee all the days of their lives_,[96] not in heavy and calamitous,
but in good and cheerful days too; for Noah, who had assurance of his
deliverance, yet, _moved with fear, prepared an ark, for the saving of
his house_.[97] _A wise man will fear in everything._[98] And therefore,
though I pretend to no other degree of wisdom, I am abundantly rich in
this, that I lie here possessed with that fear which is thy fear, both
that this sickness is thy immediate correction, and not merely a natural
accident, and therefore fearful, because it is a fearful thing to fall
into thy hands; and that this fear preserves me from all inordinate
fear, arising out of the infirmity of nature, because thy hand being
upon me, thou wilt never let me fall out of thy hand.


VI. PRAYER.

O most mighty God, and merciful God, the God of all true sorrow, and
true joy too, of all fear, and of all hope too, as thou hast given me a
repentance, not to be repented of, so give me, O Lord, a fear, of which
I may not be afraid. Give me tender and supple and conformable
affections, that as I joy with them that joy, and mourn with them that
mourn, so I may fear with them that fear. And since thou hast vouchsafed
to discover to me, in his fear whom thou hast admitted to be my
assistance in this sickness, that there is danger therein, let me not, O
Lord, go about to overcome the sense of that fear, so far as to
pretermit the fitting and preparing of myself for the worst that may be
feared, the passage out of this life. Many of thy blessed martyrs have
passed out of this life without any show of fear; but thy most blessed
Son himself did not so. Thy martyrs were known to be but men, and
therefore it pleased thee to fill them with thy Spirit and thy power, in
that they did more than men; thy Son was declared by thee, and by
himself, to be God; and it was requisite that he should declare himself
to be man also, in the weaknesses of man. Let me not therefore, O my
God, be ashamed of these fears, but let me feel them to determine where
his fear did, in a present submitting of all to thy will. And when thou
shalt have inflamed and thawed my former coldnesses and indevotions with
these heats, and quenched my former heats with these sweats and
inundations, and rectified my former presumptions and negligences with
these fears, be pleased, O Lord, as one made so by thee, to think me fit
for thee; and whether it be thy pleasure to dispose of this body, this
garment, so as to put it to a farther wearing in this world, or to lay
it up in the common wardrobe, the grave, for the next, glorify thyself
in thy choice now, and glorify it then, with that glory, which thy Son,
our Saviour Christ Jesus, hath purchased for them whom thou makest
partakers of his resurrection. Amen.

FOOTNOTES:

[70] 2 Sam. iii. 11.

[71] Job, ix. 34.

[72] Luke, xviii. 1.

[73] Luke, xi. 5.

[74] Psalm xxvii. 1.

[75] Num. xiv. 9.

[76] Psalm xxxv. 70.

[77] Psalm xlix. 5.

[78] Ecclus. xli. 3.

[79] Mark, vi. 20.

[80] Psalm xxv. 14.

[81] Prov. ii. 5.

[82] Acts, ix. 31.

[83] Gen. iii. 10.

[84] Prov. i. 26; x. 24.

[85] Psalm xiv. 5; liii. 5.

[86] John, vii. 13; xix. 38; xxix. 19

[87] Isaiah, xxxiii. 6.

[88] Matt. viii. 26.

[89] Judges, vii. 3.

[90] Rev. xxi. 8.

[91] Job, vi. 20.

[92] Matt. xxviii. 8.

[93] Psalm cxi. 10.

[94] Prov. i. 7.

[95] Ecclus. i. 20, 27.

[96] Deut. iv. 10.

[97] Heb. xi. 7.

[98] Ecclus. xviii. 27.


VII. SOCIOS SIBI JUNGIER INSTAT.

_The physician desires to have others joined with him._


VII. MEDITATION.

There is more fear, therefore more cause. If the physician desire help,
the burden grows great: there is a growth of the disease then; but there
must be an autumn too; but whether an autumn of the disease or me, it is
not my part to choose; but if it be of me, it is of both; my disease
cannot survive me, I may overlive it. Howsoever, his desiring of others
argues his candour, and his ingenuity; if the danger be great, he
justifies his proceedings, and he disguises nothing that calls in
witnesses; and if the danger be not great, he is not ambitious, that is
so ready to divide the thanks and the honour of that work which he begun
alone, with others. It diminishes not the dignity of a monarch that he
derive part of his care upon others; God hath not made many suns, but he
hath made many bodies that receive and give light. The Romans began with
one king; they came to two consuls; they returned in extremities to one
dictator: whether in one or many, the sovereignty is the same in all
states and the danger is not the more, and the providence is the more,
where there are more physicians; as the state is the happier where
businesses are carried by more counsels than can be in one breast, how
large soever. Diseases themselves hold consultations, and conspire how
they may multiply, and join with one another, and exalt one another's
force so; and shall we not call physicians to consultations? Death is in
an old man's door, he appears and tells him so, and death is at a young
man's back, and says nothing; age is a sickness, and youth is an
ambush; and we need so many physicians as may make up a watch, and spy
every inconvenience. There is scarce any thing that hath not killed
somebody; a hair, a feather hath done it; nay, that which is our best
antidote against it hath done it; the best cordial hath been deadly
poison. Men have died of joy, and almost forbidden their friends to weep
for them, when they have seen them die laughing. Even that tyrant,
Dionysius (I think the same that suffered so much after), who could not
die of that sorrow, of that high fall, from a king to a wretched private
man, died of so poor a joy as to be declared by the people at a theatre
that he was a good poet. We say often that a man may live of a little;
but, alas, of how much less may a man die? And therefore the more
assistants the better. Who comes to a day of hearing, in a cause of any
importance, with one advocate? In our funerals we ourselves have no
interest; there we cannot advise, we cannot direct; and though some
nations (the Egyptians in particular) built themselves better tombs than
houses because they were to dwell longer in them, yet amongst ourselves,
the greatest man of style whom we have had, the Conqueror, was left, as
soon as his soul left him, not only without persons to assist at his
grave but without a grave. Who will keep us then we know not; as long as
we can, let us admit as much help as we can; another and another
physician is not another and another indication and symptom of death,
but another and another assistant, and proctor of life: nor do they so
much feed the imagination with apprehension of danger, as the
understanding with comfort. Let not one bring learning, another
diligence, another religion, but every one bring all; and as many
ingredients enter into a receipt, so may many men make the receipt. But
why do I exercise my meditation so long upon this, of having plentiful
help in time of need? Is not my meditation rather to be inclined another
way, to condole and commiserate their distress who have none? How many
are sicker (perchance) than I, and laid in their woful straw at home (if
that corner be a home), and have no more hope of help, though they die,
than of preferment, though they live! Nor do more expect to see a
physician then, than to be an officer after; of whom, the first that
takes knowledge, is the sexton that buries them, who buries them in
oblivion too! For they do but fill up the number of the dead in the
bill, but we shall never hear their names, till we read them in the book
of life with our own. How many are sicker (perchance) than I, and thrown
into hospitals, where (as a fish left upon the sand must stay the tide)
they must stay the physician's hour of visiting, and then can be but
visited! How many are sicker (perchance) than all we, and have not this
hospital to cover them, not this straw to lie in, to die in, but have
their gravestone under them, and breathe out their souls in the ears and
in the eyes of passengers, harder than their bed, the flint of the
street? that taste of no part of our physic, but a sparing diet, to whom
ordinary porridge would be julep enough, the refuse of our servants
bezoar enough, and the offscouring of our kitchen tables cordial enough.
O my soul, when thou art not enough awake to bless thy God enough for
his plentiful mercy in affording thee many helpers, remember how many
lack them, and help them to them or to those other things which they
lack as much as them.


VII. EXPOSTULATION.

My God, my God, thy blessed servant Augustine begged of thee that Moses
might come and tell him what he meant by some places of Genesis: may I
have leave to ask of that Spirit that writ that book, why, when David
expected news from Joab's army,[99] and that the watchman told him that
he saw a man running alone, David concluded out of that circumstance,
that if he came alone, he brought good news?[100] I see the grammar, the
word signifies so, and is so ever accepted, _good news_; but I see not
the logic nor the rhetoric, how David would prove or persuade that his
news was good because he was alone, except a greater company might have
made great impressions of danger, by imploring and importuning present
supplies. Howsoever that be, I am sure that that which thy apostle says
to Timothy, _Only Luke is with me_,[101] Luke, and nobody but Luke, hath
a taste of complaint and sorrow in it: though Luke want no testimony of
ability, of forwardness, of constancy, and perseverance, in assisting
that great building which St. Paul laboured in, yet St. Paul is affected
with that, that there was none but Luke to assist. We take St. Luke to
have been a physician, and it admits the application the better that in
the presence of one good physician we may be glad of more. It was not
only a civil spirit of policy, or order, that moved Moses's
father-in-law to persuade him to divide the burden of government and
judicature with others, and take others to his assistance,[102] but it
was also thy immediate Spirit, O my God, that moved Moses to present
unto thee seventy of the elders of Israel,[103] to receive of that
Spirit, which was upon Moses only before, such a portion as might ease
him in the government of that people; though Moses alone had endowments
above all, thou gavest him other assistants. I consider thy plentiful
goodness, O my God, in employing angels more than one in so many of thy
remarkable works. Of thy Son, thou sayest, _Let all the angels of God
worship him_;[104] if that be in heaven, upon earth he says, _that he
could command twelve legions of angels_;[105] and when heaven and earth
shall be all one, at the last day, thy Son, O God, _the Son of man,
shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him_.[106] The
angels that celebrated his birth to the shepherds,[107] the angels that
celebrated his second birth, his resurrection, to the Maries,[108] were
in the plural, angels associated with angels. In Jacob's ladder,[109]
they who ascended and descended, and maintained the trade between heaven
and earth, between thee and us, they who have the commission, and charge
to guide us in all our ways,[110] they who hastened Lot,[111] and in
him, us, from places of danger and temptation, they who are appointed to
instruct and govern us in the church here,[112] they who are sent to
punish the disobedient and refractory,[113] that they are to be mowers
and harvestmen[114] after we are grown up in one field, the church, at
the day of judgment, they that are to carry our souls whither they
carried Lazarus,[115] they who attended at the several gates of the new
Jerusalem,[116] to admit us there; all these who administer to thy
servants, from the first to their last, are angels, angels in the
plural, in every service angels associated with angels. The power of a
single angel we see in that one, who in one night destroyed almost two
hundred thousand in Sennacherib's army,[117] yet thou often employest
many; as we know the power of salvation is abundantly in any one
evangelist, and yet thou hast afforded us four. Thy Son proclaims of
himself that _the Spirit hath anointed him to preach the Gospel_,[118]
yet he hath given others _for the perfecting of the saints in the work
of the ministry_.[119] Thou hast made him _Bishop of our souls_,[120]
but there are others bishops too. He gave the Holy Ghost,[121] and
others gave it also. Thy way, O my God (and, O my God, thou lovest to
walk in thine own ways, for they are large), thy way from the beginning,
is multiplication of thy helps; and therefore it were a degree of
ingratitude not to accept this mercy of affording me many helps for my
bodily health, as a type and earnest of thy gracious purpose now and
ever to afford me the same assistances. That for thy great help, thy
word, I may seek that not from comers nor conventicles nor schismatical
singularities, but from the association and communion of thy Catholic
church, and those persons whom thou hast always furnished that church
withal: and that I may associate thy word with thy sacrament, thy seal
with thy patent; and in that sacrament associate the sign with the thing
signified, the bread with the body of thy Son, so as I may be sure to
have received both, and to be made thereby (as thy blessed servant
Augustine says) the ark, and the monument, and the tomb of thy most
blessed Son, that he, and all the merits of his death, may, by that
receiving, be buried in me, to my quickening in this world, and my
immortal establishing in the next.


VII. PRAYER.

O eternal and most gracious God, who gavest to thy servants in the
wilderness thy manna, bread so conditioned, qualified so, as that to
every man manna tasted like that which that man liked best, I humbly
beseech thee to make this correction, which I acknowledge to be part of
my daily bread, to taste so to me, not as I would but as thou wouldst
have it taste, and to conform my taste, and make it agreeable to thy
will. Thou wouldst have thy corrections taste of humiliation, but thou
wouldst have them taste of consolation too; taste of danger, but taste
of assurance too. As therefore thou hast imprinted in all thine elements
of which our bodies consist two manifest qualities, so that as thy fire
dries, so it heats too; and as thy water moists, so it cools too; so, O
Lord, in these corrections which are the elements of our regeneration,
by which our souls are made thine, imprint thy two qualities, those two
operations, that, as they scourge us, they may scourge us into the way
to thee; that when they have showed us that we are nothing in ourselves,
they may also show us, that thou art all things unto us. When therefore
in this particular circumstance, O Lord (but none of thy judgments are
circumstances, they are all of all substance of thy good purpose upon
us), when in this particular, that he whom thou hast sent to assist me,
desires assistants to him, thou hast let me see in how few hours thou
canst throw me beyond the help of man, let me by the same light see that
no vehemence of sickness, no temptation of Satan, no guiltiness of sin,
no prison of death, not this first, this sick bed, not the other prison,
the close and dark grave, can remove me from the determined and good
purpose which thou hast sealed concerning me. Let me think no degree of
this thy correction casual, or without signification; but yet when I
have read it in that language, as a correction, let me translate it into
another, and read it as a mercy; and which of these is the original, and
which is the translation; whether thy mercy or thy correction were thy
primary and original intention in this sickness, I cannot conclude,
though death conclude me; for as it must necessarily appear to be a
correction, so I can have no greater argument of thy mercy, than to die
in thee and by that death to be united to him who died for me.

FOOTNOTES:

[99] 2 Sam. xviii. 25.

[100] So all but our translation takes it; even Buxdor and Schindler.

[101] 2 Tim. iv. 11.

[102] Exod. xviii. 13.

[103] Num. xi. 16.

[104] Heb. i. 6.

[105] Matt. xxvi. 53.

[106] Matt. xxv. 31.

[107] Luke, ii. 13, 14.

[108] John, xx. 12.

[109] Gen. xxviii. 12.

[110] Psalm xci. 11.

[111] Gen. xix. 15.

[112] Rev. i. 20.

[113] Rev. viii. 2.

[114] Matt. xiii. 39.

[115] Luke, xvi. 22.

[116] Rev. xxi. 12.

[117] 2 Kings, xix. 35.

[118] Luke, iv. 18.

[119] Eph. iv. 12.

[120] 1 Pet. ii. 25.

[121] John, xx. 22.


VIII. ET REX IPSE SUUM MITTIT.

_The King sends his own physician._


VIII. MEDITATION.

Still when we return to that meditation that man is a world, we find new
discoveries. Let him be a world, and himself will be the land, and
misery the sea. His misery (for misery is his, his own; of the happiness
even of this world, he is but tenant, but of misery the freeholder; of
happiness he is but the farmer, but the usufructuary, but of misery the
lord, the proprietary), his misery, as the sea, swells above all the
hills, and reaches to the remotest parts of this earth, man; who of
himself is but dust, and coagulated and kneaded into earth by tears; his
matter is earth, his form misery. In this world that is mankind, the
highest ground, the eminentest hills, are kings; and have they line and
lead enough to fathom this sea, and say, My misery is but this deep?
Scarce any misery equal to sickness, and they are subject to that
equally with their lowest subject. A glass is not the less brittle,
because a king's face is represented in it; nor a king the less brittle,
because God is represented in him. They have physicians continually
about them, and therefore sickness, or the worst of sicknesses,
continual fear of it. Are they gods? He that called them so cannot
flatter. They are gods, but sick gods; and God is presented to us under
many human affections, as far as infirmities: God is called angry, and
sorry, and weary, and heavy, but never a sick God; for then he might die
like men, as our gods do. The worst that they could say in reproach and
scorn of the gods of the heathen was, that perchance they were asleep;
but gods that are so sick as that they cannot sleep are in an infirmer
condition. A god, and need a physician? A Jupiter, and need an
Æsculapius? that must have rhubarb to purge his choler lest he be too
angry, and agarick to purge his phlegm lest he be too drowsy; that as
Tertullian says of the Egyptian gods, plants and herbs, that "God was
beholden to man for growing in his garden," so we must say of these
gods, their eternity (an eternity of threescore and ten years) is in the
apothecary's shop, and not in the metaphorical deity. But their deity is
better expressed in their humility than in their height; when abounding
and overflowing, as God, in means of doing good, they descend, as God,
to a communication of their abundances with men according to their
necessities, then they are gods. No man is well that understands not,
that values not his being well; that hath not a cheerfulness and a joy
in it; and whosoever hath this joy hath a desire to communicate, to
propagate that which occasions his happiness and his joy to others; for
every man loves witnesses of his happiness, and the best witnesses are
experimental witnesses; they who have tasted of that in themselves which
makes us happy. It consummates therefore, it perfects the happiness of
kings, to confer, to transfer, honour and riches, and (as they can)
health, upon those that need them.


VIII. EXPOSTULATION.

My God, my God, I have a warning from the wise man, that _when a rich
man speaketh every man holdeth his tongue, and, look, what he saith,
they extol it to the clouds; but if a poor man speak, they say, What
fellow is this? And if he stumble, they will help to overthrow
him._[122] Therefore may my words be undervalued and my errors
aggravated, if I offer to speak of kings; but not by thee, O my God,
because I speak of them as they are in thee, and of thee as thou art in
them. Certainly those men prepare a way of speaking negligently or
irreverently of thee, that give themselves that liberty in speaking of
thy vicegerents, kings; for thou who gavest Augustus the empire, gavest
it to Nero too; and as Vespasian had it from thee, so had Julian. Though
kings deface in themselves thy first image in their own soul, thou
givest no man leave to deface thy second image, imprinted indelibly in
their power. But thou knowest, O God, that if I should be slack in
celebrating thy mercies to me exhibited by that royal instrument, my
sovereign, to many other faults that touch upon allegiance I should add
the worst of all, ingratitude, which constitutes an ill man; and faults
which are defects in any particular function are not so great as those
that destroy our humanity. It is not so ill to be an ill subject as to
be an ill man; for he hath an universal illness, ready to flow and pour
out itself into any mould, any form, and to spend itself in any
function. As therefore thy Son did upon the coin, I look upon the king,
and I ask whose image and whose inscription he hath, and he hath thine;
and I give unto thee that which is thine; I recommend his happiness to
thee in all my sacrifices of thanks, for that which he enjoys, and in
all my prayers for the continuance and enlargement of them. But let me
stop, my God, and consider; will not this look like a piece of art and
cunning, to convey into the world an opinion that I were more particular
in his care than other men? and that herein, in a show of humility and
thankfulness, I magnify myself more than there is cause? But let not
that jealousy stop me, O God, but let me go forward in celebrating thy
mercy exhibited by him. This which he doth now, in assisting so my
bodily health, I know is common to me with many: many, many have tasted
of that expression of his graciousness. Where he can give health by his
own hands he doth, and to more than any of his predecessors have done:
therefore hath God reserved one disease for him, that he only might cure
it, though perchance not only by one title and interest, nor only as one
king. To those that need it not, in that kind, and so cannot have it by
his own hand, he sends a donative of health in sending his physician.
The holy king St. Louis, in France, and our Maud, is celebrated for
that, that personally they visited hospitals, and assisted in the cure
even of loathsome diseases. And when that religious Empress Placilla,
the wife of Theodosius, was told that she diminished herself too much in
those personal assistances and might do enough in sending relief, she
said she would send in that capacity as a Christian, as a fellow-member
of the body of thy Son, with them. So thy servant David applies himself
to his people, so he incorporates himself in his people, by calling them
his brethren, his bones, his flesh;[123] and when they fell under thy
hand, even to the pretermitting of himself, he presses upon thee by
prayer for them; _I have sinned, but these sheep, what have they done?
Let thine hand, I pray thee, be against me and against my father's
house_.[124] It is kingly to give; when Araunah gave that great and free
present to David, that place, those instruments for sacrifice, and the
sacrifices themselves, it is said there by thy Spirit, _All these things
did Araunah give, as a king, to the king_.[125] To give is an
approaching to the condition of kings, but to give health, an
approaching to the King of kings, to thee. But this his assisting to my
bodily health, thou knowest, O God, and so do some others of thine
honourable servants know, is but the twilight of that day wherein thou,
through him, hast shined upon me before; but the echo of that voice,
whereby thou, through him, hast spoke to me before, then when he, first
of any man, conceived a hope that I might be of some use in thy church
and descended to an intimation, to a persuasion, almost to a
solicitation, that I would embrace that calling. And thou who hadst put
that desire into his heart, didst also put into mine an obedience to it;
and I, who was sick before of a vertiginous giddiness and irresolution,
and almost spent all my time in consulting how I should spend it, was by
this man of God, and God of men, put into the pool and recovered: when I
asked, perchance, a stone, he gave me bread; when I asked, perchance, a
scorpion, he gave me a fish; when I asked a temporal office, he denied
not, refused not that; but let me see that he had rather I took this.
These things thou, O God, who forgettest nothing, hast not forgot,
though perchance he, because they were benefits, hath; but I am not only
a witness, but an instance, that our Jehoshaphat hath a care to ordain
priests, as well as judges:[126] and not only to send physicians for
temporal but to be the physician for spiritual health.


VIII. PRAYER.

O eternal and most gracious God, who, though thou have reserved thy
treasure of perfect joy and perfect glory to be given by thine own hands
then, when, by seeing thee as thou art in thyself, and knowing thee as
we are known, we shall possess in an instant, and possess for ever, all
that can any way conduce to our happiness, yet here also, in this world,
givest us such earnests of that full payment, as by the value of the
earnest we may give some estimate of the treasure, humbly and thankfully
I acknowledge, that thy blessed Spirit instructs me to make a difference
of thy blessings in this world, by that difference of the instruments by
which it hath pleased thee to derive them unto me. As we see thee here
in a glass, so we receive from thee here by reflection and by
instruments. Even casual things come from thee; and that which we call
fortune here hath another name above. Nature reaches out her hand and
gives us corn, and wine, and oil, and milk; but thou fillest her hand
before, and thou openest her hand that she may rain down her showers
upon us. Industry reaches out her hand to us and gives us fruits of our
labour for ourselves and our posterity; but thy hand guides that hand
when it sows and when it waters, and the increase is from thee. Friends
reach out their hands and prefer us; but thy hand supports that hand
that supports us. Of all these thy instruments have I received thy
blessing, O God; but bless thy name most for the greatest; that, as a
member of the public, and as a partaker of private favours too, by thy
right hand, thy powerful hand set over us, I have had my portion not
only in the hearing, but in the preaching of thy Gospel. Humbly
beseeching thee, that as thou continuest thy wonted goodness upon the
whole world by the wonted means and instruments, the same sun and moon,
the same nature and industry, so to continue the same blessings upon
this state and this church by the same hand, so long as that thy Son,
when he comes in the clouds, may find him, or his son, or his son's sons
ready to give an account and able to stand in that judgment, for their
faithful stewardship and dispensation of thy talents so abundantly
committed to them; and be to him, O God, in all distempers of his body,
in all anxieties of spirit, in all holy sadnesses of soul, such a
physician in thy proportion, who are the greatest in heaven, as he hath
been in soul and body to me, in his proportion, who is the greatest upon
earth.

FOOTNOTES:

[122] Ecclus. xiii. 23.

[123] 2 Sam. xix. 12.

[124] 2 Sam. xxiv. 17.

[125] 2 Sam. xxiv. 22, 23.

[126] 2 Chron. xix. 8.


IX. MEDICAMINA SCRIBUNT.

_Upon their consultation they prescribe._


IX. MEDITATION.

They have seen me and heard me, arraigned me in these fetters and
received the evidence; I have cut up mine own anatomy, dissected myself,
and they are gone to read upon me. O how manifold and perplexed a thing,
nay, how wanton and various a thing, is ruin and destruction! God
presented to David three kinds, war, famine and pestilence; Satan left
out these, and brought in fires from heaven and winds from the
wilderness. If there were no ruin but sickness, we see the masters of
that art can scarce number, not name all sicknesses; every thing that
disorders a faculty, and the function of that, is a sickness; the names
will not serve them which are given from the place affected, the
pleurisy is so; nor from the effect which it works, the falling sickness
is so; they cannot have names enough, from what it does, nor where it
is, but they must extort names from what it is like, what it resembles,
and but in some one thing, or else they would lack names; for the wolf,
and the canker, and the polypus are so; and that question whether there
be more names or things, is as perplexed in sicknesses as in any thing
else; except it be easily resolved upon that side that there are more
sicknesses than names. If ruin were reduced to that one way, that man
could perish no way but by sickness, yet his danger were infinite; and
if sickness were reduced to that one way, that there were no sickness
but a fever, yet the way were infinite still; for it would overload and
oppress any natural, disorder and discompose any artificial, memory, to
deliver the names of several fevers; how intricate a work then have they
who are gone to consult which of these sicknesses mine is, and then
which of these fevers, and then what it would do, and then how it may be
countermined. But even in ill it is a degree of good when the evil will
admit consultation. In many diseases, that which is but an accident, but
a symptom of the main disease, is so violent, that the physician must
attend the cure of that, though he pretermit (so far as to intermit) the
cure of the disease itself. Is it not so in states too? Sometimes the
insolency of those that are great puts the people into commotions; the
great disease, and the greatest danger to the head, is the insolency of
the great ones; and yet they execute martial law, they come to present
executions upon the people, whose commotion was indeed but a symptom,
but an accident of the main disease; but this symptom, grown so violent,
would allow no time for a consultation. Is it not so in the accidents of
the diseases of our mind too? Is it not evidently so in our affections,
in our passions? If a choleric man be ready to strike, must I go about
to purge his choler, or to break the blow? But where there is room for
consultation things are not desperate. They consult, so there is nothing
rashly, inconsiderately done; and then they prescribe, they write, so
there is nothing covertly, disguisedly, unavowedly done. In bodily
diseases it is not always so; sometimes, as soon as the physician's foot
is in the chamber, his knife is in the patient's arm; the disease would
not allow a minute's forbearing of blood, nor prescribing of other
remedies. In states and matter of government it is so too; they are
sometimes surprised with such accidents, as that the magistrate asks not
what may be done by law, but does that which must necessarily be done in
that case. But it is a degree of good in evil, a degree that carries
hope and comfort in it, when we may have recourse to that which is
written, and that the proceedings may be apert, and ingenuous, and
candid, and avowable, for that gives satisfaction and acquiescence. They
who have received my anatomy of myself consult, and end their
consultation in prescribing, and in prescribing physic; proper and
convenient remedy; for if they should come in again and chide me for
some disorder that had occasioned and induced, or that had hastened and
exalted this sickness, or if they should begin to write now rules for my
diet and exercise when I were well, this were to antedate or to postdate
their consultation, not to give physic. It were rather a vexation than a
relief, to tell a condemned prisoner, You might have lived if you had
done this; and if you can get your pardon, you shall do well to take
this or this course hereafter. I am glad they know (I have hid nothing
from them), glad they consult (they hid nothing from one another), glad
they write (they hide nothing from the world), glad that they write and
prescribe physic, that there are remedies for the present case.


IX. EXPOSTULATION.

My God, my God, allow me a just indignation, a holy detestation of the
insolency of that man who, because he was of that high rank, of whom
thou hast said, _They are gods_, thought himself more than equal to
thee; that king of Aragon, Alphonsus, so perfect in the motions of the
heavenly bodies as that he adventured to say, that if he had been of
counsel with thee, in the making of the heavens, the heavens should have
been disposed in a better order than they are. The king Amaziah would
not endure thy prophet to reprehend him, but asked him in anger, _Art
thou made of the king's counsel?_[127] When thy prophet Esaias asks that
question, _Who hath directed the spirit of the Lord, or being his
counsellor, hath taught him?_[128] it is after he had settled and
determined that office upon thy Son, and him only, when he joins with
those great titles, the mighty God and the Prince of peace, this also,
the Counsellor;[129] and after he had settled upon him the spirit of
might and of counsel.[130] So that then thou, O God, though thou have no
counsel from man, yet dost nothing upon man without counsel. In the
making of man there was a consultation; _Let us make man_.[131] In the
preserving of man, _O thou great Preserver of men_,[132] thou proceedest
by counsel; for all thy external works are the works of the whole
Trinity, and their hand is to every action. How much more must I
apprehend that all you blessed and glorious persons of the Trinity are
in consultation now, what you will do with this infirm body, with this
leprous soul, that attends guiltily, but yet comfortably, your
determination upon it. I offer not to counsel them who meet in
consultation for my body now, but I open my infirmities, I anatomize my
body to them. So I do my soul to thee, O my God, in an humble
confession, that there is no vein in me that is not full of the blood of
thy Son, whom I have crucified and crucified again, by multiplying many,
and often repeating the same, sins; that there is no artery in me that
hath not the spirit of error, the spirit of lust, the spirit of
giddiness in it;[133] no bone in me that is not hardened with the custom
of sin and nourished and suppled with the marrow of sin; no sinews, no
ligaments, that do not tie and chain sin and sin together. Yet, O
blessed and glorious Trinity, O holy and whole college, and yet but one
physician, if you take this confession into a consultation, my case is
not desperate, my destruction is not decreed. If your consultation
determine in writing, if you refer me to that which is written, you
intend my recovery: for all the way, O my God (ever constant to thine
own ways), thou hast proceeded openly, intelligibly, manifestly by the
book. From thy first book, the book of life, never shut to thee, but
never thoroughly open to us; from thy second book, the book of nature,
where, though subobscurely and in shadows, thou hast expressed thine own
image; from thy third book, the Scriptures, where thou hadst written all
in the Old, and then lightedst us a candle to read it by, in the New,
Testament; to these thou hadst added the book of just and useful laws,
established by them to whom thou hast committed thy people; to those,
the manuals, the pocket, the bosom books of our own consciences; to
those thy particular books of all our particular sins; and to those, the
books with seven seals, which only _the Lamb which was slain, was found
worthy to open_;[134] which, I hope, it shall not disagree with the
meaning of thy blessed Spirit to interpret the promulgation of their
pardon and righteousness who are washed in the blood of that Lamb; and
if thou refer me to these books, to a new reading, a new trial by these
books, this fever may be but a burning in the hand and I may be saved,
though not by my book, mine own conscience, nor by thy other books, yet
by thy first, the book of life, thy decree for my election, and by thy
last, the book of the Lamb, and the shedding of his blood upon me. If I
be still under consultation, I am not condemned yet; if I be sent to
these books, I shall not be condemned at all; for though there be
something written in some of those books (particularly in the
Scriptures) which some men turn to poison, yet upon these consultations
(these confessions, these takings of our particular cases into thy
consideration) thou intendest all for physic; and even from those
sentences from which a too late repenter will suck desperation, he that
seeks thee early shall receive thy morning dew, thy seasonable mercy,
thy forward consolation.


IX. PRAYER.

O eternal and most gracious God, who art of so pure eyes as that thou
canst not look upon sin, and we of so unpure constitutions as that we
can present no object but sin, and therefore might justly fear that
thou wouldst turn thine eyes for ever from us, as, though we cannot
endure afflictions in ourselves, yet in thee we can; so, though thou
canst not endure sin in us, yet in thy Son thou canst, and he hath taken
upon himself, and presented to thee, all those sins which might
displease thee in us. There is an eye in nature that kills as soon as it
sees, the eye of a serpent; no eye in nature that nourishes us by
looking upon us; but thine eye, O Lord, does so. Look therefore upon me,
O Lord, in this distress and that will recall me from the borders of
this bodily death; look upon me, and that will raise me again from that
spiritual death in which my parents buried me when they begot me in sin,
and in which I have pierced even to the jaws of hell by multiplying such
heaps of actual sins upon that foundation, that root of original sin.
Yet take me again into your consultation, O blessed and glorious
Trinity; and though the Father know that I have defaced his image
received in my creation; though the Son know I have neglected mine
interest in the redemption; yet, O blessed Spirit, as thou art to my
conscience so be to them, a witness that, at this minute, I accept that
which I have so often, so rebelliously refused, thy blessed
inspirations; be thou my witness to them that, at more pores than this
slack body sweats tears, this sad soul weeps blood; and more for the
displeasure of my God, than for the stripes of his displeasure. Take me,
then, O blessed and glorious Trinity, into a reconsultation, and
prescribe me any physic. If it be a long and painful holding of this
soul in sickness, it is physic if I may discern thy hand to give it; and
it is physic if it be a speedy departing of this soul, if I may discern
thy hand to receive it.

FOOTNOTES:

[127] 2 Chron. xxv. 16.

[128] Isaiah, xlii. 13.

[129] Isaiah, ix. 6.

[130] Isaiah, xi. 2.

[131] Gen. i. 26.

[132] Job, vii. 20.

[133] 1 Tim. iv. 1; Hos. iv. 12; Isaiah, xix. 14.

[134] Rev. vii. 1.


X. LENTE ET SERPENTI SATAGUNT OCCURRERE MORBO.

_They find the disease to steal on insensibly, and endeavour to meet
with it so._


X. MEDITATION.

This is nature's nest of boxes: the heavens contain the earth; the
earth, cities; cities, men. And all these are concentric; the common
centre to them all is decay, ruin; only that is eccentric which was
never made; only that place, or garment rather, which we can imagine but
not demonstrate. That light, which is the very emanation of the light of
God, in which the saints shall dwell, with which the saints shall be
apparelled, only that bends not to this centre, to ruin; that which was
not made of nothing is not threatened with this annihilation. All other
things are; even angels, even our souls; they move upon the same poles,
they bend to the same centre; and if they were not made immortal by
preservation, their nature could not keep them from sinking to this
centre, annihilation. In all these (the frame of the heavens, the states
upon earth, and men in them, comprehend all), those are the greatest
mischiefs which are least discerned; the most insensible in their ways
come to be the most sensible in their ends. The heavens have had their
dropsy, they drowned the world; and they shall have their fever, and
burn the world. Of the dropsy, the flood, the world had a foreknowledge
one hundred and twenty years before it came; and so some made provision
against it, and were saved; the fever shall break out in an instant and
consume all; the dropsy did no harm to the heavens from whence it fell,
it did not put out those lights, it did not quench those heats; but the
fever, the fire, shall burn the furnace itself, annihilate those
heavens that breathe it out. Though the dogstar have a pestilent breath,
an infectious exhalation, yet, because we know when it will rise, we
clothe ourselves, and we diet ourselves, and we shadow ourselves to a
sufficient prevention; but comets and blazing stars, whose effects or
significations no man can interrupt or frustrate, no man foresaw: no
almanack tells us when a blazing star will break out, the matter is
carried up in secret; no astrologer tells us when the effects will be
accomplished, for that is a secret of a higher sphere than the other;
and that which is most secret is most dangerous. It is so also here in
the societies of men, in states and commonwealths. Twenty rebellious
drums make not so dangerous a noise as a few whisperers and secret
plotters in corners. The cannon doth not so much hurt against a wall, as
a mine under the wall; nor a thousand enemies that threaten, so much as
a few that take an oath to say nothing. God knew many heavy sins of the
people, in the wilderness and after, but still he charges them with that
one, with murmuring, murmuring in their hearts, secret disobediences,
secret repugnances against his declared will; and these are the most
deadly, the most pernicious. And it is so too with the diseases of the
body; and that is my case. The pulse, the urine, the sweat, all have
sworn to say nothing, to give no indication of any dangerous sickness.
My forces are not enfeebled, I find no decay in my strength; my
provisions are not cut off, I find no abhorring in mine appetite; my
counsels are not corrupted nor infatuated, I find no false apprehensions
to work upon mine understanding; and yet they see that invisibly, and I
feel that insensibly, the disease prevails. The disease hath established
a kingdom, an empire in me, and will have certain _arcana imperii_,
secrets of state, by which it will proceed and not be bound to declare
them. But yet against those secret conspiracies in the state, the
magistrate hath the rack; and against these insensible diseases
physicians have their examiners; and those these employ now.


X. EXPOSTULATION.

My God, my God, I have been told, and told by relation, by her own
brother that did it, by thy servant Nazianzen, that his sister in the
vehemency of her prayer, did use to threaten thee with a holy
importunity, with a pious impudency. I dare not do so, O God; but as thy
servant Augustine wished that Adam had not sinned, therefore that Christ
might not have died, may I not to this one purpose wish that if the
serpent, before the temptation of Eve, did go upright and speak,[135]
that he did so still, because I should the sooner hear him if he spoke,
the sooner see him if he went upright? In his curse I am cursed too; his
creeping undoes me; for howsoever he begin at the heel, and do but
bruise that, yet he, and _death_ in him, _is come into our
windows_;[136] into our eyes and ears, the entrances and inlets of our
soul. He works upon us in secret and we do not discern him; and one
great work of his upon us is to make us so like himself as to sin in
secret, that others may not see us; but his masterpiece is to make us
sin in secret, so as that we may not see ourselves sin. For the first,
the hiding of our sins from other men, he hath induced that which was
his offspring from the beginning, a lie;[137] for man is, in nature, yet
in possession of some such sparks of ingenuity and nobleness, as that,
but to disguise evil, he would not lie. The body, the sin, is the
serpent's; and the garment that covers it, the lie, is his too. These
are his, but the hiding of sin from ourselves is he himself: when we
have the sting of the serpent in us, and do not sting ourselves, the
venom of sin, and no remorse for sin, then, as thy blessed Son said of
Judas, _He is a devil_;[138] not that he had one, but was one; so we are
become devils to ourselves, and we have not only a serpent in our bosom,
but we ourselves are to ourselves that serpent. How far did thy servant
David press upon thy pardon in that petition, _Cleanse thou me from
secret sins_?[139] Can any sin be secret? for a great part of our sins,
though, says thy prophet, we conceive them in the dark, upon our bed,
yet, says he, we do them in the light; there are many sins which we
glory in doing, and would not do if nobody should know them. Thy blessed
servant Augustine confesses that he was ashamed of his shamefacedness
and tenderness of conscience, and that he often belied himself with sins
which he never did, lest he should be unacceptable to his sinful
companions. But if we would conceal them (thy prophet found such a
desire, and such a practice in some, when he said, _Thou hast trusted in
thy wickedness, and thou hast said, None shall see me_[140]), yet can we
conceal them? Thou, O God, canst hear of them by others: the voice of
Abel's blood will tell thee of Cain's murder;[141] the heavens
themselves will tell thee. Heaven shall reveal his iniquity; a small
creature alone shall do it, _A bird of the air shall carry the voice,
and tell the matter_;[142] thou wilt trouble no informer, thou thyself
revealedst Adam's sin to thyself;[143] and the manifestation of sin is
so full to thee, as that thou shalt reveal all to all; _Thou shalt
bring every work to judgment, with every secret thing;[144] and there
is nothing covered that shall not be revealed_.[145] But, O my God,
there is another way of knowing my sins, which thou lovest better than
any of these; to know them by my confession. As physic works, so it
draws the peccant humour to itself, that, when it is gathered together,
the weight of itself may carry that humour away; so thy Spirit returns
to my memory my former sins, that, being so recollected, they may pour
out themselves by confession. _When I kept silence_, says thy servant
David, _day and night thy hand was heavy upon me_; but when I said, _I
will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, thou forgavest the
iniquity of my sin_.[146] Thou interpretest the very purpose of
confession so well, as that thou scarce leavest any new mercy for the
action itself. This mercy thou leavest, that thou armest us thereupon
against relapses into the sins which we have confessed. And that mercy
which thy servant Augustine apprehends when he says to thee, "Thou hast
forgiven me those sins which I have done, and those sins which only by
thy grace I have not done": they were done in our inclination to them,
and even that inclination needs thy mercy, and that mercy he calls a
pardon. And these are most truly secret sins, because they were never
done, and because no other man, nor I myself, but only thou knowest, how
many and how great sins I have escaped by thy grace, which, without
that, I should have multiplied against thee.


X. PRAYER.

O eternal and most gracious God, who as thy Son Christ Jesus, though he
knew all things, yet said he knew not the day of judgment, because he
knew it not so as that he might tell us; so though thou knowest all my
sins, yet thou knowest them not to my comfort, except thou know them by
my telling them to thee. How shall I bring to thy knowledge, by that
way, those sins which I myself know not? If I accuse myself of original
sin, wilt thou ask me if I know what original sin is? I know not enough
of it to satisfy others, but I know enough to condemn myself, and to
solicit thee. If I confess to thee the sins of my youth, wilt thou ask
me if I know what those sins were? I know them not so well as to name
them all, nor am sure to live hours enough to name them all (for I did
them then faster than I can speak them now, when every thing that I did
conduced to some sin), but I know them so well as to know that nothing
but thy mercy is so infinite as they. If the naming of sins of thought,
word and deed, of sins of omission and of action, of sins against thee,
against my neighbour and against myself, of sins unrepented and sins
relapsed into after repentance, of sins of ignorance and sins against
the testimony of my conscience, of sins against thy commandments, sins
against thy Son's Prayer, and sins against our own creed, of sins
against the laws of that church, and sins against the laws of that state
in which thou hast given me my station; if the naming of these sins
reach not home to all mine, I know what will. O Lord, pardon me, me, all
those sins which thy Son Christ Jesus suffered for, who suffered for all
the sins of all the world; for there is no sin amongst all those which
had not been my sin, if thou hadst not been my God, and antedated me a
pardon in thy preventing grace. And since sin, in the nature of it,
retains still so much of the author of it that it is a serpent,
insensibly insinuating itself into my soul, let thy brazen serpent (the
contemplation of thy Son crucified for me) be evermore present to me,
for my recovery against the sting of the first serpent; that so, as I
have a Lion against a lion, the Lion of the tribe of Judah against that
lion that seeks whom he may devour, so I may have a serpent against a
serpent, the wisdom of the serpent against the malice of the serpent,
and both against that lion and serpent, forcible and subtle temptations,
thy dove with thy olive in thy ark, humility and peace and
reconciliation to thee, by the ordinances of thy church. Amen.

FOOTNOTES:

[135] Josephus.

[136] Jer. ix. 21.

[137] John, viii. 44.

[138] John, vi. 70.

[139] Psalm xix. 12.

[140] Isaiah, xlvii. 10.

[141] Gen. iv. 10.

[142] Eccles. x. 20.

[143] Gen. iii. 8.

[144] Eccles. xii. 14.

[145] Matt. x. 26.

[146] Psalm xxxii. 3-5.


XI. NOBILIBUSQUE TRAHUNT, A CINCTO CORDE, VENENUM, SUCCIS ET GEMMIS, ET
QUÆ GENEROSA, MINISTRANT ARS, ET NATURA, INSTILLANT.

_They use cordials, to keep the venom and malignity of the disease from
the heart._


XI. MEDITATION.

Whence can we take a better argument, a clearer demonstration, that all
the greatness of this world is built upon opinion of others and hath in
itself no real being, nor power of subsistence, than from the heart of
man? It is always in action and motion, still busy, still pretending to
do all, to furnish all the powers and faculties with all that they have;
but if an enemy dare rise up against it, it is the soonest endangered,
the soonest defeated of any part. The brain will hold out longer than
it, and the liver longer than that; they will endure a siege; but an
unnatural heat, a rebellious heat, will blow up the heart, like a mine,
in a minute. But howsoever, since the heart hath the birthright and
primogeniture, and that it is nature's eldest son in us, the part which
is first born to life in man, and that the other parts, as younger
brethren, and servants in his family, have a dependance upon it, it is
reason that the principal care be had of it, though it be not the
strongest part, as the eldest is oftentimes not the strongest of the
family. And since the brain, and liver, and heart hold not a triumvirate
in man, a sovereignty equally shed upon them all, for his well-being, as
the four elements do for his very being, but the heart alone is in the
principality, and in the throne, as king, the rest as subjects, though
in eminent place and office, must contribute to that, as children to
their parents, as all persons to all kinds of superiors, though
oftentimes those parents or those superiors be not of stronger parts
than themselves, that serve and obey them that are weaker. Neither doth
this obligation fall upon us, by second dictates of nature, by
consequences and conclusions arising out of nature, or derived from
nature by discourse (as many things bind us even by the law of nature,
and yet not by the primary law of nature; as all laws of propriety in
that which we possess are of the law of nature, which law is, to give
every one his own, and yet in the primary law of nature there was no
propriety, no _meum et tuum_, but an universal community overall; so the
obedience of superiors is of the law of nature, and yet in the primary
law of nature there was no superiority, no magistracy); but this
contribution of assistance of all to the sovereign, of all parts to the
heart, is from the very first dictates of nature, which is, in the first
place, to have care of our own preservation, to look first to
ourselves; for therefore doth the physician intermit the present care of
brain or liver, because there is a possibility that they may subsist,
though there be not a present and a particular care had of them, but
there is no possibility that they can subsist, if the heart perish: and
so, when we seem to begin with others, in such assistances, indeed, we
do begin with ourselves, and we ourselves are principally in our
contemplation; and so all these officious and mutual assistances are but
compliments towards others, and our true end is ourselves. And this is
the reward of the pains of kings; sometimes they need the power of law
to be obeyed; and when they seem to be obeyed voluntarily, they who do
it do it for their own sakes. O how little a thing is all the greatness
of man and through how false glasses doth he make shift to multiply it,
and magnify it to himself! And yet this is also another misery of this
king of man, the heart, which is also applicable to the kings of this
world, great men, that the venom and poison of every pestilential
disease directs itself to the heart, affects that (pernicious
affection), and the malignity of ill men is also directed upon the
greatest and the best; and not only greatness but goodness loses the
vigour of being an antidote or cordial against it. And as the noblest
and most generous cordials that nature or art afford, or can prepare, if
they be often taken and made familiar, become no cordials, nor have any
extraordinary operation, so the greatest cordial of the heart, patience,
if it be much exercised, exalts the venom and the malignity of the
enemy, and the more we suffer the more we are insulted upon. When God
had made this earth of nothing, it was but a little help that he had, to
make other things of this earth: nothing can be nearer nothing than this
earth; and yet how little of this earth is the greatest man! He thinks
he treads upon the earth, that all is under his feet, and the brain
that thinks so is but earth; his highest region, the flesh that covers
that, is but earth, and even the top of that, that wherein so many
Absaloms take so much pride, is but a bush growing upon that turf of
earth. How little of the world is the earth! And yet that is all that
man hath or is. How little of a man is the heart, and yet it is all by
which he is; and this continually subject not only to foreign poisons
conveyed by others, but to intestine poisons bred in ourselves by
pestilential sicknesses. O who, if before he had a being he could have
sense of this misery, would buy a being here upon these conditions?


XI. EXPOSTULATION.

My God, my God, all that thou askest of me is my heart, _My Son, give me
thy heart_.[147] Am I thy Son as long as I have but my heart? Wilt thou
give me an inheritance, a filiation, any thing for my heart? O thou, who
saidst to Satan, _Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is
none like him upon the earth_,[148] shall my fear, shall my zeal, shall
my jealousy, have leave to say to thee, Hast thou considered my heart,
that there is not so perverse a heart upon earth; and wouldst thou have
that, and shall I be thy son, thy eternal Son's coheir, for giving that?
_The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who
can know it?_[149] He that asks that question makes the answer, I the
Lord search the heart. When didst thou search mine? Dost thou think to
find it, as thou madest it, in Adam? Thou hast searched since, and found
all these gradations in the ill of our hearts, _that every imagination
of the thoughts of our hearts is only evil continually_.[150] Dost thou
remember this, and wouldst thou have my heart? O God of all light, I
know thou knowest all, and it is thou[151] that declarest unto man what
is his heart. Without thee, O sovereign Goodness, I could not know how
ill my heart were. Thou hast declared unto me, in thy word, that for all
this deluge of evil that hath surrounded all hearts, yet thou soughtest
and foundest a man after thine own heart;[152] that thou couldst and
wouldst give thy people pastors according to thine own heart;[153] and I
can gather out of thy word so good testimony of the hearts of men as to
find single hearts, docile and apprehensive hearts; hearts that can,
hearts that have learned; wise hearts in one place, and in another in a
great degree wise, perfect hearts; straight hearts, no perverseness
without; and clean hearts, no foulness within: such hearts I can find in
thy word; and if my heart were such a heart, I would give thee my heart.
But I find stony hearts too,[154] and I have made mine such: I have
found hearts that are snares;[155] and I have conversed with such;
hearts that burn like ovens;[156] and the fuel of lust, and envy, and
ambition, hath inflamed mine; hearts in which their masters trust, and
_he that trusteth in his own heart is a fool_;[157] his confidence in
his own moral constancy and civil fortitude will betray him, when thou
shalt cast a spiritual damp, a heaviness and dejection of spirit upon
him. I have found these hearts, and a worse than these, a heart into the
which the devil himself is entered, Judas's heart.[158] The first kind
of heart, alas, my God, I have not; the last are not hearts to be given
to thee. What shall I do? Without that present I cannot be thy son, and
I have it not. To those of the first kind thou givest joyfulness of
heart,[159] and I have not that; to those of the other kind thou givest
faintness of heart;[160] and blessed be thou, O God, for that
forbearance, I have not that yet. There is then a middle kind of hearts,
not so perfect as to be given but that the very giving mends them; not
so desperate as not to be accepted but that the very accepting dignifies
them. This is a melting heart,[161] and a troubled heart, and a wounded
heart, and a broken heart, and a contrite heart; and by the powerful
working of thy piercing Spirit such a heart I have. Thy Samuel spake
unto all the house of thy Israel, and said, _If you return to the Lord
with all your hearts, prepare your hearts unto the Lord_.[162] If my
heart be prepared, it is a returning heart. And if thou see it upon the
way, thou wilt carry it home. Nay, the preparation is thine too; this
melting, this wounding, this breaking, this contrition, which I have
now, is thy way to thy end; and those discomforts are, for all that,
_the earnest of thy Spirit in my heart_;[163] and where thou givest
earnest, thou wilt perform the bargain. Nabal was confident upon his
wine, but _in the morning his heart died within him_.[164] Thou, O Lord,
hast given me wormwood, and I have had some diffidence upon that; and
thou hast cleared a morning to me again, and my heart is alive. David's
heart smote him when he cut off the skirt from Saul;[165] and his heart
smote him when he had numbered his people:[166] my heart hath struck me
when I come to number my sins; but that blow is not to death, because
those sins are not to death, but my heart lives in thee. But yet as long
as I remain in this great hospital, this sick, this diseaseful world, as
long as I remain in this leprous house, this flesh of mine, this heart,
though thus prepared for thee, prepared by thee, will still be subject
to the invasion of malign and pestilent vapours. But I have my cordials
in thy promise; _when I shall know the plague of my heart, and pray unto
thee in thy house_,[167] thou wilt preserve that heart from all mortal
force of that infection; _and the peace of God, which passeth all
understandings shall keep my heart and mind through Christ Jesus_.[168]


XI. PRAYER.

O eternal and most gracious God, who in thy upper house, the heavens,
though there be many mansions, yet art alike and equally in every
mansion; but here in thy lower house, though thou fillest all, yet art
otherwise in some rooms thereof than in others; otherwise in thy church
than in my chamber, and otherwise in thy sacraments than in my prayers;
so though thou be always present and always working in every room of
this thy house, my body, yet I humbly beseech thee to manifest always a
more effectual presence in my heart than in the other offices. Into the
house of thine anointed, disloyal persons, traitors, will come; into thy
house, the church, hypocrites and idolators will come; into some rooms
of this thy house, my body, temptations will come, infections will come;
but be my heart thy bedchamber, O my God, and thither let them not
enter. Job made a covenant with his eyes, but not his making of that
covenant, but thy dwelling in his heart, enabled him to keep that
covenant. Thy Son himself had a sadness in his soul to death, and he had
a reluctation, a deprecation of death, in the approaches thereof; but he
had his cordial too, _Yet not my will, but thine be done_. And as thou
hast not delivered us, thine adopted sons, from these infectious
temptations, so neither hast thou delivered us over to them, nor
withheld thy cordials from us. I was baptized in thy cordial water
against original sin, and I have drunk of thy cordial blood, for my
recovery from actual and habitual sin, in the other sacrament. Thou, O
Lord, who hast imprinted all medicinal virtues which are in all
creatures, and hast made even the flesh of vipers to assist in cordials,
art able to make this present sickness, everlasting health, this
weakness, everlasting strength, and this very dejection and faintness of
heart, a powerful cordial. When thy blessed Son cried out to thee, _My
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?_ thou didst reach out thy hand
to him; but not to deliver his sad soul, but to receive his holy soul:
neither did he longer desire to hold it of thee, but to recommend it to
thee. I see thine hand upon me now, O Lord, and I ask not why it comes,
what it intends; whether thou wilt bid it stay still in this body for
some time, or bid it meet thee this day in paradise, I ask not, not in a
wish, not in a thought. Infirmity of nature, curiosity of mind, are
temptations that offer; but a silent and absolute obedience to thy will,
even before I know it, is my cordial. Preserve that to me, O my God, and
that will preserve me to thee; that, when thou hast catechised me with
affliction here, I may take a greater degree, and serve thee in a higher
place, in thy kingdom of joy and glory. Amen.

FOOTNOTES:

[147] Prov. xxiii. 26.

[148] Job, i. 8.

[149] Jer. xvii. 9.

[150] Gen. vi. 5.

[151] Amos, iv. 13.

[152] 1 Sam. xiii. 14.

[153] Jer. iii. 15.

[154] Ezek. xi. 19.

[155] Eccles. vii. 26.

[156] Hos. vii. 6.

[157] Prov. xxviii. 26.

[158] John, xiii. 2.

[159] Ecclus. l. 23.

[160] Lev. xxvi. 36.

[161] Josh. ii. 11.

[162] 1 Sam. vii. 3.

[163] 2 Cor. i. 22.

[164] 1 Sam. xxv. 37.

[165] 1 Sam. xxiv. 5.

[166] 2 Sam. xxiv. 10.

[167] 1 Kings, viii. 38.

[168] Phil. iv. 7.


    XII. ------------------ Spirante columba
    Supposita pedibus, revocantur ad ima vapores.

_They apply pigeons, to draw the vapours from the head._


XII. MEDITATION.

What will not kill a man if a vapour will? How great an elephant, how
small a mouse destroys! To die by a bullet is the soldier's daily bread;
but few men die by hail-shot. A man is more worth than to be sold for
single money; a life to be valued above a trifle. If this were a violent
shaking of the air by thunder or by cannon, in that case the air is
condensed above the thickness of water, of water baked into ice, almost
petrified, almost made stone, and no wonder that kills; but that which
is but a vapour, and a vapour not forced but breathed, should kill, that
our nurse should overlay us, and air that nourishes us should destroy
us, but that it is a half atheism to murmur against Nature, who is God's
immediate commissioner, who would not think himself miserable to be put
into the hands of Nature, who does not only set him up for a mark for
others to shoot at, but delights herself to blow him up like a glass,
till she see him break, even with her own breath? Nay, if this
infectious vapour were sought for, or travelled to, as Pliny hunted
after the vapour of Ætna and dared and challenged Death in the form of a
vapour to do his worst, and felt the worst, he died; or if this vapour
were met withal in an ambush, and we surprised with it, out of a long
shut well, or out of a new opened mine, who would lament, who would
accuse, when we had nothing to accuse, none to lament against but
fortune, who is less than a vapour? But when ourselves are the well
that breathes out this exhalation, the oven that spits out this fiery
smoke, the mine that spews out this suffocating and strangling damp, who
can ever, after this, aggravate his sorrow by this circumstance, that it
was his neighbour, his familiar friend, his brother, that destroyed him,
and destroyed him with a whispering and a calumniating breath, when we
ourselves do it to ourselves by the same means, kill ourselves with our
own vapours? Or if these occasions of this self-destruction had any
contribution from our own wills, any assistance from our own intentions,
nay, from our own errors, we might divide the rebuke, and chide
ourselves as much as them. Fevers upon wilful distempers of drink and
surfeits, consumptions upon intemperances and licentiousness, madness
upon misplacing or overbending our natural faculties, proceed from
ourselves, and so as that ourselves are in the plot, and we are not only
passive, but active too, to our own destruction. But what have I done,
either to breed or to breathe these vapours? They tell me it is my
melancholy; did I infuse, did I drink in melancholy into myself? It is
my thoughtfulness; was I not made to think? It is my study; doth not my
calling call for that? I have done nothing wilfully, perversely toward
it, yet must suffer in it, die by it. There are too many examples of men
that have been their own executioners, and that have made hard shift to
be so: some have always had poison about them, in a hollow ring upon
their finger, and some in their pen that they used to write with; some
have beat out their brains at the wall of their prison, and some have
eat the fire out of their chimneys;[169] and one is said to have come
nearer our case than so, to have strangled himself, though his hands
were bound, by crushing his throat between his knees. But I do nothing
upon myself, and yet am mine own executioner. And we have heard of death
upon small occasions and by scornful instruments: a pin, a comb, a hair
pulled, hath gangrened and killed; but when I have said a vapour, if I
were asked again what is a vapour, I could not tell, it is so insensible
a thing; so near nothing is that that reduces us to nothing. But extend
this vapour, rarefy it; from so narrow a room as our natural bodies, to
any politic body, to a state. That which is fume in us is, in a state
rumour; and these vapours in us, which we consider here pestilent and
infectious fumes, are, in a state, infecitious rumours, detracting and
dishonourable calumnies, libels. The heart in that body is the king, and
the brain his council; and the whole magistracy, that ties all together,
is the sinews which proceed from thence; and the life of all is honour,
and just respect, and due reverence; and therefore, when these vapours,
these venomous rumours, are directed against these noble parts, the
whole body suffers. But yet for all their privileges, they are not
privileged from our misery; that as the vapours most pernicious to us
arise in our own bodies, so do the most dishonourable rumours, and those
that wound a state most arise at home. What ill air that I could have
met in the street, what channel, what shambles, what dunghill, what
vault, could have hurt me so much as these homebred vapours? What
fugitive, what almsman of any foreign state, can do so much harm as a
detractor, a libeller, a scornful jester at home? For as they that write
of poisons, and of creatures naturally disposed to the ruin of man, do
as well mention the flea as the viper[170], because the flea, though he
kill none, he does all the harm he can; so even these libellous and
licentious jesters utter the venom they have, though sometimes virtue,
and always power, be a good pigeon to draw this vapour from the head
and from doing any deadly harm there.


XII. EXPOSTULATION.

My God, my God, as thy servant James, when he asks that question, _What
is your life?_ provides me my answer, _It is even a vapour, that
appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away_;[171] so, if he
did ask me what is your death, I am provided of my answer, it is a
vapour too; and why should it not be all one to me, whether I live or
die, if life and death be all one, both a vapour? Thou hast made vapour
so indifferent a thing as that thy blessings and thy judgments are
equally expressed by it, and is made by thee the hieroglyphic of both.
Why should not that be always good by which thou hast declared thy
plentiful goodness to us? _A vapour went up from the earth, and watered
the whole face of the ground._[172] And that by which thou hast imputed
a goodness to us, and wherein thou hast accepted our service to thee,
sacrifices; for sacrifices were vapours;[173] and in them it is said,
that a _thick cloud of incense went up to thee_.[174] So it is of that
wherein thou comest to us, the dew of heaven, and of that wherein we
come to thee, both are vapours; and he, in whom we have and are all that
we are or have, temporally or spiritually, thy blessed Son, in the
person of Wisdom, is called so too; _She is_ (that is, he is) _the
vapour of the power of God, and the pure influence from the glory of the
Almighty._[175] Hast thou, thou, O my God, perfumed vapour with thine
own breath, with so many sweet acceptations in thine own word, and shall
this vapour receive an ill and infectious sense? It must; for, since we
have displeased thee with that which is but vapour (for what is sin but
a vapour, but a smoke, though such a smoke as takes away our sight, and
disables us from seeing our danger), it is just that thou punish us with
vapours too. For so thou dost, as the wise man tells us, thou canst
punish us by those things wherein we offend thee; as he hath expressed
it there, _by beasts newly created, breathing vapours_.[176] Therefore
that commination of thine, by thy prophet, _I will show wonders in the
heaven, and in the earth, blood and fire, and pillars of smoke_;[177]
thine apostle, who knew thy meaning best, calls _vapours of smoke_.[178]
One prophet presents thee in thy terribleness so, _There went out a
smoke at his nostrils_,[179] and another the effect of thine anger so,
_The house was filled with smoke_;[180] and he that continues his
prophecy as long as the world can continue, describes the miseries of
the latter times so, _Out of the bottomless pit arose a smoke, that
darkened the sun, and out of that smoke came locusts, who had the power
of scorpions_.[181] Now all smokes begin in fire, and all these will end
so too: the smoke of sin and of thy wrath will end in the fire of hell.
But hast thou afforded us no means to evaporate these smokes, to
withdraw these vapours? When thine angels fell from heaven, thou tookest
into thy care the reparation of that place, and didst it by assuming, by
drawing us thither; when we fell from thee here, in this world, thou
tookest into thy care the reparation of this place too, and didst it by
assuming us another way, by descending down to assume our nature, in thy
Son. So that though our last act be an ascending to glory (we shall
ascend to the place of angels), yet our first act is to go the way of
thy Son, descending, and the way of thy blessed Spirit too, who
descended in the dove. Therefore hast thou been pleased to afford us
this remedy in nature, by this application of a dove to our lower parts,
to make these vapours in our bodies to descend, and to make that a type
to us, that, by the visitation of thy Spirit, the vapours of sin shall
descend, and we tread them under our feet. At the baptism of thy Son,
the Dove descended, and at the exalting of thine apostles to preach, the
same Spirit descended. Let us draw down the vapours of our own pride,
our own wits, our own wills, our own inventions, to the simplicity of
thy sacraments and the obedience of thy word; and these doves, thus
applied, shall make us live.


XII. PRAYER.

O eternal and most gracious God, who, though thou have suffered us to
destroy ourselves, and hast not given us the power of reparation in
ourselves, hast yet afforded us such means of reparation as may easily
and familiarly be compassed by us, prosper, I humbly beseech thee, this
means of bodily assistance in this thy ordinary creature, and prosper
thy means of spiritual assistance in thy holy ordinances. And as thou
hast carried this thy creature, the dove, through all thy ways through
nature, and made it naturally proper to conduce medicinally to our
bodily health, through the law, and made it a sacrifice for sin there,
and through the gospel, and made it, and thy Spirit in it, a witness of
thy Son's baptism there, so carry it, and the qualities of it, home to
my soul, and imprint there that simplicity, that mildness, that
harmlessness, which thou hast imprinted by nature in this creature. That
so all vapours of all disobedience to thee, being subdued under my
feet, I may, in the power and triumph of thy Son, tread victoriously
upon my grave, and trample upon the lion and dragon[182] that lie under
it to devour me. Thou, O Lord, by the prophet, callest the dove the
_dove of the valleys_, but promisest that the _dove of the valleys shall
be upon the mountain_.[183] As thou hast laid me low in this valley of
sickness, so low as that I am made fit for that question asked in the
field of bones, _Son of man, can these bones live?_[184] so, in thy good
time, carry me up to these mountains of which even in this valley thou
affordest me a prospect, the mountain where thou dwellest, the holy
hill, unto which none can ascend _but he that hath clean hands_, which
none can have but by that one and that strong way of making them clean,
in the blood of thy Son Christ Jesus. Amen.

FOOTNOTES:

[169] Coma, latro. in Val. Max.

[170] Ardoinus.

[171] James, iv. 14.

[172] Gen. ii. 6.

[173] Lev. xvi. 13.

[174] Ezek. viii. 11.

[175] Wisd. vii. 25.

[176] Wisd. xi. 18.

[177] Joel, ii. 30.

[178] Acts, ii. 19.

[179] Psalm xviii. 8.

[180] Isaiah, vi. 4.

[181] Rev. ix. 2.


XIII. INGENIUMQUE MALUM, NUMEROSO STIGMATE, FASSUS PELLITUR AD PECTUS,
MORBIQUE SUBURBIA, MORBUS.

_The sickness declares the infection and malignity thereof by spots._


XIII. MEDITATION.

We say that the world is made of sea and land, as though they were
equal; but we know that there is more sea in the Western than in the
Eastern hemisphere. We say that the firmament is full of stars, as
though it were equally full; but we know that there are more stars under
the Northern than under the Southern pole. We say the elements of man
are misery and happiness, as though he had an equal proportion of both,
and the days of man vicissitudinary, as though he had as many good days
as ill, and that he lived under a perpetual equinoctial, night and day
equal, good and ill fortune in the same measure. But it is far from
that; he drinks misery, and he tastes happiness; he mows misery, and he
gleans happiness; he journeys in misery, he does but walk in happiness;
and, which is worst, his misery is positive and dogmatical, his
happiness is but disputable and problematical: all men call misery
misery, but happiness changes the name by the taste of man. In this
accident that befalls me, now that this sickness declares itself by
spots to be a malignant and pestilential disease, if there be a comfort
in the declaration, that thereby the physicians see more clearly what to
do, there may be as much discomfort in this, that the malignity may be
so great as that all that they can do shall do nothing; that an enemy
declares himself then, when he is able to subsist, and to pursue, and to
achieve his ends, is no great comfort. In intestine conspiracies,
voluntary confessions do more good than confessions upon the rack; in
these infections, when nature herself confesses and cries out by these
outward declarations which she is able to put forth of herself, they
minister comfort; but when all is by the strength of cordials, it is but
a confession upon the rack, by which, though we come to know the malice
of that man, yet we do not know whether there be not as much malice in
his heart then as before his confession; we are sure of his treason, but
not of his repentance; sure of him, but not of his accomplices. It is a
faint comfort to know the worst when the worst is remediless, and a
weaker than that to know much ill, and not to know that that is the
worst. A woman is comforted with the birth of her son, her body is eased
of a burden; but if she could prophetically read his history, how ill a
man, perchance how ill a son, he would prove, she should receive a
greater burden into her mind. Scarce any purchase that is not clogged
with secret incumbrances; scarce any happiness that hath not in it so
much of the nature of false and base money, as that the allay is more
than the metal. Nay, is it not so (at least much towards it) even in the
exercise of virtues? I must be poor and want before I can exercise the
virtue of gratitude; miserable, and in torment, before I can exercise
the virtue of patience. How deep do we dig, and for how coarse gold! And
what other touchstone have we of our gold but comparison, whether we be
as happy as others, or as ourselves at other times? O poor step toward
being well, when these spots do only tell us that we are worse than we
were sure of before.


XIII. EXPOSTULATION.

My God, my God, thou hast made this sick bed thine altar, and I have no
other sacrifice to offer but myself; and wilt thou accept no spotted
sacrifice? Doth thy Son dwell bodily in this flesh that thou shouldst
look for an unspottedness here? or is the Holy Ghost the soul of this
body, as he is of thy spouse, who is therefore _all fair, and no spot in
her_?[185] or hath thy Son himself no spots, who hath all our stains and
deformities in him? or hath thy spouse, thy church, no spots, when every
particular limb of that fair and spotless body, every particular soul in
that church, is full of stains and spots? Thou bidst us _hate the
garment that is spotted with the flesh_.[186] The flesh itself is the
garment, and it spotteth itself with itself. And _if I wash myself with
snow water, mine own clothes shall make me abominable_;[187] and yet _no
man yet ever hated his own flesh_.[188] Lord, if thou look for a
spotlessness, whom wilt thou look upon? Thy mercy may go a great way in
my soul and yet not leave me without spots; thy corrections may go far
and burn deep, and yet not leave me spotless: thy children apprehended
that, when they said, _From our former iniquity we are not cleansed
until this day, though there was a plague in the congregation of the
Lord_.[189] Thou rainest upon us, and yet dost not always mollify all
our hardness; thou kindlest thy fires in us, and yet dost not always
burn up all our dross; thou healest our wounds, and yet leavest scars;
thou purgest the blood, and yet leavest spots. But the spots that thou
hatest are the spots that we hide. The carvers of images cover
spots,[190] says the wise man; when we hide our spots, we become
idolators of our own stains, of our own foulnesses. But if my spots come
forth, by what means soever, whether by the strength of nature, by
voluntary confession (for grace is the nature of a regenerate man, and
the power of grace is the strength of nature), or by the virtue of
cordials (for even thy corrections are cordials), if they come forth
either way, thou receivest that confession with a gracious
interpretation. When thy servant Jacob practised an invention to procure
spots in his sheep,[191] thou didst prosper his rods; and thou dost
prosper thine own rods, when corrections procure the discovery of our
spots, the humble manifestation of our sins to thee; till then thou
mayst justly say, _The whole need not the physician_;[192] till we tell
thee in our sickness we think ourselves whole, till we show our spots,
thou appliest no medicine. But since I do that, shall I not, _Lord, lift
up my face without spot, and be steadfast, and not fear_?[193] Even my
spots belong to thy Son's body, and are part of that which he came down
to this earth to fetch, and challenge, and assume to himself. When I
open my spots I do but present him with that which is his; and till I do
so, I detain and withhold his right. When therefore thou seest them upon
me, as his, and seest them by this way of confession, they shall not
appear to me as the pinches of death, to decline my fear to hell (for
thou hast not left thy holy one in hell, thy Son is not there); but
these spots upon my breast, and upon my soul, shall appear to me as the
constellations of the firmament, to direct my contemplation to that
place where thy Son is, thy right hand.


XIII. PRAYER.

O eternal and most gracious God, who as thou givest all for nothing, if
we consider any precedent merit in us, so givest nothing for nothing, if
we consider the acknowledgment and thankfulness which thou lookest for
after, accept my humble thanks, both for thy mercy, and for this
particular mercy, that in thy judgment I can discern thy mercy, and find
comfort in thy corrections. I know, O Lord, the ordinary discomfort that
accompanies that phrase, that the house is visited, and that, that thy
marks and thy tokens are upon the patient; but what a wretched and
disconsolate hermitage is that house which is not visited by thee, and
what a waif and stray is that man that hath not thy marks upon him?
These heats, O Lord, which thou hast brought upon this body, are but thy
chafing of the wax, that thou mightst seal me to thee: these spots are
but the letters in which thou hast written thine own name and conveyed
thyself to me; whether for a present possession, by taking me now, or
for a future reversion, by glorifying thyself in my stay here, I limit
not, I condition not, I choose not, I wish not, no more than the house
or land that passeth by any civil conveyance. Only be thou ever present
to me, O my God, and this bedchamber and thy bedchamber shall be all one
room, and the closing of these bodily eyes here, and the opening of the
eyes of my soul there, all one act.

FOOTNOTES:

[182] Psalm xci. 13.

[183] Ezek. vii. 16.

[184] Ezek. xxxvii. 3.

[185] Cant. iv. 7.

[186] Jude, 23.

[187] Job, ix. 30

[188] Eph. v. 29

[189] Josh. xxii. 17

[190] Wisd. xiii. 14

[191] Gen. xxx. 33

[192] Matt. ix. 12

[193] Job, xi. 15.


XIV. IDQUE NOTANT CRITICIS MEDICI EVENISSE DIEBUS.

_The physicians observe these accidents to have fallen upon the critical
days._


XIV. MEDITATION.

I would not make man worse than he is, nor his condition more miserable
than it is. But could I though I would? As a man cannot flatter God, nor
overpraise him, so a man cannot injure man, nor undervalue him. Thus
much must necessarily be presented to his remembrance, that those false
happinesses which he hath in this world, have their times, and their
seasons, and their critical days; and they are judged and denominated
according to the times when they befall us. What poor elements are our
happinesses made of, if time, time which we can scarce consider to be
any thing, be an essential part of our happiness! All things are done in
some place; but if we consider place to be no more but the next hollow
superficies of the air, alas! how thin and fluid a thing is air, and how
thin a film is a superficies, and a superficies of air! All things are
done in time too, but if we consider time to be but the measure of
motion, and howsoever it may seem to have three stations, past, present,
and future, yet the first and last of these are not (one is not now, and
the other is not yet), and that which you call present, is not now the
same that it was when you began to call it so in this line (before you
sound that word present, or that monosyllable now, the present and the
now is past). If this imaginary, half-nothing time, be of the essence of
our happinesses, how can they be thought durable? Time is not so; how
can they be thought to be? Time is not so; not so considered in any of
the parts thereof. If we consider eternity, into that time never
entered; eternity is not an everlasting flux of time, but time is a
short parenthesis in a long period; and eternity had been the same as it
is, though time had never been. If we consider, not eternity, but
perpetuity; not that which had no time to begin in, but which shall
outlive time, and be when time shall be no more, what a minute is the
life of the durablest creature compared to that! and what a minute is
man's life in respect of the sun's, or of a tree? and yet how little of
our life is occasion, opportunity to receive good in; and how little of
that occasion do we apprehend and lay hold of? How busy and perplexed a
cobweb is the happiness of man here, that must be made up with a
watchfulness to lay hold upon occasion, which is but a little piece of
that which is nothing, time? and yet the best things are nothing without
that. Honours, pleasures, possessions, presented to us out of time? in
our decrepit and distasted and unapprehensive age, lose their office,
and lose their name; they are not honours to us that shall never appear,
nor come abroad into the eyes of the people, to receive honour from them
who give it; nor pleasures to us, who have lost our sense to taste
them; nor possessions to us, who are departing from the possession of
them. Youth is their critical day, that judges them, that denominates
them, that inanimates and informs them, and makes them honours, and
pleasures, and possessions; and when they come in an unapprehensive age,
they come as a cordial when the bell rings out, as a pardon when the
head is off. We rejoice in the comfort of fire, but does any man cleave
to it at midsummer? We are glad of the freshness and coolness of a
vault, but does any man keep his Christmas there; or are the pleasures
of the spring acceptable in autumn? If happiness be in the season, or in
the climate, how much happier then are birds than men, who can change
the climate and accompany and enjoy the same season ever.


XIV. EXPOSTULATION.

My God, my God, wouldst thou call thyself the ancient of days,[194] if
we were not to call ourselves to an account for our days? Wouldst thou
chide us for _standing idle here all the day_,[195] if we were sure to
have more days to make up our harvest? When thou bidst us _take no
thought for to-morrow, for sufficient unto the day_ (to every day) _is
the evil thereof_,[196] is this truly, absolutely, to put off all that
concerns the present life? When thou reprehendest the Galatians by thy
message to them, _That they observed days, and months, and times, and
years_,[197] when thou sendest by the same messenger to forbid the
Colossians all critical days, indicatory days, _Let no man judge you in
respect of a holy day, or of a new moon, or of a sabbath_,[198] dost
thou take away all consideration, all distinction of days? Though thou
remove them from being of the essence of our salvation, thou leavest
them for assistances, and for the exaltation of our devotion, to fix
ourselves, at certain periodical and stationary times, upon the
consideration of those things which thou hast done for us, and the
crisis, the trial, the judgment, how those things have wrought upon us
and disposed us to a spiritual recovery and convalescence. For there is
to every man a day of salvation. _Now is the accepted time, now is the
day of salvation_,[199] and there is _a great day of thy wrath_,[200]
which no man shall be able to stand in; and there are evil days before,
and therefore thou warnest us and armest us, _Take unto you the whole
armour of God, that you may be able to stand in the evil day_.[201] So
far then our days must be critical to us, as that by consideration of
them, we may make a judgment of our spiritual health, for that is the
crisis of our bodily health. Thy beloved servant, St. John, wishes to
Gaius, _that he may prosper in his health, so as his soul
prospers_;[202] for if the soul be lean the marrow of the body is but
water; if the soul wither, the verdure and the good estate of the body
is but an illusion and the goodliest man a fearful ghost. Shall we, O my
God, determine our thoughts, and shall we never determine our
disputations upon our climacterical years, for particular men and
periodical years, for the life of states and kingdoms, and never
consider these in our long life, and our interest in the everlasting
kingdom? We have exercised our curiosity in observing that Adam, the
eldest of the eldest world, died in his climacterical year, and Shem,
the eldest son of the next world, in his; Abraham, the father of the
faithful, in his, and the blessed Virgin Mary, the garden where the
root of faith grew, in hers. But they whose climacterics we observe,
employed their observation upon their critical days, the working of thy
promise of a Messias upon them. And shall we, O my God, make less use of
those days who have more of them? We, who have not only the day of the
prophets, the first days, but the last days, in which thou hast spoken
unto us by thy Son?[203] We are the children of the day,[204] for thou
hast shined in as full a noon upon us as upon the Thessalonians: they
who were of the night (a night which they had superinduced upon
themselves), the Pharisees, pretended, _that if they had been in their
fathers' days_ (those indicatory and judicatory, those critical days),
_they would not have been partakers of the blood of the prophets_;[205]
and shall we who are in the day, these days, not of the prophets, but of
the Son, stone those prophets again, and crucify that Son again, for all
those evident indications and critical judicatures which are afforded
us? Those opposed adversaries of thy Son, the Pharisees, with the
Herodians, watched a critical day; then when the state was incensed
against him, came to tempt him in the dangerous question of
tribute.[206] They left him, and that day was the critical day to the
Sadducees. The same day, says thy Spirit in thy word, the Sadducees came
to him to question him about the resurrection,[207] and them he
silenced; they left him, and this was the critical day for the Scribe,
expert in the law, who thought himself learneder than the Herodian, the
Pharisee, or Sadducee; and he tempted him about the great
commandment,[208] and him Christ left without power of replying. When
all was done, and that they went about to begin their circle of vexation
and temptation again, Christ silences them so, that as they had taken
their critical days, to come in that and in that day, so Christ imposes
a critical day upon them. _From that day forth_, says thy Spirit, _no
man durst ask him any more questions_.[209] This, O my God, my most
blessed God, is a fearful crisis, a fearful indication, when we will
study, and seek, and find, what days are fittest to forsake thee in; to
say, now religion is in a neutrality in the world, and this is my day,
the day of liberty; now I may make new friends by changing my old
religion, and this is my day, the day of advancement. But, O my God,
with thy servant Jacob's holy boldness, who, though thou lamedst him,
would not let thee go till thou hadst given him a blessing;[210] though
thou have laid me upon my hearse, yet thou shalt not depart from me,
from this bed, till thou have given me a crisis, a judgment upon myself
this day. Since _a day is as a thousand years with thee_,[211] let, O
Lord, a day be as a week to me; and in this one, let me consider seven
days, seven critical days, and judge myself that I be not judged by
thee. First, this is the day of thy visitation, thy coming to me; and
would I look to be welcome to thee, and not entertain thee in thy coming
to me? We measure not the visitations of great persons by their apparel,
by their equipage, by the solemnity of their coming, but by their very
coming; and therefore, howsoever thou come, it is a crisis to me, that
thou wouldst not lose me who seekest me by any means. This leads me from
my first day, thy visitation by sickness, to a second, to the light and
testimony of my conscience. There I have an evening and a morning, a sad
guiltiness in my soul, but yet a cheerful rising of thy Sun too; thy
evenings and mornings made days in the creation, and there is no mention
of nights; my sadnesses for sins are evenings, but they determine not
in night, but deliver me over to the day, the day of a conscience
dejected, but then rectified, accused, but then acquitted, by thee, by
him who speaks thy word, and who is thy word, thy Son. From this day,
the crisis and examination of my conscience, breaks out my third day, my
day of preparing and fitting myself for a more especial receiving of thy
Son in his institution of the Sacrament; in which day, though there be
many dark passages and slippery steps to them who will entangle and
endanger themselves in unnecessary disputations, yet there are light
hours enough for any man to go his whole journey intended by thee, to
know that that bread and wine is not more really assimilated to my body,
and to my blood, than the body and blood of thy Son is communicated to
me in that action, and participation of that bread and that wine. And
having, O my God, walked with thee these three days, the day of thy
visitation, the day of my conscience, the day of preparing for this seal
of reconciliation, I am the less afraid of the clouds or storms of my
fourth day, the day of my dissolution and transmigration from hence.
Nothing deserves the name of happiness that makes the remembrance of
death bitter; and, _O death, how bitter is the remembrance of thee, to a
man that lives at rest in his possessions, the man that hath nothing to
vex him, yea unto him that is able to receive meat!_[212] Therefore hast
thou, O my God, made this sickness, in which I am not able to receive
meat, my fasting day, my eve to this great festival, my dissolution. And
this day of death shall deliver me over to my fifth day, the day of my
resurrection; for how long a day soever thou make that day in the grave,
yet there is no day between that and the resurrection. Then we shall all
be invested, reapparelled in our own bodies; but they who have made
just use of their former days be super-invested with glory; whereas the
others, condemned to their old clothes, their sinful bodies, shall have
nothing added but immortality to torment. And this day of awaking me,
and reinvesting my soul in my body, and my body in the body of Christ,
shall present me, body and soul, to my sixth day, the day of judgment,
which is truly, and most literally, the critical, the decretory day;
both because all judgment shall be manifested to me then, and I shall
assist in judging the world then, and because then, that judgment shall
declare to me, and possess me of my seventh day, my everlasting Sabbath
in thy rest, thy glory, thy joy, thy sight, thyself; and where I shall
live as long without reckoning any more days after, as thy Son and thy
Holy Spirit lived with thee, before you three made any days in the
creation.


XIV. PRAYER.

O eternal and most gracious God, who, though thou didst permit darkness
to be before light in the creation, yet in the making of light didst so
multiply that light, as that it enlightened not the day only, but the
night too; though thou have suffered some dimness, some clouds of
sadness and disconsolateness to shed themselves upon my soul, I humbly
bless and thankfully glorify thy holy name, that thou hast afforded me
the light of thy Spirit, against which the prince of darkness cannot
prevail, nor hinder his illumination of our darkest nights, of our
saddest thoughts. Even the visitation of thy most blessed Spirit upon
the blessed Virgin, is called an overshadowing. There was the presence
of the Holy Ghost, the fountain of all light, and yet an overshadowing;
nay, except there were some light, there could be no shadow. Let thy
merciful providence so govern all in this sickness, that I never fall
into utter darkness, ignorance of thee, or inconsideration of myself;
and let those shadows which do fall upon me, faintnesses of spirit, and
condemnations of myself, be overcome by the power of thine irresistible
light, the God of consolation; that when those shadows have done their
office upon me, to let me see, that of myself I should fall into
irrecoverable darkness, thy Spirit may do his office upon those shadows,
and disperse them, and establish me in so bright a day here, as may be a
critical day to me, a day wherein and whereby I may give thy judgment
upon myself, and that the words of thy Son, spoken to his apostles, may
reflect upon me, _Behold I am with you always, even to the end of the
world_.[213]

FOOTNOTES:

[194] Dan. vii. 22.

[195] Matt. xx. 6.

[196] Matt. vi. 34.

[197] Gal. iv. 10.

[198] Col. ii. 16.

[199] 2 Cor. vi. 2.

[200] Rev. vi. 17.

[201] Eph. vi. 11.

[202] 3 John, 2.

[203] Heb. i. 2.

[204] 1 Thes. v. 8.

[205] Matt. xxiii. 30.

[206] Matt. xxii. 15.

[207] Matt. xxii. 23.

[208] Matt. xxii. 36.

[209] Matt. xxii. 46.

[210] Gen. xxxii. 26.

[211] 2 Pet. iii. 8.

[212] Ecclus. xli. 1.


XV. INTEREA INSOMNES NOCTES EGO DUCO, DIESQUE.

_I sleep not day nor night._


XV. MEDITATION.

Natural men have conceived a twofold use of sleep; that it is a
refreshing of the body in this life; that it is a preparing of the soul
for the next; that it is a feast, and it is the grace at that feast;
that it is our recreation and cheers us, and it is our catechism and
instructs us; we lie down in a hope that we shall rise the stronger, and
we lie down in a knowledge that we may rise no more. Sleep is an opiate
which gives us rest, but such an opiate, as perchance, being under it,
we shall wake no more. But though natural men, who have induced
secondary and figurative considerations, have found out this second,
this emblematical use of sleep, that it should be a representation of
death, God, who wrought and perfected his work before nature began (for
nature was but his apprentice, to learn in the first seven days, and now
is his foreman, and works next under him), God, I say, intended sleep
only for the refreshing of man by bodily rest, and not for a figure of
death, for he intended not death itself then. But man having induced
death upon himself, God hath taken man's creature, death, into his hand,
and mended it; and whereas it hath in itself a fearful form and aspect,
so that man is afraid of his own creature, God presents it to him in a
familiar, in an assiduous, in an agreeable and acceptable form, in
sleep; that so when he awakes from sleep, and says to himself, "Shall I
be no otherwise when I am dead, than I was even now when I was asleep?"
he may be ashamed of his waking dreams, and of his melancholy fancying
out a horrid and an affrightful figure of that death which is so like
sleep. As then we need sleep to live out our threescore and ten years,
so we need death to live that life which we cannot outlive. And as death
being our enemy, God allows us to defend ourselves against it (for we
victual ourselves against death twice every day), as often as we eat, so
God having so sweetened death unto us as he hath in sleep, we put
ourselves into our enemy's hands once every day, so far as sleep is
death; and sleep is as much death as meat is life. This then is the
misery of my sickness, that death, as it is produced from me and is mine
own creature, is now before mine eyes, but in that form in which God
hath mollified it to us, and made it acceptable, in sleep I cannot see
it. How many prisoners, who have even hollowed themselves their graves
upon that earth on which they have lain long under heavy fetters, yet at
this hour are asleep, though they be yet working upon their own graves
by their own weight? He that hath seen his friend die to-day, or knows
he shall see it to-morrow, yet will sink into a sleep between. I cannot,
and oh, if I be entering now into eternity, where there shall be no more
distinction of hours, why is it all my business now to tell clocks? Why
is none of the heaviness of my heart dispensed into mine eye-lids, that
they might fall as my heart doth? And why, since I have lost my delight
in all objects, cannot I discontinue the faculty of seeing them by
closing mine eyes in sleep? But why rather, being entering into that
presence where I shall wake continually and never sleep more, do I not
interpret my continual waking here, to be a parasceve and a preparation
to that?


XV. EXPOSTULATION.

My God, my God, I know (for thou hast said it) that _he that keepeth
Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep_:[214] but shall not that Israel,
over whom thou watchest, sleep? I know (for thou hast said it) that
there are men whose damnation sleepeth not;[215] but shall not they to
whom thou art salvation sleep? or wilt thou take from them that
evidence, and that testimony that they are thy Israel, or thou their
salvation? _Thou givest thy beloved sleep_:[216] shall I lack that seal
of thy love? _You shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid_:[217]
shall I be outlawed from that protection? Jonah slept in one dangerous
storm,[218] and thy blessed Son in another;[219] shall I have no use, no
benefit, no application of those great examples? _Lord, if he sleep, he
shall do well_,[220] say thy Son's disciples to him of Lazarus; and
shall there be no room for that argument in me? or shall I be open to
the contrary? If I sleep not, shall I not be well in their sense? Let me
not, O my God, take this too precisely, too literally; _There is that
neither day nor night seeth sleep with his eyes_,[221] says thy wise
servant Solomon; and whether he speak that of worldly men, or of men
that seek wisdom, whether in justification or condemnation of their
watchfulness, we cannot tell: we can tell that there are men that cannot
sleep till they have done mischief,[222] and then they can; and we can
tell that the rich man cannot sleep, because his abundance will not let
him.[223] The tares were sown when the husbandmen were asleep[224]; and
the elders thought it a probable excuse, a credible lie, that the
watchmen which kept the sepulchre should say, that the body of thy Son
was stolen away when they were asleep.[225] Since thy blessed Son
rebuked his disciples for sleeping, shall I murmur because I do not
sleep? If Samson had slept any longer in Gaza, he had been taken;[226]
and when he did sleep longer with Delilah,[227] he was taken. Sleep is
as often taken for natural death in thy Scriptures, as for natural rest.
Nay, sometimes sleep hath so heavy a sense, as to be taken for sin
itself,[228] as well as for the punishment of sin, death.[229] Much
comfort is not in much sleep, when the most fearful and most irrevocable
malediction is presented by thee in a perpetual sleep. _I will make
their feasts, and I will make them drunk, and they shall sleep a
perpetual sleep, and not wake._[230] I must therefore, O my God, look
farther than into the very act of sleeping before I misinterpret my
waking; for since I find thy whole hand light, shall any finger of that
hand seem heavy? Since the whole sickness is thy physic, shall any
accident in it be my poison by my murmuring? The name of watchmen
belongs to our profession; thy prophets are not only seers, endued with
a power of seeing, able to see, but watchmen evermore in the act of
seeing. And therefore give me leave, O my blessed God, to invert the
words of thy Son's spouse: she said, _I sleep, but my heart
waketh_;[231] I say, I wake, but my heart sleepeth: my body is in a sick
weariness, but my soul in a peaceful rest with thee; and as our eyes in
our health see not the air that is next them, nor the fire, nor the
spheres, nor stop upon any thing till they come to stars, so my eyes
that are open, see nothing of this world, but pass through all that, and
fix themselves upon thy peace, and joy, and glory above. Almost as soon
as thy apostle had said, _Let us not sleep_,[232] lest we should be too
much discomforted if we did, he says again, _Whether we wake or sleep,
let us live together with Christ_.[233] Though then this absence of
sleep may argue the presence of death (the original may exclude the
copy, the life the picture), yet this gentle sleep and rest of my soul
betroths me to thee, to whom I shall be married indissolubly, though by
this way of dissolution.


XV. PRAYER.

O eternal and most gracious God, who art able to make, and dost make,
the sick bed of thy servants chapels of ease to them, and the dreams of
thy servants prayers and meditations upon thee, let not this continual
watchfulness of mine, this inability to sleep, which thou hast laid upon
me, be any disquiet or discomfort to me, but rather an argument, that
thou wouldst not have me sleep in thy presence. What it may indicate or
signify concerning the state of my body, let them consider to whom that
consideration belongs; do thou, who only art the Physician of my soul,
tell her, that thou wilt afford her such defensatives, as that she shall
wake ever towards thee, and yet ever sleep in thee, and that, through
all this sickness, thou wilt either preserve mine understanding from all
decays and distractions which these watchings might occasion, or that
thou wilt reckon and account with me from before those violences, and
not call any piece of my sickness a sin. It is a heavy and indelible sin
that I brought into the world with me; it is a heavy and innumerable
multitude of sins which I have heaped up since; I have sinned behind thy
back (if that can be done), by wilful abstaining from thy congregations
and omitting thy service, and I have sinned before thy face, in my
hypocrisies in prayer, in my ostentation, and the mingling a respect of
myself in preaching thy word; I have sinned in my fasting, by repining
when a penurious fortune hath kept me low; and I have sinned even in
that fulness, when I have been at thy table, by a negligent examination,
by a wilful prevarication, in receiving that heavenly food and physic.
But as I know, O my gracious God, that for all those sins committed
since, yet thou wilt consider me, as I was in thy purpose when thou
wrotest my name in the book of life in mine election; so into what
deviations soever I stray and wander by occasion of this sickness, O
God, return thou to that minute wherein thou wast pleased with me and
consider me in that condition.

FOOTNOTES:

[213] Matt. xxviii. 20.

[214] Psalm cxxi. 4.

[215] 2 Pet. ii. 3.

[216] Psalm cxxvii. 2.

[217] Lev. xxvi. 6.

[218] Jonah, i. 5.

[219] Matt. viii. 24.

[220] John, xi. 12.

[221] Eccles. viii. 16.

[222] Prov. iv. 16.

[223] Eccles. v. 12.

[224] Matt. xiii. 25; xxviii. 13.

[225] Matt. xxvi. 40.

[226] Judges, xvi. 3.

[227] Judges, xvi. 19.

[228] Eph. v. 14.

[229] 1 Thes. v. 6.

[230] Jer. li. 57.

[231] Cant. v. 2.

[232] 1 Thes. v. 6.

[233] 1 Thes. v. 10.


XVI. ET PROPERARE MEUM CLAMANT, E TURRE PROPINQUA, OBSTREPERÆ CAMPANÆ
ALIORUM IN FUNERE, FUNUS.

_From the bells of the church adjoining, I am daily remembered of my
burial in the funerals of others._


XVI. MEDITATION.

We have a convenient author,[234] who writ a discourse of bells when he
was prisoner in Turkey. How would he have enlarged himself if he had
been my fellow-prisoner in this sick bed, so near to that steeple which
never ceases, no more than the harmony of the spheres, but is more
heard. When the Turks took Constantinople, they melted the bells into
ordnance; I have heard both bells and ordnance, but never been so much
affected with those as with these bells. I have lain near a steeple[235]
in which there are said to be more than thirty bells, and near another,
where there is one so big, as that the clapper is said to weigh more
than six hundred pounds,[236] yet never so affected as here. Here the
bells can scarce solemnize the funeral of any person, but that I knew
him, or knew that he was my neighbour: we dwelt in houses near to one
another before, but now he is gone into that house into which I must
follow him. There is a way of correcting the children of great persons,
that other children are corrected in their behalf, and in their names,
and this works upon them who indeed had more deserved it. And when these
bells tell me, that now one, and now another is buried, must not I
acknowledge that they have the correction due to me, and paid the debt
that I owe? There is a story of a bell in a monastery[237] which, when
any of the house was sick to death, rung always voluntarily, and they
knew the inevitableness of the danger by that. It rung once when no man
was sick, but the next day one of the house fell from the steeple and
died, and the bell held the reputation of a prophet still. If these
bells that warn to a funeral now, were appropriated to none, may not I,
by the hour of the funeral, supply? How many men that stand at an
execution, if they would ask, For what dies that man? should hear their
own faults condemned, and see themselves executed by attorney? We scarce
hear of any man preferred, but we think of ourselves that we might very
well have been that man; why might not I have been that man that is
carried to his grave now? Could I fit myself to stand or sit in any
man's place, and not to lie in any man's grave? I may lack much of the
good parts of the meanest, but I lack nothing of the mortality of the
weakest; they may have acquired better abilities than I, but I was born
to as many infirmities as they. To be an incumbent by lying down in a
grave, to be a doctor by teaching mortification by example, by dying,
though I may have seniors, others may be older than I, yet I have
proceeded apace in a good university, and gone a great way in a little
time, by the furtherance of a vehement fever, and whomsoever these bells
bring to the ground to-day, if he and I had been compared yesterday,
perchance I should have been thought likelier to come to this
preferment then than he. God hath kept the power of death in his own
hands, lest any man should bribe death. If man knew the gain of death,
the ease of death, he would solicit, he would provoke death to assist
him by any hand which he might use. But as when men see many of their
own professions preferred, it ministers a hope that that may light upon
them; so when these hourly bells tell me of so many funerals of men like
me, it presents, if not a desire that it may, yet a comfort whensoever
mine shall come.


XVI. EXPOSTULATION.

My God, my God, I do not expostulate with thee, but with them who dare
do that; who dare expostulate with thee, when in the voice of thy church
thou givest allowance to this ceremony of bells at funerals. Is it
enough to refuse it, because it was in use among the Gentiles? so were
funerals too. Is it because some abuses may have crept in amongst
Christians? Is that enough, that their ringing hath been said to drive
away evil spirits? Truly, that is so far true, as that the evil spirit
is vehemently vexed in their ringing, therefore, because that action
brings the congregation together, and unites God and his people, to the
destruction of that kingdom which the evil spirit usurps. In the first
institution of thy church in this world, in the foundation of thy
militant church amongst the Jews, thou didst appoint the calling of the
assembly in to be by trumpet;[238] and when they were in, then thou
gavest them the sound of bells in the garment of thy priest.[239] In the
triumphant church, thou employest both too, but in an inverted order;
we enter into the triumphant church by the sound of bells (for we enter
when we die); and then we receive our further edification, or
consummation, by the sound of trumpets at the resurrection. The sound of
thy trumpets thou didst impart to secular and civil uses too, but the
sound of bells only to sacred. Lord, let not us break the communion of
saints in that which was intended for the advancement of it; let not
that pull us asunder from one another, which was intended for the
assembling of us in the militant, and associating of us to the
triumphant church. But he, for whose funeral these bells ring now, was
at home, at his journey's end yesterday; why ring they now? A man, that
is a world, is all the things in the world; he is an army, and when an
army marches, the van may lodge to-night where the rear comes not till
to-morrow. A man extends to his act and to his example; to that which he
does, and that which he teaches; so do those things that concern him, so
do these bells; that which rung yesterday was to convey him out of the
world in his van, in his soul; that which rung to-day was to bring him
in his rear, in his body, to the church; and this continuing of ringing
after his entering is to bring him to me in the application. Where I lie
I could hear the psalm, and did join with the congregation in it; but I
could not hear the sermon, and these latter bells are a repetition
sermon to me. But, O my God, my God, do I that have this fever need
other remembrances of my mortality? Is not mine own hollow voice, voice
enough to pronounce that to me? Need I look upon a death's head in a
ring, that have one in my face? or go for death to my neighbour's house,
that have him in my bosom? We cannot, we cannot, O my God, take in too
many helps for religious duties; I know I cannot have any better image
of thee than thy Son, nor any better image of him than his Gospel; yet
must not I with thanks confess to thee, that some historical pictures of
his have sometimes put me upon better meditations than otherwise I
should have fallen upon? I know thy church needed not to have taken in,
from Jew, or Gentile, any supplies for the exaltation of thy glory, or
our devotion; of absolute necessity I know she needed not; but yet we
owe thee our thanks, that thou hast given her leave to do so, and that
as, in making us Christians, thou didst not destroy that which we were
before, natural men, so, in the exalting of our religious devotions now
we are Christians, thou hast been pleased to continue to us those
assistances which did work upon the affections of natural men before;
for thou lovest a good man as thou lovest a good Christian; and though
grace be merely from me, yet thou dost not plant grace but in good
natures.


XVI. PRAYER.

O eternal and most gracious God, who having consecrated our living
bodies to thine own Spirit, and made us temples of the Holy Ghost, dost
also require a respect to be given to these temples, even when the
priest is gone out of them, to these bodies when the soul is departed
from them, I bless and glorify thy name, that as thou takest care in our
life of every hair of our head, so dost thou also of every grain of
ashes after our death. Neither dost thou only do good to us all in life
and death, but also wouldst have us do good to one another, as in a holy
life, so in those things which accompany our death. In that
contemplation I make account that I hear this dead brother of ours, who
is now carried out to his burial, to speak to me, and to preach my
funeral sermon in the voice of these bells. In him, O God, thou hast
accomplished to me even the request of Dives to Abraham; thou hast sent
one from the dead to speak unto me. He speaks to me aloud from that
steeple; he whispers to me at these curtains, and he speaks thy words:
_Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth_.[240] Let
this prayer therefore, O my God, be as my last gasp, my expiring, my
dying in thee; that if this be the hour of my transmigration, I may die
the death of a sinner, drowned in my sins, in the blood of thy Son; and
if I live longer, yet I may now die the death of the righteous, die to
sin; which death is a resurrection to a new life. _Thou killest and thou
givest life_: whichsoever comes, it comes from thee; which way soever it
comes, let me come to thee.

FOOTNOTES:

[234] Magius.

[235] Antwerp.

[236] Roan.

[237] Roccha.

[238] Numb. x. 2.

[239] Exod. xviii. 33-4.


XVII. NUNC LENTO SONITU DICUNT, MORIERIS.

_Now, this bell tolling softly for another, says to me: Thou must die._


XVII. MEDITATION.

Perchance he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill, as that he knows
not it tolls for him; and perchance I may think myself so much better
than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have
caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The church is Catholic,
universal, so are all her actions; all that she does belongs to all.
When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is
thereby connected to that body which is my head too, and ingrafted into
that body whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action
concerns me: all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one
man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a
better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs
several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by
sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every
translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again
for that library where every book shall lie open to one another. As
therefore the bell that rings to a sermon calls not upon the preacher
only, but upon the congregation to come, so this bell calls us all; but
how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness.
There was a contention as far as a suit (in which both piety and
dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled), which of the religious
orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was
determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest. If we
understand aright the dignity of this bell that tolls for our evening
prayer, we would be glad to make it ours by rising early, in that
application, that it might be ours as well as his, whose indeed it is.
The bell doth toll for him that thinks it doth; and though it intermit
again, yet from that minute that that occasion wrought upon him, he is
united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? but
who takes off his eye from a comet when that breaks out? Who bends not
his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? but who can remove it
from that bell which is passing a piece of himself out of this world? No
man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the
continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a
manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes
me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know
for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee. Neither can we call this a
begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not
miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next
house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbours. Truly it were an
excusable covetousness if we did, for affliction is a treasure, and
scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath affliction enough that is
not matured and ripened by it, and made fit for God by that affliction.
If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none
coined into current money, his treasure will not defray him as he
travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not
current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our
home, heaven, by it. Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and
this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no
use to him; but this bell, that tells me of his affliction, digs out and
applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another's danger I
take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my
recourse to my God, who is our only security.


XVII. EXPOSTULATION.

My God, my God, is this one of thy ways of drawing light out of
darkness, to make him for whom this bell tolls, now in this dimness of
his sight, to become a superintendent, an overseer, a bishop, to as many
as hear his voice in this bell, and to give us a confirmation in this
action? Is this one of thy ways, to raise strength out of weakness, to
make him who cannot rise from his bed, nor stir in his bed, come home
to me, and in this sound give me the strength of healthy and vigorous
instructions? O my God, my God, what thunder is not a well-tuned cymbal,
what hoarseness, what harshness, is not a clear organ, if thou be
pleased to set thy voice to it? And what organ is not well played on if
thy hand be upon it? Thy voice, thy hand, is in this sound, and in this
one sound I hear this whole concert. I hear thy Jacob call unto his sons
and say, _Gather yourselves together, that I may tell you what shall
befall you in the last days_:[241] he says, That which I am now, you
must be then. I hear thy Moses telling me, and all within the compass of
this sound, _This is the blessing wherewith I bless you before my
death_;[242] this, that before your death, you would consider your own
in mine. I hear thy prophet saying to Hezekiah, _Set thy house in order,
for thou shalt die, and not live_:[243] he makes use of his family, and
calls this a setting of his house in order, to compose us to the
meditation of death. I hear thy apostle saying, _I think it meet to put
you in remembrance, knowing that shortly I must go out of this
tabernacle_:[244] this is the publishing of his will, and this bell is
our legacy, the applying of his present condition to our use. I hear
that which makes all sounds music, and all music perfect; I hear thy Son
himself saying, _Let not your hearts be troubled_;[245] only I hear this
change, that whereas thy Son says there, _I go to prepare a place for
you_, this man in this sound says, I send to prepare you for a place,
for a grave. But, O my God, my God, since heaven is glory and joy, why
do not glorious and joyful things lead us, induce us to heaven? Thy
legacies in thy first will, in the Old Testament, were plenty and
victory, wine and oil, milk and honey, alliances of friends, ruin of
enemies, peaceful hearts and cheerful countenances, and by these
galleries thou broughtest them into thy bedchamber, by these glories and
joys, to the joys and glories of heaven. Why hast thou changed thine old
way, and carried us by the ways of discipline and mortification, by the
ways of mourning and lamentation, by the ways of miserable ends and
miserable anticipations of those miseries, in appropriating the exemplar
miseries of others to ourselves, and usurping upon their miseries as our
own, to our prejudice? Is the glory of heaven no perfecter in itself,
but that it needs a foil of depression and ingloriousness in this world,
to set it off? Is the joy of heaven no perfecter in itself, but that it
needs the sourness of this life to give it a taste? Is that joy and that
glory but a comparative glory and a comparative joy? not such in itself,
but such in comparison of the joylessness and the ingloriousness of this
world? I know, my God, it is far, far otherwise. As thou thyself, who
art all, art made of no substances, so the joys and glory which are with
thee are made of none of these circumstances, essential joy, and glory
essential. But why then, my God, wilt thou not begin them here? Pardon,
O God, this unthankful rashness; I that ask why thou dost not, find even
now in myself, that thou dost; such joy, such glory, as that I conclude
upon myself, upon all, they that find not joys in their sorrows, glory
in their dejections in this world, are in a fearful danger of missing
both in the next.


XVII. PRAYER.

O eternal and most gracious God, who hast been pleased to speak to us,
not only in the voice of nature, who speaks in our hearts, and of thy
word, which speaks to our ears, but in the speech of speechless
creatures, in Balaam's ass, in the speech of unbelieving men, in the
confession of Pilate, in the speech of the devil himself, in the
recognition and attestation of thy Son, I humbly accept thy voice in the
sound of this sad and funeral bell. And first, I bless thy glorious
name, that in this sound and voice I can hear thy instructions, in
another man's to consider mine own condition; and to know, that this
bell which tolls for another, before it come to ring out, may take me in
too. As death is the wages of sin it is due to me; as death is the end
of sickness it belongs to me; and though so disobedient a servant as I
may be afraid to die, yet to so merciful a master as thou I cannot be
afraid to come; and therefore into thy hands, O my God, I commend my
spirit, a surrender which I know thou wilt accept, whether I live or
die; for thy servant David made it,[246] when he put himself into thy
protection for his life; and thy blessed Son made it, when he delivered
up his soul at his death: declare thou thy will upon me, O Lord, for
life or death in thy time; receive my surrender of myself now; into thy
hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit. And being thus, O my God, prepared
by thy correction, mellowed by thy chastisement, and conformed to thy
will by thy Spirit, having received thy pardon for my soul, and asking
no reprieve for my body, I am bold, O Lord, to bend my prayers to thee
for his assistance, the voice of whose bell hath called me to this
devotion. Lay hold upon his soul, O God, till that soul have thoroughly
considered his account; and how few minutes soever it have to remain in
that body, let the power of thy Spirit recompense the shortness of time,
and perfect his account before he pass away; present his sins so to him,
as that he may know what thou forgivest, and not doubt of thy
forgiveness, let him stop upon the infiniteness of those sins, but dwell
upon the infiniteness of thy mercy; let him discern his own demerits,
but wrap himself up in the merits of thy Son Christ Jesus; breathe
inward comforts to his heart, and afford him the power of giving such
outward testimonies thereof, as all that are about him may derive
comforts from thence, and have this edification, even in this
dissolution, that though the body be going the way of all flesh, yet
that soul is going the way of all saints. When thy Son cried out upon
the cross, _My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?_ he spake not so
much in his own person, as in the person of the church, and of his
afflicted members, who in deep distresses might fear thy forsaking. This
patient, O most blessed God, is one of them; in his behalf, and in his
name, hear thy Son crying to thee, _My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me?_ and forsake him not; but with thy left hand lay his body
in the grave (if that be thy determination upon him), and with thy right
hand receive his soul into thy kingdom, and unite him and us in one
communion of saints. Amen.

FOOTNOTES:

[240] Rev. xiv. 13.

[241] Gen. xlix. 1.

[242] Deut. xxxiii. 1.

[243] 2 Kings, xx. 1.

[244] 2 Pet. i. 13.

[245] John, xiv. 1.

[246] Psalm xxxi. 5.


    XVIII. ------------------------ AT INDE
          MORTUUS ES, SONITU CELERI, PULSUQUE AGITATO.

_The bell rings out, and tells me in him, that I am dead._


XVIII. MEDITATION.

The bell rings out, the pulse thereof is changed; the tolling was a
faint and intermitting pulse, upon one side; this stronger, and argues
more and better life. His soul is gone out, and as a man who had a lease
of one thousand years after the expiration of a short one, or an
inheritance after the life of a man in a consumption, he is now entered
into the possession of his better estate. His soul is gone, whither? Who
saw it come in, or who saw it go out? Nobody; yet everybody is sure he
had one, and hath none. If I will ask mere philosophers what the soul
is, I shall find amongst them that will tell me, it is nothing but the
temperament and harmony, and just and equal composition of the elements
in the body, which produces all those faculties which we ascribe to the
soul; and so in itself is nothing, no separable substance that overlives
the body. They see the soul is nothing else in other creatures, and they
affect an impious humility to think as low of man. But if my soul were
no more than the soul of a beast, I could not think so; that soul that
can reflect upon itself, consider itself, is more than so. If I will
ask, not mere philosophers, but mixed men, philosophical divines, how
the soul, being a separate substance, enters into man, I shall find some
that will tell me, that it is by generation and procreation from
parents, because they think it hard to charge the soul with the
guiltiness of original sin if the soul were infused into a body in which
it must necessarily grow foul, and contract original sin whether it
will or no; and I shall find some that will tell me, that it is by
immediate infusion from God, because they think it hard to maintain an
immortality in such a soul, as should be begotten and derived with the
body from mortal parents. If I will ask, not a few men, but almost whole
bodies, whole churches, what becomes of the souls of the righteous at
the departing thereof from the body, I shall be told by some, that they
attend an expiation, a purification in a place of torment; by some, that
they attend the fruition of the sight of God in a place of rest, but yet
but of expectation; by some, that they pass to an immediate possession
of the presence of God. St. Augustine studied the nature of the soul as
much as any thing, but the salvation of the soul; and he sent an express
messenger to St. Hierome, to consult of some things concerning the soul;
but he satisfies himself with this: "Let the departure of my soul to
salvation be evident to my faith, and I care the less how dark the
entrance of my soul into my body be to my reason." It is the going out,
more than the coming in, that concerns us. This soul this bell tells me
is gone out, whither? Who shall tell me that? I know not who it is, much
less what he was, the condition of the man, and the course of his life,
which should tell me whither he is gone, I know not. I was not there in
his sickness, nor at his death; I saw not his way nor his end, nor can
ask them who did, thereby to conclude or argue whither he is gone. But
yet I have one nearer me than all these, mine own charity; I ask that,
and that tells me he is gone to everlasting rest, and joy, and glory. I
owe him a good opinion; it is but thankful charity in me, because I
received benefit and instruction from him when his bell tolled; and I,
being made the fitter to pray by that disposition, wherein I was
assisted by his occasion, did pray for him; and I pray not without
faith; so I do charitably, so I do faithfully believe, that that soul is
gone to everlasting rest, and joy, and glory. But for the body, how poor
a wretched thing is that? we cannot express it so fast, as it grows
worse and worse. That body, which scarce three minutes since was such a
house, as that that soul, which made but one step from thence to heaven,
was scarce thoroughly content to leave that for heaven; that body hath
lost the name of a dwelling-house, because none dwells in it, and is
making haste to lose the name of a body, and dissolve to putrefaction.
Who would not be affected to see a clear and sweet river in the morning,
grow a kennel of muddy land-water by noon, and condemned to the saltness
of the sea by night? and how lame a picture, how faint a representation
is that, of the precipitation of man's body to dissolution? Now all the
parts built up, and knit by a lovely soul, now but a statue of clay, and
now these limbs melted off, as if that clay were but snow; and now the
whole house is but a handful of sand, so much dust, and but a peck of
rubbish, so much bone. If he who, as this bell tells me, is gone now,
were some excellent artificer, who comes to him for a cloak or for a
garment now? or for counsel, if he were a lawyer? if a magistrate, for
justice? Man, before he hath his immortal soul, hath a soul of sense,
and a soul of vegetation before that: this immortal soul did not forbid
other souls to be in us before, but when this soul departs, it carries
all with it; no more vegetation, no more sense. Such a mother-in-law is
the earth, in respect of our natural mother; in her womb we grew, and
when she was delivered of us, we were planted in some place, in some
calling in the world; in the womb of the earth we diminish, and when she
is delivered of us, our grave opened for another; we are not
transplanted, but transported, our dust blown away with profane dust,
with every wind.


XVIII. EXPOSTULATION.

My God, my God, if expostulation be too bold a word, do thou mollify it
with another; let it be wonder in myself, let it be but problem to
others; but let me ask, why wouldst thou not suffer those that serve
thee in holy services, to do any office about the dead,[247] nor assist
at their funeral? Thou hadst no counsellor, thou needst none; thou hast
no controller, thou admittedst none. Why do I ask? In ceremonial things
(as that was) any convenient reason is enough; who can be sure to
propose that reason, that moved thee in the institution thereof? I
satisfy myself with this; that in those times the Gentiles were
over-full of an over-reverent respect to the memory of the dead: a great
part of the idolatry of the nations flowed from that; an over-amorous
devotion, an over-zealous celebrating, and over-studious preserving of
the memories, and the pictures of some dead persons; and by _the vain
glory of men, they entered into the world_,[248] and their statues and
pictures contracted an opinion of divinity by age: that which was at
first but a picture of a friend grew a god in time, as the wise man
notes, _They called them gods, which were the work of an ancient
hand_.[249] And some have assigned a certain time, when a picture should
come out of minority, and be at age to be a god in sixty years after it
is made. Those images of men that had life, and some idols of other
things which never had any being, are by one common name called
promiscuously dead; and for that the wise man reprehends the idolater,
_for health he prays to that which is weak, and for life he prays to
that which is dead_.[250] Should we do so? says thy prophet;[251]
_should we go from the living to the dead?_ So much ill then being
occasioned by so much religious compliment exhibited to the dead, thou,
O God (I think), wouldst therefore inhibit thy principal holy servants
from contributing any thing at all to this dangerous intimation of
idolatry; and that the people might say, Surely those dead men are not
so much to be magnified as men mistake, since God will not suffer his
holy officers so much as to touch them, not to see them. But those
dangers being removed, thou, O my God, dost certainly allow that we
should do offices of piety to the dead and that we should draw
instructions to piety from the dead. Is not this, O my God, a holy kind
of raising up seed to my dead brother, if I, by the meditation of his
death produce a better life in myself? It is the blessing upon Reuben,
_Let Reuben live, and not die, and let not his men be few_;[252] let him
propagate many. And it is a malediction, _That that dieth, let it
die_,[253] let it do no good in dying; for _trees without fruit_, thou,
by thy apostle, callest _twice dead_.[254] It is a second death, if none
live the better by me after my death, by the manner of my death.
Therefore may I justly think, that thou madest that a way to convey to
the Egyptians a fear of thee and a fear of death, that _there was not a
house where there was not one dead_;[255] for thereupon the Egyptians
said, _We are all dead men_: the death of others should catechise us to
death. Thy Son Christ Jesus is the _first begotten of the dead_;[256] he
rises first, the eldest brother, and he is my master in this science of
death; but yet, for me, I am a younger brother too, to this man who
died now, and to every man whom I see or hear to die before me, and all
they are ushers to me in this school of death. I take therefore that
which thy servant David's wife said to him, to be said to me, _If thou
save not thy life to-night, to-morrow thou shalt be slain_.[257] If the
death of this man work not upon me now, I shall die worse than if thou
hadst not afforded me this help; for thou hast sent him in this bell to
me, as thou didst send to the angel of Sardis, with commission to
_strengthen the things that remain, and that are ready to die_,[258]
that in this weakness of body I might receive spiritual strength by
these occasions. This is my strength, that whether thou say to me, as
thine angel said to Gideon, _Peace be unto thee, fear not, thou shalt
not die_;[259] or whether thou say, as unto Aaron, _Thou shalt die
there_;[260] yet thou wilt preserve that which is ready to die, my soul,
from the worst death, that of sin. Zimri _died for his sins_, says thy
Spirit, _which he sinned in doing evil; and in his sin which he did to
make Israel sin_;[261] for his sins, his many sins, and then in his sin,
his particular sin. For my sins I shall die whensoever I die, for death
is the wages of sin; but I shall die in my sin, in that particular sin
of resisting thy Spirit, if I apply not thy assistances. Doth it not
call us to a particular consideration that thy blessed Son varies his
form of commination, and aggravates it in the variation, when he says to
the Jews (because they refused the light offered), _You shall die in
your sin_:[262] and then when they proceeded to farther disputations,
and vexations, and temptations, he adds, _You shall die in your
sins_;[263] he multiplies the former expression to a plural. In this
sin, and in all your sins, doth not the resisting of thy particular
helps at last draw upon us the guiltiness of all our former sins? May
not the neglecting of this sound ministered to me in this man's death,
bring me to that misery, so that I, whom the Lord of life loved so as to
die for me, shall die, and a creature of mine own shall be immortal;
that I shall die, and the _worm_ of mine own conscience _shall never
die_?[264]


XVIII. PRAYER.

O eternal and most gracious God, I have a new occasion of thanks, and a
new occasion of prayer to thee from the ringing of this bell. Thou
toldest me in the other voice that I was mortal and approaching to
death; in this I may hear thee say that I am dead in an irremediable, in
an irrecoverable state for bodily health. If that be thy language in
this voice, how infinitely am I bound to thy heavenly Majesty for
speaking so plainly unto me? for even that voice, that I must die now,
is not the voice of a judge that speaks by way of condemnation, but of a
physician that presents health in that. Thou presentest me death as the
cure of my disease, not as the exaltation of it; if I mistake thy voice
herein, if I overrun thy pace, and prevent thy hand, and imagine death
more instant upon me than thou hast bid him be, yet the voice belongs to
me; I am dead, I was born dead, and from the first laying of these mud
walls in my conception, they have mouldered away, and the whole course
of life is but an active death. Whether this voice instruct me that I am
a dead man now, or remember me that I have been a dead man all this
while. I humbly thank thee for speaking in this voice to my soul; and I
humbly beseech thee also to accept my prayers in his behalf, by whose
occasion this voice, this sound, is come to me. For though he be by
death transplanted to thee, and so in possession of inexpressible
happiness there, yet here upon earth thou hast given us such a portion
of heaven, as that though men dispute whether thy saints in heaven do
know what we in earth in particular do stand in need of, yet, without
all disputation, we upon earth do know what thy saints in heaven lack
yet for the consummation of their happiness, and therefore thou hast
afforded us the dignity that we may pray for them. That therefore this
soul, now newly departed to thy kingdom, may quickly return to a joyful
reunion to that body which it hath left, and that we with it may soon
enjoy the full consummation of all in body and soul, I humbly beg at thy
hand, O our most merciful God, for thy Son Christ Jesus' sake. That that
blessed Son of thine may have the consummation of his dignity, by
entering into his last office, the office of a judge, and may have
society of human bodies in heaven, as well as he hath had ever of souls;
and that as thou hatest sin itself, thy hate to sin may be expressed in
the abolishing of all instruments of sin, the allurements of this world,
and the world itself; and all the temporary revenges of sin, the stings
of sickness and of death; and all the castles, and prisons, and
monuments of sin, in the grave. That time may be swallowed up in
eternity, and hope swallowed in possession, and ends swallowed in
infiniteness, and all men ordained to salvation in body and soul be one
entire and everlasting sacrifice to thee, where thou mayst receive
delight from them, and they glory from thee, for evermore. Amen.

FOOTNOTES:

[247] Levit. xxi. 1.

[248] Wisd. xiv. 14.

[249] Wisd. xiii. 10.

[250] Wisd. xiii. 18.

[251] Isaiah, viii. 19.

[252] Deut. xxxiii. 6.

[253] Zech. xi. 9.

[254] Jude, 12.

[255] Exod. xii. 30.

[256] Rev. i. 5.

[257] 1 Sam. xix. 11.

[258] Rev. iii. 2.

[259] Judg. vi, 23.

[260] Numb. xx. 26.

[261] 1 Kings, xvi. 19.

[262] John, viii. 21.

[263] John, viii. 24.

[264] Isaiah, lxvi. 24.


XIX. OCEANO TANDEM EMENSO, ASPICIENDA RESURGIT TERRA; VIDENT, JUSTIS,
MEDICI, JAM COCTA MEDERI SE POSSE, INDICIIS.

_At last the physicians, after a long and stormy voyage, see land: they
have so good signs of the concoction of the disease, as that they may
safely proceed to purge._


XIX. MEDITATION.

All this while the physicians themselves have been patients, patiently
attending when they should see any land in this sea, any earth, any
cloud, any indication of concoction in these waters. Any disorder of
mine, any pretermission of theirs, exalts the disease, accelerates the
rages of it; no diligence accelerates the concoction, the maturity of
the disease; they must stay till the season of the sickness come; and
till it be ripened of itself, and then they may put to their hand to
gather it before it fall off, but they cannot hasten the ripening. Why
should we look for it in a disease, which is the disorder, the discord,
the irregularity, the commotion and rebellion of the body? It were
scarce a disease if it could be ordered and made obedient to our times.
Why should we look for that in disorder, in a disease, when we cannot
have it in nature, who is so regular and so pregnant, so forward to
bring her work to perfection and to light? Yet we cannot awake the July
flowers in January, nor retard the flowers of the spring to autumn. We
cannot bid the fruits come in May, nor the leaves to stick on in
December. A woman that is weak cannot put off her ninth month to a tenth
for her delivery, and say she will stay till she be stronger; nor a
queen cannot hasten it to a seventh, that she may be ready for some
other pleasure. Nature (if we look for durable and vigorous effects)
will not admit preventions, nor anticipations, nor obligations upon her,
for they are precontracts, and she will be left to her liberty. Nature
would not be spurred, nor forced to mend her pace; nor power, the power
of man, greatness, loves not that kind of violence neither. There are of
them that will give, that will do justice, that will pardon, but they
have their own seasons for all these, and he that knows not them shall
starve before that gift come, and ruin before the justice, and die
before the pardon save him. Some tree bears no fruit, except much dung
be laid about it; and justice comes not from some till they be richly
manured: some trees require much visiting, much watering, much labour;
and some men give not their fruits but upon importunity: some trees
require incision, and pruning, and lopping; some men must be intimidated
and syndicated with commissions, before they will deliver the fruits of
justice: some trees require the early and the often access of the sun;
some men open not, but upon the favours and letters of court mediation:
some trees must be housed and kept within doors; some men lock up, not
only their liberality, but their justice and their compassion, till the
solicitation of a wife, or a son, or a friend, or a servant, turn the
key. Reward is the season of one man, and importunity of another; fear
the season of one man, and favour of another; friendship the season of
one man, and natural affection of another; and he that knows not their
seasons, nor cannot stay them, must lose the fruits: as nature will not,
so power and greatness will not be put to change their seasons, and
shall we look for this indulgence in a disease, or think to shake it off
before it be ripe? All this while, therefore, we are but upon a
defensive war, and that is but a doubtful state; especially where they
who are besieged do know the best of their defences, and do not know
the worst of their enemy's power; when they cannot mend their works
within, and the enemy can increase his numbers without. O how many far
more miserable, and far more worthy to be less miserable than I, are
besieged with this sickness, and lack their sentinels, their physicians
to watch, and lack their munition, their cordials to defend, and perish
before the enemy's weakness might invite them to sally, before the
disease show any declination, or admit any way of working upon itself?
In me the siege is so far slackened, as that we may come to fight, and
so die in the field, if I die, and not in a prison.


XIX. EXPOSTULATION.

My God, my God, thou art a direct God, may I not say a literal God, a
God that wouldst be understood literally and according to the plain
sense of all that thou sayest? but thou art also (Lord, I intend it to
thy glory, and let no profane misinterpreter abuse it to thy
diminution), thou art a figurative, a metaphorical God too; a God in
whose words there is such a height of figures, such voyages, such
peregrinations to fetch remote and precious metaphors, such extensions,
such spreadings, such curtains of allegories, such third heavens of
hyperboles, so harmonious elocutions, so retired and so reserved
expressions, so commanding persuasions, so persuading commandments, such
sinews even in thy milk, and such things in thy words, as all profane
authors seem of the seed of the serpent that creeps, thou art the Dove
that flies. O, what words but thine can express the inexpressible
texture and composition of thy word, in which to one man that argument
that binds his faith to believe that to be the word of God, is the
reverent simplicity of the word, and to another the majesty of the word;
and in which two men equally pious may meet, and one wonder that all
should not understand it, and the other as much that any man should. So,
Lord, thou givest us the same earth to labour on and to lie in, a house
and a grave of the same earth; so, Lord, thou givest us the same word
for our satisfaction and for our inquisition, for our instruction and
for our admiration too; for there are places that thy servants Hierom
and Augustine would scarce believe (when they grew warm by mutual
letters) of one another, that they understood them, and yet both Hierom
and Augustine call upon persons whom they knew to be far weaker than
they thought one another (old women and young maids) to read the
Scriptures, without confining them to these or those places. Neither art
thou thus a figurative, a metaphorical God in thy word only, but in thy
works too. The style of thy works, the phrase of thine actions, is
metaphorical The institution of thy whole worship in the old law was a
continual allegory; types and figures overspread all, and figures flowed
into figures, and poured themselves out into farther figures;
circumcision carried a figure of baptism, and baptism carries a figure
of that purity which we shall have in perfection in the new Jerusalem.
Neither didst thou speak and work in this language only in the time of
thy prophets; but since thou spokest in thy Son it is so too. How often,
how much more often, doth thy Son call himself a way, and a light, and a
gate, and a vine, and bread, than the Son of God, or of man? How much
oftener doth he exhibit a metaphorical Christ, than a real, a literal?
This hath occasioned thine ancient servants, whose delight it was to
write after thy copy, to proceed the same way in their expositions of
the Scriptures, and in their composing both of public liturgies and of
private prayers to thee, to make their accesses to thee in such a kind
of language as thou wast pleased to speak to them, in a figurative, in a
metaphorical language, in which manner I am bold to call the comfort
which I receive now in this sickness in the indication of the concoction
and maturity thereof, in certain clouds and recidences, which the
physicians observe, a discovering of land from sea after a long and
tempestuous voyage. But wherefore, O my God, hast thou presented to us
the afflictions and calamities of this life in the name of waters? so
often in the name of waters, and deep waters, and seas of waters? Must
we look to be drowned? are they bottomless, are they boundless? That is
not the dialect of thy language; thou hast given a remedy against the
deepest water by water; against the inundation of sin by baptism; and
the first life that thou gavest to any creatures was in waters:
therefore thou dost not threaten us with an irremediableness when our
affliction is a sea. It is so if we consider ourselves; so thou callest
Genezareth, which was but a lake, and not salt, a sea; so thou callest
the Mediterranean sea still the great sea, because the inhabitants saw
no other sea; they that dwelt there thought a lake a sea, and the others
thought a little sea, the greatest, and we that know not the afflictions
of others call our own the heaviest. But, O my God, that is truly great
that overflows the channel, that is really a great affliction which is
above my strength; but thou, O God, art my strength, and then what can
be above it? _Mountains shake with the swelling of thy sea_;[265]
secular mountains, men strong in power; spiritual mountains, men strong
in grace, are shaken with afflictions; but _thou layest up thy sea in
storehouses_;[266] even thy corrections are of thy treasure, and thou
wilt not waste thy corrections; when they have done their service to
humble thy patient, thou wilt call them in again, for _thou givest the
sea thy decree, that the waters should not pass thy commandment_.[267]
All our waters shall run into Jordan, and thy servants passed Jordan dry
foot;[268] they shall run into the red sea (the sea of thy Son's blood),
and the red sea, that red sea, drowns none of thine: but _they that sail
on the sea tell of the danger thereof_.[269] I that am yet in this
affliction, owe thee the glory of speaking of it; but, as the wise man
bids me, I say, I _may speak much and come short, wherefore in sum thou
art all_.[270] Since thou art so, O my God, and affliction is a sea too
deep for us, what is our refuge? Thine ark, thy ship. In all other
afflictions, those means which thou hast ordained in this sea, in
sickness, thy ship is thy physician. _Thou hast made a way in the sea,
and a safe path in the waters, showing that thou canst save from all
dangers, yea, though a man went to sea without art_:[271] yet, where I
find all that, I find this added; _nevertheless thou wouldst not, that
the work of thy wisdom should be idle_.[272] Thou canst save without
means, but thou hast told no man that thou wilt; thou hast told every
man that thou wilt not.[273] When the centurion believed the master of
the ship more than St. Paul, they were all opened to a great danger;
this was a preferring of thy means before thee, the author of the means:
but, my God, though thou beest every where: I have no promise of
appearing to me but in thy ship, thy blessed Son preached out of a
ship:[274] the means is preaching, he did that; and the ship was a type
of the church, he did it there. Thou gavest St. Paul the lives of all
them that sailed with him;[275] if they had not been in the ship with
him, the gift had not extended to them. _As soon as thy Son was come out
of the ship, immediately there met him, out of the tombs, a man with an
unclean spirit, and no man could hold him, no not with chains._[276] Thy
Son needed no use of means; yet there we apprehend the danger to us, if
we leave the ship, the means, in this case the physician. But as they
are ships to us in those seas, so is there a ship to them too in which
they are to stay. Give me leave, O my God, to assist myself with such a
construction of these words of thy servant Paul to the centurion, when
the mariners would have left the ship, _Except these abide in the ship,
you cannot be safe_:[277] except they who are our ships, the physicians,
abide in that which is theirs, and our ship, the truth, and the sincere
and religious worship of thee and thy gospel, we cannot promise
ourselves so good safety; for though we have our ship, the physician, he
hath not his ship, religion; and means are not means but in their
concatenation, as they depend and are chained together. _The ships are
great_, says thy apostle, _but a helm turns them_;[278] the men are
learned, but their religion turns their labours to good, and therefore
it was a heavy curse when _the third part of the ships perished_:[279]
it is a heavy case where either all religion, or true religion, should
forsake many of these ships whom thou hast sent to convey us over these
seas. But, O my God, my God, since I have my ship and they theirs, I
have them and they have thee, why are we yet no nearer land? As soon as
thy Son's disciple had taken him into the ship, _immediately the ship
was at the land whither they went_.[280] Why have not they and I this
dispatch? Every thing is immediately done, which is done when thou
wouldst have it done. Thy purpose terminates every action, and what was
done before that is undone yet. Shall that slacken my hope? thy prophet
from thee hath forbidden it. _It is good that a man should both hope,
and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord._[281] Thou puttest off
many judgments till the last day, and many pass this life without any;
and shall not I endure the putting off thy mercy for a day? And yet, O
my God, thou puttest me not to that, for the assurance of future mercy
is present mercy. But what is my assurance now? what is my seal? It is
but a cloud; that which my physicians call a cloud, in that which gives
them their indication. But a cloud? Thy great seal to all the world, the
rainbow, that secured the world for ever from drowning, was but a
reflection upon a cloud. A cloud itself was a pillar which guided the
church,[282] and the glory of God not only was, but appeared in a
cloud.[283] Let me return, O my God, to the consideration of thy servant
Elijah's proceeding in a time of desperate drought;[284] he bids them
look towards the sea; they look, and see nothing. He bids them again and
again seven times; and at the seventh time they saw a little cloud
rising out of the sea, and presently they had their desire of rain.
Seven days, O my God, have we looked for this cloud, and now we have it;
none of thy indications are frivolous, thou makest thy signs seals, and
thy seals effects, and thy effects consolation and restitution,
wheresoever thou mayst receive glory by that way.


XIX. PRAYER.

O eternal and most gracious God, who though thou passedst over infinite
millions of generations, before thou camest to a creation of this world,
yet when thou beganst, didst never intermit that work, but continuedst
day to day, till thou hadst perfected all the work, and deposed it in
the hands and rest of a sabbath, though thou have been pleased to
glorify thyself in a long exercise of my patience, with an expectation
of thy declaration of thyself in this my sickness, yet since thou hast
now of thy goodness afforded that which affords us some hope, if that be
still the way of thy glory, proceed in that way and perfect that work,
and establish me in a sabbath and rest in thee, by this thy seal of
bodily restitution. Thy priests came up to thee by steps in the temple;
thy angels came down to Jacob by steps upon the ladder; we find no stair
by which thou thyself camest to Adam in paradise, nor to Sodom in thine
anger; for thou, and thou only, art able to do all at once. But O Lord,
I am not weary of thy pace, nor weary of mine own patience. I provoke
thee not with a prayer, not with a wish, not with a hope, to more haste
than consists with thy purpose, nor look that any other thing should
have entered into thy purpose, but thy glory. To hear thy steps coming
towards me is the same comfort as to see thy face present with me;
whether thou do the work of a thousand years in a day, or extend the
work of a day to a thousand years, as long as thou workest, it is light
and comfort. Heaven itself is but an extension of the same joy; and an
extension of this mercy, to proceed at thy leisure, in the way of
restitution, is a manifestation of heaven to me here upon earth. From
that people to whom thou appearedst in signs and in types, the Jews,
thou art departed, because they trusted in them; but from thy church, to
whom thou hast appeared in thyself, in thy Son, thou wilt never depart,
because we cannot trust too much in him. Though thou have afforded me
these signs of restitution, yet if I confide in them, and begin to say,
all was but a natural accident, and nature begins to discharge herself,
and she will perfect the whole work, my hope shall vanish because it is
not in thee. If thou shouldst take thy hand utterly from me, and have
nothing to do with me, nature alone were able to destroy me; but if thou
withdraw thy helping hand, alas, how frivolous are the helps of nature,
how impotent the assistances of art? As therefore the morning dew is a
pawn of the evening fatness, so, O Lord, let this day's comfort be the
earnest of to-morrow's, so far as may conform me entirely to thee, to
what end, and by what way soever thy mercy have appointed me.

FOOTNOTES:

[265] Psalm xlvi. 3.

[266] Psalm xxxiii. 7.

[267] Prov. viii. 29.

[268] Josh. iii. 17.

[269] Ecclus. xliii. 24.

[270] Ecclus. xliii. 27.

[271] Wisd. xiv. 3.

[272] Wisd. xiv. 5.

[273] Acts, xxvii. 11.

[274] Luke, v. 3.

[275] Acts, xxvii. 24.

[276] Mark, v. 2.

[277] Acts, xxvii. 31.

[278] James, iii. 4.

[279] Rev. viii. 9.

[280] John, vi. 21.

[281] Lam. iii. 26.

[282] Exod. xiii. 21.

[283] Exod. xvi. 10.

[284] 1 Kings, xviii. 43.


XX. ID AGUNT.

_Upon these indications of digested matter, they proceed to purge._


XX. MEDITATION.

Though counsel seem rather to consist of spiritual parts than action,
yet action is the spirit and the soul of counsel. Counsels are not
always determined in resolutions, we cannot always say, this was
concluded; actions are always determined in effects, we can say, this
was done. Then have laws their reverence and their majesty, when we see
the judge upon the bench executing them. Then have counsels of war
their impressions and their operations, when we see the seal of an army
set to them. It was an ancient way of celebrating the memory of such as
deserved well of the state, to afford them that kind of statuary
representation, which was then called Hermes, which was the head and
shoulders of a man standing upon a cube, but those shoulders without
arms and hands. Altogether it figured a constant supporter of the state,
by his counsel; but in this hieroglyphic, which they made without hands,
they pass their consideration no farther but that the counsellor should
be without hands, so far as not to reach out his hand to foreign
temptations of bribes, in matters of counsel, and that it was not
necessary that the head should employ his own hand; that the same men
should serve in the execution which assisted in the counsel; but that
there should not belong hands to every head, action to every counsel,
was never intended so much as in figure and representation. For as
matrimony is scarce to be called matrimony where there is a resolution
against the fruits of matrimony, against the having of children,[285] so
counsels are not counsels, but illusions, where there is from the
beginning no purpose to execute the determinations of those counsels.
The arts and sciences are most properly referred to the head; that is
their proper element and sphere; but yet the art of proving, logic, and
the art of persuading, rhetoric, are deduced to the hand, and that
expressed by a hand contracted into a fist, and this by a hand enlarged
and expanded; and evermore the power of man, and the power of God,
himself is expressed so. All things are in his hand; neither is God so
often presented to us, by names that carry our consideration upon
counsel, as upon execution of counsel; he oftener is called the Lord of
Hosts than by all other names, that may be referred to the other
signification. Hereby therefore we take into our meditation the slippery
condition of man, whose happiness in any kind, the defect of any one
thing conducing to that happiness, may ruin; but it must have all the
pieces to make it up. Without counsel, I had not got thus far; without
action and practice, I should go no farther towards health. But what is
the present necessary action? Purging; a withdrawing, a violating of
nature, a farther weakening. O dear price, and O strange way of
addition, to do it by subtraction; of restoring nature, to violate
nature; of providing strength, by increasing weakness. Was I not sick
before? And is it a question of comfort to be asked now, did your physic
make you sick? Was that it that my physic promised, to make me sick?
This is another step upon which we may stand, and see farther into the
misery of man, the time, the season of his misery; it must be done now.
O over-cunning, over-watchful, over-diligent, and over-sociable misery
of man, that seldom comes alone, but then when it may accompany other
miseries, and so put one another into the higher exaltation, and better
heart. I am ground even to an attenuation and must proceed to
evacuation, all ways to exinanition and annihilation.


XX. EXPOSTULATION.

My God, my God, the God of order, but yet not of ambition, who assignest
place to every one, but not contention for place, when shall it be thy
pleasure to put an end to all these quarrels for spiritual precedences?
When shall men leave their uncharitable disputations, which is to take
place, faith or repentance, and which, when we consider faith and works?
The head and the hand too are required to a perfect natural man;
counsel and action too, to a perfect civil man; faith and works too, to
him that is perfectly spiritual. But because it is easily said, I
believe, and because it doth not easily lie in proof, nor is easily
demonstrable by any evidence taken from my heart (for who sees that, who
searches those rolls?) whether I do believe or no, is it not therefore,
O my God, that thou dost so frequently, so earnestly, refer us to the
hand, to the observation of actions? There is a little suspicion, a
little imputation laid upon over-tedious and dilatory counsels. Many
good occasions slip away in long consultations; and it may be a degree
of sloth, to be too long in mending nets, though that must be done. _He
that observeth the wind shall not sow, and he that regardeth the clouds
shall not reap_;[286] that is, he that is too dilatory, too
superstitious in these observations, and studies but the excuse of his
own idleness in them; but that which the same wise and royal servant of
thine says in another place, all accept, and ask no comment upon it, _He
becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand, but the hand of the
diligent maketh rich_;[287] all evil imputed to the absence, all good
attributed to the presence of the hand. I know, my God (and I bless thy
name for knowing it, for all good knowledge is from thee), that thou
considerest the heart; but thou takest not off thine eye till thou come
to the hand. Nay, my God, doth not thy Spirit intimate that thou
beginnest where we begin (at least, that thou allowest us to begin
there), when thou orderest thine own answer to thine own question, _Who
shall ascend into the hill of the Lord_? thus, _He that hath clean
hands, and a pure heart_?[288] Dost thou not (at least) send us first to
the hand? And is not the work of their hands that declaration of their
holy zeal, in the present execution of manifest idolators, called a
consecration of themselves,[289] by thy Holy Spirit? Their hands are
called all themselves; for even counsel itself goes under that name in
thy word, who knowest best how to give right names: because the counsel
of the priests assisted David,[290] Saul says the hand of the priest is
with David. And that which is often said by Moses, is very often
repeated by thy other prophets, _These and these things the Lord
spake_,[291] and _the Lord said_, and _the Lord commanded_, not by the
counsels, not by the voice, but by the _hand of Moses_, and by the _hand
of the prophets_. Evermore we are referred for our evidence of others,
and of ourselves, to the hand, to action, to works. There is something
before it, believing; and there is something after it, suffering; but in
the most eminent, and obvious, and conspicuous place stands doing. Why
then, O my God, my blessed God, in the ways of my spiritual strength,
come I so slow to action? I was whipped by thy rod, before I came to
consultation, to consider my state; and shall I go no farther? As he
that would describe a circle in paper, if he have brought that circle
within one inch of finishing, yet if he remove his compass he cannot
make it up a perfect circle except he fall to work again, to find out
the same centre, so, though setting that foot of my compass upon thee, I
have gone so far as to the consideration of myself, yet if I depart from
thee, my centre, all is imperfect. This proceeding to action, therefore,
is a returning to thee, and a working upon myself by thy physic, by thy
purgative physic, a free and entire evacuation of my soul by confession.
The working of purgative physic is violent and contrary to nature. O
Lord, I decline not this potion of confession, however it may be
contrary to a natural man. To take physic, and not according to the
right method, is dangerous.[292] O Lord, I decline not that method in
this physic, in things that burthen my conscience, to make my confession
to him, into whose hands thou hast put the power of absolution. I know
that "physic may be made so pleasant as that it may easily be taken; but
not so pleasant as the virtue and nature of the medicine be
extinguished."[293] I know I am not submitted to such a confession as is
a rack and torture of the conscience; but I know I am not exempt from
all. If it were merely problematical, left merely indifferent whether we
should take this physic, use this confession, or no, a great physician
acknowledges this to have been his practice, to minister to many things
which he was not sure would do good, but never any other thing but such
as he was sure would do no harm.[294] The use of this spiritual physic
can certainly do no harm; and the church hath always thought that it
might, and, doubtless, many humble souls have found, that it hath done
them good. _I will therefore take the cup of salvation, and call upon
thy name._[295] I will find this cup of compunction as full as I have
formerly filled the cups of worldly confections, that so I may escape
the cup of malediction and irrecoverable destruction that depends upon
that. And since thy blessed and glorious Son, being offered, in the way
to his execution, a cup of stupefaction,[296] to take away the sense of
his pain (a charity afforded to condemned persons ordinarily in those
places and times), refused that ease, and embraced the whole torment, I
take not this cup, but this vessel of mine own sins into my
contemplation, and I pour them out here according to the motions of thy
Holy Spirit, and any where according to the ordinances of thy holy
church.


XX. PRAYER.

O eternal and most gracious God, who having married man and woman
together, and made them one flesh, wouldst have them also to become one
soul, so as that they might maintain a sympathy in their affections, and
have a conformity to one another in the accidents of this world, good or
bad; so having married this soul and this body in me, I humbly beseech
thee that my soul may look and make her use of thy merciful proceedings
towards my bodily restitution, and go the same way to a spiritual. I am
come, by thy goodness, to the use of thine ordinary means for my body,
to wash away those peccant humours that endangered it. I have, O Lord, a
river in my body, but a sea in my soul, and a sea swollen into the depth
of a deluge, above the sea. Thou hast raised up certain hills in me
heretofore, by which I might have stood safe from these inundations of
sin. Even our natural faculties are a hill, and might preserve us from
some sin. Education, study, observation, example, are hills too, and
might preserve us from some. Thy church, and thy word, and thy
sacraments, and thine ordinances are hills above these; thy spirit of
remorse, and compunction, and repentance for former sin, are hills too;
and to the top of all these hills thou hast brought me heretofore; but
this deluge, this inundation, is got above all my hills; and I have
sinned and sinned, and multiplied sin to sin, after all these thy
assistances against sin, and where is there water enough to wash away
this deluge? There is a red sea, greater than this ocean, and there is a
little spring, through which this ocean may pour itself into that red
sea. Let thy spirit of true contrition and sorrow pass all my sins,
through these eyes, into the wounds of thy Son, and I shall be clean,
and my soul so much better purged than my body, as it is ordained for
better and a longer life.

FOOTNOTES:

[285] August.

[286] Eccles. xi. 4.

[287] Prov. x. 4.

[288] Psalm xxiv. 3.

[289] Exod. xxxii. 29.

[290] 1 Sam. xxii. 17.

[291] Lev. viii. 36.

[292] Galen.

[293] Galen.

[294] Galen.

[295] Psalm cxvi. 13.

[296] Mark, xv. 23.


    XXI. -------------- ATQUE ANNUIT ILLE,
    QUI, PER EOS, CLAMAT, LINQUAS JAM, LAZARE, LECTUM.

_God prospers their practice, and he, by them, calls Lazarus out of his
tomb, me out of my bed._


XXI. MEDITATION.

If man had been left alone in this world at first, shall I think that he
would not have fallen? If there had been no woman, would not man have
served to have been his own tempter? When I see him now subject to
infinite weaknesses, fall into infinite sin without any foreign
temptations, shall I think he would have had none, if he had been alone?
God saw that man needed a helper, if he should be well; but to make
woman ill, the devil saw that there needed no third. When God and we
were alone in Adam, that was not enough; when the devil and we were
alone in Eve, it was enough. O what a giant is man when he fights
against himself, and what a dwarf when he needs or exercises his own
assistance for himself? I cannot rise out of my bed till the physician
enable me, nay, I cannot tell that I am able to rise till he tell me so.
I do nothing, I know nothing of myself; how little and how impotent a
piece of the world is any man alone? And how much less a piece of
himself is that man? So little as that when it falls out (as it falls
out in some cases) that more misery and more oppression would be an ease
to a man, he cannot give himself that miserable addition of more misery.
A man that is pressed to death, and might be eased by more weights,
cannot lay those more weights upon himself: he can sin alone, and suffer
alone, but not repent, not be absolved, without another. Another tells
me, I may rise; and I do so. But is every raising a preferment? or is
every present preferment a station? I am readier to fall to the earth,
now I am up, than I was when I lay in the bed. O perverse way, irregular
motion of man; even rising itself is the way to ruin! How many men are
raised, and then do not fill the place they are raised to? No corner of
any place can be empty; there can be no vacuity. If that man do not fill
the place, other men will; complaints of his insufficiency will fill it;
nay, such an abhorring is there in nature of vacuity, that if there be
but an imagination of not filling, in any man, that which is but
imagination, neither will fill it, that is, rumour and voice, and it
will be given out (upon no ground but imagination, and no man knows
whose imagination), that he is corrupt in his place, or insufficient in
his place, and another prepared to succeed him in his place. A man rises
sometimes and stands not, because he doth not or is not believed to fill
his place; and sometimes he stands not because he overfills his place.
He may bring so much virtue, so much justice, so much integrity to the
place, as shall spoil the place, burthen the place; his integrity may be
a libel upon his predecessor and cast an infamy upon him, and a burthen
upon his successor to proceed by example, and to bring the place itself
to an undervalue and the market to an uncertainty. I am up, and I seem
to stand, and I go round, and I am a new argument of the new philosophy,
that the earth moves round; why may I not believe that the whole earth
moves, in a round motion, though that seem to me to stand, when as I
seem to stand to my company, and yet am carried in a giddy and circular
motion as I stand? Man hath no centre but misery; there, and only there,
he is fixed, and sure to find himself. How little soever he be raised,
he moves, and moves in a circle giddily; and as in the heavens there are
but a few circles that go about the whole world, but many epicycles, and
other lesser circles, but yet circles; so of those men which are raised
and put into circles, few of them move from place to place, and pass
through many and beneficial places, but fall into little circles, and,
within a step or two, are at their end, and not so well as they were in
the centre, from which they were raised. Every thing serves to
exemplify, to illustrate man's misery. But I need go no farther than
myself: for a long time I was not able to rise; at last I must be raised
by others; and now I am up, I am ready to sink lower than before.


XXI. EXPOSTULATION.

My God, my God, how large a glass of the next world is this! As we have
an art, to cast from one glass to another, and so to carry the species a
great way off, so hast thou, that way, much more; we shall have a
resurrection in heaven; the knowledge of that thou castest by another
glass upon us here; we feel that we have a resurrection from sin, and
that by another glass too; we see we have a resurrection of the body
from the miseries and calamities of this life. This resurrection of my
body shows me the resurrection of my soul; and both here severally, of
both together hereafter. Since thy martyrs under the altar press thee
with their solicitation for the resurrection of the body to glory, thou
wouldst pardon me, if I should press thee by prayer for the
accomplishing of this resurrection, which thou hast begun in me, to
health. But, O my God, I do not ask, where I might ask amiss, nor beg
that which perchance might be worse for me. I have a bed of sin; delight
in sin is a bed: I have a grave of sin; senselessness of sin is a grave:
and where Lazarus had been four days, I have been fifty years in this
putrefaction; why dost thou not call me, as thou didst him, _with a loud
voice_,[297] since my soul is as dead as his body was? I need thy
thunder, O my God; thy music will not serve me. Thou hast called thy
servants, who are to work upon us in thine ordinance, by all these loud
names--winds, and chariots, and falls of waters; where thou wouldst be
heard, thou wilt be heard. When thy Son concurred with thee to the
making of man, there it is but a speaking, but a saying. There, O
blessed and glorious Trinity, was none to hear but you three, and you
easily hear one another, because you say the same things. But when thy
Son came to the work of redemption, thou spokest,[298] and they that
heard it took it for thunder; and thy Son himself cried with a loud
voice upon the cross twice,[299] as he who was to prepare his coming,
John Baptist, was the voice of a crier, and not of a whisperer. Still,
if it be thy voice, it is a loud voice. _These words_, says thy Moses,
_thou spokest with a great voice, and thou addedst no more_,[300] says
he there. That which thou hast said is evident, and it is evident that
none can speak so loud; none can bind us to hear him, as we must thee.
_The Most High uttered his voice._ What was his voice? _The Lord
thundered from heaven_,[301] it might be heard; but this voice, thy
voice, is also a _mighty voice_;[302] not only mighty in power, it may
be heard, nor mighty in obligation, it should be heard; but mighty in
operation, it will be heard; and therefore hast thou bestowed a whole
psalm[303] upon us, to lead us to the consideration of thy voice. It is
such a voice as that thy Son says, _the dead shall hear it_;[304] and
that is my state. And why, O God, dost thou not speak to me, in that
effectual loudness? Saint John heard a voice, and _he turned about to
see the voice_:[305] sometimes we are too curious of the instrument by
what man God speaks; but thou speakest loudest when thou speakest to the
heart. _There was silence, and I heard a voice_, says one, to thy
servant Job.[306] I hearken after thy voice in thine ordinances, and I
seek not a whispering in conventicles; but yet, O my God, speak louder,
that so, though I do hear thee now, then I may hear nothing but thee. My
sins cry aloud; Cain's murder did so: my afflictions cry aloud; _the
floods have lifted up their voice_ (and waters are afflictions), _but
thou, O Lord, art mightier than the voice of many waters_;[307] than
many temporal, many spiritual afflictions, than any of either kind: and
why dost thou not speak to me in that voice? _What is man, and whereto
serveth he? What is his good and what is his evil?_[308] My bed of sin
is not evil, not desperately evil, for thou dost call me out of it; but
my rising out of it is not good (not perfectly good), if thou call not
louder, and hold me now I am up. O my God, I am afraid of a fearful
application of those words, _When a man hath done, then he
beginneth_;[309] when this body is unable to sin, his sinful memory sins
over his old sins again; and that which thou wouldst have us to remember
for compunction, we remember with delight. _Bring him to me in his bed,
that I may kill him_,[310] says Saul of David: thou hast not said so,
that is not thy voice. Joash's own servants slew him when he was sick
in his bed:[311] thou hast not suffered that, that my servants should so
much as neglect me, or be weary of me in my sickness. Thou threatenest,
that _as a shepherd takes out of the mouth of the lion two legs, or a
piece of an ear, so shall the children of Israel, that dwell in Samaria,
in the corner of a bed, and in Damascus, in a couch, be taken
away_;[312] and even they that are secure from danger shall perish. How
much more might I, who was in the bed of death, die? But thou hast not
so dealt with me. As they brought out sick persons in beds, that thy
servant Peter's shadow might over-shadow them,[313] thou hast, O my God,
over-shadowed me, refreshed me; but when wilt thou do more? When wilt
thou do all? When wilt thou speak in thy loud voice? When wilt thou bid
me _take up my bed and walk_?[314] As my bed is my affections, when
shall I bear them so as to subdue them? As my bed is my afflictions,
when shall I bear them so as not to murmur at them? When shall I take up
my bed and walk? Not lie down upon it, as it is my pleasure, not sink
under it, as it is my correction? But O my God, my God, the God of all
flesh, and of all spirit, to let me be content with that in my fainting
spirit, which thou declarest in this decayed flesh, that as this body is
content to sit still, that it may learn to stand, and to learn by
standing to walk, and by walking to travel, so my soul, by obeying this
thy voice of rising, may by a farther and farther growth of thy grace
proceed so, and be so established, as may remove all suspicions, all
jealousies between thee and me, and may speak and hear in such a voice,
as that still I may be acceptable to thee, and satisfied from thee.


XXI. PRAYER.

O eternal and most gracious God, who hast made little things to signify
great, and conveyed the infinite merits of thy Son in the water of
baptism, and in the bread and wine of thy other sacrament, unto us,
receive the sacrifice of my humble thanks, that thou hast not only
afforded me the ability to rise out of this bed of weariness and
discomfort, but hast also made this bodily rising, by thy grace, an
earnest of a second resurrection from sin, and of a third, to
everlasting glory. Thy Son himself, always infinite in himself, and
incapable of addition, was yet pleased to grow in the Virgin's womb, and
to grow in stature in the sight of men. Thy good purposes upon me, I
know, have their determination and perfection in thy holy will upon me;
there thy grace is, and there I am altogether; but manifest them so unto
me, in thy seasons, and in thy measures and degrees, that I may not only
have that comfort of knowing thee to be infinitely good, but that also
of finding thee to be every day better and better to me; and that as
thou gavest Saint Paul the messenger of Satan, to humble him so for my
humiliation, thou mayst give me thyself in this knowledge, that what
grace soever thou afford me to-day, yet I should perish to-morrow if I
had not had to-morrow's grace too. Therefore I beg of thee my daily
bread; and as thou gavest me the bread of sorrow for many days, and
since the bread of hope for some, and this day the bread of possessing,
in rising by that strength, which thou the God of all strength hast
infused into me, so, O Lord, continue to me the bread of life: the
spiritual bread of life, in a faithful assurance in thee; the
sacramental bread of life, in a worthy receiving of thee; and the more
real bread of life in an everlasting union to thee. I know, O Lord,
that when thou hast created angels, and they saw thee produce fowl, and
fish, and beasts, and worms, they did not importune thee, and say, Shall
we have no better creatures than these, no better companions than these?
but stayed thy leisure, and then had man delivered over to them, not
much inferior in nature to themselves. No more do I, O God, now that by
thy first mercy I am able to rise, importune thee for present
confirmation of health; nor now, that by thy mercy I am brought to see
that thy correction hath wrought medicinally upon me, presume I upon
that spiritual strength I have; but as I acknowledge that my bodily
strength is subject to every puff of wind, so is my spiritual strength
to every blast of vanity. Keep me therefore still, O my gracious God, in
such a proportion of both strengths, as I may still have something to
thank thee for, which I have received, and still something to pray for
and ask at thy hand.

FOOTNOTES:

[297] John, xi. 43.

[298] John, xii. 28.

[299] Matt. xxvii. 46, 50.

[300] Deut. v. 22.

[301] 2 Sam. xxii. 14.

[302] Psalm lxviii. 33.

[303] Psalm xxix.

[304] John, v. 25.

[305] Rev. i. 12.

[306] Job, iv. 16.

[307] Psalm xciii. 3, 4.

[308] Ecclus. xviii, 8.

[309] Ecclus. v. 7.

[310] 1 Sam. xix. 15.

[311] 2 Chron. xxiv. 25.

[312] Amos, iii. 12.

[313] Acts, v. 15.

[314] Matt. ix. 6.


XXII. SIT MORBI FOMES TIBI CURA.

_The physicians consider the root and occasion, the embers, and coals,
and fuel of the disease, and seek to purge or correct that._


XXII. MEDITATION.

How ruinous a farm hath man taken, in taking himself! How ready is the
house every day to fall down, and how is all the ground overspread with
weeds, all the body with diseases; where not only every turf, but every
stone bears weeds; not only every muscle of the flesh, but every bone of
the body hath some infirmity; every little flint upon the face of this
soil hath some infectious weed, every tooth in our head such a pain as
a constant man is afraid of, and yet ashamed of that fear, of that sense
of the pain. How dear, and how often a rent doth man pay for his farm!
He pays twice a day, in double meals, and how little time he hath to
raise his rent! How many holidays to call him from his labour! Every day
is half holiday, half spent in sleep. What reparations, and subsidies,
and contributions he is put to, besides his rent! What medicines besides
his diet; and what inmates he is fain to take in, besides his own
family; what infectious diseases from other men! Adam might have had
Paradise for dressing and keeping it; and then his rent was not improved
to such a labour as would have made his brow sweat; and yet he gave it
over; how far greater a rent do we pay for this farm, this body, who pay
ourselves, who pay the farm itself, and cannot live upon it! Neither is
our labour at an end when we have cut down some weed as soon as it
sprung up, corrected some violent and dangerous accident of a disease
which would have destroyed speedily, nor when we have pulled up that
weed from the very root, recovered entirely and soundly from that
particular disease; but the whole ground is of an ill nature, the whole
soil ill disposed; there are inclinations, there is a propenseness to
diseases in the body, out of which, without any other disorder, diseases
will grow, and so we are put to a continual labour upon this farm, to a
continual study of the whole complexion and constitution of our body. In
the distempers and diseases of soils, sourness, dryness, weeping, any
kind of barrenness, the remedy and the physic is, for a great part,
sometimes in themselves; sometimes the very situation relieves them; the
hanger of a hill will purge and vent his own malignant moisture, and the
burning of the upper turf of some ground (as health from cauterizing)
puts a new and a vigorous youth into that soil, and there rises a kind
of phoenix out of the ashes, a fruitfulness out of that which was
barren before, and by that which is the barrenest of all, ashes. And
where the ground cannot give itself physic, yet it receives physic from
other grounds, from other soils, which are not the worse for having
contributed that help to them from marl in other hills, or from slimy
sand in other shores, grounds help themselves, or hurt not other grounds
from whence they receive help. But I have taken a farm at this hard
rent, and upon those heavy covenants, that it can afford itself no help
(no part of my body, if it were cut off, would cure another part; in
some cases it might preserve a sound part, but in no case recover an
infected); and if my body may have had any physic, any medicine from
another body, one man from the flesh of another man (as by mummy, or any
such composition), it must be from a man that is dead, and not as in
other soils, which are never the worse for contributing their marl or
their fat slime to my ground. There is nothing in the same man to help
man, nothing in mankind to help one another (in this sort, by way of
physic), but that he who ministers the help is in as ill case as he that
receives it would have been if he had not had it; for he from whose body
the physic comes is dead. When therefore I took this farm, undertook
this body, I undertook to drain not a marsh but a moat, where there was,
not water mingled to offend, but all was water; I undertook to perfume
dung, where no one part but all was equally unsavoury; I undertook to
make such a thing wholesome, as was not poison by any manifest quality,
intense heat or cold, but poison in the whole substance, and in the
specific form of it. To cure the sharp accidents of diseases is a great
work; to cure the disease itself is a greater; but to cure the body,
the root, the occasion of diseases, is a work reserved for the great
physician, which he doth never any other way but by glorifying these
bodies in the next world.


XXII. EXPOSTULATION.

My God, my God, what am I put to when I am put to consider and put off
the root, the fuel, the occasion of my sickness? What Hippocrates, what
Galen, could show me that in my body? It lies deeper than so, it lies in
my soul; and deeper than so, for we may well consider the body before
the soul came, before inanimation, to be without sin; and the soul,
before it come to the body, before that infection, to be without sin:
sin is the root and the fuel of all sickness, and yet that which
destroys body and soul is in neither, but in both together. It is the
union of the body and soul, and, O my God, could I prevent that, or can
I dissolve that? The root and the fuel of my sickness is my sin, my
actual sin; but even that sin hath another root, another fuel, original
sin; and can I divest that? Wilt thou bid me to separate the leaven that
a lump of dough hath received, or the salt, that the water hath
contracted, from the sea? Dost thou look, that I should so look to the
fuel or embers of sin, that I never take fire? The whole world is a pile
of fagots, upon which we are laid, and (as though there were no other)
we are the bellows. Ignorance blows the fire. He that touched any
unclean thing, though he knew it not, became unclean,[315] and a
sacrifice was required (therefore a sin imputed), though it were done in
ignorance.[316] Ignorance blows this coal; but then knowledge much more;
for there are that _know thy judgments, and yet not only do, but have
pleasure in others that do against them_.[317] Nature blows this coal;
_by nature we are the children of wrath_;[318] and the law blows it; thy
apostle Saint Paul found that _sin took occasion by the law_, that
therefore, because it is forbidden, we do some things. If we break the
law, we sin; _sin is the transgression of the law_;[319] and sin itself
becomes a law in our members.[320] Our fathers have imprinted the seed,
infused a spring of sin in us. _As a fountain casteth out her waters_,
we _cast out our wickedness_, but _we have done worse than our
fathers_.[321] We are open to infinite temptations, and yet, as though
we lacked, we are tempted of our own lusts.[322] And not satisfied with
that, as though we were not powerful enough, or cunning enough, to
demolish or undermine ourselves, when we ourselves have no pleasure in
the sin, we sin for others' sakes. When Adam sinned for Eve's sake,[323]
and Solomon to gratify his wives,[324] it was an uxorious sin; when the
judges sinned for Jezebel's sake,[325] and Joab to obey David,[326] it
was an ambitious sin; when Pilate sinned to humour the people,[327] and
Herod to give farther contentment to the Jews,[328] it was a popular
sin. Any thing serves to occasion sin, at home in my bosom, or abroad in
my mark and aim; that which I am, and that which I am not, that which I
would be, proves coals, and embers, and fuel, and bellows to sin; and
dost thou put me, O my God, to discharge myself of myself, before I can
be well? When thou bidst me _to put off the old man_,[329] dost thou
mean not only my old habits of actual sin, but the oldest of all,
original sin? When thou bidst me _purge out the leaven_,[330] dost thou
mean not only the sourness of mine own ill contracted customs, but the
innate tincture of sin imprinted by nature? How shall I do that which
thou requirest, and not falsify that which thou hast said, that sin is
gone over all? But, O my God, I press thee not with thine own text,
without thine own comment; I know that in the state of my body, which is
more discernible than that of my soul, thou dost effigiate my soul to
me. And though no anatomist can say, in dissecting a body, "Here lay the
coal, the fuel, the occasion of all bodily diseases," but yet a man may
have such a knowledge of his own constitution and bodily inclination to
diseases, as that he may prevent his danger in a great part; so, though
we cannot assign the place of original sin, nor the nature of it, so
exactly as of actual, or by any diligence divest it, yet, having washed
it in the water of thy baptism, we have not only so cleansed it, that we
may the better look upon it and discern it, but so weakened it, that
howsoever it may retain the former nature, it doth not retain the former
force, and though it may have the same name, it hath not the same venom.


XXII. PRAYER.

O eternal and most gracious God, the God of security, and the enemy of
security too, who wouldst have us always sure of thy love, and yet
wouldst have us always doing something for it, let me always so
apprehend thee as present with me, and yet so follow after thee, as
though I had not apprehended thee. Thou enlargedst Hezekiah's lease for
fifteen years; thou renewedst Lazarus's lease for a time which we know
not; but thou didst never so put out any of these fires as that thou
didst not rake up the embers, and wrap up a future mortality in that
body, which thou hadst then so reprieved. Thou proceedest no otherwise
in our souls, O our good but fearful God; thou pardonest no sin, so as
that that sinner can sin no more; thou makest no man so acceptable as
that thou makest him impeccable. Though therefore it were a diminution
of the largeness, and derogatory to the fulness of thy mercy, to look
back upon the sins which in a true repentance I have buried in the
wounds of thy Son, with a jealous or suspicious eye, as though they were
now my sins, when I had so transferred them upon thy Son, as though they
could now be raised to life again, to condemn me to death, when they are
dead in him who is the fountain of life, yet were it an irregular
anticipation, and an insolent presumption, to think that thy present
mercy extended to all my future sins, or that there were no embers, no
coals, of future sins left in me. Temper therefore thy mercy so to my
soul, O my God, that I may neither decline to any faintness of spirit,
in suspecting thy mercy now to be less hearty, less sincere, than it
uses to be, to those who are perfectly reconciled to thee, nor presume
so of it as either to think this present mercy an antidote against all
poisons, and so expose myself to temptations, upon confidence that this
thy mercy shall preserve me, or that when I do cast myself into new
sins, I may have new mercy at any time, because thou didst so easily
afford me this.

FOOTNOTES:

[315] Lev. v. 2.

[316] Num. xv. 24.

[317] Rom. i. 32.

[318] Eph. ii. 3.

[319] 1 John, iii. 4.

[320] Rom. vii. 23.

[321] Jer. vi. 7; vii. 26.

[322] James, i. 14.

[323] Gen. iii. 6.

[324] 1 Kings, xi. 3.

[325] 1 Kings, xxi.

[326] 2 Sam. xi. 16-21.

[327] Luke, xxiii. 23.

[328] Acts, xii. 3.

[329] Eph. iv. 22.

[330] 1 Cor. v. 7.


XXIII. METUSQUE, RELABI.

_They warn me of the fearful danger of relapsing._


XXIII. MEDITATION.

It is not in man's body, as it is in the city, that when the bell hath
rung, to cover your fire, and rake up the embers, you may lie down and
sleep without fear. Though you have by physic and diet raked up the
embers of your disease, still there is a fear of a relapse; and the
greater danger is in that. Even in pleasures and in pains, there is a
proprietary, a _meum et tuum_, and a man is most affected with that
pleasure which is his, his by former enjoying and experience, and most
intimidated with those pains which are his, his by a woful sense of
them, in former afflictions. A covetous person, who hath preoccupated
all his senses, filled all his capacities with the delight of gathering,
wonders how any man can have any taste of any pleasure in any openness
or liberality; so also in bodily pains, in a fit of the stone, the
patient wonders why any man should call the gout a pain; and he that
hath felt neither, but the toothache, is as much afraid of a fit of that
as either of the other of either of the other. Diseases which we never
felt in ourselves come but to a compassion of others that have endured
them; nay, compassion itself comes to no great degree if we have not
felt in some proportion in ourselves that which we lament and condole in
another. But when we have had those torments in their exaltation
ourselves, we tremble at relapse. When we must pant through all those
fiery heats, and sail through all those overflowing sweats, when we must
watch through all those long nights, and mourn through all those long
days (days and nights, so long as that Nature herself shall seem to be
perverted, and to have put the longest day, and the longest night, which
should be six months asunder, into one natural, unnatural day), when we
must stand at the same bar, expect the return of physicians from their
consultations, and not be sure of the same verdict, in any good
indications, when we must go the same way over again, and not see the
same issue, that is a state, a condition, a calamity, in respect of
which any other sickness were a convalescence, and any greater, less. It
adds to the affliction, that relapses are (and for the most part justly)
imputed to ourselves, as occasioned by some disorder in us; and so we
are not only passive but active in our own ruin; we do not only stand
under a falling house, but pull it down upon us; and we are not only
executed (that implies guiltiness), but we are executioners (that
implies dishonour), and executioners of ourselves (and that implies
impiety). And we fall from that comfort which we might have in our first
sickness, from that meditation, "Alas, how generally miserable is man,
and how subject to diseases" (for in that it is some degree of comfort
that we are but in the state common to all), we fall, I say, to this
discomfort, and self-accusing, and self-condemning: "Alas, how
improvident, and in that how unthankful to God and his instruments, am I
in making so ill use of so great benefits, in destroying so soon so long
a work, in relapsing, by my disorder, to that from which they had
delivered me": and so my meditation is fearfully transferred from the
body to the mind, and from the consideration of the sickness to that
sin, that sinful carelessness, by which I have occasioned my relapse.
And amongst the many weights that aggravate a relapse, this also is one,
that a relapse proceeds with a more violent dispatch, and more
irremediably, because it finds the country weakened, and depopulated
before. Upon a sickness, which as yet appears not, we can scarce fix a
fear, because we know not what to fear; but as fear is the busiest and
irksomest affection, so is a relapse (which is still ready to come) into
that which is but newly gone, the nearest object, the most immediate
exercise of that affection of fear.


XXIII. EXPOSTULATION.

My God, my God, my God, thou mighty Father, who hast been my physician;
thou glorious Son, who hast been my physic; thou blessed Spirit, who
hast prepared and applied all to me, shall I alone be able to overthrow
the work of all you, and relapse into those spiritual sicknesses from
which infinite mercies have withdrawn me? Though thou, O my God, have
filled my measure with mercy, yet my measure was not so large as that of
thy whole people, the nation, the numerous and glorious nation of
Israel; and yet how often, how often did they fall into relapses! And
then, where is my assurance? How easily thou passedst over many other
sins in them, and how vehemently thou insistedst in those into which
they so often relapsed; those were their murmurings against thee, in
thine instruments and ministers, and their turnings upon other gods, and
embracing the idolatries of their neighbours. O my God, how slippery a
way, to how irrecoverable a bottom, is murmuring; and how near thyself
he comes, that murmurs at him who comes from thee! The magistrate is the
garment in which thou apparelest thyself, and he that shoots at the
clothes cannot say he meant no ill to the man: thy people were fearful
examples of that, for how often did their murmuring against thy
ministers end in a departing from thee! When they would have other
officers, they would have other gods; and still to-day's murmuring was
to-morrow's idolatry; as their murmuring induced idolatry, and they
relapsed often into both, I have found in myself, O my God (O my God,
thou hast found it in me, and thy finding it hast showed it to me) such
a transmigration of sin, as makes me afraid of relapsing too. The soul
of sin (for we have made sin immortal, and it must have a soul), the
soul of sin is disobedience to thee; and when one sin hath been dead in
me, that soul hath passed into another sin. Our youth dies, and the sins
of our youth with it; some sins die a violent death, and some a natural;
poverty, penury, imprisonment, banishment, kill some sins in us, and
some die of age; many ways we become unable to do that sin, but still
the soul lives and passes into another sin; and that that was
licentiousness grows ambition, and that comes to indevotion and
spiritual coldness: we have three lives in our state of sin, and where
the sins of youth expire, those of our middle years enter, and those of
our age after them. This transmigration of sin found in myself, makes me
afraid, O my God, of a relapse; but the occasion of my fear is more
pregnant than so, for I have had, I have multiplied relapses already.
Why, O my God, is a relapse so odious to thee? Not so much their
murmuring and their idolatry, as their relapsing into those sins, seems
to affect thee in thy disobedient people. _They limited the holy One of
Israel_,[331] as thou complainest of them: that was a murmuring; but
before thou chargest them with the fault itself, in the same place thou
chargest them with the iterating, the redoubling of that fault before
the fault was named; _How oft did they provoke me in the wilderness, and
grieve me in the desert?_ That which brings thee to that exasperation
against them, as to say, that thou wouldst break thine own oath rather
than leave them unpunished (_They shall not see the land which I sware
unto their fathers_) was because _they had tempted thee ten times_,[332]
infinitely; upon that thou threatenest with that vehemency, _If you do
in any wise go back, know for a certainty God will no more drive out any
of these nations from before you; but they shall be snares and traps
unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in your eyes, till ye
perish_.[333] No tongue but thine own, O my God, can express thine
indignation against a nation relapsing to idolatry. Idolatry in any
nation is deadly, but when the disease is complicated with a relapse (a
knowledge and a profession of a former recovery), it is desperate; and
thine anger works, not only where the evidence is pregnant and without
exception (so thou sayest when it is said, that certain men in a city
have withdrawn others to idolatry, and that inquiry is made, and it is
found true; the city, and the inhabitants, and the cattle are to be
destroyed),[334] but where there is but a suspicion, a rumour, of such a
relapse to idolatry, thine anger is awakened, and thine indignation
stirred. In the government of thy servant Joshua, there was a voice,
that Reuben and Gad, with those of Manasseh, had built a new altar.[335]
Israel doth not send one to inquire, but the whole congregation gathered
to go up to war against them,[336] and there went a prince of every
tribe; and they object to them, not so much their present declination to
idolatry, as their relapse: _Is the iniquity of Peor too little for
us?_[337] an idolatry formerly committed, and punished with the
slaughter of twenty-four thousand delinquents. At last Reuben and Gad
satisfy them, that that altar was not built for idolatry, but built as a
pattern of theirs, that they might thereby profess themselves to be of
the same profession that they were, and so the army returned without
blood. Even where it comes not so far as to an actual relapse into
idolatry, thou, O my God, becomest sensible of it; though thou, who
seest the heart all the way, preventest all dangerous effects where
there was no ill meaning, however there were occasion of suspicious
rumours given to thine Israel of relapsing. So odious to thee, and so
aggravating a weight upon sin is a relapse. But, O my God, why is it so?
so odious? It must be so, because he that hath sinned and then repented,
hath weighed God and the devil in a balance; he hath heard God and the
devil plead, and after hearing given judgment on that side to which he
adheres by his subsequent practice;[338] if he return to his sin, he
decrees for Satan, he prefers sin before grace, and Satan before God;
and in contempt of God, declares the precedency for his adversary; and a
contempt wounds deeper than an injury, a relapse deeper than a
blasphemy. And when thou hast told me that a relapse is more odious to
thee, need I ask why it is more dangerous, more pernicious to me? Is
there any other measure of the greatness of my danger, than the
greatness of thy displeasure? How fitly and how fearfully hast thou
expressed my case in a storm at sea, if I relapse; _They mount up to
heaven, and they go down again to the depth_![339] My sickness brought
me to thee in repentance, and my relapse hath cast me farther from thee.
_The end of that man shall be worse than the beginning_,[340] says thy
Word, thy Son; my beginning was sickness, punishment for sin: but _a
worse thing may follow_,[341] says he also, if I sin again; not only
death, which is an end worse than sickness, which was the beginning, but
hell, which is a beginning worse than that end. Thy great servant
denied thy Son,[342] and he denied him again, but all before repentance;
here was no relapse. O, if thou hadst ever readmitted Adam into
Paradise, how abstinently would he have walked by that tree! And would
not the angels that fell have fixed themselves upon thee, if thou hadst
once readmitted them to thy sight? They never relapsed; if I do, must
not my case be as desperate? Not so desperate; for _as thy majesty, so
is thy mercy_,[343] both infinite; and thou, who hast commanded me to
pardon my brother seventy-seven times, hast limited thyself to no
number. If death were ill in itself, thou wouldst never have raised any
dead man to life again, because that man must necessarily die again. If
thy mercy in pardoning did so far aggravate a relapse, as that there
were no more mercy after it, our case were the worse for that former
mercy; for who is not under even a necessity of sinning whilst he is
here, if we place this necessity in our own infirmity, and not in thy
decree? But I speak not this, O my God, as preparing a way to my relapse
out of presumption, but to preclude all accesses of desperation, though
out of infirmity I should relapse.


XXIII. PRAYER.

O eternal and most gracious God, who, though thou beest ever infinite,
yet enlargest thyself by the number of our prayers, and takest our often
petitions to thee to be an addition to thy glory and thy greatness, as
ever upon all occasions, so now, O my God, I come to thy majesty with
two prayers, two supplications. I have meditated upon the jealousy which
thou hast of thine own honour, and considered that nothing comes nearer
a violating of that honour, nearer to the nature of a scorn to thee,
than to sue out thy pardon, and receive the seals of reconciliation to
thee, and then return to that sin for which I needed and had thy pardon
before. I know that this comes too near to a making thy holy ordinances,
thy word, thy sacraments, thy seals, thy grace, instruments of my
spiritual fornications. Since therefore thy correction hath brought me
to such a participation of thyself (thyself, O my God, cannot be
parted), to such an entire possession of thee, as that I durst deliver
myself over to thee this minute, if this minute thou wouldst accept my
dissolution, preserve me, O my God, the God of constancy and
perseverance, in this state, from all relapses into those sins which
have induced thy former judgments upon me. But because, by too
lamentable experience, I know how slippery my customs of sin have made
my ways of sin, I presume to add this petition too, that if my infirmity
overtake me, thou forsake me not. Say to my soul, _My son, thou hast
sinned, do so no more_;[344] but say also, that though I do, thy spirit
of remorse and compunction shall never depart from me. Thy holy apostle,
St. Paul, was shipwrecked thrice,[345] and yet still saved. Though the
rocks and the sands, the heights and the shallows, the prosperity and
the adversity of this world, do diversely threaten me, though mine own
leaks endanger me, yet, O God, let me never put myself aboard with
Hymenæus, nor _make shipwreck of faith and a good conscience_,[346] and
then thy long-lived, thy everlasting mercy, will visit me, though that
which I most earnestly pray against, should fall upon me, a relapse into
those sins which I have truly repented, and thou hast fully pardoned.

FOOTNOTES:

[331] Psalm lxxviii. 41.

[332] Numb. xiv. 22, 23.

[333] Josh. xxiii. 12, 13.

[334] Deut. xiii. 12-16.

[335] Josh. xxii. 11, 12.

[336] Josh. xxii. 11, 12.

[337] Josh. xxii. 17.

[338] Tertullian.

[339] Psalm cvii. 26.

[340] Matt. xii. 45.

[341] John, v. 14.

[342] Mark, xiv. 70.

[343] Ecclus. ii. 18.

[344] Ecclus. i. 21.

[345] 2 Cor. xi. 25.

[346] 1 Tim. i. 19.


_DEATH'S DUEL,_

_OR, A CONSOLATION TO THE SOUL
AGAINST THE DYING LIFE AND LIVING
DEATH OF THE BODY._

_DELIVERED IN A SERMON AT WHITEHALL, BEFORE
THE KING'S MAJESTY, IN THE BEGINNING
OF LENT, 1630._

_BY THAT LATE LEARNED AND REVEREND DIVINE,
JOHN DONNE, DR. IN DIVINITY, AND DEAN
OF ST. PAUL'S, LONDON._

_BEING HIS LAST SERMON, AND CALLED BY HIS
MAJESTY'S HOUSEHOLD, THE DOCTOR'S OWN
FUNERAL SERMON._


_TO THE READER_


_This sermon was, by sacred authority, styled the author's own funeral
sermon, most fitly, whether we respect the time or matter. It was
preached not many days before his death, as if, having done this, there
remained nothing for him to do but to die; and the matter is of
death--the occasion and subject of all funeral sermons. It hath been
observed of this reverend man, that his faculty in preaching continually
increased, and that, as he exceeded others at first, so at last he
exceeded himself. This is his last sermon; I will not say it is
therefore his best, because all his were excellent. Yet thus much: a
dying man's words, if they concern ourselves, do usually make the
deepest impression, as being spoken most feelingly, and with least
affectation. Now, whom doth it concern to learn both the danger and
benefit of death? Death is every man's enemy, and intends hurt to all,
though to many he be occasion of greatest good. This enemy we must all
combat dying, whom he living did almost conquer, having discovered the
utmost of his power, the utmost of his cruelty. May we make such use of
this and other the like preparatives, that neither death, whensoever it
shall come, may seem terrible, nor life tedious, how long soever it
shall last._


_DEATH'S DUEL_

PSALM LXVIII. 20, _in fine_.

_And unto God the Lord belong the issues of death (i.e. from death)._


Buildings stand by the benefit of their foundations that sustain and
support them, and of their buttresses that comprehend and embrace them,
and of their contignations that knit and unite them. The foundations
suffer them not to sink, the buttresses suffer them not to swerve, and
the contignation and knitting suffers them not to cleave. The body of
our building is in the former part of this verse. It is this: _He that
is our God is the God of salvation_; _ad salutes_, of salvations in the
plural, so it is in the original; the God that gives us spiritual and
temporal salvation too. But of this building, the foundation, the
buttresses, the contignations, are in this part of the verse which
constitutes our text, and in the three divers acceptations of the words
amongst our expositors: _Unto God the Lord belong the issues from
death_, for, first, the foundation of this building (that our God is the
God of all salvation) is laid in this, that _unto_ this _God the Lord
belong the issues of death_; that is, it is in his power to give us an
issue and deliverance, even then when we are brought to the jaws and
teeth of death, and to the lips of that whirlpool, the grave. And so in
this acceptation, this _exitus mortis_, this issue of death is
_liberatio á morte_, a deliverance from death, and this is the most
obvious and most ordinary acceptation of these words, and that upon
which our translation lays hold, the _issues from death_. And then,
secondly, the buttresses that comprehend and settle this building, that
he that is our God is the God of all salvation, are thus raised; _unto
God the Lord belong the issues of death_, that is, the disposition and
manner of our death; what kind of issue and transmigration we shall have
out of this world, whether prepared or sudden, whether violent or
natural, whether in our perfect senses or shaken and disordered by
sickness, there is no condemnation to be argued out of that, no judgment
to be made upon that, for, howsoever they die, _precious in his sight is
the death of his saints_, and with him are the issues of death; the ways
of our departing out of this life are in his hands. And so in this sense
of the words, this _exitus mortis_, the issues of death, is _liberatio
in morte_, a deliverance in death; not that God will deliver us from
dying, but that he will have a care of us in the hour of death, of what
kind soever our passage be. And in this sense and acceptation of the
words, the natural frame and contexture doth well and pregnantly
administer unto us. And then, lastly, the contignation and knitting of
this building, that he that is our God is the God of all salvations,
consists in this, _Unto_ this _God the Lord belong the issues of death_;
that is, that this God the Lord having united and knit both natures in
one, and being God, having also come into this world in our flesh, he
could have no other means to save us, he could have no other issue out
of this world, nor return to his former glory, but by death. And so in
this sense, this _exitus mortis_, this issue of death, is _liberatio per
mortem_, a deliverance by death, by the death of this God, our Lord
Christ Jesus. And this is Saint Augustine's acceptation of the words,
and those many and great persons that have adhered to him. In all these
three lines, then, we shall look upon these words, first, as the God of
power, the Almighty Father rescues his servants from the jaws of death;
and then as the God of mercy, the glorious Son rescued us by taking upon
himself this issue of death; and then, between these two, as the God of
comfort, the Holy Ghost rescues us from all discomfort by his blessed
impressions beforehand, that what manner of death soever be ordained for
us, yet this _exitus mortis_ shall be _introitus in vitam_, our issue in
death shall be an entrance into everlasting life. And these three
considerations: our deliverance _à morte, in morte, per mortem_, from
death, in death, and by death, will abundantly do all the offices of the
foundations, of the buttresses, of the contignation, of this our
building; that he that is our God is the God of all salvation, because
_unto_ this _God the Lord belong the issues of death_.

First, then, we consider this _exitus mortis_ to be _liberatio à morte_,
that with _God the Lord are the issues of death_; and therefore in all
our death, and deadly calamities of this life, we may justly hope of a
good issue from him. In all our periods and transitions in this life,
are so many passages from death to death; our very birth and entrance
into this life is _exitus à morte_, an issue from death, for in our
mother's womb we are dead, so as that we do not know we live, not so
much as we do in our sleep, neither is there any grave so close or so
putrid a prison, as the womb would be unto us if we stayed in it beyond
our time, or died there before our time. In the grave the worms do not
kill us; we breed, and feed, and then kill those worms which we
ourselves produced. In the womb the dead child kills the mother that
conceived it, and is a murderer, nay, a parricide, even after it is
dead. And if we be not dead so in the womb, so as that being dead we
kill her that gave us our first life, our life of vegetation, yet we are
dead so as David's idols are dead. In the womb we have _eyes and see
not, ears and hear not_.[347] There in the womb we are fitted for works
of darkness, all the while deprived of light; and there in the womb we
are taught cruelty, by being fed with blood, and may be damned, though
we be never born. Of our very making in the womb, David says, _I am
wonderfully and fearfully made_, and _such knowledge is too excellent
for me_,[348] for even that _is the Lord's doing, and it is wonderful in
our eyes_;[349] ipse fecit nos, _it is he that made us, and not we
ourselves_,[350] nor our parents neither. _Thy hands have made and
fashioned me round about_, saith Job, _and_ (as the original word is)
_thou hast taken pains about me, and yet_ (says he) _thou dost destroy
me_. Though I be the masterpiece of the greatest master (man is so), yet
if thou do no more for me, if thou leave me where thou madest me,
destruction will follow. The womb, which should be the house of life,
becomes death itself if God leave us there. That which God threatens so
often, the shutting of a womb, is not so heavy nor so discomfortable a
curse in the first as in the latter shutting, nor in the shutting of
barrenness as in the shutting of weakness, when _children are come to
the birth, and no strength to bring forth_.[351]

It is the exaltation of misery to fall from a near hope of happiness.
And in that vehement imprecation, the prophet expresses the highest of
God's anger, _Give them, O Lord, what wilt thou give them? give them a
miscarrying womb._ Therefore as soon as we are men (that is, inanimated,
quickened in the womb), though we cannot ourselves, our parents have to
say in our behalf, _Wretched man that he is, who shall deliver him from
this body of death?_[352] if there be no deliverer. It must be he that
said to Jeremiah, _Before I formed thee I knew thee, and before thou
camest out of the womb I sanctified thee_. We are not sure that there
was no kind of ship nor boat to fish in, nor to pass by, till God
prescribed Noah that absolute form of the ark.[353] That word which the
Holy Ghost, by Moses, useth for the ark, is common to all kind of boats,
_thebah_; and is the same word that Moses useth for the boat that he was
exposed in, that his mother laid him in an ark of bulrushes. But we are
sure that Eve had no midwife when she was delivered of Cain, therefore
she might well say, _Possedi virum à Domino, I have gotten a man from
the Lord_,[354] wholly, entirely from the Lord; it is the Lord that
enabled me to conceive, the Lord that infused a quickening soul into
that conception, the Lord that brought into the world that which himself
had quickened; without all this might Eve say, my body had been but the
house of death, and _Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis, To God the Lord
belong the issues of death_. But then this _exitus à morte_ is but
_introitus in mortem_; this issue, this deliverance, from that death,
the death of the womb, is an entrance, a delivering over to another
death, the manifold deaths of this world; we have a winding-sheet in our
mother's womb which grows with us from our conception, and we come into
the world wound up in that winding-sheet, for we come to seek a grave.
And as prisoners discharged of actions may lie for fees, so when the
womb hath discharged us, yet we are bound to it by cords of hestæ, by
such a string as that we cannot go thence, nor stay there; we celebrate
our own funerals with cries even at our birth; as though our threescore
and ten years' life were spent in our mother's labour, and our circle
made up in the first point thereof; we beg our baptism with another
sacrament, with tears; and we come into a world that lasts many ages,
but we last not. _In domo Patris_, says our Saviour, speaking of heaven,
_multæ mansiones_, divers and durable; so that if a man cannot possess a
martyr's house (he hath shed no blood for Christ), yet he may have a
confessor's, he hath been ready to glorify God in the shedding of his
blood. And if a woman cannot possess a virgin's house (she hath embraced
the holy state of marriage), yet she may have a matron's house, she hath
brought forth and brought up children in the fear of God. _In domo
Patris, in my Father's house_, in heaven, there _are many
mansions_;[355] but here, upon earth, the _Son of man hath not where to
lay his head_,[356] saith he himself. _Nonne terram dedit filiis
hominum?_ How then hath God given this earth to the sons of men? He hath
given them earth for their materials to be made of earth, and he hath
given them earth for their grave and sepulchre, to return and resolve to
earth, but not for their possession. _Here we have no continuing
city_,[357] nay, no cottage that continues, nay, no persons, no bodies,
that continue. Whatsoever moved Saint Jerome to call the journeys of the
Israelites in the wilderness,[358] mansions; the word (the word is
_nasang_) signifies but a journey, but a peregrination. Even the Israel
of God hath no mansions, but journeys, pilgrimages in this life. By what
measure did Jacob measure his life to Pharaoh? _The days of the years of
my pilgrimage._[359] And though the apostle would not say _morimur_,
that whilst we are in the body we are dead, yet he says, _perigrinamur_,
whilst we are in the body we are but in a pilgrimage, and we are _absent
from the Lord_:[360] he might have said dead, for this whole world is
but an universal churchyard, but our common grave, and the life and
motion that the greatest persons have in it is but as the shaking of
buried bodies in their grave, by an earthquake. That which we call life
is but _hebdomada mortium_, a week of death, seven days, seven periods
of our life spent in dying, a dying seven times over; and there is an
end. Our birth dies in infancy, and our infancy dies in youth, and youth
and the rest die in age, and age also dies and determines all. Nor do
all these, youth out of infancy, or age out of youth, arise so, as the
phoenix out of the ashes of another phoenix formerly dead, but as a
wasp or a serpent out of a carrion, or as a snake out of dung. Our youth
is worse than our infancy, and our age worse than our youth. Our youth
is hungry and thirsty after those sins which our infancy knew not; and
our age is sorry and angry, that it cannot pursue those sins which our
youth did; and besides, all the way, so many deaths, that is, so many
deadly calamities accompany every condition and every period of this
life, as that death itself would be an ease to them that suffer them.
Upon this sense doth Job wish that God had not given him an issue from
the first death, from the womb, _Wherefore thou hast brought me forth
out of the womb? Oh that I had given up the ghost, and no eye seen me! I
should have been as though I had not been._[361] And not only the
impatient Israelites in their murmuring (_would to God we had died by
the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt_),[362] but Elijah himself,
when he fled from Jezebel, and went for his life, as that text says,
under the juniper tree, requested that he might die, and said, _It is
enough now, O Lord, take away my life_.[363] So Jonah justifies his
impatience, nay, his anger, towards God himself: _Now, O Lord, take, I
beseech thee, my life from me, for it is better to die than to
live_.[364] And when God asked him, _Dost thou well to be angry for
this?_ he replies, _I do well to be angry, even unto death_. How much
worse a death than death is this life, which so good men would so often
change for death! But if my case be as Saint Paul's case, _quotidiè
morior_, that I die daily, that something heavier than death fall upon
me every day; if my case be David's case, _tota die mortificamur; all
the day long we are killed_, that not only every day, but every hour of
the day, something heavier than death fall upon me; though that be true
of me, _Conceptus in peccatis, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did
my mother conceive me_ (there I died one death); though that be true of
me, _Natus filius iræ_, I was born not only the child of sin, but the
child of wrath, of the wrath of God for sin, which is a heavier death:
yet _Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis, with God the Lord are the issues
of death_; and after a Job, and a Joseph, and a Jeremiah, and a Daniel,
I cannot doubt of a deliverance. And if no other deliverance conduce
more to his glory and my good, yet he hath the keys of death,[365] and
he can let me out at that door, that is, deliver me from the manifold
deaths of this world, the _omni die_, and the _tota die_, the every
day's death and every hour's death, by that one death, the final
dissolution of body and soul, the end of all. But then is that the end
of all? Is that dissolution of body and soul the last death that the
body shall suffer (for of spiritual death we speak not now). It is not,
though this be _exitus à morte_: it is _introitus in mortem_; though it
be an issue from manifold deaths of this world, yet it is an entrance
into the death of corruption and putrefaction, and vermiculation, and
incineration, and dispersion in and from the grave, in which every dead
man dies over again. It was a prerogative peculiar to Christ, not to die
this death, not to see corruption. What gave him this privilege? Not
Joseph's great proportion of gums and spices, that might have preserved
his body from corruption and incineration longer than he needed it,
longer than three days, but it would not have done it for ever. What
preserved him then? Did his exemption and freedom from original sin
preserve him from this corruption and incineration? It is true that
original sin hath induced this corruption and incineration upon us; if
we had not sinned in Adam, _mortality had not put on immortality_[366]
(as the apostle speaks), nor _corruption had not put on incorruption_,
but we had had our transmigration from this to the other world without
any mortality, any corruption at all. But yet since Christ took sin upon
him, so far as made him mortal, he had it so far too as might have made
him see this corruption and incineration, though he had no original sin
in himself; what preserved him then? Did the hypostatical union of both
natures, God and man, preserve him from this corruption and
incineration? It is true that this was a most powerful embalming, to be
embalmed with the Divine Nature itself, to be embalmed with eternity,
was able to preserve him from corruption and incineration for ever. And
he was embalmed so, embalmed with the Divine Nature itself, even in his
body as well as in his soul; for the Godhead, the Divine Nature, did not
depart, but remained still united to his dead body in the grave; but yet
for all this powerful embalming, his hypostatical union of both natures,
we see Christ did die; and for all his union which made him God and man,
he became no man (for the union of the body and soul makes the man, and
he whose soul and body are separated by death as long as that state
lasts, is properly no man). And therefore as in him the dissolution of
body and soul was no dissolution of the hypostatical union, so there is
nothing that constrains us to say, that though the flesh of Christ had
seen corruption and incineration in the grave, this had not been any
dissolution of the hypostatical union, for the Divine nature, the
Godhead, might have remained with all the elements and principles of
Christ's body, as well as it did with the two constitutive parts of his
person, his body and his soul. This incorruption then was not in
Joseph's gums and spices, nor was it in Christ's innocency, and
exemption from original sin, nor was it (that is, it is not necessary to
say it was) in the hypostatical union. But this incorruptibleness of his
flesh is most conveniently placed in that; _Non dabis, thou wilt not
suffer thy Holy One to see corruption_; we look no further for causes or
reasons in the mysteries of religion, but to the will and pleasure of
God; Christ himself limited his inquisition in that _ita est, even so,
Father, for so it seemeth good in thy sight_. Christ's body did not see
corruption, therefore, because God had decreed it should not. The humble
soul (and only the humble soul is the religious soul) rests himself upon
God's purposes and the decrees of God which he hath declared and
manifested, not such as are conceived and imagined in ourselves, though
upon some probability, some verisimilitude; so in our present case
Peter proceeds in his sermon at Jerusalem, and so Paul in his at
Antioch.[367] They preached Christ to have been risen without seeing
corruption, not only because God had decreed it, but because he had
manifested that decree in his prophet, therefore doth Saint Paul cite by
special number the second Psalm for that decree, and therefore both
Saint Peter and Saint Paul cite for it that place in the sixteenth
Psalm;[368] for when God declares his decree and purpose in the express
words of his prophet, or when he declares it in the real execution of
the decree, then he makes it ours, then he manifests it to us. And
therefore, as the mysteries of our religion are not the objects of our
reason, but by faith we rest on God's decree and purpose--(it is so, O
God, because it is thy will it should be so)--so God's decrees are ever
to be considered in the manifestation thereof. All manifestation is
either in the word of God, or in the execution of the decree; and when
these two concur and meet it is the strongest demonstration that can be:
when therefore I find those marks of adoption and spiritual filiation
which are delivered in the word of God to be upon me; when I find that
real execution of his good purpose upon me, as that actually I do live
under the obedience and under the conditions which are evidences of
adoption and spiritual filiation; then, so long as I see these marks and
live so, I may safely comfort myself in a holy certitude and a modest
infallibility of my adoption. Christ determines himself in that, the
purpose of God was manifest to him; Saint Peter and Saint Paul determine
themselves in those two ways of knowing the purpose of God, the word of
God before the execution of the decree in the fulness of time. It was
prophesied before, said they, and it is performed now, Christ is risen
without seeing corruption. Now, this which is so singularly peculiar to
him, that his flesh should not see corruption, at his second coming, his
coming to judgment, shall extend to all that are then alive; their hestæ
shall not see corruption, because, as the apostle says, and says as a
secret, as a mystery, _Behold I shew you a mystery, we shall not all
sleep_ (that is, not continue in the state of the dead in the grave),
_but we shall all be changed in an instant_, we shall have a
dissolution, and in the same instant a redintegration, a recompacting of
body and soul, and that shall be truly a death and truly a resurrection,
but no sleeping in corruption; but for us that die now and sleep in the
state of the dead, we must all pass this posthume death, this death
after death, nay, this death after burial, this dissolution after
dissolution, this death of corruption and putrefaction, of vermiculation
and incineration, of dissolution and dispersion in and from the grave,
when these bodies that have been the children of royal parents, and the
parents of royal children, must say with Job, _Corruption, thou art my
father, and to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister_. Miserable
riddle, when the same worm must be my mother, and my sister and myself!
Miserable incest, when I must be married to my mother and my sister, and
be both father and mother to my own mother and sister, beget and bear
that worm which is all that miserable penury; when my mouth shall be
filled with dust, and the _worm shall feed, and feed sweetly_[369] upon
me; when the ambitious man shall have no satisfaction, if the poorest
alive tread upon him, nor the poorest receive any contentment in being
made equal to princes, for they shall be equal but in dust. _One dieth
at his full strength, being wholly at ease and in quiet; and another
dies in the bitterness of his soul, and never eats with pleasure_; but
_they lie down alike in the dust, and the worm covers them_.[370] In
Job and in Isaiah,[371] it covers them and is spread under them, _the
worm is spread under thee, and the worm covers thee_. There are the mats
and the carpets that lie under, and there are the state and the canopy
that hang over the greatest of the sons of men. Even those bodies that
were _the temples of the Holy Ghost_ come to this dilapidation, to ruin,
to rubbish, to dust; even the Israel of the Lord, and Jacob himself,
hath no other specification, no other denomination, but that _vermis
Jacob_, thou worm of Jacob. Truly the consideration of this posthume
death, this death after burial, that after God (with whom are the issues
of death) hath delivered me from the death of the womb, by bringing me
into the world, and from the manifold deaths of the world, by laying me
in the grave, I must die again in an incineration of this flesh, and in
a dispersion of that dust. That that monarch, who spread over many
nations alive, must in his dust lie in a corner of that sheet of lead,
and there but so long as that lead will last; and that private and
retired man, that thought himself his own for ever, and never came
forth, must in his dust of the grave be published, and (such are the
revolutions of the grave) be mingled with the dust of every highway and
of every dunghill, and swallowed in every puddle and pond. This is the
most inglorious and contemptible vilification, the most deadly and
peremptory nullification of man, that we can consider. God seems to have
carried the declaration of his power to a great height, when he sets the
prophet Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones, and says, _Son of man, can
these bones live?_ as though it had been impossible, and yet they did;
the Lord laid _sinews upon them, and flesh, and breathed into them, and
they did live_. But in that case there were bones to be seen, something
visible, of which it might be said, Can this thing live? But in this
death of incineration and dispersion of dust, we see nothing that we
call that man's. If we say, Can this dust live? Perchance it cannot; it
may be the mere dust of the earth, which never did live, never shall. It
may be the dust of that man's worm, which did live, but shall no more.
It may be the dust of another man, that concerns not him of whom it was
asked. This death of incineration and dispersion is, to natural reason,
the most irrecoverable death of all; and yet _Domini Domini sunt exitus
mortis, unto God the Lord belong the issues of death_; and by
recompacting this dust into the same body, and remaining the same body
with the same soul, he shall in a blessed and glorious resurrection give
me such an issue from this death as shall never pass into any other
death, but establish me into a life that shall last as long as the Lord
of Life himself.

And so have you that that belongs to the first acceptation of these
words (_unto God the Lord belong the issues of death_); That though from
the womb to the grave, and in the grave itself, we pass from death to
death, yet, as Daniel speaks, _the Lord our God is able to deliver us,
and he will deliver us_.

And so we pass unto our second accommodation of these words (_unto God
the Lord belong the issues of death_); that it belongs to God, and not
to man, to pass a judgment upon us at our death, or to conclude a
dereliction on God's part upon the manner thereof.

Those indications which the physicians receive, and those presagitions
which they give for death or recovery in the patient, they receive and
they give out of the grounds and the rules of their art; but we have no
such rule or art to give a presagition of spiritual death and damnation
upon any such indication as we see in any dying man; we see often
enough to be sorry, but not to despair; we may be deceived both ways: we
use to comfort ourself in the death of a friend, if it be testified that
he went away like a lamb, that is, without any reluctation; but God
knows that may be accompanied with a dangerous damp and stupefaction,
and insensibility of his present state. Our blessed Saviour suffered
colluctations with death, and a _sadness even in his soul to death_, and
an agony even to a bloody sweat in his body, and expostulations with
God, and exclamations upon the cross. He was a devout man who said upon
his death-bed, or death-turf (for he was a hermit), _Septuaginta annos
Domino servivisti, et mori times?_ Hast thou served a good master
threescore and ten years, and now art thou loth to go into his presence?
Yet Hilarion was loth. Barlaam was a devout man (a hermit too) that said
that day he died, _Cogita te hodie cæpisse servire Domino, et hodie
finiturum_, Consider this to be the first day's service that ever thou
didst thy Master, to glorify him in a Christianly and a constant death,
and if thy first day be thy last day too, how soon dost thou come to
receive thy wages! Yet Barlaam could have been content to have stayed
longer forth. Make no ill conclusions upon any man's lothness to die,
for the mercies of God work momentarily in minutes, and many times
insensibly to bystanders, or any other than the party departing. And
then upon violent deaths inflicted as upon malefactors, Christ himself
hath forbidden us by his own death to make any ill conclusion; for his
own death had those impressions in it; he was reputed, he was executed
as a malefactor, and no doubt many of them who concurred to his death
did believe him to be so. Of sudden death there are scarce examples be
found in the Scriptures upon good men, for death in battle cannot be
called sudden death; but God governs not by examples but by rules, and
therefore make no ill conclusion upon sudden death nor upon distempers
neither, though perchance accompanied with some words of diffidence and
distrust in the mercies of God. The tree lies as it falls, it is true,
but it is not the last stroke that fells the tree, nor the last word nor
gasp that qualifies the soul. Still pray we for a peaceable life against
violent death, and for time of repentance against sudden death, and for
sober and modest assurance against distempered and diffident death, but
never make ill conclusions upon persons overtaken with such deaths;
_Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis, to God the Lord belong the issues of
death_. And he received Samson, who went out of this world in such a
manner (consider it actively, consider it passively in his own death,
and in those whom he slew with himself) as was subject to interpretation
hard enough. Yet the Holy Ghost hath moved Saint Paul to celebrate
Samson in his great catalogue,[372] and so doth all the church. Our
critical day is not the very day of our death, but the whole course of
our life. I thank him that prays for me when the bell tolls, but I thank
him much more that catechises me, or preaches to me, or instructs me how
to live. _Fac hoc et vive_, there is my security, the mouth of the Lord
hath said it, _do this and thou shalt live_. But though I do it, yet I
shall die too, die a bodily, a natural death. But God never mentions,
never seems to consider that death, the bodily, the natural death. God
doth not say, Live well, and thou shalt die well, that is, an easy, a
quiet death; but, Live well here, and thou shalt live well for ever. As
the first part of a sentence pieces well with the last, and never
respects, never hearkens after the parenthesis that comes between, so
doth a good life here flow into an eternal life, without any
consideration what manner of death we die. But whether the gate of my
prison be opened with an oiled key (by a gentle and preparing sickness),
or the gate be hewn down by a violent death, or the gate be burnt down
by a raging and frantic fever, a gate into heaven I shall have, for from
the Lord is the cause of my life, and _with God the Lord are the issues
of death_. And further we carry not this second acceptation of the
words, as this _issue of death_ is _liberatio in morte_, God's care that
the soul be safe, what agonies soever the body suffers in the hour of
death.

But pass to our third part and last part: As this issue of death is
_liberatio per mortem_, a deliverance by the death of another.
_Sufferentiam Job audiisti, et vidisti finem Domini_, says Saint James
(v. 11), _You have heard of the patience of Job_, says he: all this
while you have done that, for in every man, calamitous, miserable man, a
Job speaks. Now, _see the end of the Lord_, sayeth that apostle, which
is not that end that the Lord proposed to himself (salvation to us), nor
the end which he proposes to us (conformity to him), but _see the end of
the Lord_, says he, the end that the Lord himself came to, death, and a
painful and a shameful death. But why did he die? and why die so? _Quia
Domini Domini sunt exitus mortis_ (as Saint Augustine, interpreting this
text, answers that question),[373] because to this _God our Lord
belonged the issues of death. Quid apertius diceretur?_ says he there,
what can be more obvious, more manifest than this sense of these words?
In the former part of this verse it is said, He that is _our God is the
God of salvation; Deus salvos faciendi_, so he reads it, the God that
must save us. Who can that be, says he, but Jesus? For therefore that
name was given him because he was to save us. And to this Jesus, says
he, this Saviour,[374] _belong the issues of death_; _Nec oportuit eum
de hac vita alios exitus habere quam mortis_: being come into this life
in our mortal nature, he could not go out of this life any other way but
by death. _Ideo dictum_, says he, therefore it is said, _to God the Lord
belonged the issues of death; ut ostenderetur moriendo nos salvos
facturum_, to show that his way to save us was to die. And from this
text doth Saint Isidore prove that Christ was truly man (which as many
sects of heretics denied, as that he was truly God), because to him,
though he were _Dominus Dominus_ (as the text doubles it), God the Lord,
yet to _him, to God the Lord belonged the issues of death_; _oportuit
eum pati_; more cannot be said than Christ himself says of himself;
_These things Christ ought to suffer_;[375] he had no other way but
death: so then this part of our sermon must needs be a passion sermon,
since all his life was a continual passion, all our Lent may well be a
continual Good Friday. Christ's painful life took off none of the pains
of his death, he felt not the less then for having felt so much before.
Nor will any thing that shall be said before lessen, but rather enlarge
the devotion, to that which shall be said of his passion at the time of
due solemnization thereof. Christ bled not a drop the less at the last
for having bled at his circumcision before, nor will you a tear the less
then if you shed some now. And therefore be now content to consider with
me how _to this God the Lord belonged the issues of death_. That God,
this Lord, the Lord of life, could die, is a strange contemplation; that
the Red Sea could be dry, that the sun could stand still, that an oven
could be seven times heat and not burn, that lions could be hungry and
not bite, is strange, miraculously strange, but super-miraculous that
God _could_ die; but that God _would_ die is an exaltation of that. But
even of that also it is a super-exaltation, that God should die, must
die, and _non exitus_ (said Saint Augustine), God the Lord had no issue
but by death, and _oportuit pati_ (says Christ himself), all this Christ
ought to suffer, was bound to suffer; _Deus ultimo Deus_, says David,
God is the God of revenges, he would not pass over the son of man
unrevenged, unpunished. But then _Deus ultionum libere egit_ (says that
place), the God of revenges works freely, he punishes, he spares whom he
will. And would he not spare himself? he would not: _Dilectio fortis ut
mors, love is strong as death_;[376] stronger, it drew in death, that
naturally is not welcome. _Si possibile_ says Christ, _if it be
possible, let this cup pass_, when his love, expressed in a former
decree with his Father, had made it impossible. _Many waters quench not
love._[377] Christ tried many: he was baptised out of his love, and his
love determined not there; he mingled blood with water in his agony, and
that determined not his love; he wept pure blood, all his blood at all
his eyes, at all his pores, in his flagellation and thorns (_to the Lord
our God belonged the issues of blood_), and these expressed, but these
did not quench his love. He would not spare, nay, he could not spare
himself. There was nothing more free, more voluntary, more spontaneous
than the death of Christ. It is true, _libere egit_, he died
voluntarily; but yet when we consider the contract that had passed
between his Father and him, there was an _oportuit_, a kind of necessity
upon him: all this _Christ ought to suffer_. And when shall we date this
obligation, this _oportuit_, this necessity? When shall we say that
began? Certainly this decree by which Christ was to suffer all this was
an eternal decree, and was there any thing before that that was eternal?
Infinite love, eternal love; be pleased to follow this home, and to
consider it seriously, that what liberty soever we can conceive in
Christ to die or not to die; this necessity of dying, this decree is as
eternal as that liberty; and yet how small a matter made he of this
necessity and this dying? His Father calls it but a bruise, and but a
bruising of his heel[378] (the serpent shall bruise his heel), and yet
that was, that the serpent should practise and compass his death.
Himself calls it but a baptism, as though he were to be the better for
it. I _have a baptism to be baptised with_,[379] and he was in pain till
it was accomplished, and yet this baptism was his death. The Holy Ghost
calls it joy (_for the joy which was set before him he endured the
cross_),[380] which was not a joy of his reward after his passion, but a
joy that filled him even in the midst of his torments, and arose from
him; when Christ calls his _calicem_ a cup, and no worse (_Can ye drink
of my cup_)[381], he speaks not odiously, not with detestation of it.
Indeed it was a cup, _salus mundo_, a health to all the world. And _quid
retribuam_, says David, _What shall I render to the Lord?_[382] Answer
you with David, _Accipiam calicem, I will take the cup of salvation_;
take it, that cup is salvation, his passion, if not into your present
imitation, yet into your present contemplation. And behold how that Lord
that was God, yet could die, would die, must die for our salvation. That
Moses and Elias talked with Christ in the transfiguration, both Saint
Matthew and Saint Mark[383] tells us, but what they talked of, only
Saint Luke; _Dicebant excessum ejus_, says he, _They talked of his
disease, of his death, which was to be accomplished at Jerusalem_.[384]
The word is of his _exodus_, the very word of our text, _exitus_, his
_issue by death_. Moses, who in his exodus had prefigured this issue of
our Lord, and in passing Israel out of Egypt through the Red Sea, had
foretold in that actual prophecy, Christ passing of mankind through the
sea of his blood; and Elias, whose exodus and issue of this world was a
figure of Christ's ascension; had no doubt a great satisfaction in
talking with our blessed Lord, _de excessu ejus_, of the full
consummation of all this in his death, which was to be accomplished at
Jerusalem. Our meditation of his death should be more visceral, and
affect us more, because it is of a thing already done. The ancient
Romans had a certain tenderness and detestation of the name of death;
they could not name death, no, not in their wills; there they could not
say, _Si mori contigerit_, but _si quid humanitas contingat_, not if or
when I die, but when the course of nature is accomplished upon me. To us
that speak daily of the death of Christ (he was crucified, dead, and
buried), can the memory or the mention of our own death be irksome or
bitter? There are in these latter times amongst us that name death
freely enough, and the death of God, but in blasphemous oaths and
execrations. Miserable men, who shall therefore be said never to have
named Jesus, because they have named him too often; and therefore hear
Jesus say, _Nescivi vos, I never knew you_, because they made themselves
too familiar with him. Moses and Elias talked with Christ of his death
only in a holy and joyful sense, of the benefit which they and all the
world were to receive by that. Discourses of religion should not be out
of curiosity, but to edification. And then they talked with Christ of
his death at that time when he was in the greatest height of glory, that
ever he admitted in this world, that is, his transfiguration. And we are
afraid to speak to the great men of this world of their death, but
nourish in them a vain imagination of immortality and immutability. But
_bonum est nobis esse hic_ (as Saint Peter said there), _It is good to
dwell here_, in this consideration of his death, and therefore transfer
we our tabernacle (our devotions) through some of those steps which God
the Lord made to his _issue of death_ that day. Take in the whole day
from the hour that Christ received the passover upon Thursday unto the
hour in which he died the next day. Make this present day that day in
thy devotion, and consider what he did, and remember what you have done.
Before he instituted and celebrated the sacrament (which was after the
eating of the passover), he proceeded to that act of humility, to wash
his disciples' feet, even Peter's, who for a while resisted him. In thy
preparation to the holy and blessed sacrament, hast thou with a sincere
humility sought a reconciliation with all the world, even with those
that have been averse from it, and refused that reconciliation from
thee? If so, and not else, thou hast spent that first part of his last
day in a conformity with him. After the sacrament he spent the time till
night in prayer, in preaching, in psalms: hast thou considered that a
worthy receiving of the sacrament consists in a continuation of holiness
after, as well as in a preparation before? If so, thou hast therein also
conformed thyself to him; so Christ spent his time till night. At night
he went into the garden to pray, and he prayed prolixious, he spent much
time in prayer, how much? Because it is literally expressed, that he
prayed there three several times,[385] and that returning to his
disciples after his first prayer, and finding them asleep, said, _Could
ye not watch with me one hour_,[386] it is collected that he spent three
hours in prayer. I dare scarce ask thee whither thou wentest, or how
thou disposedst of thyself, when it grew dark and after last night. If
that time were spent in a holy recommendation of thyself to God, and a
submission of thy will to his, it was spent in a conformity to him. In
that time, and in those prayers, was his agony and bloody sweat. I will
hope that thou didst pray; but not every ordinary and customary prayer,
but prayer actually accompanied with shedding of tears and dispositively
in a readiness to shed blood for his glory in necessary cases, puts thee
into a conformity with him. About midnight he was taken and bound with a
kiss, art thou not too conformable to him in that? Is not that too
literally, too exactly thy case, at midnight to have been taken and
bound with a kiss? From thence he was carried back to Jerusalem, first
to Annas, then to Caiaphas, and (as late as it was) then he was examined
and buffeted, and delivered over to the custody of those officers from
whom he received all those irrisions, and violences, the covering of his
face, the spitting upon his face, the blasphemies of words, and the
smartness of blows, which that gospel mentions: in which compass fell
that gallicinium, that crowing of the cock which called up Peter to his
repentance. How thou passedst all that time thou knowest. If thou didst
any thing that needest Peter's tears, and hast not shed them, let me be
thy cock, do it now. Now, thy Master (in the unworthiest of his
servants) looks back upon thee, do it now. Betimes, in the morning, so
soon as it was day, the Jews held a council in the high priest's hall,
and agreed upon their evidence against him, and then carried him to
Pilate, who was to be his judge; didst thou accuse thyself when thou
wakedst this morning, and wast thou content even with false accusations,
that is, rather to suspect actions to have been sin, which were not,
than to smother and justify such as were truly sins? Then thou spentest
that hour in conformity to him; Pilate found no evidence against him,
and therefore to ease himself, and to pass a compliment upon Herod,
tetrarch of Galilee, who was at that time at Jerusalem (because Christ,
being a Galilean, was of Herod's jurisdiction), Pilate sent him to
Herod, and rather as a madman than a malefactor; Herod remanded him
(with scorn) to Pilate, to proceed against him; and this was about eight
of the clock. Hast thou been content to come to this inquisition, this
examination, this agitation, this cribration, this pursuit of thy
conscience; to sift it, to follow it from the sins of thy youth to thy
present sins, from the sins of thy bed to the sins of thy board, and
from the substance to the circumstance of thy sins? That is time spent
like thy Saviour's. Pilate would have saved Christ, by using the
privilege of the day in his behalf, because that day one prisoner was to
be delivered, but they choose Barabbas; he would have saved him from
death, by satisfying their fury with inflicting other torments upon him,
scourging and crowning with thorns, and loading him with many scornful
and ignominious contumelies; but they regarded him not, they pressed a
crucifying. Hast thou gone about to redeem thy sin, by fasting, by alms,
by disciplines and mortifications, in way of satisfaction to the justice
of God? That will not serve, that is not the right way; we press an
utter crucifying of that sin that governs thee: and that conforms thee
to Christ. Towards noon Pilate gave judgment, and they made such haste
to execution as that by noon he was upon the cross. There now hangs that
sacred body upon the cross, rebaptized in his own tears, and sweat, and
embalmed in his own blood alive. There are those bowels of compassion
which are so conspicuous, so manifested, as that you may see them
through his wounds. There those glorious eyes grew faint in their sight,
so as the sun, ashamed to survive them, departed with his light too.
And then that Son of God, who was never from us, and yet had now come a
new way unto us in assuming our nature, delivers that soul (which was
never out of his Father's hands) by a _new way_, a voluntary emission of
it into his Father's hands; for though _to this God our Lord belonged
these issues of death_, so that considered in his own contract, he must
necessarily die, yet at no breach or battery which they had made upon
his sacred body issued his soul; but _emisit_, he gave up the ghost; and
as God breathed a soul into the first Adam, so this second Adam breathed
his soul into God, into the hands of God.

There we leave you in that blessed dependency, to hang upon him that
hangs upon the cross, there bathe in his tears, there suck at his
wounds, and lie down in peace in his grave, till he vouchsafe you a
resurrection, and an ascension into that kingdom which He hath prepared
for you with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood. Amen.

FOOTNOTES:

[347] Psalm cxv. 6.

[348] Psalm cxxxix. 6.

[349] Psalm cxviii. 23.

[350] Psalm c. 3.

[351] Isaiah, xxxvii. 3.

[352] Rom. vii. 24.

[353] Gen. vi. 14.

[354] Gen. iv. 1.

[355] John, xiv. 2.

[356] Matt. viii. 20.

[357] Heb. xiii. 14.

[358] Exod. xvii. 1.

[359] Gen. xlvii. 9.

[360] 2 Cor. v. 6.

[361] Job, x. 18, 19.

[362] Exod. xvi. 3.

[363] 1 Kings, xix. 4.

[364] Jonah, iv. 3.

[365] Rev. i. 18.

[366] 1 Cor. xv. 33.

[367] Acts, ii. 31; xiii. 35.

[368] Ver. 10.

[369] Job, xxiv. 20.

[370] Job, xxi. 23, 25, 26.

[371] Isaiah, xiv. 11.

[372] Heb. xi.

[373] De Civitate Dei, lib. xvii.

[374] Matt. i. 21.

[375] Luke, xxiv. 26.

[376] Cant. viii. 6.

[377] _Ibid._ 7.

[378] Gen. iii. 15.

[379] Luke, xii. 50.

[380] Heb. xii. 2.

[381] Matt. xx. 22.

[382] Psalm cxvi. 12.

[383] Matt. xvii. 3; Mark, ix. 4.

[384] Luke, ix. 31.

[385] Luke, xxii. 41.

[386] Matt. xxvi. 40.


Transcribers Notes:

I corrected an error in Footnote 1. The original book said
Matt. xiii. 16, which I corrected to verse 15.

I corrected an error in Footnote 65. The original book said
Jer., which I corrected to Lam.


End of Project Gutenberg's Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, by John Donne



# Donne's Sermons: Selected Passages (Logan Pearsall Smith, 1919)

Donne s 
SERMONS 

Selected 'Passages 

WITH AN ESSAY 
by 


Logan Pearsall Smith 


®^' 


OXFORD 

At the Clarendon Press 

M DCCCC XIX 


6X 
5/33 

f '? / ^ 

CONTENTS 


PAGE 

I. The Preacher .... 

I 

2. When I consider 

2 

3, I am Not all Here 

3 

4. Imperfect Prayers 

4 

5. Powers and Principalities 

5 

6. Infecting God .... 

6 

7. Forgiveness of Sins 

7 

8. Forgive my Sins. , ' . 

7 

9. Let Me Wither .... 

9 

10. Donne and the Worm . 

10 

II. Preaching Consolation , 

II 

12. The Beauty of the Soul 

. 13 

13. Spiritual Liberality 

. 14 

14. Eagle's Wings .... 

. 15 

15. The Hour-Glass 

. 17 

16. Preaching ..... 

18 

17. Applause ..... 

. 19 

18. The Bellman .... 

20 

19. Favourite Scriptures . 

21 

20. The Psalms .... 

. 23 

21. Sanctified Passions 

.24 

22. Style and Language 

. 26 

23. Style otthe Holy Ghost 

. 28 

24. Compliments . . . . . 

. 28 

25. Lying at Aix . , . . . 

■ 30 

26. Farewell on Going to Germany . 

• 31 

27. The Vicar of St. Dunstan's . 

. 34 

28. Funeral Sermon on Magdalen Herbert, 

Lady Dan- 

vers, 1627 .... 

• 35 

29. Death of Elizabeth and Accession of Ja 

mes I . 47 

VI 


Contents. 


30. The Gunpowder Plot ...... 

31. Preached to the Honourable Company of the 

Virginian Plantation, 1622 

32. The Mission of England 

33. James I 

34. Death of James I 

35. The Plague, 1625 

36. Difficult Times . 

37. Polemical Preaching 

38. The World Decays 

39. Imperfection 

40. Man. 

41. Afflictions . 

42. Discontent 

43. The World a House 

44. Mundus Mare . 

45. The IndiflFerence of Nature 

46. Wealth 

47. A London Merchant 

48. Sickness 

49. Public Opinion . 

50. Joy . 

51. Women 

52. Cosmetics . 

53. The Skin . 

54. Mud Walls 

55. Ignorance . 

56. The Imperfection of Knowledge 

57. Change of Mind 

58. Reasons and Faith 

59. True Knowledge 

60. Terrible Things 

61. The Fate of the Heathen 

62. The Church a Company 

63. God Proceeds Legally 

64. The Church 

65. Reverence in Church . 

66. Going to Church 


PAGE 

50 


Contents. 


Vll 


67. 

68. 
69. 
70. 

71- 
72. 

73- 
74- 
75- 
76. 

77. 
78. 

79- 
80. 
81. 
82. 

83. 
84. 

85. 
86. 
87. 


90. 

91- 
92. 

93- 
94- 
95. 
96. 

97- 
98. 

99- 
100, 

lOI. 

102 
103 
104 


Prayer 

Prayer 

The Time of Prayer 

At Table and Bed 

Unconscious Prayer 

Sermons . 

New Doctrines . 

Papist and Puritan 

Theological Dissensions 

Despair 

The Sociableness of God 

God a Circle 

God's Mirror , 

God's Names 

God's Mercies . 

God not Cruel . 

The Voice of God 

God's Language . 

God's Anger 

God's Faults 

God's Judgements 

Terrible Things 

God's Malediction 

God's Power 

Access to God . 

The Image of God in Man 

Man God's Enemy 

The Atheist 

The Angels 

The Devil. 

The Creation 

The Heavens and Earth 

The Creation of a Harmonious World 

God and Adam and Eve 
. The World since the Fall 
. Silkworms . 
. Original Sin 
. Original Sin 


PAGE 
121 
122 
122 
124 
125 
126 
129 
130 
131 
133 
133 
134 
135 
135 
136 
140 
140 
142 
144 
144 

147 
148 
149 
150 

153 

154 

157 
159 
161 
162 
163 
164 
165 
166 
168 


Vlll 


Contents. 


105. 
106. 
[07. 
[08. 
109. 
10. 
[II. 
12. 

13- 
14. 

[15. 
16. 
17. 
18. 
19. 

[20. 
121. 

[22. 

123. 
[24. 
[25. 
[26. 
[27. 
[28. 
[29. 
[30. 

31- 

[32. 

'33- 
'34- 
'35- 
.36. 

'37- 
138. 

'39- 
f4o. 
141. 
r42. 


The Heart of the Sinner 

Light Sins 

The Sin of Reason 

Delight in Evil 

Excuses 

Rebuke of Sin 

Names of Sins 

Pride 

Covetousness 

Blasphemy 

The Burden of 

The Sinner 

The Sorrows of the Wicked 

The Sins of Memory . 

The Eye of God 

The World Drowned in Sin 

The Hand of God 

The Sick Soul 

Sleep 

The Gate of Death 

Our Prison 

All must Die 

Death Inevitable 

The Expectation of Death 

The Death-bed . 

The Death of Ecstasy . 

The Dead with Us 

Mourning . 

A Quiet Grave . 

Eternal Damnation 

Death of the Good and the Bad Man 

The Northern Passage 

The Resurrection 

The Awakening . 

The Resurrection of the Body 

The Last Day 

The Day of Judgement 

Joy . 


Contents. 


143. The Joy of Heaven 

144. Little Stars 

145. Heirs of Heaven . 

146. Seeing God 

147. The Sight of God 

148. The State of Glory 

149. Justice 

150. Knowledge in Heaven 

151. Eternity . 

152. Eternity , 

153. Eternity . 

154. Joy in Heaven 

155. Donne's Last Sermon 


IX 

PAGE 

219 
221 
221 
222 
224 
227 
230 
233 

235 
23s 
236 

238 


r:^'^^^^zs2 


Frontispiece 

Portrait of the Author in his Shroud : 
the frontispiece to Death's Duel 1632 


NOTE 

I REFER In my notes to the three folios of Donne's 
Sermons as I, II, and III respectively. I is the first 
folio, LXXX Sermons^ 1640 ; II is Fifty Sermons, 1649 ; 
III is XXVI Sermons, 1660. The text of each passage 
is taken from the first appearance of the sermon which 
contains it in print, whether in the folios, or in the earHer 
pubhshed quartos of separate sermons printed in Donne's 
lifetime, or shortly after his death. The original 
punctuation has been preserved ; and also the original 
spelling, except in the use of ' i ' for ' j ', of * u ' for * v ' 
and vice versa, and of contractions for ' m ' or ' n '. 
I refer to Professor Grierson's edition of Donne's Poems 
{The Poems of John Donne, edited by Herbert J. C. 
Grierson, M.A., Oxford, at the Clarendon Press, 191 2) 
as Poems ; to The Life and Letters of John Donne, 
by Edmund Gosse (London, William Heinemann, 1899), 
as Gosse ; to John Donne, by Augustus Jessopp, D.D. 
(Methuen and Co., 1897), as Jessopp. Spearing refers 
to Miss Spearing's 'A Chronological Arrangement of 
Donne's Sermons ' (Modern Languages Review, vol. viii, 
191 3) ; Coleridge, to Coleridge's ' Notes on Donne ', pub- 
lished in 7he Literary Remains of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 
collected and arranged by Henry Nelson Coleridge, 1838, 
vol. iii. C. and T. J as. I, and C. and T. Charles I, refer 


xii Note. 

to The Court and Times of James the First (1848), and 
The Court and Times of Charles the First (1848). The 
references to Donne's Devotions are to the first edition 
of 1624. Ramsay refers to Miss Ramsay's Les Doctrines 
medievales chez Donne, le Poete metaphysicien de VAngle- 
terre (Oxford University Press, 19 17). I must express 
my special thanks to Mr. Edmund Gosse, C.B,, for his 
kindness in lending me a number of very rare first editions 
of Donne's sermons from his collection of Donne's works. 


INTRODUCTION 

THE remarkable and somewhat enigmatic figure of 
John Donne is one that has attracted a good deal of 
attention in recent years ; his Hfe has been studied, his 
poems and letters carefully edited, his character analysed, 
and his position as a poet acutely debated. His harshness, 
his crabbed and often frigid way of writing, his forced 
conceits, his cynicism and sensuahty, are extremely 
repellent to some readers ; while to others his sublety, 
his reahsm, and a certain modern and intimate quaHty 
in his poems, illuminated as they are with splendid 
flashes of imaginative fire, possess an extraordinary 
interest and fascination. There are people who hate 
Donne ; there are others who love him, but there are 
very few who have read his poems and remain quite 
indifferent to him. His character is still a puzzle, his 
reputation as a poet, echpsed for a long time and only 
revived in our own day, is by no means yet the subject of 
final agreement. 

In spite of this modern interest in Donne, and the 
study which has been devoted to his works, there is one 
aspect of them which, until recently, has received no very 
adequate attention. In addition to his poems, his letters, 
and a few minor prose pieces, Donne left behind him 
an immense body of theological writings. By birth and 


xiv Introduction. 

hy the tradition of his family a Roman Catholic, and 
for that reason shut out in his youth from the paths of 
secular ambition which had so great an attraction for 
him, he was of necessity much preoccupied with theo- 
logical considerations ; and it was not till after much 
study of controversial divinity that he succeeded in 
convincing himself of the truth of the Anghcan position, 
which he finally made his own, and which, even in his 
secular days, he emphatically defended. When at the 
age of forty-two, after long experience of poverty and 
many worldly disappointments, he found all other paths 
of preferment closed to him, and at last, after much 
hesitation, took religious orders, he then began that 
career as a great divine and preacher which, until the 
revival of interest in his poetry, remained his principal 
claim to remembrance. But his fame as a preacher has 
been this long time fame at second hand ; it is due to 
Izaak Walton's descriptions of his sermons, rather than to 
any reading of the sermons themselves. The very 
quantity, indeed, of his sermons — and no Anglican 
divine of the period has left behind him such a number — 
has discouraged students from thorough study of them ; 
and, indeed, to read these great folio volumes is a task 
not lightly to be undertaken. But it is not only the 
mere bulk and body of these folios, the great number and 
length of Donne's sermons, which daunts the reader ; 
there is much in the writing itself which renders it diffi- 
cult and distasteful to the modern mind. In the first 
place sermons themselves, and especially old sermons, 
have fallen somewhat out of fashion ; they are not 
often read now, and the collected and repubhshed editions 


Introduction. xv 

of the great seventeenth century divines rest for the 
most part unopened on our shelves. People read novels, 
biographies, books of travel, social and political treatises 
instead of the sermons in which their grandfathers and 
grandmothers delighted : Hooker, Barrow, South, Tillotson 
are names indeed, but Httle more than names to most 
of us ; and even so great a writer of English prose, so 
exquisite an artist as Jeremy Taylor, is familiar to us 
only in extracts and selected passages. For modern 
theologians this old divinity, with its obsolete learning 
and forgotten controversies, has little more than an 
archaeological interest ; while to the more secular- 
minded, the old divines, whose severe brows and square 
faces meet our eyes when we open their great folios, seem, 
with their imposed dogmas, their heavy and obsolete 
methods of exposition and controversy, almost as if they 
belonged to some remote geological era of human 
thought. We are reminded of Taine's image of them as 
giant mastodons or megatheria, slowly winding their 
scaly backs through the primeval slime, and meeting 
each other, armed with syllogisms and bristling with 
texts, in theological battle, to tear the flesh from one 
another's flanks with their great talons, and cover their 
opponents with filth in their efforts to destroy them. 

And yet these old divines were great men and great 
writers, their voices enthralled the best and wisest of 
their own generation, and it is a misfortune for their 
fame, and a misfortune for our literature, that they put 
their wisdom and observation and deep feeling, their 
great gifts of imagination, and their often exquisite 
mastery of the art of expression into the hortatory 


xvi Introduction. 

and controversial form of the sermon which time has 
rendered obsolete. 

It must be admitted that all the reasons, good or bad, 
which keep us from reading writers like Jeremy Taylor 
and South, face us at once, and seem even more valid, 
when we open a volume of Donne's sermons. All that 
has ceased to interest, all that actually repels us in the 
old theology, the- scholastic divinity, the patristic learn- 
ing, the torturing of texts, the interpretation of old 
prophesies, the obsolete controversies and refutation of 
forgotten heresies, the insistence on moral commonplaces, 
the intolerance of human frailty, and the menaces of 
fearful judgement on it — ^with all these stock subjects, 
Donne, like his contemporaries, filled his sermons. But 
his case is even worse than theirs ; not only as a theolo- 
gian was he of an older breed, more remote and medieval 
than Jeremy Taylor or South, he had also, personal to 
himself, the unhappy faculty of developing to their 
utmost the faults of any form of literary expression he 
adopted ; and when he abandoned verse for sermon- 
writing, every defect of this kind of composition, every- 
thing that most offends us in the old preachers and sound 
expositors, was carried by him to a pitch which gives 
him a bad eminence over the most unreadable of them all. 

That sermons like Donne's should have held great 
congregations spellbound seems astonishing, not only 
to the secular mind, but to theologians themselves. One 
of Donne's most distinguished successors at the Deanery 
of St. Paul's, Dean Milman, has written of them : 

' It is difficult for a Dean of our rapid and restless days 
to imagine, when he surveys the massy foUos of Donne's 


Introduction. xvii 

sermons — each sermon spreads out over many pages — 
a vast congregation in the Cathedral or at Paul's Cross, 
listening not only with patience but with absorbed 
interest, with unflagging attention, even with delight 
and rapture, to these interminable disquisitions, to us 
teeming with laboured obscurity, false and misplaced wit, 
fatiguing antitheses. However set off, as by all accounts 
they were, by a most graceful and impressive dehvery, 
it is astonishing to us that he should hold a London 
congregation enthralled, unwearied, unsatiated. Yet 
there can be no doubt that this was the case. And this 
congregation consisted, both of the people down to the 
lowest, and of the most noble, wise, accomphshed of that 
highly intellectual age. They sat, even stood, undisturbed, 
except by their own murmurs of admiration, sometimes 
by hardly suppressed tears.' ^ 

It is only necessary to open a volume of Donne's sermons 
to find a justification for his successor's criticism. For 
instance, in preaching to Charles I at Whitehall on the 
text ' In my Father's house are many mansions, if it were 
not so, I would have told you ', he begins : 

' There are occasions of Controversies of all kinds in this 
one Verse ; And one is, whether this be one Verse or 
no ; For as there are Doctrinall Controversies, out of 
the sense and interpretation of the words, so are there 
Grammaticall differences about the Distinction, and 
Interpunction of them : some Translations differing 
thereinn from the Originall (as the Originall Copies are 
distinguished, and interpuncted now) and some differing 
from one another. The first Translation that was, that 
into Syriaque, as it is expressed by Tremellius, renders 
these words absolutely, precisely as our two Translations 
doe ; And, as our two Translations doe, applies the 

' Annals of S. PauVs Cathedral, Henry Hart Milman, D.D., 2nd ed., 
1869, p. 328. 

3025-3 b 


xviii Introduction. 

second clause and proposition, Si quo minus, if it were not 
so, I would have told you, as in affirmation, and confirma- 
tion of the former, In domo Patris, In my Fathers house 
there are many Mansions, For, ij it were not so I would 
have told you. But then, as both our Translations doe, 
the Syriaque also admits into this Verse a third clause 
and proposition, Vade parare, I goe to -prepare you a place. 
Now Bez.a doth not so ; Piscator doth not so ; They 
determine this Verse in those two propositions which 
constitute our Text, In my Fathers house, etc. And then 
they let fall the third proposition, as an inducement, 
and inchoation of the next Verse.' ^ 

So the sermon goes inexorably on, immense paragraph 
after paragraph filled with quotations from the Fathers 
and quibbling controversies with Roman Catholic 
theologianSjtill suddenly the page hghts up with a descrip- 
tion of the unending day of eternity unsurpassed in our 
literature, how ' all the foure Monarchies, with all their 
thousands of yeares. And all the powerfuU Kings, and all 
the beautifull Queenes of this world, were but as a bed 
of flowers, some gathered at six, some at seaven, some at 
eight, All in one Morning, in respect of this Day ', and 
how, during all the time that had passed since the Creation, 
in this timeless mansion of Eternity, ' there was never 
heard quarter clock to strike, never seen minute glasse 
to turne '.^ 

Contrasts almost as surprising as this meet us in the 
sermons of other seventeenth century preachers, and 
here and there we come on passages of poignant expression 
and lyrical or sombre beauty clothed in the noblest 
language. For while the sermon, regarded merely as 

1 I, p. 737. * See No. 153. 


Introduction. xix 

a form of literary expression, has undoubted disadvantages 
which render the sermons of one age difficult for the next 
age to appreciate, yet on the other hand this form of 
expression is one — since its subject matter is nothing 
less than the whole of life — ^which gives the widest 
possible scope to a great preacher. He can pour his whole 
soul into his sermon, his hopes, fears, and self-accusations, 
the furthest flights of his imagination, the ripest results 
of his philosophic meditations, all the wisdom of mellow 
experience, and even the most amusing details of satiric 
observation. The very circumstances of his dehvery, the 
ceremonious solemnity of the church and pulpit, the great 
responsibihty of the occasion, give a nobihty to his 
utterance ; and the presence of the congregation, the 
need to speak directly to the hearts and minds of men and 
women, lends a certain dramatic intensity to all he says. 
Such circumstances, while they are full of danger for 
an insincere and rhetorical preacher, provide the most 
splendid opportunities for one endowed with earnest 
purpose and a sincere imagination. The exhortations 
of such a preacher can hardly help being noble in expres- 
sion ; and it is in the sermon therefore that we find 
some of the highest achievements of English prose — 
in the sermon, or in prophetic or didactic or even political 
eloquence written with the same high impulse and inspira- 
tion. For great prose needs a great subject matter, 
needs great themes and a high spectacular point of 
vision, and solemn and clear and steadfast conception of 
life and its meaning. It must handle with deep earnest- 
ness the most profound themes, Good and Evil, Desire 
and Disillusion, the briefness of Life and the mystery of 

b2 


XX Introduction. 

Death — the universal material and the great common- 
places of human thought in all ages. Such a mood is the 
mood of religion, in whatever dogmas it may be clothed ; 
and it is the rehgious w^riter who can most impressively 
touch those great organ stops of grave emotion which 
move us in the highest achievements of prose literature. 

The seventeenth century divines, moreover, with all 
the lumber which they inherited from the past, inherited 
much also that gives an enduring splendour to their 
works. In the doctrines of their faith they found a com- 
plete conception of existence, a scheme elaborated in all 
its details, and rich in memories and associations accumu- 
lated from the dawn of history. The Creation of the 
world, the Fall of Man, all the vicissitudes of the Chosen 
People, the sins and punishments of their Kings, the 
vehemence of their Prophets and their supernatural fore- 
sight, and the great central tragedy and hope of the 
Redemption — these were themes that came to their 
hands elaborated by the Fathers of the Church and 
by a whole succession of medieval writers ; and now, just 
at this time, the Sacred Books which were the original 
sources of this deposit of Christian history and doctrine 
had been re-translated and clothed afresh in an unsur- 
passable beauty of language. 

This noble diction, this intensity, and what we might 
almost call inspiration of language, which gives so poetic 
a colouring to the English version of the Scriptures, was 
not the achievement of one man, but almost the universal 
birthright of the time : with the Ehzabethan dramatists 
and translators, the preachers and theological writers 
had their share in this great utterance, which, whether 


Introduction. xxi 

due to linguistic causes which ceased to operate, or to 
an intensity of poetic vision which afterwards vanished, 
certainly grows fainter and thinner and gradually dies 
away as the seventeenth century advances, and the age 
of theology is superseded by the age of Reason and 
common sense. 

If Donne's sermons are full, as we have said, of all that 
in the old divinity which has become distasteful to us, 
if he surpasses the preachers of that period in their faults 
and drawbacks, he shares also in their achievements, 
and indeed in many ways he overtops them all. Lost 
in the great crabbed, unread, unreadable fohos of his 
sermons, these ' volumes of rehgion and mountains of 
piety ', there are pages and passages of great and surprising 
beauty, which are nevertheless entirely unknown to 
English readers. It is indeed somewhat curious that with 
the growing recognition of Donne's merits as a poet, 
so little attention has been paid to the excellence of his 
prose. Equal in power and beauty to that of Sir Thomas 
Browne or Jeremy Taylor, and in passionate intensity 
surpassing even these great writers, it is almost un- 
represented in our prose anthologies ; and indeed, the 
best of these, Basil Montagu's Selections^ includes no 
specimen of his writing. But the explanation of this is 
after all a simple one ; unlike Jeremy Taylor or Sir Thomas 
Browne, Donne was famous first of all as a poet, and save 
for his little-known Devotions, he wrote no small book, 
no Holy Dying or Urn Burial in which he gave evidence 
of his powers as a prose writer. His shorter prose pieces, 
his Paradoxes and Biathanatos, and his elaborate letters 
do not represent him at his best ; it is only here and there 


xxii Introduction. 

in isolated passages of his sermons that he put forth his 
full strength ; and his best prose, not being therefore 
easily accessible, has almost entirely escaped notice, and 
few even of the most enthusiastic readers of Donne's 
verse are aware that however highly they estimate his 
merits as a poet, he is equally worthy of fame as a prose 
writer — that, indeed, his mastery of the means of expres- 
sion was perhaps even greater in prose than in poetry ; 
was less impeded by those defects of technique and tem- 
perament which kept him from reaching the highest 
level of poetic achievement. 

The object of this volume is to remedy if possible'this 
neglect. After reading Donne's sermons more than 
once, I have chosen for reprinting those passages which 
especially impressed me, and which I think will be of 
interest to modern and secular-minded readers like 
myself. Any volume of selections from a voluminous 
author must be always unsatisfactory, for there are 
many canons of choice, many sieves for the sifting, by 
means of which such a selection can be made. Donne 
preached his sermons of course for the purpose of exhorta- 
tion and religious edification ; while there is much in 
his theology and controversial preaching which is now 
out of date, he nevertheless stated the main doctrines 
of the English Church with such moderation and such 
learning, that a selection of passages from his sermons 
might make a useful volume of Anglican apologetics ; 
and it was indeed with this object in view that they were 
reprinted eighty years ago by an Anglican divine, Henry 
Alford (afterwards Dean of Canterbury), in whose opinion 
they were * one of the earliest and best expositions of the 


Introduction. xxiii 

divinity of our English Church ' — ' a genuine body of 
orthodox divinity (in the best sense of the words) not to be 
found, perhaps, in any other English theologian '.^ Then, 
too, as a preacher Donne was a morahst, and from his 
denunciations of evil and his exhortations to repentance 
might be made a handbook of edification which could have 
its use and value.^ Or again, taking Donne as a representa- 
tive mind of his period, one might use his sermons for 
illustrating the history of human thought, and by selecting 
typical pages from them give a picture, not only of the 
theological conceptions of the time, but of the philosophy 
then current, and the main ideas that were accepted by the 
cultivated men of that period. The recent and learned 
volume of Miss Ramsay, Les Doctrines medievales chez. 
Donne, le Poete metaphysicien de VAngleterre,^ with its 
copious citations from Donne's sermons, has shown 
how great would be the historical interest of such a selec- 
tion, and what a treasure-house can be found in Donne's 
writings of passages illustrating the thought and specula- 
tion of the early seventeenth century in England. 

The purpose underlying this selection is not, however, 
theological, didactic, nor even historical. It is concerned 
with Donne as a man, as an artist and writer, with his 
personal accent and speaking voice ; first of all with the 
man himself, and only in the second place with the 
doctrines he expounded and the age he lived in. When 

> The Works of John Donne, D.D. With a Memoir of his Life, by Henry 
Aiford, M.A., 1839, vol. i, pp. v, xxi. 

* Such a selection of edifying passages, Selections frotn the Works of 
John Donne, D.D., was published, with no editor's name, by D. A. Tal- 
boys, at Oxford, 1840. 

* Oxford University Press, 191 7. 


xxiv Introduction. 

Donne took orders in the English Church the doctrines 
and apologetics and controversial positions of that Church 
were so to speak imposed upon him ; he accepted them 
without demur, and as Professor Grierson says, 

' In Donne's scholastic, ultra-logical treatment, the rigid 
skeleton of seventeenth century theology is, at times, 
presented in all its sternness and unattractiveness. From 
the extremest deductions, he is saved by the moderation 
which was the key-note of his church, and by his own 
good sense and deep sympathy with human nature. 
But Donne is most eloquent when, escaping from 
dogmatic minutiae and controversial " points ", he 
appeals directly to the heart and conscience. A reader 
may care little for the details of seventeenth century 
theology and yet enjoy without quaHfication Donne's 
fervid and original thinking, and the figurative richness, 
and splendid harmonies of his prose in passages of argu- 
ment, of exhortation and of exalted meditation. It is 
Donne the poet who transcends every disadvantage of 
theme and method, and an outworn fashion in wit and 
learning. There are sentences in the sermons which, 
in beauty of imagery and cadence, are not surpassed by 
anything he wrote in verse, or by any prose of the century 
from Hooker's to Sir Thomas Browne's.' ^ 

It is these passages which Professor Grierson so well 
describes, passages which illustrate what he calls ' the 
unique quality, the weight, fervour and wealth, of 
Donne's eloquence ', that I have first of all chosen, and 
any one who may be inchned to think this praise of Donne's 
prose exaggerated he should read — and above all, read 
aloud — some of the following pages, the description for 
instance of God's bounty,^ which Professor Saintsbury has 
» Cambyidge History of Literature, iv. 220-1. 
" F« 139- 


Introduction. xxv 

called unsurpassed, perhaps never equalled for the beauty 
of its rhythm and the Shakespearean magnificence of 
its diction ; or the great peroration on ' falling out of 
the hands of God ', in which Donne sums up in a sombre 
and terrible sentence — one of the longest and most 
splendid sentences in the English language — the horror 
of the deprivation of God's love, and of eternal banish- 
ment from His presence. ^ 

The great preachers of this, as of other periods, 
inherited certain set subjects and splendid common- 
places which it was their practice to repeat and elaborate 
and adorn. The Mercy of God, the Sinfulness of Man, 
the vanity of this world and the sorrows of the wicked, 
the sinner's death-bed, the Day of Judgement, the eternal 
torments of Hell, and the glory and blessedness of the 
saints in Heaven — these great themes formed the 
culminating points in their sermons, and were subjects 
v/hich called for all their powers. Donne's own tempera- 
ment and experience, his melancholy cast of thought 
and his mystical sense of another world, enabled him to 
treat many of these great themes and religious pieces 
with a vividness of feeling which removes them far from 
the region of the conventional and commonplace. 

The great subject of Sin especially preoccupied him ; 
his poet's sensibility and sensuous nature — and Donne 
is the most sensual of all the great English poets — made 
the allurements of the flesh very real to him ; he knew 
all about temptation and the weakness of man's moral 
nature ; like St. Augustine, with whom he has been more 
than once compared, the memory of his own transgres- 
* pp. 208-10. 


xxvi Introduction. 

sions and of the excesses of his youth was always with 
him ; and his treatment of the psychology of sin, his 
descriptions of the ' various and vagabond heart of the 
sinner ', are written with a modern subtlety of analysis, 
a frankness of self-confession, a curious mingUng of 
asceticism and regret, which we find nowhere else except 
perhaps in the writings of St. Augustine, and which must 
hold the attention of the least theological reader ; while 
his denunciations of judgements on sin, and his accounts 
of the sinner's death-bed, ' the clangour of the angels* 
trumpets and the horrour of the ringing bell ', are 
inspired by the feelings of one to whom these judgements 
and these terrors are very real and very dreadful. 

Another of his special themes is the great theme of 
Death. Donne's mind was in many ways essentially 
medieval, and in no way more so than in his medieval 
sense of death's horror. Even in his profane and secular 
poetry we note a preoccupation with this thought ; 
and when as a preacher it was his duty to treat of Death 
in his sermons he spared his hearers none of the most 
macabre of his imaginations about it. There was an almost 
morbid love of ugliness in his curious temperament, 
a delight like that of Swift in what is repulsive and even 
loathsome, and in his sermons on death he could freely 
indulge his taste for the grotesque and the disgusting, 
for dreadful details of the grave's horrors, for decay and 
putrefaction, and — ^what was almost an hallucination 
with him — the activities of the loathsome worm. 
Unpleasant in their details as are most of these great 
passages, there is a kind of splendid horror about them 
which has made me include many — I hope not too many 


Introduction. xxvii 

— of them in this selection ; they are very characteristic 
of Donne, and indeed his last great sermon, ' Death's 
Duell ', preached in his final illness not long before he 
died, is one great and unrelieved threnody on the horror 
and majesty of Death and the universal dominion of the 
worm. 

Donne's third great theme was God, his omnipotence, 
his mercy, his wrath, and his terrible justice ; and so 
real and vivid was his sense of God and the glory of the 
beatific vision, that unlike other preachers of the time 
he felt no need to terrify his congregations with the flames 
and physical horrors of Hell — to his religious mind the 
deprivation of God's love was in itself Hell, and no fires 
and tortures could add to that punishment. Save, 
therefore, as an eternal banishment from God's presence, 
Donne does not speak of Hell ; but the description of 
Heaven, the glory of Heaven, was a theme that called 
forth his highest powers of eloquence and impassioned 
imagination. 

Although Donne had studied the ' new philosophy ', 
and was aware of the discoveries of Copernicus, and could, 
for the purposes of metaphor and fancy, make a literary 
use of these conceptions, his mind still had its habitation 
in the smaller, earth-centred Ptolemaic creation ; the full 
realization of these new discoveries, the sense of the im- 
mensity of space and the unimportance of this earth in 
its unmeasured vastness, was a more modern way of feel- 
ing in which Donne had no share — which belongs later 
on in the seventeenth century to the time of Pascal. But 
contrasted with his imperfect realization of the infinity of 
space, his sense of the infinity of time was extremely vivid ; 


xxviii Introduction. 

the contrast between eternity and the briefness of human 
life he felt and described with sombre and ecstatic impres- 
siveness. Eternity, the eternity of God and Heaven, is 
a theme to which he continually recurs, and which sheds 
a strange, still atmosphere over his descriptions of the 
timeless existence of the Blessed in their heavenly abodes. 

The circumstances of Donne's early hfe, the strong 
Roman CathoHc traditions of his family, and the atmo- 
sphere of Roman Catholic devotion in which he was 
educated, were no hindrance, but rather a help to him 
as an Anglican preacher ; and although, as duty and 
perhaps conviction compelled him, he denounced what 
he considered the corruptions of Roman Catholicism as 
vigorously as his fellow divines, yet in his heart there 
lingered a certain love of the older faith, of stately 
ceremonial and ancient rites and personal cults and 
devotions, which gives a warmth, an unction, an un- 
protestant glow of eloquence to his preaching. 

As a poet Donne seems to have adopted a certain harsh 
and crabbed way of writing, in revolt against the melli- 
fluence of the EHzabethan taste ; his poems show here 
and there that he could, if he wished, touch those harp- 
strings of sweet music ; but they also show, only too 
abundantly, that in this soft harmony he could not find 
the medium for the personal expression he desired. This 
crabbedness shows itself, too, in his letters and his earlier 
prose writing, and also in the uninspired portions of his 
sermons. But when he was most in earnest, when he came 
to treat with passionate seriousness some great theme of 
faith or morals, his wilfulness of language fell from him ; 
and in his attempt to bring his message home to the 


Introduction. xxix 

hearts of his congregation he availed himself without stint 
of his own gifts as a poet, and all the music and splendour 
of the great contemporary speech. 

Donne, indeed, often makes use of musical metaphors 
when he speaks of preaching ; the preacher, he says, is 
a watchman, placed on a high tower to sound a trumpet ; 
his preaching was the trumpet's voice, it was thunder, 
it was the beating of a drum, the tolling of a bell of warn- 
ing, it was ' a lovely song, sung to an instrument ' ; the 
preacher should not speak with ' uncircumcised lips or 
an extemporal or irreverent or over-homely and vulgar 
language ' ; his style should be modelled on that of the 
Holy Ghost, whose style was ' a dilligent, and an artificial 
style ', and who in penning the Scriptures ' dehghts 
himself, not only with a propriety, but with a delicacy, 
and harmony, and melody of language ; with height 
of Metaphors, and other figures, which may work greater 
impressions upon the Readers '.^ In addition to this 
august model, the style of the Church Fathers formed 
Donne's other model in his preaching, and he more than 
once calls attention to their ' elegant phrases ', their 
' cadences and allusions and assimilations ', to Jerome's 
epistles ' full of heavenly meditation and curious expres- 
tions ', to Augustine's study to ' make his language sweet 
and harmonious ', and St. Bernard's effort to exalt 
* devotion from the melodious fall of words '. 

Coleridge, in his curious notes on Donne's sermons, 
remarks on the patristic leaven, the rhetorical extra- 
vagance, the taste for forced and fantastic analogies, 
which Donne derived from his study of the early Fathers ; 

1 No. 22. 


XXX Introduction. 

and, indeed, the influence of these models, falling in 
as it did with his natural taste for ' wit ' and extrava- 
gant conceits, resulted often in far-fetched and fantastic 
passages ; and there are whole sermons built up on one 
metaphor, on blood or water or tears or kisses, and even 
on vomit and circumcision, in which one image is turned 
and twisted and elaborated and swollen out with figurative, 
moral, and mystical meanings, grotesquely adorned with 
medical analogies and legal jargon and scholastic quibbles 
and rabbinical speculations, until we share to the full 
Dean Milman's amazement at the taste of those immense 
and attentive congregations, and are not surprised to 
hear that noblemen and gentlemen were taken up for 
dead, after listening to one of these hour-long conceits and 
overwhelming metaphors. 

But then again this cumbrous style takes fire, this vast 
edifice of elaborate adornftients blazes up into a splendid 
illumination ; and remote as we are in time and taste 
from the audiences which stood for hours in the open 
air at Paul's Cross, or filled the choir of old St. Paul's, we 
share, if but for a moment^ the delight which drew those 
ancient crowds to hear these products of what one con- 
temporary called his ' Giant phancie ',i to witness the 
gleams of what another described as that ' awfull fire ' ^ 
which burned in the clear brain of the great preacher. 

But what compels our attention most in these discourses 
is when Donne ' preaches himself ' in them, speaks of his 
past life, his sins and his remorse for them, of his present 
temptations, of his fears for his future fate, or his hopes 
of Heaven. ' When I consider what I was in my parents 
* Poems/i, 2l^9^ * Ibid., p. 371. 


Introduction. xxxi 

loynes ', he begins, ' when I consider what I am now, . . . 
an aged childe, a gray-headed Infant, and but the ghost 
of mine own youth, When I consider what I shall be at 
last, by the hand of death, in my grave ' ^ — it is in passages 
like this, or in his forecasts of his own death-bed, ' when 
everlasting darknesse shall have an inchoation in the 
present dimnesse of mine eyes, and the everlasting 
gnashing in the present chattering of my teeth,' ^ that 
Donne becomes most impressive, and we are best able 
to understand the sombre fascination of his preaching. 

These personal passages have often for us another 
interest : we find in them a curious modern note or 
quahty which we find almost nowhere else in the literature 
of that age. For in spite of his medieval cast of thought 
Donne was in some ways the most modern writer of his 
period ; in his poems and in his strange, feverish Medita- 
tions there is a subtlety of self-analysis, an awareness of 
the workings of his own mind, which seems to belong to 
the nineteenth rather than to the seventeenth century. 
We hear him confessing, for instance, in one of his ser- 
mons, the wanderings of his mind in his strongest devo- 
tions, and how in th6 midst of prayer he is distracted by 
the noise of a fly, the rattling of a coach^; or how, while 
he is preaching, he is partly in the pulpit, partly in his 
hbrary at home ; partly expounding his text, and partly 
thinking what his congregation will say to each other of 
his sermon when it is finished.* 

Donne was in the habit of drawing a distinction, in 
his letters, between the Jack Donne of his earUer Hfe 

• No. 2. * No. 126. 

' No. 4. * No. 3. 


xxxii Introduction. 

and Dr. Donne, the Dean and grave divine and preacher. 
But, as he himself said, men do not change their passions, 
but only the objects of them ; God does not take men 
from their calling, but mends them in it ; He loves 
renovations, not innovations. Just as each of the authors 
of the books of Scripture, whether they were courtiers 
or shepherds or fishermen, kept the idiom and the 
interests of their profession in their sacred writings, so 
the regenerate soul, whether amorous, ambitious, or 
covetous, could find in God ' a fit subject, and just 
occasion to exercise the same affection piously, and 
rehgiously, which had before so sinfully transported, and 
possesst it '.^ So Donne retained his old passions and 
ways of thought ; but whereas he had formerly, as he 
himself says of St. Augustine, made sonnets of his sins, 
he now made sermons of them. Dr. Donne was still 
Jack Donne, though sanctified and transformed, and 
those who have learned to know the secular poet will 
find in the writer of religious prose the same character- 
istics, the subtle, modern self-analytic mind moving in 
a world of medieval thought, the abstract, frigid scholastic 
intellect and the quickest senses, the forced conceits and 
passionate sincerity, the harsh utterance and the snatches 
of angel's music — in fact all that has attracted or perhaps 
repelled them in the author of the ' love-songs and satiric 
weeds ', the sensual elegies and rugged verse-letters of his 
earlier period. They will also often find the man of the 
world beneath the surplice, with his appreciation of 
worldly values, rank and circumstance and office, and 
that 'inward joy and outward reverence and dignity that 

» No. 21. 


Introduction. xxxiii 

accompanies riches ' i ; the courtier who had the coujtier's 
desire for the favour of great persons, and who pictured 
Heaven as a royal court, and God as a king in his 
palace ; who described earthly kings as metaphorical 
gods, and pious courts as copies of the Communion of 
the Saints. 

In the sermons also they will find that broad humanity, 
that sympathy with all kinds of people, that good com- 
mon sense, which made Donne a reasonable human being, 
and moved him often to declare that religion was a serious 
but not a sullen thing, and a merry heart and a cheerful 
countenance a better way to God than dejection of spirit, 
and all the * sad remorses of the world '.^ 

A preacher or moralist often betrays himself indirectly, 
for he is apt to see his own faults in others, and to dwell, 
in his exhortations, on the temptations and weaknesses to 
which he is especially exposed. It is characteristic of 
Donne that he should so frequently inveigh against the 
sins of the senses, and especially of the eye, which he 
said was 'the devil's doore, before the ear'^; and charac- 
teristic also his frequent recurrence to the danger of 
remembering past sins — ' the sinfull remembrance of 
former sins, which is a dangerous rumination, and an 
unwholesome chawing of the cud '. ^ Another sin to 
which Donne frequently recurs is the sin of curiosity, 
the sin of the curious and subtle intellect, which, dissatis- 
fied with the ' solid and f undamentall ' doctrines necessary 
to salvation, longed for * birds of Paradise, unrevealcd 
mysteries out of Gods own bosom '.^ His reprobation 

> ii, p. 416. ' in, p. 318. » i, p. 228. 

* ii,p. 159. * i, p. 308. 

2025-3 C 


xxxiv Introduction. 

of this unchastened curiosity, this presumption of men 
who ' being but worms will look into Heaven \^ was 
partly, no doubt, an attack on the rising tide of Puritan 
and schismatic speculation ; but it was also an indirect 
confession of the attraction, for his boundless intellectual 
curiosity, of the high and inexplicable problems of 
Christian metaphysics. Donne echoes Luther's denuncia- 
tion of the ' hatefull, damnable Monosyllable, How ' ^ ; 
again and again he warns his congregation against 
inquiries which were ' forc'd dishes of hot brains, and not 
sound meat ', ' spirituall zvantonnesses, and unlawful and 
dangerous dallyings with mysteries of Divinity ' ^ ; 
and yet again and again we find his own thoughts losing 
their way among mysteries above the reach of reason, 
the nature of the Trinity, Predestination, Election, 
Original Sin, many strange scholastic questions about the 
Angels, the Devil, and the possibility of his ultimate 
salvation, and such high, insoluble problems as for 
instance whether the Serpent, as many of the Fathers 
beheved, had feet and walked upright before the Fall. 

Such was Donne as he reveals himself in his sermons, 
essentially in mind and temperament the same person 
as the poet, but turning his native gifts, and even his 
acquired stock of conceits and images, to new and sanctified 
uses. The mood resulting from this transformation has 
been well described by Professor Saintsbury as ' a mood 
in which the memory of bygone earthly delights blends 
inextricably with the present fervour of devotion, and 
which to a fancy resembling his own might suggest a 
temple of Aphrodite or Dionysus turned into a Christian 
» iii, p. 77, * i, p. 301. * ii, p. 36. 


Introduction. xxxv 

church, and served by the same priest as of old, with 
complete loyalty to his new faith, but with undying 
consciousness of the past '.^ 

Thus one tries to explain Donne's sermons and account 
for them in a satisfactory manner. And yet in these, as 
in his poems, there remains something baffling and 
enigmatic which still eludes our last analysis. Reading 
these old hortatory and dogmatic pages, the thought 
suggests itself that Donne is often saying something else, 
something poignant and personal, and yet, in the end, 
incommunicable to us. It sometimes seems as if he 
were using the time-honoured phrases of the accepted 
faith, its hope of heaven, and its terror of the grave, 
to express a vision of his own — a vision of life and death, 
of evil and horror and ecstasy — very different from that 
of other preachers ; and we are troubled as well as fascinated 
by the strange music which he blows through the sacred 
trumpets. 

From the sermons themselves we can gather some 
impression of the effect in his own age of Donne's preach- 
ing, either at court, where he often preached before 
James I or Charles I,^ or at Lincoln's Inn, or at his parish 
church of St. Dunstan's, or in the open air at Paul's 
Cross, and above all before his ' great and curious audi- 
tories ' at St. Paul's, when the choir was so crowded that 

'■ Professor Saintsbury in English Prose Selections, edited by Henry 
(>aik, 1894, ii, p. 85. 

• It would appear that the court sermons, preached ' to the Nobility ' 
and the king, were sometimes open-air sermons. See C. and T. Jas. I, 
ii. 386 : ' the king came hither the 5th of this present, and the next day, 
being Palm Sunday, the lord archbishop preached at court, in the open- 
preaching place '. 

C 2 


xxxvi Introduction. 

many of the poorer sort could not have seats, but must 
' stand and thrust ', and where long murmurs of approval 
sometimes, he said, swallowed up one-quarter of his 
hour's sermon. 1 

We have other and outside evidence, too, of his influence 
as a preacher, and his manner and appearance in the pulpit. 
A member of the Dutch embassy in England, Constantine 
Huyghens, writes of the ' wealth of his unequalled wit, 
and yet more incomparable eloquence in the pulpit '^ ; 
we read of the great concourse of noblemen and gentle- 
men at one of his sermons at Lincoln's Inn 'whereof two 
or three were endangered and taken up dead for the time, 
with the extreme press and thronging',^ of another sermon 
preached in the open air at Paul's Cross, which was listened 
to by ' the Lords of the Council and other honourable 
persons ' including the Archbishop of Canterbury, Bacon, 
the Lord Keeper, Sir Julius Caesar, the Master of the Rolls, 
Lord Arundel, Lord Southampton, and 'divers other great 
men '.* 

Izaak Walton has described for us his manner in the 
pulpit, 

* preaching the Word so, as shewed his own heart was 
possest with those very thoughts, and joyes that he 
labored to distill into others : A Preacher in earnest, 
weeping sometimes for his Auditory, sometimes with 
them : alwayes preaching to himself, like an Angel from 
a cloud, but in none ; carrying some, as St, Paul was, 
to Heaven in holy raptures, and inticing others by 
a sacred Art and Courtship to amend their lives ; here 
picturing a vice so as to make it ugly to those that 

' No. 17. ' Quoted in Poems, ii, p. Ixxvii. 

* See note to No. 70. * See note to No. 29. 


Introduction. xxxvii 

practised it ; and a vertue so, as to make it beloved even 
by those that lov'd it not ; and, all this with a most 
particular grace and an unexpressible addition of comeli- 
ness.' ' 


» 1 

There are other evidences of the manner and effect of 
his preaching in the commendatory verses written at his 
death, in which mention is made of his ' speaking action ", 
'pale looks, faint breath, and melting phrases'. 

Mee thinkes I see him in the pulpit standing. 

Not eares, or eyes, but all mens hearts commanding. 

Where wee that heard him, to our selves did faine 

Golden Chrysostome was alive againe ; 

And never were we weari'd, till we saw 

His houre (and but an houre) to end did draw. 

How did he shame the doctrine-men,^ 

one poet writes, and another : 

thy one houre did treate 
The thousand mazes of the hearts deceipt ; 
Thou didst pursue our lov'd and subtill sinne, 
Through all the foldings wee had wrapt it in.^ 

While another poet gives in Latin verses an even more 
vivid picture of his preaching : 

* Whenever the orator stood in St. Paul's I have seen 
and heard with amazement the wonderful power with 
which he held men, as they lifted up their hearts and 
eyes, whilst he poured forth the wise eloquence of 
a Nestor, sweeter than honey. Now he holds them 
thunderstruck whilst he preaches the mystery of holy 
things never before granted to the people and not yet 
understood ; they ponder his words with admiration, and 

* Walton's Lives, 1670 ; Donne, p. ^S. 

* Poenis, i, p. 386. * Ibid., i, p, 393. 

c3 


xxxviii Introduction. 

stand with outstretched ears. Presently his manner 
and form of speaking are changed, and he treats of sad 
things — fate and the mournful hour of death, and the 
body returning to its primal ashes : then you might 
have seen all groan and grieve, and one here and there 
unable to restrain his tears.' ^ 

From these contemporary glimpses, and from the ser- 
mons themselves we can form some notion of the power, 
the grace, the eloquence which made Donne the most 
famous preacher of the time, and one of his great sermons 
an important event for his contemporaries. As we read 
these sermons, amid much that is remote and meaning- 
less to us, we seem now and then to hear the timbre of 
a living voice, and then for a moment the past returns ; 
and in the vast, dim-lit cathedral of old St. Paul's we 
seem to see that awe-struck congregation as they gaze up 
at the courtly, spectral figure standing with his hour- 
glass in the pulpit, and pouring forth in impassioned 
eloquence his inmost thoughts of remorse and ecstasy, 
his poignant sense of the grave's unspeakable horror, and 

» Vidi, 

Audivi & stupui quoties orator in JEde 
Paulina stetit, & mira gravitate levantes 
Corda, oculosi^viros teniiit : dum Nestoris ilie 
Fudit verba (omni quanto mage dulcia melle ?) 
Nunc habet attonitos, pandit mysteria plebi 
Non concessa prius nondum intellecta : revolvunt 
Mirantes, tacitique arrectis auribus astant. 
Mutatis mox ille modo, forma(^ loquendi 
Tristia pertractat : fatum(^& flebile mortis 
Tempus, & in cineres redeunt quod corpora primes. 
Tunc gemitum cunctos dare, tunc lugere videres, 
Forsitan a lachrymis aliquis non temperat. — Ibid, i, p. 391. 


Introduction. xxxix 

Heaven's unutterable glory ; and this image is added to 
those many deeply coloured pictures which, hung in the 
chamber of the historic imagination, form for us our 
vision of that illustrious and varied period of Englisli 
history. 

We look back at this early period of tht seventeenth 
century in England, not only through the windows which 
history opens for us ; we see it even more clearly, though 
diversely tinctured, through the minds and imaginations 
of certain writers of the time ; fresh in the rilorning light 
of Milton's early poems, calm in the sabbath sunshine of 
George Herbert's Temple, or dusky with the twilight of 
Sir Thomas Browne's meditations. It is the purpose of 
the present book to draw aside at least one corner of the 
heavy curtain which hides from us another casement of 
that age's imagination, a sombre, deep-emblazoned gothic 
window, through which nevertheless the sunlight of 
to-day sometimes seems to strike, as it lights up the 
ascetic, enigmatic figure which it frames. 

Donne's ecclesiastic career has been so adequately 
recounted by his biographers. Dr. Jessopp and Mr. Gosse, 
that only the briefest recapitulation is necessary here. 
John Donne was born in 1573 ; he was the elder son of 
a rich London ironmonger, who died in 1576 leaving 
him a considerable fortune. His mother, who was 
descended from a sister of Sir Thomas More, came 
of a famous Roman Catholic family ; she had two 
brothers who were Jesuits, and numbered among her 
relatives many prisoners and exiles for the sake of the 
Roman faith. She remained a devout Roman Catholic 


xi Introduction. 

till the end of her life, and her son's earliest years were 
spent in an atmosphere of Roman Catholic devotion. 
At the early age of eleven Donne v^rent to Oxford, and 
afterwards to Cambridge ; in 1590 we find him in London 
again, and in 1592 he was admitted to Lincoln's Inn. 
A young man of brilliant intellect, the master of a con- 
siderable fortune, he now found himself, as a Roman 
Catholic, shut out from the usual paths of honourable 
ambition, and faced with the problem whether he should 
remain in the old faith, and so sacrifice his worldly 
prospects, or should join the English Church and take 
his share in the life and interests of his country. Before 
coming to any conclusion he first surveyed and digested, 
he tells us, ' the whole body of divinity, controverted 
between ours and the Roman Church ' ; and if his final 
decision coincided with his interests, and if ten years 
later we find Donne a convinced opponent of Roman- 
ism, though we can hardly regard his change of faith as 
due to a genuine conversion to Anglicanism, or to any 
belief that it was alone the true church, it does not 
appear on the other hand to have been a mere apostasy 
prompted by political considerations. Donne was 
genuinely convinced that there was truth in each form 
of Christian religion, and that it was wisest and best for 
each man to accept the faith of his own country. 

When after his somewhat stormy and spendthrift 
youth Donne made his rash marriage in 1601, and found 
himself desperately poor in consequence, half in disgrace, 
and with small prospects of worldly advancement, he 
resumed his theological studies ; and in 1605 we find him 
assisting Dr. Thomas Morton, afterwards Bishop of 


Introduction. xli 

Durham, in his controversies with the Roman Catholic 
writers. During the next few years he wrote three 
books, the Pseudo-Martyr, Ignatius his Conclave, and the 
Biathanatos, all of which were, as Mr. Gosse says, written 
more as a lawyer than a divine, though each was on the 
borderland of theology. In spite of his theological 
occupations, Donne, as his letters show, was still ambitious 
of worldly preferment, and when his patron, Dr. Morton, 
became Dean of Gloucester in 1607, and offered to resign 
a living to him if he would take orders, Donne refused the 
offer. Walton tells us that this refusal was due to a sense 
of his own unworthiness, and the fear that the irregularities 
of his past Hfe might bring dishonour on the sacred 
calHng, but it is more likely, as his letters of the time 
suggest, that he had not yet abandoned the hope of some 
court advancement. But this hope was repeatedly 
disappointed : Donne was poor, burdened with a large 
family, and forced to Hve in humihating dependence on 
the bounty of rich friends ; and in 161 2 we find him 
writing to the new court favourite, Rochester, that he 
had resolved to take orders. Rochester, however, seems 
to have discouraged this resolution, and it was not till 
three years later, and after further disappointments, 
that Donne, yielding to the persuasions of King James 
himself, finally determined to enter the Church. In 
January 161 5 he was ordained, and in the same year 
he became one of the king's chaplains and was made 
a Doctor of Divinity by the University of Cambridge. 
Donne's earliest court sermon which has come down to 
us, and perhaps the first sermon which he preached as 
chaplain to the king, is dated April 21, 1616. Though 


xlii Introduction. 

much was expected of him, Izaak Walton tells us, his 
preaching exceeded all expectation ; and indeed, if we 
recall the circumstances of the time, when the Over- 
bury murder, one of the greatest scandals of Enghsh 
history, had just been made public in all its dreadful 
details ; when the once omnipotent favourite of the king, 
the Earl of Somerset, stood publicly accused of com- 
plicity in this crime, and his guilty wife was imprisoned in 
the Tower, Donne's analysis of the beginning and growth 
of evil in the sinner's heart, and his sombre and terrible 
denunciations of God's judgements on the wicked, 
must have produced an astonishing effect on his auditory. 
' God is the Lord of Hosts ', he proclaimed to them, ' and 
he can proceed by Martial Law : he can hang thee upon 
the next tree ; ... he can sink down the Stage and the 
Player, the bed of wantonness, and the wanton actor, 
into the jaws of the earth, into the mouth of hell.' ' Thou 
canst not lack Examples, that he hath done so upon others,' 
he continues, with a reference that must have been 
obvious to all, ' and wiU no proof serve thee, but a speedy 
judgement upon thyself ? ' ^ 

In this year, i6i6, Donne was presented to two 
country livings, and appointed Divinity Reader to 
the Benchers of Lincoln's Inn. This important and 
lucrative post, which involved, it has been calculated, 
the preparation of not fewer than fifty sermons a year, he 
held tiU he became Dean of St. Paul's, about six years 
later. 

In March 1617 Donne was appointed to preach in 
the famous open-air pulpit of London at Paul's Cross, 
^ See Nos. 87, 105, 108. 


Introduction. xliii 

before the Lords of the Council and the City Magistrates. 
These sermons at Paul's Cross, which were preached by 
the most distinguished divines of England, had an official 
character of high importance, and were one of the great 
events of contemporary London. Donne on his first 
appearance in this open-air pulpit preached a sermon 
of enormous length, which, if delivered as printed, must 
have kept his audience standing for at least two hours. 
It was, however, in contemporary opinion ' a dainty 
sermon ', and was ' exceedingly well liked ' especially 
for the praise he gave to Queen Elizabeth.^ 

In this year Donne lost the dearly-loved wife whom he 
had married in such romantic circumstances, and in his 
grief at this irreparable loss he seems to have taken his 
final ' step to the altar ', and to have undergone a real 
conversion ; his mind was now more wholly set on 
heavenly things ; and to his intellectual interest in 
theology and dogma was added a passionate devotion 
which increased as the years went by, till he became 
almost absorbed in that life of asceticism and spiritual 
exaltation which is reflected in his religious poetry, his 
meditations, and his great sermons. The chief events of 
his remaining years can be briefly recounted. 

In 1619 he was appointed to go as King's Chaplain 
with his friend. Lord Doncaster, on a mission to Gernlany. 
His farewell sermon to the Benchers of Lincoln's Inn has 
been preserved,^ also one of the two sermons he preached 
before the Electress Palatine, afterwards the Queen of 
Bohemia, at Heidelberg,^ and a sermon he preached at 
The Hague. This last he afterwards enlarged into two 
' See No. 29 and note. * No. 26. » No. 124. 


xKv Introduction. 

sermons of considerable length, which are chiefly re- 
markable for the wealth of sustained nautical metaphors 
which pervade them. Donne, who in his youth had 
sailed with Essex on two long voyages, is remarkable as 
a poet, among the somewhat inland English writers 
of his time, for his frequent use of nautical terms 
and his references to seafaring life and the ways of 
ships. He carried this breath of the sea with him 
into the pulpit ; his sermons abound in nautical terms 
and images, and now he preached to this seafaring nation 
on the Apostles as fishers of men, taken from their nets 
' weather-beaten with North and South winds, and 
rough-cast with foame, and mud ' ^ ; and elaborated 
a giant simile of the world as a sea, in which all the 
inhabitants are fishes to be caught in the net of the 
Gospel and served up at the great marriage feast in 
Heaven, where, he added characteristically — ^and we must 
think surprisingly to the Dutch — ^whoever is a dish is 
a guest also, and whoever is served at the table sits at it.- 
After his return to England he was appointed, towards 
the end of 1621, to the Deanery of St. Paul's. His first 
sermon preached in that cathedral was on Christmas 
Day, 1 62 1. This sermon is a closely reasoned one, less 
adorned with those elaborate allusions and quotations and 
conceits of which he was so fond, but containing a clear 
statement of the relation between reason and faith 
which was the basis of his religious philosophy.^ Donne's 
Christmas sermons preached at St. Paul's for all the 

* i, p. 720. 

* No. 44. For other extracts from this sermon, see Nos, 86 and 112. 
» No. 58. 


Introduction. xiv 

subsequent years of his life except the last have been 
preserved, also the great sermons he was accustomed to 
preach there on Easter Day and Whitsunday, and 
a number of the sermons which he also preached as 
Prebend of the Cathedral, besides others delivered 
at various dates in the same pulpit. Next to these in 
number are the sermons preached at court, sometimes 
at St. James's, but for the most part at Whitehall. In 
1624 he was presented to the living of St. Dunstan's in 
the West, then a fashionable church, in which as parish 
vicar he was able to come into closer personal relations 
with his congregation than he could with his great 
audiences at St. Paul's ; and in his first sermon there he 
described in the elaborate metaphor of a marriage 
between the Minister and his Congregation what he felt 
should be his relation to his parishioners.^ A number 
of other sermons preached in this pulpit have been pre- 
served. 

Before this date, however, he preached two sermons 
of some importance. The first of these was to the 
Virginia Company, which was then trying to collect sub- 
scriptions for the earhest Enghsh colony in America, and 
to renew popular interest in this settlement. Donne took 
the point of view, which has become since so popular, that 
English conquest and colonization was, or should be, carried 
on for the purpose of religious propaganda, to furnish 
salvation to the benighted heathen ; and he preached, on 
this occasion, what has been called the first English mis- 
sionary sermon.2 Later in this year, 1622, a more 
unpleasant task was imposed on him, and he was ordered 
» No. 27. » No. 31. 


xlvi Introduction. 

by James I, who was then engaged in his negotiations 
for the Spanish Match, to preach at Paul's Cross in 
defence of the instructions the king had issued forbidding 
the polemical preaching of Protestant doctrines. There 
was an immense crowd at the sermon ; but a con- 
temporary tells us that he gave no satisfaction, speaking 
indeed, some thought, as if he were by no means satisfied 
himself.^ In the autumn of the next year he was struck 
down by that severe illness which he so vividly describes 
in his Devotions, published in 1624. 

His next sermon of pubHc importance was preached 
in St. James's Palace a few days after the death of his 
old master James I. James died on March 27, 1625, 
at Theobald's ; the new king, Charles I, had shut 
himself up in St. James's Palace, but on Sunday the 3rd 
of April he sent for Donne to preach to him in the palace 
chapel. From a few scraps of old paper preserved by 
chance, we are able to make for ourselves a more than 
usually vivid picture of this Sunday afternoon nearly 
three hundred years ago. Donne, who had been seriously 
ill, was plainly thrown into great agitation by the royal 
command to preach before the inscrutable prince who was 
now beginning his fateful reign. He writes to a friend 
at court begging that on his arrival at the palace he may 
hide himself in an out-chamber or closet till the time for 
the sermon. He must preach fasting, he says, refusing 
an invitation to dinner, and after the sermon would steal 

• See note to No. 37. This sermon, preached on the text about the 
stars fighting against Sisera, was printed in 1622 with a dedication to the 
new favourite, the Marquis of Buckingham. It was not included in the 
three folios, but was reprinted by Alford, vi, pp. 191-222. 


Introduction. xlvli 

into his coach and return home. Another letter of a con- 
temporary witness describes the very pale face and deep 
mourning of the young king as he went to the chapel, 
draped in a plain black cloak that fell to his ankles. 
Donne began his sermon with a discreet reference to the 
death of the old king, and then proceeded to preach 
a controversial sermon against the Rofnan Catholic and 
Puritan controversialists of the time ^ ; but three weeks 
later, preaching at Denmark House, where the embalmed 
body of James I lay in state, his references to his departed 
master are more explicit ; and in one splendid passage 
about the king's dead hand, he keeps repeating, at the 
end of his intricate clauses, the word * dead ' in a way 
that makes it ring out like the tolling of a bell, and which 
in his accomplished dehvery must have produced a strange 
effect of musical and sombre rhetoric.^ 

In 1625 he was driven out of London by the plague 
and took refuge with his friend Magdalen Herbert, George 
Herbert's mother, who was now married to Sir John 
Danvers, and lived in Danvers House in what was then the 
village of Chelsea. In 1627 Lady Danvers died and was 
buried in the parish church of Chelsea, where Donne 
preached the funeral sermon. In his unregenerate days 
Donne had written poems to Mrs. Herbert, almost as 
a lover ; he had immortalized her in those famous lines, 

No Spring, nor Summer Beauty hath such grace. 
As I have seen in one Autumnall face, 

and now, after an invocation to this loved ghost to 
arise from the consecrated dust in which she slept, he 

* For this sermon see No. 75 and note. ' No. 34. 


xlviii Introduction. 

proceeds, in a long and noble panegyric to paint a por- 
trait of her as she lived and as he and her family and 
friends knew her — a portrait ^ which is one of the most 
vivid and beautiful we possess of those EHzabethan great 
ladies who befriended the poets of the time and still 
live for us immortalized in their poems. 

Izaak Walton tells us that he was present in the church, 
and saw and heard Donne weep and preach this funeral 
sermon ; and he repeats Donne's characteristic wish that 
' all his Body were turn'd unto tongues, that he might 
declare her just praises to posterity '. 

The time was approaching when Donne must preach 
his own funeral sermon ; his strength gradually declined, 
twice he was afflicted with severe illness, and in 1630 his 
health finally gave way, and he retired to the country. 
But early in the next year he dragged himself up to 
London to preach his usual Lent sermon to the court — 
to sing, as one of his panegyrists wrote, like a swan, his 
mournful dirge — the great sermon which was published 
after his death as ' Death's Duell ', and in which his 
sombre imagination and his morbid and fantastic genius 
shone forth with unearthly splendour. Walton gives 
a vivid description of this last dramatic appearance, 
how when to the amazement of the beholders he appeared 
in the pulpit ' many of them thought he presented himself 
not to preach mortification by a living voice : but, mortality 
by a decayed body, and dying face ',^ and how as they 
saw his tears and heard his faint and hollow voice, as he 
preached on his text, ' To God the Lord belong the issues 
from death,' they felt that the text had been prophetically 
* No. 28. ' Walton's Lives, 1670, Donne, p. 71. 


Introduction. xlix 

chosen and that he had preached his own funeral sermon. 
Donne then retired to the Deanery and began that 
spectacular preparation for death, that ' elaborate pubhc 
decease ', as Mr. Gosse describes it, ' so long-drawn, so 
solemn, so boldly picturesque ' which so greatly impressed 
his contemporaries, and which, in the monument designed 
after the picture he had had painted of himself dressed 
in a winding sheet, has left in St. Paul's so strange and so 
beautiful a memorial for the admiration of posterity. 

Six of Donne's sermons had been published in his Hfe- 
time, and he left at his death a large number prepared 
for the press. His last sermon was printed after his 
death in 1632, and in 1634 six more sermons were pub- 
lished by the Cambridge University Press. In 1640 
Donne's son, John Donne, pubhshed the first foho of 
eighty sermons, all hitherto unpubhshed, and in 1649 
he printed the second foho. Fifty Sermons, containing 
' Death's Duell ' and the six pubhshed in 1634 and 
forty-three new ones. In 1660 he published the third 
folio, entitled XXVI Sermons, although it only contains 
twenty-four, as two of them were printed twice. In 
1839, Henry Alford, afterwards Dean of Canterbury, 
pubhshed the 154 sermons from the three fohos, and three 
of the six printed in Donne's hfetime, in an edition which 
was intended to be a complete edition of Donne's writings, 
though this plan was afterwards abandoned, and only 
the sermons, the Devotions, the poems, and the letters 
were included in it. Alford so expurgated the poems, 
and was so careless in his printing of the letters, that this 
edition of his has been much abused by scholars. He 
admits that he bowdlerized a few of the earlier sermons ; 


1 Introduction. 

but save for this and for the modernization of the spelHng, 
the text of the sermons is accurate, and as the old foUos 
are now rare (the third is almost unprocurable) Alford's 
edition is the one which is most accessible to modern 
readers. 1 

We possess, therefore, i6o of Donne's sermons, of 
which all but three were reprinted by Alford, where 
they fill about three thousand pages. Some of these 
sermons are of enormous length, and if preached as 
written must have taken two or three hours to deliver, 
instead of the hour marked by the running sands 
in the conspicuous hour-glass, to which Donne was 
accustomed to confine himself. But there is plenty of 
evidence to show that we do not now possess the sermons 
as he preached them. Donne, like other divines of the 
period, took no fully written manuscript with him 
into the pulpit ; he preached from notes ; and although 
when preaching at court or at St. Paul's on great occasions 
he would no doubt commit much of his sermon to 
memory, the whole text would be written out from 
memory afterwards, and subject to many additions and 
changes in the process of writing.^ 

' In 1840 Pickering published a beautifully printed volume, Devotions 
hy John Donne, D.D., which contains two of Donne's sermons, ' Death's 
Duell ' and the Chelsea sermon on the death of Lady Danvers. 

* In a letter of 1621 Donne promises to write out one of his sermons 
for a friend ' though in good faith I have half forgot it ' (Gosse, ii, p. 151). 
In 1625, when he had taken refuge at Chelsea from the plague in London, 
he says, in explaining how he has spent his time there, ' I have revised as 
many of my sermons as I had kept any note of, and I have written out 
a great many, and hope to do more. I have already come to the number 
of eighty, of which my son . . . may hereafter make some use ' {ibid., 
p. 225). Donne's sermon preached at The Hague is introduced in 


Introduction. li 

It only remains to say a few words about the plan 
of this small volume of extracts from Donne's sermons. 
The arrangement is not chronological, and indeed, since 
many of the sermons are undated, such an arrangement 
would be at the best highly uncertain and conjectural. 
They are placed in a certain sequence according to their 
subjects, first the more autobiographical passages, the 
pages or paragraphs where Donne speaks most directly 
and intimately of himself, liis own feeUngs and moods, 
his own conception of the preacher's office, his Hterary 
tastes, and the references, though these are not many, to 
his own life and travels. Next follow the scanty allusions 
he makes to events of contemporary history, the death 
of Queen Ehzabeth, the accession of James I, the Gun- 
powder Plot, the new settlements in America, the 
great plague of 1625, and the death of King James ; after 
these come passages illustrating the more secular aspects 
of his thought, his remarks on life and men and women, 
on poverty and riches, a portrait he gives in a funeral 
sermon of a rich London merchant of the time, and his 
reflections on the ' new philosophy ' of Copernicus, 
and on human knowledge in general. Then following 
the process of his thought, we come to rehgious faith, as 
founded on, and yet contrasted with, mere human reason, 
and the revelation of that faith through the Scriptures 
and the teaching of the Church. Next follow those 
passages in which he attains the greatest heights of 
the first folio, with this note, ' At the Haghe Decemh. 19. 1619. I Preached 
upon this Text. Since my sicknesse at Ahney-hatche in Essex, 1630. 
revising mv short notes of that Sermon, I digested them into these two.' 
Two sermons follow on the same text, and there are other sermons which 
seem to have been expanded and divided in the same way. 


Hi Introduction, 

eloquence — ^passages in which the body of that revelation 
is expressed, our knowledge of God and of man's fall, 
the inheritance of Original Sin, the corrupt nature of 
man, the sinful state of the world, the penalty of death 
with all its horrors, the terrors of the Day of Judgement, 
the misery of the damned, and the everlasting joy and 
glory of the blessed souls in Heaven. The book ends with 
extracts from the sombre and impressive last sermon, in 
which he made his farewell to the world. 


■Ts> ij^-fs) PT*"?) eT*-''^^ 


DONNE'S SERMONS 


I. 7Ae Preacher, 

jN the great Ant-hill of the whole world, 
I am an Ant ; I have my part in the 
Creation, I am a Creature ; But there 
are ignoble Creatures. God comes nearer ; 
In the great field of clay, of red earth, 
that man was made of, & mankind, I am a clod ; 
I am a man, I have my part in the Humanity ; But 
Man was worse then annihilated again. When satan 
in that serpent was come, as Hercules with his club into 
a potters shop, and had broke all the vessels, destroyed 
all mankind. And the gracious promise of a Messias to 
redeeme all mankind, was shed and spread upon all, 
I had my drop of that dew of Heaven, my sparke of that 
fire of heaven, in the universall promise, in which I was 
involved ; But this promise was appropriated after, in 
a particular Covenant, to one people, to the Jewes, to 
the seed of Abraham. But for all that I have my portion 
there ; for all that professe Christ Jesus are by a spirituall 
engrafting, and transmigration, and transplantation, in 
and of that stock, and that seed of Abraham ; and I am 
one of those. But then, of those who doe professe 
Christ Jesus, some grovell still in the superstitions they 

2035'3 B 


i The Preacher. 

were fallen into, and some are raised, by Gods good 
grace, out of them ; and I am one of those ; God hath 
afforded me my station, in that Church, which is departed 
from Babylon. 

Now, all this while, my soule is in a cheerefull progresse ; 
when I consider what God did for Goshen in Egypt, for 
a little parke in the midst of a forest ; what he did for 
Jury, in the midst of enemies, as a shire that should 
stand out against a Kingdome round about it : How 
many Sancerraes he hath delivered from famins, how- 
many Genevaes from plots, and machinations against 
her ; all this while my soule is in a progresse : But I am 
at home, when I consider Buls of excommunications, 
and solicitations of Rebellions, and pistols, and poysons, 
and the discoveries of those ; There is our Nos, We, 
testimonies that we are in the favour, and care of God ; 
We, our Nation, we, our Church ; There I am at home ; 
but I am in my Cabinet at home, when I consider, what 
God hath done for me, and my soule ; There is the Ego, 
the particular, the individuall, I, 

2. When I consider. 
iMOROUS soule, ambitious soule, covetous soule, 
Jl\. voluptuous soule, what wouldest thou have in 
heaven ? What doth thy holy amorousnesse, thy holy 
covetousnesse, thy holy ambition, and voluptuousnesse 
most carry thy desire upon ? Call it what thou 
wilt ; think it what thou canst ; think it something that 
thou canst not think ; and all this thou shalt have, if 
thou have any Resurrection unto life ; and yet there 


When I consider. 

is a Better Resurrection. When I consider what I was in 
my parents loynes (a substance unworthy of a word, 
unworthy of a thought) when I consider what I am now, 
(a Volume of diseases bound up together, a dry cynder, 
if I look for naturall, for radicall moisture, and yet 
a Spunge, a bottle of overflowing Rheumes, if I consider 
accidentall ; an aged childe, a gray-headed Infant, and 
but the ghost of mine own youth) When I consider what 
I shall be at last, by the hand of death, in my grave, 
(first, but Putrifaction, and then, not so much as Putri- 
faction, I shall not be able to send forth so much as an 
ill ayre, not any ayre at all, but shall be all insipid, tastlesse, 
savourlesse dust ; for a while, all wormes, and after a 
while, not so much as wormes, sordid, senslesse, namelesse 
dust) When I consider the past, and present, and future 
state of this body, in this world, I am able to conceive, 
able to expresse the worst that can befall it in nature, 
and the worst that can be inflicted upon it by man, 
or fortune ; But the least degree of glory that God 
hath prepared for that body in heaven, I am not able to 
expresse, not able to conceive. 

3. I am Not all Here. 

I AM not all here, I am here now preaching upon 
this text, and I am at home in my Library 
considering whether 5. Gregory, or S. Hierome, have said 
best of this text, before. I am here speaking to you, 
and yet I consider by the way, in the same instant, what 
it is likely you will say to one another, when I have 
done, you are not all here neither ; you are here now, 

B 2 


4 I am Not all Here. 

hearing me, and yet you are thinking that you have 
heard a better Sermon somewhere else, of this text 
before ; you are here, and yet you think you could have 
heard some other doctrine of down-right Predestination, 
and Reprobation roundly delivered somewhere else with 
more edification to you ; you are here, and you remember 
your selves that now yee think of it : This had been the 
fittest time, now, when every body else is at Church, 
to have made such and such a private visit ; and because 
you would bee there, you are there. 

4. Imperfect Prayers. 

BUT when we consider with a religious serious- 
nesse the manifold weaknesses of the strongest 
devotions in time of Prayer, it is a sad consideration. 
I throw my selfe downe in my Chamber, and I call in, 
and invite God, and his Angels thither, and when they 
are there, I neglect God and his Angels, for the noise of 
a Flie, for the ratling of a Coach, for the whining of a 
doore ; I talke on, in the same posture of praying ; 
Eyes lifted up ; knees bowed downe ; as though I prayed 
to God ; and, if God, or his Angels should aske me, 
when I thought last of God in that prayer, I cannot tell : 
Sometimes I finde that I had forgot what I was about, 
but when I began to forget it, I cannot tell. A memory 
of yesterdays pleasures, a feare of to morrows dangers, 
a straw under my knee, a noise in mine eare, a light in 
mine eye, an any thing, a nothing, a fancy, a Chimera 
in my braine, troubles me in my prayer. So certainely 
is there nothing, nothing in spirituall things, perfect in 
this world. 


Powers and Principalities. 5 

5. Powers and Principalities. 

I PASSE my time sociably and merrily in cheerful 
conversation, in musique, in feasting, in Come- 
dies, in wantonnesse ; and I never heare all this while 
of any power or principality, my Conscience spies no 
such enemy in all this. And then alone, between God 
and me at midnight, some beam of his grace shines out 
upon me, and by that light I see this Prince of darknesse, 
and then I finde that I have been the subject, the slave 
of these powers and principalities, when I thought not 
of them. Well, I see them, and I try then to dispossesse 
my selfe of them, and I make my recourse to the power- 
fullest exorcisme that is, I turne to hearty and earnest 
prayer to God, and I fix my thoughts strongly (as I 
thinke) upon him, and before I have perfected one petition, 
one period of my prayer, a power and principality is 
got into me againe. Spiritus soporis. The spirit of slumber Esay 29.10. 
closes mine eyes, and I pray drousily ; Or spiritus Esa. 19. 14. 
v^rtigitiis, the spirit of deviation, and vaine repetition, 
and I pray giddily, and circularly, and returne againe 
and againe to that I have said before, and perceive not 
that I do so ; and nescio cujus spiritus sim, (as our Saviour Luk. 9. 55. 
said, rebuking his Disciples,, who were so vehement for 
the burning of the Samaritans, you know not of what 
spirit you are) I pray, and know not of what spirit I am, 
I consider not mine own purpose in prayer ; And by 
this advantage, this doore of inconsideration, enters 
spiritus err oris ^ The seducing spirit,, the spirit of error, i Tim. 4. i. 
and I pray not onely negligently, but erroniously, 
dangerously, for such things as disconduce to the glory 


6 Powers and Principalities. 

of God, and my true happinesse, if they were granted. 

Hosea4.i2. Nay, even the Prophet Hosea's spiritus fornicationum, 

' enters into me, The spirit of fornication, that is, some 

^ remembrance of the wantonnesse of my youth, some 

mis-interpretation of a word in my prayer, that may 

beare an ill sense, some unclean spirit, some power or 

principality hath depraved my prayer, and slackned my 

zeale. 


A^ 


6. Infecting God, 
>S S. Chrysostome sayes, every man is Spontaneus 
Satan, a Satan to himselfe, as Satan is a 
Tempter, every man can tempt himselfe ; so I will be 
Spontaneus Satan, as Satan is an Accuser, an Adversary, 
I vsdll accuse my selfe. I consider often that passionate 
l.uk 5. 8. humiliation of S. Peter, Exi a me Domine, He fell at lesus 
knees, saying. Depart from me, for I am a sinfull man, 
O Lord ; And I am often ready to say so, and more ; 
Depart from me, O Lord, for I am sinfull inough to 
infect thee ; As I may persecute thee in thy Children, 
so I may infect thee in thine Ordinances ; Depart, in 
withdrawing thy word from me, for I am corrupt inough 
to make even thy saving Gospel, the savor of death 
unto death ; Depart, in withholding thy Sacrament, 
for I am leprous inough to taint thy flesh, and to make 
the balme of thy blood, poyson to my soule ; Depart, 
in withdrawing the protection of thine Angels from me, 
for I am vicious inough to imprint corruption and 
rebellion into their nature. And if I be too foule for 
God himselfe to come neare me, for his Ordinances to 
worke upon me, I am no companion for my selfe, I must 


Infecting God. 7 

not be alone with my selfe ; for I am as apt to take, as 
to give infection ; I am a reciprocal! plague ; passively 
and actively contagious ; I breath corruption, and breath 
it upon my selfe ; and I am the Babylon that I must 
goe out of, or I perish. 

7. Forgiveness of Sins. 

SO the Spirit of God moves upon the face of 
these waters, the Spirit of life upon the danger 
of death. Consider the love, more then love, the study, 
more then study, the diligence of God, he devises meanes, 
that his banished, those whom sins, or death had banished, 
be not expelled from him. I sinned upon the strength of ■. 
my youth, and God devised a meanes to reclaime me, 
an enfeebling sicknesse. I relapsed after my recovery, 
and God devised a meanes, an irrecoverable, a helpless 
Consumption to reclaime me ; That affliction grew 
heavy upon me, and weighed me down even to a diffidence 
in Gods mercy, and God devised a meanes, the comfort of 
the Angel of his Church, his Minister, The comfort of 
the Angel of the great Counsell, the body and blood 
of his Son Christ Jesus, at my transmigration. Yet he 
lets his correction proceed to death ; I doe dye of that 
sicknesse, and God devises a meanes, that I, though 
banished, banished into the grave, shall not be expelled 
from him, a glorious Resurrection. 

8. Forgive my Sins, 

FORGIVE me O Lord^ O Lord forgive me my 
sinnes, the sinnes of my youth, and my present 
sinnes, the sinne that my Parents cast upon me. Original! 


8 Forgive my Sins. 

sinne, and the sinnes that I cast upon my children, in 
an ill example ; Actuall sinnes, sinnes which are manifest 
to all the world, and sinnes which I have so laboured 
to hide from the world, as that now they are hid from 
mine own conscience, and mine own memory ; Forgive 
me my crying sins, and my whispering sins, sins of 
v^ uncharitable hate, and sinnes of unchaste love, sinnes 
against Thee and Thee^ against thy Power O Almighty 
Father, against thy Wisedome, O glorious Sonne, against 
thy Goodnesse, O blessed Spirit of God ; and sinnes 
against Him and Him, against Superiours and Equals, 
and Inferiours ; and sinnes against Me and Me, against 
mine own soul, and against my body, which I have loved 
better than my soul ; Forgive me O Lord, O Lord in 
the merits of thy Christ and my Jesus, thine Anointed, 
and my Saviour ; Forgive me my sinnes, all my sinnes, 
and I will put Christ to no more cost, nor thee to more 
trouble, for any reprobation or malediction that lay 
upon me, otherwise then as a sinner. I ask but an 
application, not an extention of that Benediction, 
Blessed are they whose sinnes are forgiven ; Let me be 
but so blessed, and I shall envy no mans Blessednesse : 
say thou to my sad soul, Sonne be of good comfort, thy sinnes 
are forgiven thee, and I shall never trouble thee with 
Petitions, to take any other Bill off of the fyle, or to 
reverse any other Decree, by which I should be accurst, 
before I was created, or condemned by thee, before thou 
saw'st me as a sinner. 


Let Me Wither. 

9. Let Me Wither. 

1ET me wither and weare out mine age in a dis- 
-i comfortable, in an unwholesome, in a penurious 
prison, and so pay my debts with my bones, and 
recompence the wastfulnesse of my youth, with the 
beggery of mine age ; Let me wither in a spittle under 
sharpe, and foule, and infamous diseases, and so recom- 
pence the wantonnesse of my youth, with that loath- 
somnesse in mine age ; yet, if God with-draw not his 
spirituall blessings, his Grace, his Patience, If I can call 
my suffering his Doing, my passion his Action, All this 
that is temporall, is but a caterpiller got into one corner 
of my garden, but a mill-dew fallen upon one acre of 
my Corne ; The body of all, the substance of all is safe, 
as long as the soule is safe. But when I shall trust 
to that, which wee call a good spirit, and God shall 
deject, and empoverish, and evacuate that spirit, when I 
shall rely upon a morall constancy, and God shall shake, 
and enfeeble, and enervate, destroy and demolish that 
constancy ; when I shall think to refresh my selfe in 
the serenity and sweet ayre of a good conscience, and 
God shall call up the damps and vapours of hell itselfe, 
and spread a cloud of diffidence, and an impenetrable 
crust of desperation upon my conscience ; when health 
shall flie from me, and I shall lay hold upon riches to 
succour me, and comfort me in my sicknesse, and riches 
shall flie from me, and I shall snatch after favour, and 
good opinion, to comfort me in my poverty ; when 
even this good opinion shall leave me, and calumnies 
and misinformations shall prevaile against me ; when 


10 Let Me Wither. 

I shall need peace, because there is none but thou, O 
Lord, that should stand for me, and then shall finde, 
that all the wounds that I have, come from thy hand, 
all the arrowes that stick in me, from thy quiver ; when 
I shall see, that because I have given my selfe to my 
corrupt nature, thou hast changed thine ; and because 
I am all evill towards thee, therefore thou hast given over 
being good towards me ; When it comes to this height, 
that the fever is not in the humors, but in the spirits, 
that mine enemy is not an imaginary enemy, fortune, 
nor a transitory enemy, malice in great persons, but 
a reall, and an irresistible, and an inexorable, and an 
everlasting enemy. The Lord of Hosts himselfe, The 
Almighty God himselfe, the Almighty God himselfe onely 
knowes the waight of this affliction, and except hee put 
in tha.t pondus gloria, that exceeding waight of an eternall 
glory, with his owne hand, into the other scale, we are 
waighed downe, we are swallowed up, irreparably, 
irrevocably, irrecoverably, irremediably. 

10. Donne and the Worm. 

IF my soule could aske one of those Wormes 
which my dead body shall produce. Will you 
change with me ? that worme would say. No ; for you 
are like to live eternally in torment ; for my part, I can 
live no longer, then the putrid moisture of your body 
will give me leave, and therefore I will not change ; nay, 
would the Devill himselfe change with a damned soule I 
I cannot tell. 


Preaching Consolation. ii 

II. Preaching Consolatioti. 

WHO but my selfe can conceive the sweetnesse 
of that sahitation, when the Spirit of God 
sayes to me in a morning, Go forth to day and preach, 
and preach consolation, preach peace, preach mercy, 
And spare my people, spare that people whom I have 
redeemed with my precious Blood, and be not angry 
with them for ever ; Do not wound them, doe not 
grinde them, do not astonish them with the bitternesse, 
with the heavinesse, with the sharpnesse, with the 
consternation of my judgements. David proposes to 
himselfe, that he would Sing of mercy, and of judgement ; Psal. ion. 
but it is of mercy first ; and not of judgement at all, 
otherwise then it will come into a song, as joy and 
consolation is compatible with it. It hath falne into 
disputation, and admitted argument, whether ever God 
inflicted punishments by his good Angels ; But that 
the good Angels, the ministeriall Angels of the Church, 
are properly his instruments, for conveying mercy, 
peace, consolation, never fell into question, never 
admitted opposition. . . . 

What a Coronation is our taking of Orders, by which 
God makes us a Royall Priesthood ? And what an 
inthronization is the comming up into a Pulpit, where 
God invests his servants with his Ordinance, as with 
a Cloud, and then presses that Cloud with a Vce si non, 
woe be unto thee, if thou doe not preach, and then 
enables him to preach peace, mercy, consolation, to the 
whole Congregation. That God should appeare in 
a Cloud, upon the Mercy Seat, as he promises Moses Lsvlt. 16.2, 


12 Preaching Consolation. 

he will doe, That from so poore a man as stands here, 
wrapped up in clouds of infirmity, and in clouds of 
iniquity, God should drop, raine, poure downe his dew, 
and sweeten that dew with his honey, and. crust that 
honied dew into Manna, and multiply that Manna into 
Gomers, and fill those Gomers every day, and give every 
particular man his Gomer, give every soule in the Con- 
gregation, consolation by me ; That when I call to God 
for grace here, God should give me grace for grace, 
Grace in a power to derive grace upon others, and that 
this Oyle, this Balsamum should flow to the hem of 
the garment, even upon them that stand under me ; 
That when mine eyes looke up to Heaven, the eyes of 
all should looke up upon me, and God should open my 
mouth, to give them meat in due season ; That I should 
not onely be able to say, as Christ said to that poore 
soule. Confide fill. My son be of good comfort, but 
Fratres i^ Patres mei, My Brethren, and my Fathers, 
nay Domini mei, and Rex mens, My Lords, and my King 
be of good comfort, your sins are forgiven you ; That 
God should scale to me that Patent, lie pr^edicate omni 
Creaturce^ Goe and preach the Gospell to every Creaturey 
be that creature what he will, That if God lead me into 
a Congregation, as into his Arke, where there are but 
eight soules, but a few disposed to a sense of his mercies, 
and all the rest (as in the Arke) ignobler creatures, and of 
brutall natures and affections. That if I finde a licentious 
Goat, a supplanting Fox, an usurious Wolfe, an ambitious 
Lion, yet to that creature, to every creature I should 
preach the Gospel of peace and consolation, and offer 
these creatures a Metamorphosis, a transformation, 


Preaching Consolation. 13 

a new Creation in Christ Jesus, and thereby make my 
Goat, and my Fox, and my Wolfe, and my Lion, to 
become Semen Dei, The seed of God, and Filiunt Dei, 
The child of God, and Participem Divina Natura, 
Partaker of the Divine Nature it selfe ; This is that which 
Christ is essentially in himselfe, This is that which 
ministerially and instrumentally he hath committed to 
me, to shed his consolation upon you, upon you all ; 
Not as his Almoner to drop his consolation upon one 
soule, nor as his Treasurer to issue his consolation to 
a whole Congregation, but as his Ophir, as his Indies, 
to derive his gold, his precious consolation upon the King 
himselfe. 

12. The Beauty of the Soul. 

/NSANIEBAT amatoriam insaniam Paulus, S. PaulThcopUl. 
was mad for love ; S. Paul did, and we doe take 
into our contemplation, the beauty of a Christian soul ; 
Through the ragged apparell of the afflictions of this 
life ; through the scarres, and wounds, and palenesse, 
and morphews of sin, and corruption, we can look upon 
the soul it self, and there see that incorruptible beauty, 
that white and red, which the innocency and the blood 
of Christ hath given it, and we are mad for love of this 
soul, and ready to doe any act of danger, in the ways of 
persecution, any act of diminution of our selves in the 
ways of humiliation, to stand at her doore, and pray, and 
begge, that she would be reconciled to God. 


14 Spiritual Liberality. 

13. Spiritual Liberality. 
' ^^^^'- A^ ^^ Hezekias, a losias is a Type of Christ, but yet 
' JljL but a Type of Christ ; so this civill Liberality, 
which we have hitherto spoken of, is a Type, but yet 
but a Type of our spirituall Liberality. For, here we 
doe not onely change termes, the temporall, to spirituall, 
and to call that, which we called Liberality in the former 
part, Charity in this part ; nor do we onely make the 
difference in the proportion & measure, that that which 
was a Benefit in the other part, should be an Almes in 
this. But we invest the whole consideration in a meere 
spirituall nature ; and so that Liberality, which was, 
in the former acceptation, but a relieving, but a refreshing, 
but a repairing of defects, and dilapidations in the body 
or fortune, is now, in this second part, in this spirituall 
acceptation, the raising of a dejected spirit, the redinte- 
gration of a broken heart, the resuscitation of a buried 
soule, the re-consoHdation of a scattered conscience, 
not with the glues, and cements of this world, mirth, and 
musique, and comedies, and conversation, and wine, 
and women, (miserable comforters are they all) nor with 
that Meteor, that hangs betweene two worlds, that is, 
Philosophy, and morall constancy, (which is somewhat 
above the carnall man, but yet far below the man truly 
Christian and religious) But this is the Liberality, of 
which the Holy Ghost himselfe is content to be the 
Steward, of the holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, and 
to be notified, and qualified by that distinctive notion, 
and specification, The Comforter. 

To finde a languishing wretch in a sordid corner, not 


Spiritual Liberality. 15 

onely in a penurious fortune, but in an oppressed con- 
science, His eyes under a diverse suffocation, smothered 
with smoake, and smothered with teares, His eares 
estranged from all salutations, and visits, and all sounds, but 
his owne sighes, and the stormes and thunders and earth- 
quakes of his owne despaire. To enable this man to open 
his eyes, and see that Christ Jesus stands before him, 
and sayes, Behold and see, if ever there were any sorrow, like 
my sorrow, and my sorrow is overcome, why is not thine ? 
To open this mans eares, and make him heare that voyce 
that sayes, / was dead, and am alive, and behold, I live Reveli. 18. 
for evermore. Amen ; and so mayest thou ; To bow downe 
those Heavens, and bring them into his sad Chamber, 
To set Christ Jesus before him, to out-sigh him, out-weepe 
him, out-bleed him, out-dye him. To transferre all the 
fasts, all the scornes, all the scourges, all the nailes, all 
the speares of Christ Jesus upon him, and so, making him 
the Crucified man in the sight of the Father, because 
all the actions, and passions of the Son, are appropriated 
to him, and made his so intirely, as if there were never 
a soule created but his, To enrich this poore soule, to 
comfort this sad soule so, as that he shall beleeve, and by 
beleeving finde all Christ to be his, this is that Liberality 
which we speake of now, in dispensing whereof, The 
liber all man devise th liber all things, and by liber all things 
shall stand. 

14. Eaglets Wings. 

FOR as those words are well understood by many of 
the Ancients, To the Woman were given two wings Revei. 12. 
of an Eagle, that is, to the Church were given able and ^^ 


1 6 Eagle's Wings. 

sufficient Ministers, to carry and convey her over the 
Nations : So are those vi^ords which are spoken of God 
Deut. 32. himself, appHable to his Ministers, that first, The Eagle 
^^' stirreth up her nest. The Preacher stirres and moves, 

and agitates the holy affections of the Congregation, that 
they slumber not in a senselesnesse of that which is said, 
The Eagle stirreth up her nest, and then as it is added 
there, She Jluttereth over her young ; The Preacher makes 
a holy noise in the conscience of the Congregation, and 
when hee hath awakened them, by stirring the nest, hee 
casts some claps of thunder, some intimidations, in 
denouncing the judgements of God, and he flings open 
the gates of Heaven, that they may heare, and look up, 
and see a man sent by God, with power to infuse his feare 
upon them ; So she Jluttereth over her young ; but then, 
as it followes there, She spreadeth abroad her zvings ; she 
over-shadowes them, she enwraps them, she armes them 
with her wings, so as that no other terror, no other 
fluttering but that which comes from her, can come upon 
them ; The Preacher doth so infuse the feare of God 
into his Auditory, that first, they shall feare nothing but 
God, and then they shall feare God, but so, as he is God ; 
And God is Mercy ; God is Love ; and his Minister 
shall so spread his wings over his people, as to defend 
them from all inordinate feare, from all suspition and 
jealousie, from all diffidence and distrust in the mercie 
of God ; which is farther exprest in that clause, which 
followes in the same place, She taketh them and heareth 
them upon her wings ; when the Minister hath awakened 
his flocke by the stirring of the nest, and put them in 
this holy feare, by this which the Holy Ghost cals a 


Eagle's Wings. 17 

Fluttering ; and then provided, by spreading his wings, 
that upon this feare there follow not a desperation ; then ^ 
he sets them upon the top of his best wings, and shewes 
them the best treasure that is committed to his Steward- 
ship, hee shewes them Heaven, and God in Heaven, 
sanctifying all their crosses in this World, inanimating 
all their worldly blessings, rayning downe his blood into 
their emptinesse, and his balme into their wounds, making 
their bed in all their sicknesse, and preparing their seate, 
where he stands soliciting their cause, at the right hand 
of his Father. And so the Minister hath the wings of 
an Eagle, that every soule in the Congregation may see 
as much as hee sees, that is, a particular interest in all 
the mercies of God, and the merits of Christ. 

15. The Hour-Glass. 

I HAVE seen Minute-glasses ; Glasses so short-liv'd. 
If I were to preach upon this Text, to such a glass, it 
were enough for half the Sermon ; enough to show the 
worldly man his Treasure, and the Object of his heart 
{for, where your Treasure is, there will your Heart be also) 
to call his eye to that Minute-glass, and to tell him. 
There flows, there flies your Treasure, and your Heart 
with it. But if I had a Secular Glass, a Glass that would 
run an age ; if the two Hemispheres of the World were 
composed in the form of such a Glass, and all the World 
calcin'd and burnt to ashes, and all the ashes, and sands, 
and atoms of the World put into that Glass, it would 
not be enough to tell the godly man what his Treasure, 
and the Object of his Heart is. A Parrot, or a Stare, 
docile Birds, and of pregnant imitation, will sooner be 
^025*3 c 


1 8 The Hour- Glass. 

brought to relate to us the wisdom of a Council Table, 
then any Ambrose, or any Chrysostome men that have 
Gold and Honey in their Names, shall tell us what the 
Sweetness, what the Treasure of Heaven is, and what 
that mans peace, that hath set his Heart upon that 
Treasure. 

1 6. Preaching. 
In (onci- T^ECAUSE God cals Preaching foolishnesse, you take 
1 Cor*^i* 21 ^^ God at his word, and you thinke Preaching a thing 
under you. Hence is it, that you take so much liberty in 
censuring and comparing Preacher and Preacher, nay 
Sermon and Sermon from the same Preacher ; as though 
we preached for wagers, and as though coine were to 
be valued from the inscription meerely, and the image, 
and the person, and not for the metall. You measure 
Lam. 4 i6. all by persons ; and yet, Non erubescitis faciem Sacerdotis, 
Tou respect not the person of the Priest, you give not so 
much reverence to Gods Ordinance, as he does. In no 
Church of Christendome but ours, doth the Preacher 
preach uncovered. And for all this good, and humble, 
and reverend example, (fit to be continued by us) cannot 
we keepe you uncovered till the Text be read. All the 
Sermon is not Gods word, but all the Sermon is Gods 
Ordinance, and the Text is certainely his word. There is 
no salvation but by faith, nor faith but by hearing, nor 
hearing but by preaching ; and they that thinke meanliest 
of the Keyes of the Church, and speake faintliest of the 
Absolution of the Church, will yet allow, That those Keyes 
lock, and unlock in Preaching ; That Absolution is con- 
ferred, or withheld in Preaching, That the proposing 


Preaching. 19 

of the promises of the Gospel in preaching, is that binding 
and loosing on earth, which bindes and looses in heaven. 
And then, though Christ have bid us, Preach the Gospel Mar. 16. is- 
to every creature, yet, in his own great Sermon in the 
Mount, he hath forbidden us, to give holy things to dogs. Mat. 7. 6. 
or to cast pearle before swine, lest they trample them, and 
turne and rend us. So that if all those manifold and fearfull 
judgements, which swell in every Chapter, and blow 
in every verse, and thunder in every line of every Booke 
of the Bible, fall upon all them that come hither, as well, 
if they turne, and rend, that is. Calumniate us, the person 
of the Preacher, as if they trample upon the pearles, 
that is, undervalue the Doctrine, and the Ordinance it 
selfe ; If his terrible Judgements fall upon every uncharit- 
able mis-interpretation of that which is said here, and 
upon every irreverence in this place, and in this action ; 
Confesse, that though he be the God of your salvation, and 
doe answer you, yet, by terrible things doth the God of your 
salvation answer you. And confesse it also, as in manners, 
and in prayers, and in preaching, so in the holy and blessed 
Sacrament. 

17. Applause. 
niDONIUS APOLLINARIS, (a Bishop himselfe, 
^ but whether then or no, I know not) saith of another 
Bishop, that hearing even pmdicationes repentinas, his 
extemporall Sermons, raucus plausor audivi, I poured 
my selfe out in loud acclamations, till I was hoarse : 
And, to contract this consideration, wee see evidently, 
that this fashion continued in the Church, even to Saint 
Bernards time. Neither is it left yet in some places, 

c 2 


:o Applause. 

beyond the Seas, where the people doe yet answer the 
Preacher, if his questions be applyable to them, and may 
induce an answer, with these vocall acclamations, 5iV, 
we zvillf Sir, we zvill noU And truely wee come too neare 
re-inducing this vain glorious fashion, in those often 
periodicall murraurings, and noises, which you make, 
when the Preacher concludeth any point ; for those 
impertinent Interjections swallow up one quarter of 
his houre, and many that were not within distance of 
hearing the Sermon, will give a censure upon it, according 
to the frequencie, or paucitie of these acclamations. 

1 8. The Bellman. 

HE that will dy with Christ upon Good-Friday, must 
hear his own bell toll all Lent ; he that will be 
partaker of his passion at last, must conform himself to 
his discipline of prayer & fasting before. Is there any man, 
that in his chamber hears a bell toll for another man, 
and does not kneel down to pray for that dying man ? 
and then when his charity breaths out upon another 
man, does he not also reflect upon himself, and dispose 
himself as if he were in the state of that dying man ? 
We begin to hear Christs bell toll now, and is not our 
bell in the chime ? We must be in his grave, before we 
come to his resurrection, and we must be in his death-bed 
before we come to his grave : we must do as he did, 
fast and pray, before we can say as he said, that In manus 
tuas. Into thy hands O Lord I commend my Spirit. You 
would not go into a Medicinal Bath without some pre- 
paratives ; presume not upon that Bath, the blood of 
Christ Jesus, in the Sacrament then, without preparatives 


The Bellman. 21 

neither. Neither say to your selves, we shall have 
preparatives enough, warnings enough, many more 
Sermons before it come to that, and so it is too soon yet ; 
you are not sure you shall have more ; not sure you shall 
have all this ; not sure you shall be affected with any. 
If you be, when you are, remember that as in that good 
Custome in these Cities, you hear cheerful street musick 
in the winter mornings, but yet there was a sad and doleful 
bel-man, that wak'd you, and call'd upon you two or 
three hours before that musick came ; so for all that 
blessed musick which the servants of God shall present 
to you in this place, it may be of use, that a poor bell-man 
waked you before, and though but by his noise, prepared 
you for their musick. 

19. Favourite Scriptures, 
ALMOST every man hath his Appetite^ and his tast 
-^~i- disposed to some kind of meates rather then others ; 
He knows what dish he would choose, for his first, and for 
his second course. We have often the same disposition 
in our spirituall Diet ; a man may have a particular love 
towards such or such a book of Scripture, and in such 
an affection, I acknowledge, that my spirituall appetite 
carries me still, upon the Psalms of David, for a first 
course, for the Scriptures of the Old Testament : and 
upon the Epistles of Saint Paul, for a second course, for 
the New, and my meditations even for these publike 
exercises to Gods Church, returne oftnest to these two. 
For, as a hearty entertainer offers to others, the meat 
which he loves best himself, so doe I oftnest present to 
Gods people, in these Congregations, the meditations 


22 Favourite Scriptures. 

which I feed upon at home, in those two Scriptures^ 
If a man be asked a reason why he loves one meat better 
then another, where all are equally good, (as the books 
of Scripture are) he will at least, finde a reason in some 
good example, that he sees some man of good tast, and 
temperate withall, so do : And for my Diet, I have Saint 
Augustines protestation, that he loved the Book of Psalms ^ 
and Saint Chrysostomes, that he loved Saint Pauls Epistles, 
with a particular devotion. I may have another more 
particular reason, because they are Scriptures, written 
in such forms, as I have been most accustomed to ; 
Saint Pauls being Letters, and Davids being Poems : for, 
God gives us, not onely that which is meerly neces- 
sary, but that which is convenient too ; He does not 
onely feed us, hutfeed us with marrow, and with fatnesse ; 
he gives us our instruction in cheerfull forms, not in 
a sowre, and sullen, and angry, and unacceptable way, 
but cheerfully, in Psalms, which is also a limited, and 
a restrained form ; Not in an Oration, not in Prose, but in 
Psalms ; which is such a form as is both curious, and 
requires diligence in the making, and then when it is 
made, can have nothing, no syllable taken from it, nor 
added to it : Therefore is Gods will delivered to us in 
Psalms, that we might have it the more cheerfully, and 
that we might have it the more certainly, because where 
all the words are numbred, and measured, and weighed, 
the whole work is the lesse subject to falsification, either 
by substraction or addition. God speaks to us in oratione 
strictd, in a limited, in a diligent form ; Let us {not) speak 
to him in oratione solutd ; not pray, not preach, not hear, 
\ slackly, suddenly, unadvisedly, extemporally, occasionally, 


Favourite Scriptures. 23 

indlligently ; but let all our speech to him, be weighed, 
and measured in the weights of the Sanctuary, let us be 
content to preach, and to hear within the compasse 
of our Articles, and content to pray in those jormes 
which the Church hath meditated for us, and recom- 
mended to us. 

20. T^he Psalms. 

THE Psalmes are the Manna of the Church. As Wisd.i6.2o, 
Manna tasted to every man like that that he liked 
best, so doe the Psalmes minister Instruction, and satis- ° 
faction, to every man, in every emergency and occasion. 
David was not onely a cleare Prophet of Christ himselfe, 
but a Prophet of every particular Christian ; He foretels 
what I, what any shall doe, and suffer, and say. And 
as the whole booke of Psalmes is Oleum effusum, (as the Cant. i. 3. 
Spouse speaks of the name of Christ) an Oyntment 
powred out upon all sorts of sores, A Searcloth that 
souples all bruises, A Balme that searches all wounds ; 
so are there some certaine Psalmes, that are Imperiall 
Psalmes, that command over all affections, and spread 
themselves over all occasions, Catholique, universal! 
Psalmes, that apply themselves to all necessities. This 
is one of those ; for, of those Constitutions which are Constitut. 
called Apostolicall, one is, That the Church should ^ 
meet every day, to sing this Psalme. And accordingly, 
S. Chrysostome testifies, That it was decreed, and ordained Chrysost, 
by the Primitive Fathers, that no day should passe 
without the publique singing of this Psalme. Under 
both these obligations, (those ancient Constitutions, 
called the Apostles, and those ancient Decrees made by 


24 The Psalms. 

the primitive Fathers) belongs to me, who have my part 
in the service of Gods Church, the especiall meditation, 
and recommendation of this Psalme. And under a third 
obhgation too, That it is one of those five psalmes, the 
daily rehearsing whereof, is injoyned to me, by the 
Constitutions of this Church, as five other are to every 
other person of our body. As the whole booke is Manna, 
so these five Psalmes are my Gomer, which I am to fill 
and empty every day of this Manna. 

21. Sanctified Passions. 

AS the Prophets, and the other Secretaries of the 
Jl\ holy Ghost in penning the books of Scriptures, 
do for the most part retain, and express in their writings 
some impressions, and some air of their former professions ; 
those that had been bred in Courts and Cities, those 
that had been Shepheards and Heardsmen, those that 
had been Fishers, and so of the rest ; ever inserting 
into their writings some phrases, some metaphors, some 
allusions, taken from that profession which they had 
exercised before ; so that soul, that hath been transported 
upon any particular worldly pleasure, when it is entirely 
turn'd upon God, and the contemplation of his all- 
sufficiency and abundance, doth find in God fit subject, 
and just occasion to exercise the same affection piously, 
and religiously, which had before so sinfully transported, 
and possesst it. 

A covetous person, who is now truly converted to God, 
he will exercise a spiritual covetousness still, he will 
desire to have him all, he will have good security, the 
seal and assurance of the holy Ghost ; and he will have 


Sanctified Passions. 25 

his security often renewed by new testimonies, and 
increases of those graces in him ; he will have witnesses 
enough ; he will have the testimonie of all the world, 
by his good life and conversation ; he will gain every 
way at Gods hand, he will have wages of God, for he will 
be his servant ; he will have a portion from God, for he 
will be his Son ; he will have a reversion, he will be sure 
that his name is in the book of life ; he will have pawns, 
the seals of the Sacraments, nay, he will have a present 
possession ; all that God hath promised, all that Christ 
hath purchased, all that the Holy Ghost hath the steward- 
ship and dispensation of, he will have all in present, by 
the appropriation and investiture of an actual and 
applying faith ; a covetous person converted will be 
spiritually covetous still. 

So will a voluptuous man, who is turned to God, 
find plenty and deliciousnes enough in him, to feed his 
soul, as with marrow, and with fatness, as David expresses 
it ; and so an angry and passionate man, will find zeal 
enough in the house of God to eat him up. 

All affections which are common to all men, and those 
to which in particular, particular men have been addicted 
to, shall not only be justly employed upon God, but also 
securely employed, because we cannot exceed, nor go 
too far in imploying them upon him. According to this 
Rule, St. Paul, who had been so vehement a persecutor, 
had ever his thoughts exercised upon that ; and thereupon 
after his conversion, he fulfils the rest of the sufferings 
of Christ in his flesh, he suffers most, he makes most Col. i. 24* 
mention of his suffering of any of the Apostles. 

And according to this Rule too, Solomon, whose 


26 Sanctified Passions. 

disposition was amorous, and excessive in the love of 
women, when he turn'd to God, he departed not utterly 
from his old phrase and language, but having put a new, and 
a spiritual tincture, and form and habit in all his thoughts, 
and words, he conveys all his loving approaches and 
applications to God, and all Gods gracious answers to 
his amorous soul, into songs, and Epithalamians, and 
meditations upon contracts, and marriages between 
God and his Church, and between God and his soul ; 
as we see so evidently in all his other writings, and 
particularly in this text, / love them, &c. 

In which words is expressed all that belongs to love, 
all which, is to desire, and to enjoy ; for to desire without 
fruition, is a rage, and to enjoy without desire is a stupid- 
ity : In the first alone we think of nothing, but that 
which we then would have ; and in the second alone, 
we are not for that, when we have it ; in the first, we 
are without it ; in the second, we were as good as we 
were, for we have no pleasure in it ; nothing then can 
give us satisfaction, but when those two concurr, amare 
and frui, to love and to enjoy. 

22. Style and Language. 

THE Holy Ghost in penning the Scriptures delights 
himself, not only with a propriety, but with a 
delicacy, and harmony, and melody of language ; with 
height of Metaphors, and other figures, which may work 
greater impressions upon the Readers, and not with 
barbarous, or triviall, or market, or homely language : 
It is true, that when the Grecians, and the Romanes, and 
S. Augustine himselfe, undervalued and despised the 


Style and Language. 27 

Scriptures, because of the poore and beggerly phrase, 
that they seemed to be written in, the Christians could 
say little against it, but turned still upon the other safer 
way, wee consider the matter, and not the phrase, because 
for the most part, they had read the Scriptures only in 
Translations, which could not maintaine the Majesty, 
nor preserve the elegancies of the Originall. 

Their case was somewhat like ours, at the beginning 
of the Reformation ; when, because most of those men 
who laboured in that Reformation, came out of the 
Romane Church, and there had never read the body 
of the Fathers at large ; but only such ragges and frag- 
ments of those Fathers, as were patcht together in their 
Decretat's, and Decretals, and other such Common 
placers, for their purpose, and to serve their turne, 
therefore they were loath at first to come to that issue, 
to try controversies by the Fathers. But as soon as our 
men that imbraced the Reformation, had had time to 
reade the Fathers, they were ready enough to joyne 
with the Adversary in that issue : and still we protest, 
that we accept that evidence, the testimony of the 
Fathers, and refuse nothing, which the Fathers unanimly 
delivered, for matter of faith ; and howsoever at the 
beginning some men were a Httle ombrageous, and 
starthng at the name of the Fathers, yet since the Fathers 
have been well studied, for more then threescore yeares, 
we have behaved our selves with more reverence towards 
the Fathers, and more confidence in the Fathers, then 
they of the Romane perswasion have done, and been lesse 
apt to suspect or quarrel] their Books, or to reprove their 
Doctrines, then our Adversaries have been. So, howsoever 


28 Style and Language. 

the Christians at first were fain to sink a little under 
that imputation, that their Scriptures have no Majesty, 
no eloquence, because these embellishments could not 
appeare in Translations, nor they then read Originalls, 
yet now, that a perfect knowledge of those languages 
hath brought us to see the beauty and the glory of those 
Books, we are able to reply to them, that there are not 
in all the world so eloquent Books as the Scriptures ; 
and that nothing is more demonstrable, then that if we 
would take all those Figures, and Tropes, which are 
collected out of secular Poets, and Orators, we may give 
higher, and livelier examples, of every one of those 
Figures, out of the Scriptures, then out of all the Greek 
and Latine Poets, and Orators ; and they mistake it 
much, that thinke, that the Holy Ghost hath rather 
chosen a low, and barbarous, and homely style, then an 
eloquent, and powerfull manner of expressing himselfe. 

23. Style of the Holy Ghost. 
Exultaiio. ' I ^HE Holy Ghost is an eloquent Author, a vehement, 
X and an abundant Author, but yet not luxuriant ; 
he is far from a penurious, but as far from a superfluous 
style too. 

24. Compliments. 

WE have a word now denizened, and brought into 
familiar use amongst us. Complement ; and for 
the most part, in an ill sense ; so it is, when the heart 
of the speaker doth not answer his tongue ; but God 
forbid but a true heart, and a faire tongue might very 
well consist together : As vertue it self receives an 
addition, by being in a faire body, so do good intentions 


Compliments. 29 

of the heart, by being expressed in faire lan-guage. That 
man aggravates his condemnation, that gives me good 
words, and meanes ill ; but he gives me a rich Jewell, and 
in a faire Cabinet, he gives me precious wine, and in 
a clean glasse, that intends well, and expresses his good 
intentions well too. If I beleeve a faire speaker, I have 
comfort a little while, though he deceive me, but a froward 
and peremptory refuser, unsaddles me at first. I remem- 
ber a vulgar Spanish Author, who writes, the losephina, 
the Hfe of Joseph, the husband of the blessed Virgin 
Mary, who moving that question, why that Virgin is 
never called by any style of Majesty, or Honour in the 
Scriptures, he sayes, That if after the declaring of her 
to be the Mother of God, he had added any other Title, 
the Holy Ghost had not been a good Courtier, (as his 
very word is) nor exercised in good language, and he 
thinks that had been a defect in the Holy Ghost in 
himself. He meanes surely the same that Epiphanius 
doth, That in naming the Saints of God, and especially 
the blessed Virgin, we should alwayes give them the best 
Titles that are applyable to them ; Ouis unquam ausus, Epiphan. 
(sales he) projerre nomen Marice^ i^ non statim addidit "*'^^^- 7^ 
virgo ? Who ever durst utter the name of that Mary, 
without that addition of incomparable honour, The 
Virgin Mary f 

That Spanish Author need not be suspitious of the 
Holy Ghost in that kinde, that he is no good Courtier 
so ; for in all the books of the world, you shall never reade 
so civill language, nor so faire expressions of themselves 
to one another, as in the Bible : When Abraham shall 
call himself dust, and ashes, (and indeed if the Son of 


30 Compliments. 

God were a loorme and no man, what was Abraham F) 
If God shall call this Abraham, this Dust, this Worme 
of the dust, The friend of God, (and all friendship implyes 
a parity, an equality in something ;) when David shall 
call himself a flea, and a dead dog, even in respect of Saul, 
and God shall call David, A man according to his own 
heart, when God shall call us, The Apple of his own eye, 
The Seale upon his own right hand, who would go farther 
for an Example, or farther then that example for a Rule, 
of faire accesses, of civill approaches, of sweet and 
honourable entrances into the affections of them with 
whom they were to deale ? 

25. Lying at Aix. 

IYING at Aix, at Aquisgrane, a well known Town 
J in Germany, and fixing there some time, for the 
benefit of those Baths, I found my self in a house, which 
was divided into many families, & indeed so large as it 
might have been a little Parish, or, at least, a great lim 
of a great one ; But it was of no Parish : for when 
I ask'd who lay over my head, they told me a family of 
Anabaptists ; And who over theirs ? Another family 
of Anabaptists ; and another family of Anabaptists over 
theirs, and the whole house, was a nest of these boxes ; 
several artificers ; all Anabaptists ; I ask'd in what room 
they met, for the exercise of their Religion ; I was told 
they never met : for, though they were all Anabaptists, 
yet for some collateral! differences, they detested one 
another, and, though many of them, were near in bloud, 
& alliance to one another, yet the son would excommuni- 
cate the father, in the room above him, and the Nephew 


Lying at Aix. 31 

the Uncle. As S. John is said to have quitted that Bath^ 
into which Cerinthus the Heretique came, so did I this 
house ; I remembred that Hezekiah in his sicknesse, 
turn'd himself in his bed, to pray towards that wall, 
that look'd to lerusaleni ; And that Daniel in Babylon, 
when he pray'd in his chamber, opened those windows 
that look'd towards Jerusalem ; for, in the first dedication 
of the Temple, at lerusalem, there is a promise annest 
to the prayers made towards the Temple : And I began 
to think, how many roofs, how many floores of separation, 
were made between God and my prayers in that house. 
And such is this multipHcity of sins, which we consider 
to be got over us, as a roof, as an arch, many arches, 
many roofs : for, though these habituall sins, be so of 
kin, as that they grow from one another, and yet for all 
this kindred excommunicate one another, (for covetous- 
nesse will not be in the same roome with prodigality) 
yet it is but going up another stair, and there's the tother 
Anabaptist ; it is but living a few years, and then the 
prodigall becomes covetous. All the way, they separate 
us from God, as a roof, as an arch ; & then, an arch 
will bear any weight ; An habituall sin got over our head 
as an arch will stand under any sicknesse, any dishonour, 
any judgement of God, and never sink towards any 
humiliation. 

26. Farezuell on Goi?ig to Germany. 

NOW to make up a circle, by returning to our first 
word, remember : As we remember God, so for his 
sake, let us remember one another. In my long absence, 
and far distance from hence, remember me, as I shall do 


32 Farewell on Going to Germany. 

you in the ears of that God, to whom the farthest East, 
and the farthest West are but as the right and left ear 
in one of us ; we hear with both at once, and he hears 
in both at once ; remember me, not my abihties ; for 
when I consider my Apostleship that I was sent to you, 

I Cor. 15.9. I am in St. Pauls quorum, quorum ego sum minimus, the 
least of them that have been sent ; and when I c<jnsider 
my infirmities, I am in his quorum, in another commission, 

I Tim.r. 15, another way, Quorum ego maximus ; the greatest of 
them ; but remember my labors, and endeavors, at least 
my desire, to make sure your salvation. And I shall 
remember your religious cheerfulness in hearing the word, 
and your christianly respect towards all them that bring 
that word unto you, and towards my self in particular 
far bove my merit. And so as your eyes that stay here, 
and mine that must be far of, for all that distance shall 
meet every morning, in looking upon that same Sun, 
and meet every night, in looking upon the same Moon ; 
so our hearts may meet morning and evening in that God, 
which sees and hears every where ; that you may come 
thither to him with your prayers, that I, (if I may be of 
use for his glory, and your edification in this place) may 
be restored to you again ; and may come to him with my 
prayer, that what Paul soever plant amongst you, or 
what ApoUos soever water, God himself will give the 
increase : That if I never meet you again till we have all 
passed the gate of death, yet in the gates of heaven, 
I may meet you all, and there say to my Saviour and your 
Saviour, that which he said to his Father and our Father, 
Of those whom thou hast given me, have I not lost one. 
Remember me thus, you that stay in this Kingdome 


Farewell on Going to Germany. 33 

of peace, where no sword is drawn, but the sword of 
Justice, as I shal remember you in those Kingdomes, 
where ambition on one side, and a necessary defence 
from unjust persecution on the other side hath drawn 
many swords ; and Christ Jesus remember us all in his 
Kingdome, to which, though we must sail through 
a sea, it is the sea of his blood, where no soul suffers 
shipwrack ; though we must be blown with strange 
winds, with sighs and groans for our sins, yet it is the 
Spirit of God that blows all this wind, and shall blow 
away all contrary winds of diffidence or distrust in Gods 
mercy; where we shall be all Souldiers of one Army, 
the Lord of Hostes, and children of one Quire, the God 
of Harmony and consent : where all Clients shall retain 
but one Counsellor, our Advocate Christ Jesus, not 
present him any other fee but his own blood, and yet 
every Client have a Judgment on his side, not only in 
a not guilty, in the remission of his sins, but in a Venite 
benedicti, in being called to the participation of an 
immortal Crown of glory : where there shall be no 
difference in affection, nor in mind, but we shall agree 
as fully & perfectly in our Allehijah, and gloria in 
excelcis, as God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost agreed 
in the faciamus hominem at first ; where we shall end, 
and yet begin but then ; where we shall have continual 
rest, and yet never grow lazie ; where we shall be stronger 
to resist, and yet have no enemy ; where we shall live 
and never die, where we shall meet & never part. 


2025.3 


34 The Vicar of St. Dunstan's. 

27. The Vicar of St. Dunstan^s. 
Onus. "TVT^^ ^^ ^ Matrimoniall state, there is Onus and 
-L^ Honos, a burden to be born, an Honour to be 
received. The burden of the sinnes of the whole zvorld, 
was a burden onely for Christs shoulders ; but the sinnes 
of this Parish^ will ly upon my shoulders, if I be silent, or 
if I be indulgent, and denounce not Gods Judgement 
upon those sinnes. It will be a burden to us, if we doe 
not, and God knowes it is a burden to us, when we do 
denounce those Judgements. Esay felt, and groned 
under this burden, when he cried Onus Bahylonis, Onus 
Moab, and Onus Damasci, O the burden of Babylon, and 
the burden of Damascus, and so the other Prophets grone 
often under this burden, in contemplation of other 
places : It burdened, it troubled, it grieved the holy 
Prophets of God, that they must denounce Gods judge- 
ments, though upon Gods enemies. We reade of a com- 
passionate Generall, that looking upon his great Army, 
from a hill, fell into a bitter weeping, upon this considera- 
tion, that in fiftie or sixtie yeares hence, there will not 
be a man of these that fight now, alive upon the earth. 
What Sea could furnish mine eyes with teares enough, 
to poure out, if I should think, that of all this Congrega- 
tion, which lookes me in the face now, I should not meet 
one, at the Resurrection, at the right hand of God ! 
And for so much as concerns me, it is all one, if none of 
you be saved, as if none of you be saved by my help, my 
means, my assistance, my preaching. If I put you upon 
miraculous wayes, to be saved without hearing, or upon 
extraordinary wayes to be saved by hearing others, this 


The Vicar of St. Dunstan's. 35 

shall aggravate my condemnation, though you be saved : 
How much more heavy must my burden be, if by my 
negligence both I and you perish too ? So then this 
calling, this marriage, is a burden every way. When at 
any midnight I heare a bell toll from this steeple, must, 
not I say to my selfe, what have I done at any time for 
the instructing or rectifying of that mans Conscience, 
who lieth there now ready to deliver up his own account, 
and my account to Almighty God ? If he be not able 
to make a good account, he and I are in danger, because 
I have not enabled him ; and though he be for himself 
able, that delivers not me, if I have been no instrument 
for the doing of it. Many, many burdens lie upon this 
calling, upon this marriage ; but our recompense is, that 
marriage is as well an honourable as a painefull calling. 

28. Funeral Sermon on Magdalen Herbert, 
Lady Danvers, 1627. 

I PROPOSE to my selfe, and to this Congregation, 
two Workes for this day ; That wee may walke 
together two miles, in this Sabbath dales journey ; First, 
To instruct the Living, and then To commemorate the Dead. 
Which office, as I ought, so I should have performed 
sooner, but that this sad occasion surprized me under 
other Pre-obligations and Pre-contracts, in the services 
of mine own Profession, which could not be excused, 
nor avoided. And being come now to this double worke, 
whether I looke up to the Throne of Heaven, and that 
Firmament, for my first worke. The Instruction of the 
hiving, or downe to the stones of the Grave, and that 

D2 


36 Funeral Sermon on 

pavement^ for my second worke, The commemoration of 
the Dead, I need no other words than these which I have 
read to you, for both purposes ; For, to assist the Resur- 
rection of your soules, I say, And to assure the Resurrec- 
tion of your bodies, she saies, Neverthelesse, we according 
to his promise looke for new Heavens, and new Earth, 
wherein dwelleth Righteousnesse. . . . 

Close we here this Booke of life, from which we have 
had our first Text, And, Surge, quce dormis in pulvere. 
Arise, thou Booke of Death ; thou, that sleepest in this 
consecrated dust, and hast beene going into dust, now, 
almost a Moneth of dayes, almost a Lunarie yeere, and 
dost deserve such Anniversaries, such quick returnes of 
Periods, and a Commemoration, in every such yeere, in 
every Moneth ; Arise thou, and bee another Comme?itary 
to us ; and tell us, what this new Heaven, and new Earth 
is, in which, now, thou dweVst, with that Righteousnesse. 
But wee doe not invoke thee, as thou art a Saint in Heaven ; 
Appeare to us, as thou didst appeare to us a moneth agoe ; 
At least, appeare in thy history ; appeare in our memory ; 
that when every one of us have lookt upon thee, by his 
owne glasse, and scene thee in his owne Interest, such, as 
thou wast to him. That when one shall have scene thee, 
the best wife. And a larger number, the best mother. And 
more then they, a whole Towne, the best Neighbour, and 
more then a Towne, a large body of noble friends, the 
best Friend, And more than all they, all the world, the 
best example, when thou hast receiv'd this Testimony 
from the Militant Church, as thou hast the recompence 
of all this, in thy Blessed Soule, in the Triumphant, 
yet, because thy body is still within these Walls, bee still 


Magdalen Herbert, Lady Danvers. 37 

content, to bee one of this Congregation, and to hcare 
some parts of this Text re-applied unto thee. 

Our first word, Neverthelesse, puts us first upon this 
consideration. That she liv'd in a time, wherein this 
Prophecie of Saint Peter, in this Chapter, was over- 
abundantly perform'd. That there should bee scoffers^ 
jesters in divine things, and matters appertaining to God^ 
and his Religion. For, now, in these our dayes, excellency 
of Wit, lies in prophanenesse ; he is the good Spirit, that 
dares abuse God ; And hee good company, that makes 
his company the worse, or keepes them from goodnesse. 
This being the Aire, and the Complexion of the Wit 
of her Times, and her inclination, and conversation, 
naturally, cheerfull, and merry, and loving facetiousnesse, 
and sharpnesse of wit, Neverthelesse, who ever saw her, 
who ever heard her countenance a prophane speech^ 
how sharpe soever, or take part with wit, to the prejudice 
of Godlinesse ? From this I testify her holy cheerfulnesse, 
and Religious alacrity, (one of the best evidences of a good 
conscience) That as shee came to this place, God's house 
of Prayer, duly, not onely every Sabbath, when it is the 
house of other exercises, as well as of Prayer, but even 
in those iveeke-dayes, when it was onely a house of Prayer^ 
as often as these doores were open for a holy Convocation^ 
And, as she ever hastned her family and her company 
hither, with that cheerfull provocation : Tor God's sake 
let^s go, for God's sake let's bee there at the Confession : So 
her selfe, with her whole family, (as a Church in that elect 
Ladle's house, to whom John writ the second Epistle) did, 
every Sabbath, shut up the day, at night, with a generall, 
with a cheerfull singing of Psahnes ; This Act of cheerful- 


38 Funeral Sermon on 

nesse, was still the last Act of that family, united in it 
selfe, and with God. God loves a cheerfull giver ; Much 
more, a cheerfull giver of himselfe. Truly, he that can 
close his eyes, in a holy cheerfulnesse, every night, shall 
meet no distemper'd, no inordinate, no irregular sadnesse, 
then, when God^ by the hand of Deaths shall close his eyes, 
at last. 

But, returne we againe to our Neverthelesse ; You may 
remember, that this word in our former part, put us first 
upon the consideration of Scoffers at the day of judgement, 
and then, upon the consideration of Terrours, and sad 
Apprehensions at that day. And for her, some sicknesses, 
in the declination of her yeeres, had opened her to an 
overflowing of Melancholie ; Not that she ever lay under 
that water, but yet, had sometimes, some high Tides of 
it ; and, though this distemper would sometimes cast 
a cloud, and some halfe damps upon her naturall cheer- 
fulnesse, and sociablenesse, and sometimes induce darke 
and sad apprehensions, Neverthelesse, who ever heard, 
or saw in her, any such effect of Melancholy as to murmure, 
or repine, or dispute upon any of Gods proceedings, or 
to lodge a Jealousie, or Suspition of his mercy, and 
goodnesse towards her, and all hers ? The Wit of our 
time is Prophanenesse ; Neverthelesse, shee, that lov'd 
that, hated this ; Occasionall Melancholy had taken some 
hold in her, Neverthelesse, that never Ecclipst, never 
interrupted her cheerfull confidence, & assurance in 
God. 

Our second word denotes the person : We, Neverthelesse 
We ; And, here in this consideration, Neverthelesse 
shee. This may seeme to promise some picture, some 


Magdalen Herbert, Lady Danvers. 39 

Character of her person. But shee was no stranger to 
them that heare me now ; nor scarce to any that may 
heare of this hereafter, which you heare now, and there- 
fore, much needes not, to that purpose. Yet, to that 
purpose, of her person, and personall circumstances, thus 
much I may remember some, and informe others. That 
from that Worthy family, whence shee had her originall 
extraction, and birth, she suckt that love of hospitality, * 
{hospitality, which hath celebrated that family, in many 
Generations, successively) which dwelt in her, to her 
end. But in that ground, her Fathers family, shee grew 
not many yeeres. Transplanted young from thence, 
by mariage, into another family of Honour, as a flower t 
that doubles and multiplies by transplantation, she 
multipHed into ten Children, JoVs number ; and foVs 
distribution, (as shee, her selfe would very often remem- 
ber) seven sonnes, and three daughters. And, in this 
ground, shee grew not many yeeres more, then were 
necessary, for the producing of so many plants. And 
being then left to chuse her own ground in her Widow- 
hood, having at home establisht, and increast the estate, 
with a faire, & noble Addition, proposing to her selfe, 
as her principall care, the education of her children, to 
advance that, shee came with them, and dwelt with 
them in the Universitie ; and recompenc't to them, the 
losse of a Father, in giving them two mothers ; her owne 

* Daughter of Sir Rich., sister of Sir Fran., Aunt of Sir Richard 
Neuport, of Arcol. 

t Rich. Herbert, of Blachehall, in Montgomery Esqu. lineally 
descended from that great Sir Rich. Herbert in Ed. 4. time, and father 
of Ed. Lord Herbert Baron 0/ Castle -Is land, late Embassador in France, 
and now of his majesties Councel of Warre, 


Sir lohn 
Daavers 

onely 
brother to 
the Earle 
of Danby. 


40 Funeral Sermon on 

personall care, and the advantage of that place ; where 
shee contracted a friendship, with divers reverend persons, 
of eminency, and estimation there ; which continued 
to their ends. And as this was her greatest businesse, 
so she made this state, a large Period ; for in this state 
of widowhood, shee continued twelve yeeres. And then, 
returning to a second marriage, that second marriage turnes 
us to the consideration of another personall circumstance ; 
that is, the naturall endowments of her person ; Which were 
such, as that, (though her virtues were his principal! 
object) yet, even these, her personall, and naturall, endow- 
ments, had their part, in drawing, and fixing the affections 
of such a person, as by his birth, and youth, and interest 
in great favours in Court, and legall proximity to great 
possessions in the world, might justly have promist 
him acceptance, in what family soever, or upon what 
person soever, hee had directed, and plac't his Affections. 
He plac't them here ; neither diverted then, nor repented 
since. For, as the well tuning of an Instrument, makes 
higher and lower strings, of one sound, so the inequality 
of their yeeres, was thus reduc't to an evennesse, that 
shee had a cheerfulnesse, agreeable to his youth, and he 
had a sober staidnesse, conformable to her more yeeres. 
So that, I would not consider her, at so much more then 
forty, nor him, at so much lesse than thirty, at that time, 
but, as their persons were made one, and their fortunes 
made one, by mariage, so I would put their yeeres into 
one number, and finding a sixty betweene them, thinke 
them thirty a peece ; for, as twins of one houre, they 
liv'd. God, who join'd them, then, having also separated 
them now, may make their yeres even, this other way 


Magdalen Herbert, Lady Danvers. 41 

too ; by giving him, as many yeeres after her going 
out of this World, as he had given her, before his comming 
into it ; and then, as many more, as God may receive 
Glory, and the World, Benefit, by that Addition ; That 
so, as at their first meeting, she was, at their last meeting, 
he may bee the elder person. 

To this consideration of her person then, belongs this, 
that God gave her such a contelinesse, as, though shee were 
not proud of it, yet she was so content with it, as not 
to goe about to mend it, by anyJrt. And for her J ttire, 
(which is another personall circumstance), it was never 
sumptuous, never sordid ; But alwayes agreeable to her 
quality, and agreeable to her company ; Such as shee 
might, and such, as others, such as shee was, did weare. 
For in such things of indifferency in themselves, many 
times, a singularity may be a little worse, then a fellowship 
in that, which is not altogether so good. It may be 
worse, nay, it may be a worse pride, to weare worse things, 
than others doe. Her rule was mediocrity. 

And, as to the consideration of the house, belongs the 
consideration of the furniture too, so in these personall 
circumstances, we consider her fortune, her estate. Which 
was in a faire, and noble proportion, deriv'd from her 
first husband, and fairely, and nobly dispenc'd, by herselfe, 
with the allowance of her second. In which shee was one 
of God's true Stewards, and Almoners too. There are 
dispositions, which had rather give presents, than pay 
debts ; and rather doe good to strangers, than to those, 
that are neerer to them. But shee alwayes thought the 
care of her family, a debt, and upon that, for the provision^ 
for the order, for the proportions, in a good largenesse, 


42 Funeral Sermon on 

shee plac't her first thoughts, of that kinde. For, for 
OUT families, we are Gods Stewards ; For those without, 
we are his Almoners. In which office, shee gave not at 
some great dayes, or some solemne goings abroad, but, as 
Gods true Almoners, the Sunne, and Moone, that passe on, 
in a continuall doing of good, as shee receiv'd her daily 
bread from God, so, daily, she distributed, and imparted 
it to others. In which office, though she never turn'd 
her face from those, who in a strict inquisition, might 
be call'd idle, and vagrant Beggers, yet shee ever look't 
first, upon them, who laboured, and whose labours could 
not overcome the difficulties, nor bring in the necessities 
of this life ; and to the szveat of their brozves, shee contri- 
buted, even her wine, and her oyle, and any thing that 
was, and any thing, that might be, if it were not, prepar'd 
for her owne table. And as her house was a Court, in the 
conversation of the best, and an Almeshouse, in feeding 
the poore ; so was it also an Hospitall, in ministring 
releefe to the sicke. And truly, the love of doing good 
in this kind, of ministring to the sicke, was the hony, 
that was spread over all her bread ; the Aire, the Perfume, 
that breath'd over all her house ; The disposition that 
dwelt in those her children, and those her kindred, 
which dwelt with her, so bending this way, that the 
studies and knowledge of one, the hand of another, and 
purse of all, and a joyntfacility, and opennesse, and 
accessiblenesse to persons of the meanest quality, con- 
cur'd in this blessed Act of Charity, to minister releefe to 
the sicke. Of which, my selfe, who, at that time, had the 
favour to bee admitted into that family, can, and must 
testifie this, that when the late heavy visitation fell 


Magdalen Herbert, Lady Danvers. 43 

Jiotly upon this Towne, when every doore was shut up, 
and, lest Death should enter into the house, every house 
was made a Sepulchre of them that were in it, then, then, 
in that time of injection, divers persons visited with that 
infection, had their releefe, and releefe applicable to that 
very infection, from this house. 

Now when I have said thus much, (rather thus little) 
of her person, as of a house. That the ground upon which 
it was built, was the family where she was borne, and then, 
where she was married, and then, the time of her widow- 
hood, and lastly, her last marriage. And that the house 
it selfe, was those fair bodily endowments, which God 
had bestow'd upon her, And the. furniture of that house, 
the fortune, and the use of that fortune, of which God 
had made her Steward and Almoner, when I shall also 
have said, that the Inhabitants of this house, (rather the 
servants, for they did but wait upon Religion in her) 
were those married couples, of morall virtues. Conversation 
married with a Retirednesse, Facility married with a 
Reservednesse, Alacrity married with a T hough tfulnesse, 
and Largenesse married with a Providence, I may have 
leave to depart from this consideration of her person^ 
and personall circumstances, lest by insisting longer upon 
them, I should seeme to pretend, to say all the good, 
that might bee said of her ; But that's not in ray purpose ; 
yet, onely therefore, because it is not in my power ; For 
I would do her all right, and all you that good, if I could, 
to say all. But, I haste to an end, in consideration of 
some things, that appertaine more expressly to me, 
then these personall, or civill, or morall things doe. 

In those, the next is, the secundum promissa, that shee 


44 Funeral Sermon on 

govern'd herself, according to his promises ; his promises, 
laid downe in his Scriptures. For, as the rule of all her 
civill Actions, was Religion, so, the rule of her Religion, 
was the Scripture ; And, her rule, for her particular 
understanding of the Scripture, was the Church. Shee 
never diverted towards the Papist, in undervaluing the 
Scripture ; nor towards the Separatist, in undervaluing 
the Church. But in the doctrine, and discipline of that 
Church, in which, God seal'd her, to himselfe, in Baptisme, 
shee brought up her children, shee assisted her family, 
she dedicated her soule to God in her life, and surrendered 
it to him in her death ; And, in that forme of Common 
Prayer, which is ordain'd by that Church, and to which 
she had accustom'd her selfe, with her family, twice 
every day, she joyn'd with that company, which was 
about her death-bed, in answering to every part thereof, 
which the Congregation is directed to answer to, with 
a cleere understanding, with a constant memory, with 
a distinct voyce, not two hours before she died. 

According to this promise, that is, the will of God 
manifested in the Scriptures, She expected ; Shee expected 
this, that she hath received ; Gods Physicke, and Gods 
Musicke ; a Christianly death. For, death, in the old 
Testament was a Commination ; but in the new Testa- 
ment, death is a Promise ; When there was a Super-dying, 
a death upon the death, a Morte upon the Morieris, 
a Spirituall death after the bodily, then wee died according 
to Gods threatening ; Now, when by the Gospell, that 
second death is taken off, though wee die still, yet we die 
according to his Promise, That's a part of his mercy, and 
his Promise, which his Apostle gives us from him, That 


Magdalen Herbert, Lady Danvers. 45 

wee shall all bee changed ; For, after that promise, that 1C0r.15.s1. 

change, fellow's that triumphant Acclamation, O death 

where is thy sting, 0 grave where is thy victory ? Consider 

us fallen in Adam, and wee are miserable, that wee must 

die ; but consider us restor'd, and redintegrated in 

Christ, wee were more miserable if we might not die ; 

Wee lost the earthly Paradise by death then ; but wee 

get not Heaven, but by death, now. This shee expected 

till it came, and embrac't it when it came. How may we 

thinke, shee was joy'd to see that face, that Angels delight 

to looke upon, the face of her Saviour, that did not abhor 

the face of his fearfullest Messenger, Death ? Shee 

shew'd no feare of his face, in any change of her owne ; 

but died without any change of countenance, or posture ; 

without any strugling, any disorder ; but her Death-bed 

was as quiet, as her Grave. To another Magdalen, 

Christ said upon earth, Touch me not, for I am not ascended. 

Being ascended now, to his glory, and she being gone up 

to him, after shee had awaited his leisure, so many yeeres, 

as that more, would soone have growne to bee vexation, 

and sorrow, as her last words here, were, / submit my will 

to the will of God ; so wee doubt not, but the first word 

which she heard there, was that Euge, from her Saviour, 

Well done good and faithfull servant; enter into thy 

masters joy. 

Shee expected that ; dissolution of body, and soule ; 
and rest in both, from the incumbrances, and tentations 
of this world. But yet, shee is in expectation still ; Still 
a Reversionarie ; and a Reversionary upon a long Hfe ; 
the whole world must die, before she come to a possession 
of this Reversion ; which is a Glorified body in the Resur- 


46 Funeral Sermon on 

rection. In which expectation, she return's to her former 
charity ; shee will not have that, till all wee, shall have it, 
as well as shee ; She eat not her morsels alone, in her life, 

Job 31. 17. (as Job speakes) She lookes not for the glory of the Resur- 
rection alone, after her death. But when all wee, shall 
have been mellowd in the earth, many yeeres, or chang'd 
in the Aire, in the twinkling of an eye, {God knowes 
which) That body upon which you tread now. That 
body which now, whilst I speake, is mouldering, and 
crumbling into lesse, and lesse dust, and so hath some 
motion, though no life. That body, which was the Taber- 
nacle of a holy Soule, and a Temple of the holy Ghost, 
That body that was eyes to the blinde, and hands, and 
feet to the lame, whilst it liv'd, and being dead, is so still, 
by having beene so lively an example, to teach others, 
to be so. That body at last, shall have her last expectation 
satisfied, and dwell bodily, with that Righteousnesse, in 
these new Heavens, and new Earth, for ever, and ever, 
and ever, and infinite, and super-infinite evers. Wee end 
all, with the valediction of the Spouse to Christ : His 

Cant. 8. 3. left hand is under my head, and his right embraces mee, 
was the Spouses valediction, and good night to Christ 
then, when she laid her selfe down to sleep in the strength 
of his Mandrakes, and in the power of his Spices, as it 
is exprest there ; that is, in the influence of his mercies. 
Beloved, every good Soule is the spouse of Christ. And 
this good Soule, being thus laid downe to sleepe in his 
peace. His left hand under her head, gathering, and 
composing, and preserving her dust for future Glory ; 
His right hand embracing her, assuming, and estabhshing 
her soule in present Glory, in his name, and in her behalf e^ 


Magdalen Herbert, Lady Danvers. 47 

I say that, to all you, which Christ sayes there, in the 
behalf e of that Spouse, J djuro vos, I adjure you, I charge 
you, O daughters of Jerusalem, that yee wake her not, till 
she please. The words are directed to the daughters, 
rather than to the sons of Jerusalem, because for the 
most part, the aspersions that women receive, either in 
Morall or Religious actions, proceed from women them- 
selves. Therefore, Adjuro vos, I charge you, O ye 
daughters of Jerusalem, wake her not. Wake her not, 
with any halfe calumnies, with any whisperings ; But if 
you wil wake her, wake her, and keepe her awake with an 
active imitation, of her Morall, and her Holy virtues. 
That so her example working upon you, and the number 
of Gods Saints, being, the sooner, by this blessed example, 
fulfil'd, wee may all meet, and meet quickly in that 
kingdome, which hers, and our Saviour, hath purchac't 
for us all, with the inestimable price, of his incorruptible 
bloud. To which glorious Sonne of God, &c. 

29. Death of Elizabeth and Accession of James I. 

GODS hand hath been abundant towards us, in raising 
Ministers of State, so qualified, and so endowed ; 
and such Princes as have fastned their friendships, and 
conferred their favors upon such persons. We celebrate, 
seasonably, opportunely, the thankful acknowledgement 
of these mercies, this day : This day, which God made 
for us, according to the pattern of his first days in the 
Creation ; where, Vesper iff mane dies unus, the evening 
first, and then the morning made up the day ; for, here 
the saddest night, and the joyfullest morning, that ever 
the daughters of this Island saw, made up this day. 


48 Death of Elizabeth and 

Consider the tears of Richmond this night, and the joys 
of London^ at this place, at this time, in the morning ; 
and we shall find Prophecy even in that saying of the 
Poet, Nocte pluit tola, showers of rain all night, of weeping 
for our Sovereign ; and we would not be comforted, 
Matt. 2. 18. because she was not : And yet, redeunt spectacula mane, 
the same hearts, the same eyes, the same hands were all 
directed upon recognitions, and acclamations of her 
successor in the morning : And when every one of you 
in the City, were running up and down like Ants with their 
eggs bigger then themselves, every man with his bags, 
to seek where to hide them safely. Almighty God shed 
down his Spirit of Unity, ^nd recollecting, and reposedness, 
and acquiescence upon you all. In the death of that 
Queen, unmatchable, inimitable in her sex ; that 
Queen, worthy, I will not say of Nestors years, I will not 
say of Methusalems, but worthy of Adams years, if Adam 
had never fain ; in her death we were all under one 
common flood, and depth of tears. But the Spirit of God 
moved upon the face of that depth ; and God said, Let 
there be light, and there was light, and God saw that that 
light was good. God took pleasure, and found a savor 
of rest, in our peaceful chearfulness, and in our joyful 
and confident apprehension of blessed days in his Govern- 
ment, whom he had prepared at first, and preserved so 
often for us. 

As the Rule is true, Cum de Malo principe posteri tacent, 

Pliniusad manifestiim est vilem facere prcesentem, when men dare 

Trajan. ^^^ speak of the vices of a Prince that is dead, it is 

certain that the Prince that is alive proceeds in the same 

vices ; so the inversion of the Rule is true too, Cum de 


Accession of James I. 49 

bono principe loquuntur, when men may speak freely 

of the virtues of a dead Prince, it is an evident argument, 

that the present Prince practises the same virtues ; for, 

if he did not, he would not love to hear of them. Of her^ 

we may say (that which was well said, and therefore it 

were pity it should not be once truly said, for, so it was 

not, when it was first said to the Emperor Julian) Nihil 

humile, aut abjectum cogitavity quia novit de se semper 

loquendum ; she knew the world would talk of her after 

her death, and therefore she did such things all her life 

were worthy to be talked of. Of her glorious successor, 

and our gracious Soveraign, we may say ; Onerosum est 

succedere bono Principi, It would have troubled any king Ibid. 

but him, to have come in succession, and in comparison 

with such a Queen. And in them both we may observe 

the unsearchableness of the ways of God ; of them both, 

we may say, Dominus fecit, It is the Lord that hath done it, 

and it is wonderful in our eyes : First, that a woman Psalm nS. 

and a maid should have all the wars of Christendom in '^' 

her contemplation, and govern and ballance them all ; 

And then, that a King, born and bred in a warlike Nation, 

and so accustomed to the sword, as that it had been 

directed upon his own person, in the strength of his age, 

and in his Infancy, in his Cradle, in his mothers belly, 

should yet have the blessed spirit of peace so abundantly 

in him, as that by his Councils, and his authority, he 

should sheath all the swords of Christendom again. 


30J5'3 


50 The Gunpowder Plot. 

30. The Gunpowder Plot. 
Psal. 2. 1. ^\UARE fremuerunt, Why did these men rage, and 
«^ imagine a vaine thing ? What they did historically, 
we know ; They made that house, which is the hive of 
the Kingdome, from whence all her honey comes ; that 
house where Justice herself is conceived, in their preparing 
of Laws, and inanimated, and quickned and borne by 
the Royall Assent, there given ; they made that whole 
house one Murdring feece, and charged that peece with 
Peers, with People, with Princes, with the King, and 
meant to discharge it upward at the face of heaven, to 
shoot God at the face of God, Him, of whom God hath 
said, Dii estis. You are Gods, at the face of God, that had 
said so, as though they would have reproached the God 
of heaven, and not have been beholden to him for such 
a King, but shoot him up to him, and bid him take his 
King again, with a nolumus hunc regnare, we will not 
have this King to reign over us. 

31. Preached to the Honourable Company of the 
Virginian Plantation, 1622. 

BELOVED in him, whose kingdome, and Ghospell 
you seeke to advance, in this Plantation, our Lord 
and Saviour Christ Jesus, if you seeke to establish a 
temporall kingdome there, you are not rectified, if you 
seeke to bee Kings in either acceptation of the word ; 
To be a King signifies Libertie and independency, and 
Supremacie, to bee under no man, and to be a King 
signifies Abundance, and Omnisufficiencie, to neede no 
man. If those that governe there, would establish such 


The Virginian Plantation. 51 

a government, as should not depend upon this, or if 
those that goe thither, propose to themselves an exemp- 
tion from Lawes, to live at their libertie, this is to be 
Kings, to devest Allegeance, to bee under no man : and 
if those that adventure thither, propose to themselves 
present benefit, and profit, a sodaine way to bee rich, 
and an aboundance of all desirable commodities from 
thence, this is to be sufficient of themselves, and to need 
no man : and to bee under no man and to need no man, 
are the two acceptations of being Kings. Whom liberty 
drawes to goe, or present profit drawes to adventure, 
are not yet in the right way. O, if you could once bring 
a Catechisme to bee as good ware amongst them as 
a Bugle, as a knife, as a hatchet : O, if you would be 
as ready to hearken at the returne of a Ship, how many 
Indians were converted to Christ Jesus, as what Trees, 
or druggs, or Dyes that Ship had brought, then you were 
in your right way, and not till then ; Libertie and 
Abundance, are Characters of kingdomes, and a kingdome 
is excluded in the Text ; the Apostles were not to looke 
for it, in their employment, nor you in this your Planta- 
tion. . . . 

God ment from the first howre, to people the whole 
earth ; and God could have made men of clay, as fast 
as they made Brickes of Clay in Egypt ; but he began 
upon two, and when they had been multiplying and re- 
plenishing the Earth One thousand sixe hundred yeares, 
the Flood washed all that away, and God was almost 
to begin againe upon eight persons ; and they have 
serv'd to people Earth and Heaven too ; Be not you 
discouraged, if the Promises which you have made to 

£ 2 


52 The Virginian Plantation. 

your selves, or to others, be not so soone discharg'd ; 
though you see not your money, though you see not your 
men, though a Flood, a Flood of blond have broken in 
upon them, be not discouraged. Great Creatures ly 
long in the wombe ; Lyons are litter'd perfit, but Beare 
whelps lick'd unto their shape ; actions which Kings 
undertake, are cast in a mould ; they have their perfection 
quickly; actions of private men, and private purses, 
require more hammering, and more filing to their 
perfection. . . . 

God sayes to you. No Kingdoms, not ease, not abundance ; 
nay nothing at all yet ; the Plantation shall not discharge 
the Charges, not defray it selfe yet ; but yet already, 
now at first, it shall conduce to great uses ; It shall 
redeeme many a wretch from the Jawes of death, from 
the hands of the Executioner, upon whom, perchaunce 
a small fault, or perchance a first fault, or perchance 
a fault heartily and sincerely repented, perchance no 
fault, but malice, had otherwise cast a present, and 
ignominious death. It shall sweep your streets, and wash 
your dores, from idle persons, and the children of idle 
persons, and imploy them : and truely, if the whole 
Countrey were but such a Bridewell, to force idle persons 
to work, it had a good use. But it is already, not onely a 
Spleene, to draine the ill humours of the body, but a Liver, 
to breed good bloud ; already the imployment breeds 
Marriners ; already the place gives essayes, nay Fraytes 
of Marchantable commodities ; already it is a marke 
for the Envy, and for the ambition of our Enemies ; 
I speake but of our Doctrinall, not Nationall Enemies ; 
as they are Papists, they are sory we have this Countrey ; 


The Virginian Plantation. 53 

and surely, twenty Lectures in matter of Controversie, 
doe not so much vexe them, as one Ship that goes, & 
strengthens that Plantation. Neither can I recommend 
it to you by any better Retorique, then their malice. They 
would gladly have it, and therefore let us bee glad to 
hold it. . . . 

Those of our profession that goe, you, that send them 
who goe, do all an Apostolicall function. What action 
soever, hath in the first intention thereof, a purpose 
to propagate the Gospell of Christ JesuSy that is an 
Apostolicall action. Before the ende of the world come, 
fcefore this mortality shall put on immortalitie, before 
the Creature shall be delivered of the bondage of corrup- 
tion under which it groanes, before the Martyrs under Rom. S. 
the Altar shall be silenc'd, before all things shall be 
subdued to Christ, his kingdome, perfected, & the last 
Enemy Death destroied, the Gospell must be preached 
to those men to whom ye send ; to all men ; furder and 
hasten you this blessed, this joyfull, this glorious consum- 
mation of all, and happie reunion of all bodies to their 
Soules, by preaching the Gospell to those men. Preach 
to them Doctrinally, preach to them Practically ; 
Enamore them with your Justice, and (as farre as may 
consist with your security), your Civilitie ; but inflame 
them with your godlinesses and your Religion. Bring them 
to love and Reverence the name of that King, that sends 
men to teach them the wayes of Civilitie in this world, 
but to Jeare and adore the Name of that King of Kings, 
that sends men to teach them the waies of Religion, for 
the next world. Those amongst you, that are old now, 
shall passe out of this world with this great comfort, that 


54 The Virginian Plantation. 

you contributed to the beginning of that Common 
Wealth, and of that Church, though they live not to see 
the groath thereof to perfection : Apollos watred, but 
1 Cor. 3. 6. Paul planted ; hee that begun the worke, was the greater 
man. And you that are young now, may live to see the 
Enemy as much empeach'd by that place, and your 
friends, yea Children, as well accommodated in that 
place, as any other. You shall have made this Hand, 
which is but as the Suburbs of the old world, a Bridge, 
a Gallery to the new ; to joyne all to that world that 
shall never grow old, the Kingdome of heaven. You 
shall add persons to this Kingdome, and to the Kingdome 
of heaven, and adde names to the Bookes of our Chronicles, 
and to the Booke of Life. 

To end all, as the Orators which declaimd in the 
presence of the Roman Emperors, in their Panegyriques, 
tooke that way to make those Emperours see, what they 
were bound to doe, to say in those pubUque Orations, 
that those Emporors had done so (for that increased the 
love of the Subject to the Prince, to bee so tolde, that 
hee had done those great things, and then it convayd 
a Counsell into the Prince to do them after.) As their 
way was to procure things to bee done, by saying they 
were done, so beloved I have taken a contrary way : 
for when I, by way of exhortation, all this while have 
seem'd to tell you what should be done by you, I have, 
indeed, but told the Congregation, what hath beene 
done already : neither do I speake to move a wheele 
that stood still, but to keepe the wheele in due motion ; 
nor persuade you to begin, but to continue a good worke ; 
nor propose foreigne, but your own Examples, to do still, 


The Virginian Plantation. 55 

as you have done hitherto. For, for that, that which 
is especially in my contemplation, the conversion of the 
people, as I have receiv'd, so I can give this Testimony, 
that of those persons, who have sent in moneys, and 
conceal'd their names, the greatest part, almost all, have 
limited their devotion, and contribution upon that 
point, the propagation of Religion, and the conversion 
of the people ; for the building and beautifying of the 
house of God, and for the instruction and education of 
their young Children. Christ Jesus himself is yesterday, 
and to day, and the same for ever. In the advancing of his 
glory, be you so to, yesterday, and to day, and the same 
for ever, here ; and hereafter, when time shall be no 
more, no more yesterday, no more to day, yet for ever 
and ever, you shall enjoy that joy, and that glorie, which 
no ill accident can attaine to diminish, or Eclipse it. 

32. The Mission of England. 

CHRIST came per mundam in mundum, by a clean 
woman into an unclean world. And he came in 
a purpose, (as we do piously beheve) to manifest himself 
in the Christian Rehgion to all the nations of the world ; 
and therefore, Lcetentur Insula, sales David, The Lord 
reigneth let the Islands rejoice the Islands who by reason of 
their situation, provision and trading, have most means 
of conveying Christ Jesus over the world. He hath 
carried us up to heaven, & set us at the right hand of 
God, & shal not we endeavour to carry him to those 
nations, who have not yet heard of his nanie ? shall we 
still brag that we have brought our clothes, and our 
hatchets, and our knives, and bread to this and this 


5 6 The Mission of England. 

value and estimation amongst those poor ignorant Souls, 
and shall we never glory that we have brought the name, 
and Religion of Christ Jesus in estimation amongst 
them ? shall we stay till other nations have planted 
a fals Christ among them ? and then either continue in 
our sloth, or take more pains in rooting out a false 
Christ then would have planted the true ? Christ is 
come into the world ; we will do httle, if we will not 
ferry him over, and propagate his name, as well as our 
own to other Nations. 

33. James I. 

WE say sometimes in scorn to a man, God help yon^ 
and God send you wit ; and therein, though it 
have the sound of a prayer, wee call him foole. So wee 
have seen of late, some in obscure Conventicles, institute 
certain prayers, That God would keep the King, and the 
Prince in the true Religion ; The prayer is always good, 
always usefull ; but when that prayer is accompanied 
with circumstances, as though the King and the Prince 
were declining from that Religion, then even the prayer 
it selfe is libellous, and seditious ; Saint Paul, in that 
former place, apparels a Subjects prayer well, when hee 
sayes, Let prayers hee given with thanks ; Let our prayers 
bee for continuance of the blessings, which wee have, 
and let our acknowledgement of present blessings, bee 
an inducement for future : pray, and praise together ; 
pray thankfully, pray not suspiciously ; for, beloved in 
the bowels of Christ Jesus, before whose face I stand 
now, and before whose face, I shall not be able to stand 
amongst the righteous, at the last day, if I lie now, and 


James I. 57 

make this Pulpit my Shop, to vent sophisticate Wares, 
In the presence of you, a holy part, I hope, of the Militant 
Church, of which I am. In the presence of the whole 
Triumphant Church, of which, by him, by whom I am 
that I am, I hope to bee. In the presence of the Head of 
the whole Church, who is All in all, I, {and I thinke I have 
the Spirit of God ^ (I am sure, I have not resisted it in this i Cor.-;.44. 
point) I, (and I may bee allowed to know something 
in Civill affaires) (I am sure I have not been stupefied 
in this point) doe deliver that, which upon the truth 
of a Morall man, and a Christian man, and a Church 
man, beleeve to be true. That hee, who is the Breath 
of our nostrils, is in his heart, as farre from submitting 
us to that Idolatry, and superstition, which did hereto- 
fore oppresse us, as his immediate Predecessor, whose 
memory is justly precious to you, was : Their wayes 
may bee divers, and yet their end the same, that is. The 
glory of God ; And to a higher Comparison, then to 
her, I know not how to carry it. 

34. Death of James I. 

WHEN you shall find that hand that had signed 
to one of you a Patent for Title, to another for 
Pension, to another for Pardon, to another for Dispensa- 
tion, Dead : That hand that settled Possessions by his 
Seale, in the Keeper, and rectified Honours by the sword, 
in his Marshall, and distributed relief to the Poore, in 
his Almoner, and Health to the Diseased, by his immediate 
Touch, Dead : That Hand that ballanced his own three 
Kingdomes so equally, as that none of them complained 
of one another, nor of him, and carried the Keyes of all 


58 Death of James I. 

the Christian world, and locked up, and let out Armies 
in their due season. Dead ; how poore, how faint, how 
pale, how momentany, how transitory, how empty, how 
frivolous, how Dead things, must you necessarily thinke 
Titles, and Possessions, and Favours, and all, when you 
see that Hand, which was the hand of Destinie, of Christian 
Destinie, of the Almighty God, lie dead ? It was not so 
hard a hand when we touched it last, nor so cold a hand 
when we kissed it last : That hand which was wont 
to wife all te ares from all our eyes, doth now but presse 
and squeaze us as so many spunges, filled one with one, 
another with another cause of teares. Teares that can 
have no other banke to bound them, but the declared 
and manifested will of God : For, till our teares flow to 
that heighth, that they might be called a murmuring 
against the declared will of God, it is against our Allegiance, 
it is Disloyaltie, to give our teares any stop, any termina- 
tion, any measure. 

35. The Plague, 1625. 

BELOVED, as God empayl'd a Goshen in Egypt, 
a place for the righteous amongst the wicked ; so 
there is an Egypt in every Goshen, neasts of Snakes in 
the fairest Gardens, and even in this City (which in the 
sense of the Gospel, we may call, The holy City ; as 
Christ called Jerusalem, though she had multiplied 
transgressions, The Holy City, because she had not cast 
away his Law, though she had disobeyed it : So howso- 
ever your sins have provoked God, yet as you retain 
a zealous profession of the truth of his Religion, I may 
in his name, and do in the bowels of his mercy, call you, 


The Plague, 1625. 59 

I'he Holy City) even in this City, no doubt but the hand 
of God fell upon thousands in this deadly infection, 
who were no more affected with it, than those Egyptians, 
to cry out, Omnes Moriemur, We can but die, and we must 
die : And, Edamus, i^ bibamus, eras moriemur. Let us eat 
and drink, and take our -pleasure, and make our profits, 
jor to-morrow we shall die, and so were cut off by the hand 
of God, some even in their robberies, in half-empty 
houses ; and in their drunkenness in voluptuous and 
riotous houses ; and in their lusts and wantonness in 
licentious houses ; and so took in infection and death, 
like Judas's sop, death dipt and soaked in sin. Men 
whose lust carried them into the jaws of infection in 
lewd houses, and seeking one sore perished with another ; 
men whose rapine and covetousness broke into houses, 
and seeking the Wardrobes of others, found their own 
winding-sheet, in the infection of that house where they 
stole their own death ; men who sought no other way 
to divert sadness, but strong drink in riotous houses, 
and there drank up Davids cup of Malediction, the cup 
of Condemned men, of death, in the infection of that 
place. For these men that died in their sins, that sinned 
in their dying, that sought and hunted after death so 
sinfully, we have little comfort of such men, in the phrase 
of this Text, They were dead ; for they are dead still : 
As Moses said of the Egyptians, I am afraid we may say 
of these men. We shall see them no more for ever. 

But God will give us the comfort of this phrase in the 
next House ; This next House is Domus nostra, our 
Dwelling-House, our Habitation, our Family ; and there, 
Ihey were dead ; they were, but by Gods goodness 


6o The Plague, 1625. 

they are not. If this savor of death have been the savor 
of life unto us ; if this heavy weight of Gods hand 
upon us have awakened us to a narrower survey, and 
a better discharge of our duties towards all the parts of 
our Families, we may say, to our comforts and his glory, 
There was a son dead in disobedience and murmuring ; 
there was a daughter dead in a dangerous easiness of 
conversation ; there was a servant dead in the practice 
of deceit and falsifying ; there was, but the Lord hath 
breath'd a new life into us, the Lord hath made even 
his tempest a refreshing, and putrefaction a perfume 
unto us. The same measure of wind that blows out 
a candle, kindles a fire ; this correction that hath hardned 
some, hath entendred and mollified us ; and howsoever 
there were dead sons, and dead daughters, and dead 
servants, this holy sense of Gods Judgements shall not 
only preserve for the future, that we shall admit no 
more such dead limbs into our Family, but even give 
to them who were (in these kindes) formerly dead, a new 
life, a blessed resurrection from all their sinful habits, 
by the power of his grace, though reached to them with 
a bloody hand, and in a bitter cup, in this heavy calamity ; 
and as Christ said of himself, they shall say in him, I was 
deady but am alive ; and by that grace of God, I am 
that I am. . . . 

Lastly, in this fourth house, the house where we stand 
now, the house of God, and of his Saints, God affords 
us a fair beam of this consolation, in the phrase of this 
Text also, They were dead. How appliable to you, in this 
place, is that which God said to Moses, Put off thy shoes, 
for thou treadest on holy ground ; put off all confidence, 


The Plague, 1625. 61 

all standing, all relying upon worldly assurances, and 
consider upon what ground you tread ; upon ground 
so holy, as that all the ground is made of the bodies of 
Christians, and therein hath received a second consecra- 
tion. Every puff of wind within these walls, may blow 
the father into the sons eys, or the wife into her husbands, 
or his into hers, or both into their childrens, or their 
childrens into both. Every grain of dust that flies here, 
is a piece of a Christian ; you need not distinguish your 
Pews by figures ; you need not say, I sit within so many 
of such a neighbour, but I sit within so many inches of 
my husbands, or wives, or childes, or friendes grave. 
Ambitious men never made more shift for places in 
Court, then dead men for graves in Churches ; and as in 
our later times, we have seen two and two almost in 
every Place and Office, so almost every Grave is oppressed 
with twins ; and as at Christs resurrection some of the 
dead arose out of their graves, that were buried again ; 
so in this lamentable calamity, the dead were buried, 
and thrown up again before they were resolved to dust, 
to make room for more. 

36. Difficult Times. 
AS in the Arke there were Lions, but the Lion shut 
-ZTL his mouth, and clincht his paw, (the Lion hurt 
nothing in the Arke) and in the Arke there were Vipers 
and Scorpions, but the Viper shewed no teeth, nor the 
Scorpion no taile, (the Viper bit none, the Scorpion 
stung none in the Arke) (for, if they had occasioned 
any disorder there, their escape could have been but into 
the Sea, into irreparable ruine) so, in every State, (though 


62 Difficult Times. 

that State be an Arke of peace, and preservation) there 
will be some kind of oppression in some Lions, some that 
will abuse their power ; but Vce si scandalizemur, woe 
unto us if we be scandalized with that, and seditiously 
lay aspersions upon the State and Government, because 
there are some such in every Church, (though that Church 
bee an Arke, for integrity and sincerity) there will bee 
some Vipers, Vipers that will gnaw at their Mothers 
belly, men that will shake the articles of Religion ; But 
Vce si scandalizemur, woe if we be so scandalized at that, 
as to defame that Church, or separate our selves from 
that Church which hath given us our Baptism, for that. 
It is the chafing of the Lion, and the stirring of the Viper, 
that aggravates the danger ; The first blow makes the 
wrong, but the second makes the fray ; and they that 
will endure no kind of abuse in State or Church, are 
many times more dangerous then that abuse w*^'^ they 
oppose. It was only Christ Jesus himself that could say 
Mar. 4. 39. to the Tempest, lace, obmutesce, peace, be still, not 
a blast, not a sob more ; onely he could becalm a Tempest 
at once. It is well with us, if we can ride out a storm at 
anchour ; that is, lie still and expect, and surrender 
our selves to God, and anchor in that confidence, till 
the storm blow over. It is well for us if we can beat 
out a storm at sea, with boarding to and again ; that is, 
maintain and preserve our present condition in Church, 
and State, though we encrease not, that though we gain 
no way, yet wee lose no way whilst the storm lasts. It 
is well for us, if, though we be put to take in our sayls, 
and to take down our masts, yet we can hull it out ; 
that is, if in storms of contradiction, or persecution, 


Difficult Times. 63 

the Church, or State, though they be put to accept 
worse conditions then before, and to depart with some 
of their outward splendor, be yet able to subsist and 
swimme above water, and reserve it selfe for Gods 
farther glory, after the storme is past ; onely Christ 
could becalm the storme ; He is a good Christian that 
can ride out, or board out, or hull out a storme, that by 
industry, as long as he can, and by patience, when he 
can do no more, over-lives a storm, and does not forsake 
his ship for it, that is not scandalized with that State, 
nor that Church, of which he is a member, for those 
abuses that are in it. The Arke is peace, peace is good 
dispositions to one another, good intepretations of one 
another ; for, if our impatience put us from our peace, 
and so out of the Arke, all without the Arke is sea ; The 
bottomlesse and boundlesse Sea of Rome, will hope to 
swallow us, if we dis-unite our selves, in uncharitable 
mis-interpretations of one another. 

37. Polemical Preaching. 

THERE was a time but lately, when he who was in 
his desire and intension, the Peace-maker of all 
the Christian world, as he had a desire to have slumbred 
all Field-drums, so had he also to have slumbred all 
Pulpit-drums, so far, as to passe over all impertinent 
handling of Controversies, meerly and professedly as 
Controversies, though never by way of positive main- 
tenance of Orthodoxall and fundamentall Truths ; That 
so there might be no slackning in the defence of the truth 
of our Religion, and yet there might bee a discreet and 
temperate forbearing of personall, and especially of 


64 Polemical Preaching. 

Nationall exasperations. And as this way had piety, 
and peace in the worke it selfe, so was it then occasionally 
exalted, by a great necessity ; He, who was then our 
hope, and is now the breath of our nostrils, and the 
Anointed of the Lord, being then taken in their pits, 
and, in that great respect, such exasperations the fitter 
to be forborne, especially since that course might well 
bee held, without any prevarication, or cooling the zeale 
of the positive maintenance of the religion of our Church. 
But things standing now in another state, and all peace, 
both Ecclesiasticall and Civill, with these men, being 
by themselves removed, and taken away, and hee whom 
we feared, returned in all kinde of safety, safe in body, 
and safe in soule too, whom though their Church could 
not, their Court hath chatechised in their religion, that 
is, brought him to a cleere understanding of their Ambi- 
tion, (for Ambition is their Religion, and S. Peters Ship 
must saile in their Fleets, and with their winds, or it 
must sink, and the Catholique and Militant Church 
must march in their Armies, though those Armies march 
against Rome it selfe, as heretofore they have done, to 
the sacking of that Towne, to the holding of the Pope 
himselfe in so sordid a prison, for sixe moneihs, as that 
some of his nearest servants about him died of the plague, 
to the treading under foot Priests, and Bishops, and 
Cardinals, to the dishonouring of Matrons, and the 
ravishing of professed Virgins, and committing such 
insolencies, Catholiques upon Catholiques, as they would 
call us Heretiques for beleeving them, but that they are 
their owne Catholique Authors that have written them) 
Things being now, I say, in this state, with these men, 


Polemical Preaching. 65 

since wee heare that Drums beat in every field abroad, 
it becomes us also to returne to the brasing and beating 
of our Drums in the Pulpit too, that so, as Adam did not 
onely dresse Paradise, but keepe Paradise ; and as the 
children of God, did not onely build, but build with 
one hand, and fight with another ; so wee also may 
employ some of our Meditations upon supplanting, and 
subverting of error, as well as upon the planting, and 
watering of the Truth. 

38. The World Decays, 

AS the world is the whole frame of the world, God Mundus 
Jl\. hath put into it a reproofe, a rebuke, lest it should "^^""^* 
seem eternall, which is, a sensible decay and age in the 
whole frame of the world, and every piece thereof. The 
seasons of the yeare irregular and distempered ; the Sun 
fainter, and languishing ; men lesse in stature, and shorter- 
lived. No addition, but only every yeare, new sorts, 
new species of wormes, and flies, and sicknesses, which 
argue more and more putrefaction of which they are 
engendred. And the Angels of heaven, which did so 
familiarly converse with men in the beginning of the world, 
though they may not be doubted to perform to us still 
their ministeriall assistances, yet they seem so far to have 
deserted this world, as that they do not appeare to us, 
as they did to those our Fathers. S. Cyprian observed Cyprian, 
this in his time, when writing to DemetrianuSy who im- 
puted all those calamities which afflicted the world then, 
to the impiety of the Christians who would not joyne 
with them in the worship of their gods, Cyprian went 
no farther for the cause of these calamities, but Ad 

2025*3 F 


66 The World Decays. 

senescentem mmidum, To the age and impotency of the 
whole world ; And therefore, sayes he, Imputent scnes 
Christianis, quod minus valeant in senectutem ; Old men 
were best accuse Christians, that they are more sickly in 
their age, then they were in their youth ; Is the fault in 
our religion, or in their decay ? Canos in pueris videmus, 
nee cBtas in senectute desinit, sed incipit a seneetute ; We 
see gray haires in children, and we do not die old, and yet 
we are borne old. Lest the world (as the world signifies 
the whole frame of the world) should glorifie it selfe, 
or flatter, and abuse us with an opinion of eternity, we 
may admit usefully (though we do not conclude peremp- 
torily) this observation to be true, that there is a reproofe, 
a rebuke born in it, a sensible decay and mortality of 
the whole world. 

39. Imperfection. 
2. Tart. X NEED not call in new Philosophy, that denies 
JL a settlednesse, an acquiescence in the very body 
of the Earth, but makes the Earth to move in that place, 
where we thought the Sunne had moved ; I need not 
that helpe, that the Earth it selfe is in Motion, to prove 
this, That nothing upon Earth is permanent ; The 
Assertion will stand of it selfe, till some man assigne me 
some instance, something that a man may relie upon, 
and find permanent. Consider the greatest Bodies upon 
Earth, The Monarchies ; Objects, which one would 
thinke. Destiny might stand and stare at, but not shake ; 
Consider the smallest bodies upon Earth, The haires 
of our head, Objects, which one would thinke, Destiny 
would not observe, or could not discerne ; And yet, 


Imperfection. 67 

Destiny, (to speak to a naturall man) And God, (to speake 

to a Christian) is no more troubled to make a Monarchy 

ruinous, then to make a haire gray. Nay, nothing needs 

be done to either, by God, or Destiny ; A Monarchy 

will ruine, as a haire will grow gray, of it selfe. In 

the Elements themselves, of which all sub-elementary 

things are composed, there is no acquiescence, but a 

vicissitudinary transmutation into one another ; Ayre 

condensed becomes water, a more solid body. And Ayre 

rarified becomes fire, a body more disputable, and in- 

apparant. It is so in the Conditions of men too ; A 

Merchant condensed, kneaded and packed up in a great 

estate, becomes a Lord ; And a Marchant rarified, 

blown up by a perfidious Factor, or by a riotous Sonne, 

evaporates into ayre, into nothing, and is not seen. And 

if there were any thing permanent and durable in this 

world, yet we got nothing by it, because howsoever 

that might last in it selfe, yet we could not last to enjoy 

it ; If our goods were not amongst Moveables, yet we 

our selves are ; if they could stay with us, yet we cannot 

stay with them ; which is another Consideration in 

this part. 

The world is a great Volume, and man the Index of Corpus 
that Booke ; Even in the body of man, you may turne ""'"""^ 
to the whole world ; This body is an Illustration of all 
Nature ; Gods recapitulation of all that he had said 
before, in his Fiat lux, and Fiat Jirjnamentum, and in 
all the rest, said or done, in all the six dayes. Propose 
this body to thy consideration in the highest exaltation 
thereof ; as it is the Temple of the Holy Ghost : Nay, 
not in a Metaphor, or comparison of a Temple, or any 

F 2 


68 Imperfection. 

other similitudinary thing, but as it was really and truly 
the very body of God, in the person of Christ, and yet 
this body must wither, must decay, must languish, 
must perish. When Goliah had armed and fortified 
this body. And lezabel had painted and perfumed 
this body, And Dives had pampered and larded this 
body. As God said to Ezekiel, when he brought him to 
the dry bones, Fili hominis, Sonne of Man, doest thou 
thinke these bones can live ? They said in their hearts 
to all the world, Can these bodies die ? And they are 
dead. lezabels dust is not Ambar, nor Goliahs dust 
Terra sigillata, Medicinall ; nor does the Serpent, whose 
meat they are both, finde any better rellish in Dives 
dust, then in Lazarus. 

40. Man. 

lllis, qui ^1\/T-^^ ^^' sayes the Prophet Esay, Quasi stilla situla, 

uthtl. ^ K/ ^j ^ ^^^p ^p^^ ^j^g bucket. Man is not all that, 

Esay. 40. 1 5. -^ -f ' 

not so much as that, as a drop upon the bucket, but 

quasi, something, some little thing towards it ; and what 

is a drop upon the bucket, to a river, to a sea, to the waters 

above the firmament ? Man to God ? Man is, sayes the 

same Prophet in the same place, Quasi momentum staterce ; 

we translate it, As small dust upon the balance : Man is 

not all that, not that small graine of dust ; but quasi, 

some little thing towards it : And what can a graine of 

dust work in governing the balance ? What is man that 

God should be mindfull of him ? Vanity seemes to be 

the lightest thing, that the Holy Ghost could name ; 

and when he had named that, he sayes, and sayes, and 

sayes, often, very, very often, All is vanity. But when he 


Man. 69 

comes to waigh man with vanity it selfe, he findes man 
lighter then vanity : 7ake, sayes he, great men, and Ps. 62. 9. 
meane men altogether, and altogether they are lighter then 
vanity. When that great Apostle sayes of himselfe, 
that he was in nothing hehinde the very chiefest of the 2C0r.12.1r. 
Apostles, and yet, for all that, sayes he was nothing ; who 
can think himselfe any thing, for being a Giant in pro- 
portion, a Magistrate in power, a Rabbi in learning, an 
Oracle in Counsell ? Let man be something ; how 
poore, and inconsiderable a ragge of this world, is man ? 
Man, whom Paracelsus would have undertaken to have L. 1. de 
made, in a Limbeck, in a Furnace : Man, who, if they neralione. 
were altogether, all the men, that ever were, and are, 
and shall be, would not have the power of one Angel in 
them all, whereas all the Angels, (who, in the Schoole 
are conceived to be more in number, then, not onely all 
the Species, but all the individuals of this lower world) 
have not in them all, the power of one finger of Gods 
hand : Man, of whom when David had said, (as the lowest 
diminution that he could put upon him) / am a worme Ps. 22. 6. 
and no man. He might have gone lower, and said, I am 
a man and no worm ; for man is so much lesse then a 
worm, as that wormes of his own production, shall feed 
upon his dead body in the grave, and an immortal! 
worm gnaw his conscience in the torments of hell. 

41. Afflictions. 

ALL our Hfe is a continuall burden, yet we must not 
. groane ; A continuall squeasing, yet we must not 
pant ; And as in the tendernesse of our childhood, we 


70 Afflictions. 

suffer, and yet are whipt if we cry, so we are complained 
of, if we complaine, and made delinquents if we call the 
times ill. And that which addes waight to waight, and 
multiplies the sadnesse of this consideration, is this, 
That still the best men have had most laid upon them. 
As soone as I heare God say, that he hath found an u-pright 
■" man, that jeares God, and eschews evill, in the next lines 
I finde a Commission to Satan, to bring in Sabeans and 
Chaldeans upon his cattell, and servants, and fire and 
tempest upon his children, and loathsome diseases upon 
himselfe. As soone as I heare God say. That he hath 
.found a man according to his own heart, I see his sonnes 
ravish his daughters, and then murder one another, and 
then rebell against the Father, and put him into straites 
for his life. As soone as I heare God testifie of Christ at 
Mat. 3. 17. his Baptisme, This is my beloved Sonne in whom I am well 
Matt. 4. 1, ■pleased, I finde that Sonne of his led up by the Spirit, to 
be tempted of the Devill. And after I heare God ratifie 
Matt. 17. 5. the same testimony againe, at his Transfiguration, {This 
is my beloved Sonne, in whom I am well pleased) I finde 
that beloved Sonne of his, deserted, abandoned, and 
given over to Scribes, and Pharisees, and Publicans, and 
Herodians, and Priests, and Souldiers, and people, and 
Judges, and witnesses, and executioners, and he that 
was called the beloved Sonne of God, and made partaker 
of the glory of heaven, in this world, in his Transfigura- 
tion, is made now the Sewer of all the corruption, of all 
the sinnes of this world, as no Sonne of God, but a meere 
man, as no man, but a contemptible w^orme. As though 
the greatest weaknesse in this world, were man, and the 
greatest fault in man were to be good, man is more 


Afflictions. 71 

miserable then other creatures, and good men more 
miserable then any other men. 

But then there is Pondus Glorice, An exceeding zoaight ofAfflidio 
eternall glory y and that turnes the scale ; for as it makes 
all worldly prosperity as dung, so it makes all worldly 
adversity as feathers. 

42. Discontent. 

EVERY man is under that complicated disease, and 
that ridling distemper, not to be content with the 
most, and yet to be proud of the least thing hee hath ; 
that when he lookes upon men, he dispises them, because 
he is some kind of Officer, and when he looks upon 
God, hee murmures at him, because he made him not 
a King. 

43 . The World a House. 

LET the whole world be in thy consideration as one 
i house ; and then consider in that, in the peacefull 
harmony of creatures, in the peacefull succession, and 
connexion of causes, and effects, the peace of Nature. 
Let this Kingdome, where God hath blessed thee with 
a being, be the Gallery, the best roome of that house, 
and consider in the two walls of that Gallery, the Church 
and the State, the peace of a royall, and a religious 
VVisedome ; Let thine owne family be a Cabinet in this 
Gallery, and finde in all the boxes thereof, in the severall 
duties of Wife, and Children, and servants, the peace of 
vertue, and of the father and mother of all vertues, 
active discretion, passive obedience ; and then lastly, 
let thine owne bosome be the secret box, and reserve in 
this Cabinet, and then the best Jewell in the best Cabinet, 


Mare. 


72 The World a House. 

and that in the best Gallery of the best house that can be 
had, peace with the Creature, peace in the Church, 
peace in the State, peace in thy house, peace in thy heart, 
is a faire Modell, and a lovely designe even of the heavenly 
Jerusalem which is Visio pads, where there in no object 
but peace. 

44. Mundus Mare. 
Mundus ' I ^ HE world is a Sea in many respects and assimilations. 
X It is a Sea, as it is subject to stormes, and tempests ; 
Every man (and every man is a world) feels that. And 
then, it is never the shallower for the calmnesse, The 
Sea is as deepe, there is as much water in the Sea, in a 
calme, as in a storme ; we may be drowned in a calme 
and flattering fortune, in prosperity, as irrecoverably, 
as in a wrought Sea, in adversity ; So the world is a Sea. 
It is a Sea, as it is bottomlesse to any line, which we can 
sound it with, and endlesse to any discovery that we can 
make of it. The purposes of the world, the wayes of the 
world, exceed our consideration ; But yet we are sure 
the Sea hath a bottome, and sure that it hath hmits, 
that it cannot overpasse ; The power of the greatest 
in the world, the life of the happiest in the world, cannot 
exceed those bounds, which God hath placed for them ; 
So the world is a Sea. It is a Sea, as it hath ebbs and 
floods, and no man knowes the true reason of those 
floods and those ebbs. All men have changes and vicis- 
situdes in their bodies, (they fall sick) And in their 
estates, (they grow poore) And in their minds, (they 
become sad) at which changes, (sicknesse, poverty, 
sadnesse) themselves wonder, and the cause is wrapped 


Mundus Mare. 73 

up in the purpose and judgement of God onely, and hid 
even from them that have them ; and so the world is 
a Sea. It is a Sea, as the Sea affords water enough for 
all the world to drinke, but such water as will not quench 
the thirst. The world affords conveniences enow to 
satisfie Nature, but these encrease our thirst with drink- 
ing, and our desire growes and enlarges it selfe with our 
abundance, and though we sayle in a full Sea, yet we lacke 
water ; So the world is a Sea. It is a Sea, if we consider 
the Inhabitants. In the Sea, the greater fish devoure 
the lesse ; and so doe the men of this world too. And 
as fish, when they mud themselves, have no hands to 
make themselves cleane, but the current of the waters 
must worke that ; So have the men of this world no 
means to cleanse themselves from those sinnes which 
they have contracted in the world, of themselves, till 
a new flood, waters of repentance, drawne up, and 
sanctified by the Holy Ghost, worke that blessed effect 
in them. 

All these wayes the world is a Sea, but especially it is 
a Sea in this respect, that the Sea is no place of habitation, 
but a passage to our habitations. So the Apostle expresses 
the world, Here we have no continuing City^ but we seeke Heb.13.14. 
one to come ; we seeke it not here, but we seeke it whilest 
we are here, els we shall never finde it. Those are the 
two great works which we are to doe in this world ; first 
to know, that this world is not our home, and then to 
provide us another home, whilest we are in this world. 
Therefore the Prophet sayes, Arise, and depart, for this is Mic. 2. 10. 
not your rest. Worldly men, that have no farther pros- 
pect, promise themselves some rest in this world, (Soule, Luk. 12.19. 


74 Mundus Mare. 

thou hast much goods laid up for many yeares, take thine 
ease, eate, drinke, and he merry, sayes the rich man) but' 
this is not your rest ; indeed no rest ; at least not yours. 
You must depart, depart by death, before yee come to 
that rest ; but then you must arise, before you depart ; 
for except yee have a resurrection to grace here, before 
you depart, you shall have no resurrection to glory in 
the life to come, when you are departed. 
Siahis Now, in this Sea, every ship that sayles must necessarily 

tium, have some part of the ship under water ; Every man that 

lives in this world, must necessarily have some of his life, 
some of his thoughts, some of his labours spent upon 
this world ; but that part of the ship, by which he sayls, 
is above water ; Those meditations, and those endevours 
which must bring us to heaven, are removed from this 
world, and fixed entirely upon God. And in this Sea, 
are we made fishers of men ; Of men in generall ; not 
of rich men, to profit by them, nor of poore men, to 
pierce them the more sharply, because affliction hath 
opened a way into them ; Not of learned men, to be 
over-glad of their approbation of our labours. Nor of 
ignorant men, to affect them with an astonishment, oj? 
admiration of our gifts : But we are fishers of men, of 
all men, of that which makes them men, their soules. 
And for this fishing in this Sea, this Gospel is our net. 
Rete Euan- Eloquence is not our net ; Traditions of men are not 
" ' our nets ; onely the Gospel is. The Devill angles with 
hooks and bayts ; he deceives, and he wounds in the 
catching ; for every sin hath his sting. The Gospel of 
Christ Jesus is a net ; It hath leads and corks ; It hath 
leads, that is, the denouncing of Gods judgements, and 


Mundus Mare. 75 

a power to sink down, and lay flat any stubborne and 
rebellious heart, And it hath corks, that is, the power of 
absolution, and application of the mercies of God, that 
swimme above all his works, means to erect an humble 
and contrite spirit, above all the waters of tribulation, 
and affliction. . . . 

With this net S. Peter caught three thousand soules Acts 2. 41. 
in one day, at one Sermon, and five thousand in another. 
With this net S. Paul fished all the Mediterranean Sea, 
and caused the Gospel of Christ Jesus to abound from 
Jerusalem round about to Illyricum. This is the net, Rom.15.19. 
with which if yee be willing to bee caught, that is, to 
lay downe all your hopes and affiances in the gracious 
promises of his Gospel, then you are fishes reserved for 
that great Mariage-feast, which is the Kingdome of 
heaven ; where, whosoever is a dish, is a ghest too ; 
whosoever is served in at the table, sits at the table ; 
whosoever is caught by this net, is called to this feast ; 
and there your soules shall be satisfied as with marrow, 
and with fatnesse, in an infallible assurance, of an ever- 
lasting and undeterminable terme, in inexpressible joy 
and glory. Amen. 

45. The Indifference of 'Nature. 

AFOUNTAINE breaks out in the wildernesse, but 
that fountaine cares not, whether any Man come 
to fetch water, or no ; A fresh, and fit gale blowes upon 
the Sea, but it cares not whether the Mariners hoise 
saile or no ; A rose blowes in your garden, but it calls 
you not to smell to it. 


76 Wealth. 


R 


46. Wealth. 

lICHES is the Metaphor, in which, the Holy Ghost 

hath delighted to expresse God and Heaven to 

Rom. 2. 4. us ; Despise not the riches of his goodnesse, sayes the Apostle ; 

' And againe, O the depth of the riches of his zvisdome ; 

Ephes.3.8. And so, after, The unsearchable riches of Christ : And for 
ver. 16. ' ' , . -^ . ' 

the consummation of all. The riches of his Glory^ Gods 

goodnesse towards us in generall, our Religion in the way, 
his Grace here, his Glory hereafter, are all represented 
to us in Riches. With poverty God ordinarily accom- 
panies his comminations ; he threatens feeblenesse, and 
warre, and captivity, and poverty every where, but he 
never threatens men with riches. 

Ordinary poverty, (that is a difficulty, with all their 
labors, and industry to sustaine their family, and the 
necessary duties of their place) is a shrewd, and a slippery 
tentation. But for that street-beggery, which is become 
a Calling, (for Parents bring up their children to it, nay 
they doe almost take prentises to it, some expert beggers 
teach others what they shall say, how they shall looke, 
how they shall lie, how they shall cry) for these, whom 
our lawes call Incorrigible, I must say of them (in a just 

Matt. 25. accommodation of our Saviours words. It is not meet to 
26, 

take the childrens bread, and to cast it to dogs) It is not 

meet, that this vermin should devoure any of that, 

which belongs to them who are truely poore. Neither 

is there any measure, any proportion of riches, that 

exposes man naturally to so much sin, as this kinde of 

beggery doth. Rich men forget, or neglect the duties 

of their Baptisme j but of these, how many are there. 


Wealth. 77 

that were never baptized ? Rich men sleepe out Sermons, 
but these never come to Church : Rich men are negHgent 
in the practice, but these are ignorant in all knowledge. 

It would require a longer disquisition, then I can afford 
to it now, whether Riches, or Poverty (considered in 
lesser proportions, ordinary riches, ordinary poverty) 
open us to more, and worse sins ; But consider them in 
the highest and in the lowest, abundant riches, beggerly 
poverty, and it will scarce admit doubt, but that the 
incorrigible vagabond is farther from all wayes of good- 
nesse, then the corruptest rich man is. And therefore 
labour wee all earnestly in the wayes of some lawfull 
calling, that we may have our portion of this world 
by good meanes. 

47. A London Merchant. 

THE Lord was with him in all these steps ; with him In vita, 
in his life ; with him in his death ; He is with 
him in his funerals, and he shall be with him in his 
Resurrection ; and therefore, because the Lord was 
with him, our Brother is not dead. He was with him in 
the beginning of his life, in this manifestation, That 
though he were of Parents of a good, of a great Estate, 
yet his possibility and his expectation from them, did not 
slacken his own industry ; which is a Canker that eats 
into, nay that hath eat up many a family in this City, 
that relying wholly upon what the Father hath done, 
the Sonne does nothing for himselfe. And truly, it falls 
out too often, that he that labours not for more, does 
not keepe his own. God imprinted in him an industrious 
disposition, though such hopes from such parents might 


78 A London Merchant. 

have excused some slacknesse, and God prospered his 
industry so, as that when his Fathers estate came to 
a distribution by death, he needed it not. God was 
Psal.Si.ii. with him, as with David in a Dilatation, and then in 
a Repletion ; God enlarged him, and then he filled him ; 
He gave him a large and a comprehensive understanding, 
and with it, A publique heart ; And such as perchance 
in his way of education, and in our narrow and contracted 
times, in which every man determines himselfe in him- 
selfe, and scarce looks farther, it would be hard to finde 
many Examples of such largenesse. You have, I thinke, 
a phrase of Driving a Trade ; And you have, I know, 
a practise of Driving away Trade, by other use of money ; 
And you have lost a man, that drove a great Trade, 
the right way in making the best use of our home- 
commodity. To fetch in Wine, and Spice, and Silke, 
is but a drawing of Trade ; The right driving of trade, 
is, to vent our owne outward ; And yet, for the drawing 
in of that, which might justly seeme most behoofefull, 
that is, of Arts, and Manufactures, to be imployed upon 
our owne Commodity within the Kingdome, he did his 
part, diligently, at least, if not vehemently, if not passion- 
ately. This City is a great Theater, and he Acted great 
and various parts in it ; And all well ; And when he 
went higher, (as he was often heard in Parliaments, at 
Councell tables, and in more private accesses to the 
late King of ever blessed memory) as, for that compre- 
hension of those businesses, which he pretended to under- 
stand, no man doubts, for no man lacks arguments and 
evidences of his ability therein, So for his manner of 
expressing his intentions, and digesting and uttering his 


A London Merchant. 79 

purposes, I have sometimes heard the greatest Master 
of Language and Judgement, which these times, or any 
other did, or doe, or shall give, (that good and great 
King of ours) say of him. That he never heard any man 
of his breeding, handle businesses more rationally, more 
pertinently, more elegantly, more perswasively ; And 
when his purpose was, to do a grace to a Preacher, of 
very good abilities, and good note in his owne Chappell, 
I have heard him say, that his language, and accent, and 
manner of delivering himselfe, was like this man. This 
man hath God accompanied all his life ; and by perform- 
ance thereof seemes to have made that Covenant with 
him, which he made to Abraham, Multiplicabo te vehe- Gen. 17. 2. 
menter, I will multiply thee exceedingly. He multiplied 
his estate so, as was fit to endow many and great Children ; 
and he multiplied his Children so, both in their number, 
and in their quality, as they were fit to receive a great 
Estate. God was with him all the way. In a Pillar of 
Fire, in the brightnesse of prosperity, and in the Pillar 
of Clouds too, in many darke, and sad, and heavy crosses : 
So great a Ship, required a great Ballast, So many 
blessings, many crosses ; And he had them, and sailed 
on his course the steadier for them ; The Cloud as well 
as the Fire, was a Pillar to him ; His crosses, as well as 
his blessings established his assurance in God ; And so, 
in all the course of his life, The Lord was here, and therefore 
our Brother is not dead ; not dead in the evidences and 
testimonies of life ; for he, whom the world hath just 
cause to celebrate, for things done, when he was alive, 
is alive still in their celebration. 

The Lord was here, that is, with him at his death too. /« morie. 


8o A London Merchant. 

He was served with the Processe here in the City, but his 
cause was heard in the Country ; Here he sickned, 
There he languished, and dyed there. In his sicknesse 
there, those that assisted him, are witnesses, of his many 
expressings, of a rehgious & a constant heart towards 
God, and of his pious joyning with them, even in the 
holy declaration of kneeling, then, when they, in favour 
of his weakenesse, would disswade him from kneeling. 
I must not defraud him of this testimony fro my selfe, 
that into this place where we are now met, I have observed 
him to enter with much reverence, & compose himselfe 
in this place with much declaration of devotion. And 
truly it is that reverence, which those persons who are of 
the same ranke that he was in the City, that reverence 
that they use in this place, when they come hither, is 
that that makes us, who have now the administration 
of this Quire, glad, that our Predecessors, but a very 
few yeares before our time, (and not before all our times 
neither) admitted these Honourable and worshipfull 
Persons of this City, to sit in this Quire, so, as they do 
upon Sundayes : The Church receives an honour in 
it ; But the honour is more in their reverence, then in 
their presence ; though in that too : And they receive 
an honour, and an ease in it ; and therefore they do 
piously toward: God, and prudently for themselves, 
and gratefully towards us, in giving us, by their reverent 
comportment here, so just occasion of continuing that 
honour, and that ease to them here, which to lesse 
reverend, and unrespective persons, we should be lesse 
willing to doe. To returne to him in his sicknesse ; He 
had but one dayes labour, and all the rest were Sabbaths, 


A London Merchant. 8i 

one day In his sicknesse he converted to businesse ; Thus ; 
He called his family, and friends together ; Thankfully 
he acknowledged Gods manifold blessings, and his owne 
sins as penitently : And then, to those who were to have 
the disposing of his estate, joyntly with his Children, 
he recommended his servants, and the poore, and the 
Hospitals, and the Prisons, which, according to his 
purpose, have beene all taken into consideration ; And 
after this (which was his Valediction to the world) he 
seemed alwaies loath to returne to any worldly businesse. 
His last Commandement to Wife and Children was 
Christs last commandement to his Spouse the Church, 
in the Apostles, To love one another. He blest them, and 
the Estate devolved upon them, unto them : And by 
Gods grace shall prove as true a Prophet to them in that 
blessing, as he was to himselfe, when in entring his last 
bed, two dayes before his Death, he said. Help me off with 
my earthly habit, U let me go to my last bed. Where, in 
the second night after, he said. Little know ye what paine 
Ifeele this night, yet I know, I shall have joy in the morning ; 
And in that morning he dyed. The forme in which he 
implored his Saviour, was evermore, towards his end, this, 
Christ lesus, which dyed on the Crosse, forgive me my 
sins ; He have mercy upon me : And his last and dying 
words were the repetition of the name of Jesus ; And when 
he had not strength to utter that name distinctly and 
perfectly, they might heare it from within him, as from 
a man a far off ; even then, when his hollow and remote 
naming of Jesus, was rather a certifying of them, that he 
was with his Jesus, then a prayer that he might come to 
him. And so The Lord was here^ here with him in his 
30J5'3 C 


82 A London Merchant. 

Death ; and because the Lord was here, our Brother is 
not dead ; not dead in the eyes and eares of God ; for 
as the blood of Abel speaks yet, so doth the zeale of Gods 
Saints ; and their last prayers (though we heare them not) 
God continues still ; and they pray in Heaven, as the 
Martyrs under the Altar, even till the Resurrection. 

]» funere. He is with him now too ; Here in his Funerals. Buriall, 
and Christian Buriall, and Solemne Buriall are all evidences, 
and testimonies of Gods presence. God forbid we should 
conclude, or argue an absence of God, from the want of 
Solemne Buriall, or Christian Buriall, or any Buriall ; But 
neither must we deny it, to be an evidence of his favour 
and presence, where he is pleased to afford these. So God 

Gen 15. makes that the scale of all his blessings to Abraham, That 
he should be buried in a good age ; God established lacob 

Gen. 46. with that promise, That his Son Joseph should have care 
of his Funerals : And loseph does cause his servants, 

Gen. 50. The Physitians, to embalme him, when he was dead. Of 

Esayii.io. Christ it was Prophecied, That he should have a glorious 
Buriall ; And therefore Christ interprets well that 
profuse, and prodigall piety of the Woman that poured 

^latt. 26. out the Oyntment upon him, That she did it to Bury 
him ; And so shall Joseph of Arimathea be ever celebrated, 
for his care in celebrating Christs Funerals. If we were 
to send a Son, or a friend, to take possession of any place 
in Court, or forraine parts, w-e would send him out in 
the best equipage : Let us not grudge to set downe our 
friends, in the Anti-chamber of Heaven, the Grave, in 
as good manner, as without vaine-gloriousnesse, and 
wastfulnesse we may ; And, in inclining them, to whom 
that care belongs, to expresse that care as they doe this 


A London Merchant. 83 

day, The Lord is with him, even in this Funerall ; And 
because The Lord is here, our brother is not dead ; Not 
dead in the naemories and estimation of men. 

And lastly, that we may have God present in all his In resum- 
Manifestations, Hee that was, and is, and is to come, was '^ '""''■ 
with him, in his life and death, and is with him in this 
holy Solemnity, and shall bee with him againe in the 
Resurrection. God sayes to lacob, I will goe downe with Gen. 46. 4. 
thee into Egypt, and I zvill also surely bring thee up againe. 
God goes downe with a good man into the Grave, and will 
surely bring him up againe. When ? The Angel promised 
to returne to Abraham and Sarah, for the assurance of Gen. 1 3. 10. 
the birth of Isaac, according to the time of life ; that is, 
in such time, as by nature a woman may have a childe. 
God will returne to us in the Grave, according to the 
time of life ; that is, in such time, as he, by his gracious 
Decree, hath fixed for the Resurrection. And in the 
meane time, no more then the God-head departed from 
the dead body of our Saviour, in the grave, doth his 
power, and his presence depart from our dead bodies 
in that darknesse ; But that which Moses said to the 
whole Congregation, I say to you all, both to you that 
heare me, and to him that does not, All ye that did cleave Deut. 4. 4. 
unto the Lord your God, are alive, every one of you, this day ; 
Even hee, whom wee call dead, is alive this day. In the 
presence of God, we lay him downe ; In the power of 
God, he shall rise ; In the person of Christ, he is risen 
already. And so into the same hands that have received 
his soule, we commend his body ; beseeching his blessed 
Spirit, that as our charity enclines us to hope confidently 
of his good estate, our faith may assure us of the same 

c 2 


84 A London Merchant. 

happlnesse, in our owne behalfe ; And that for all our 
sakes, but especially for his own glory, he will be pleased 
to hasten the consummation of all, in that kingdome 
which that Son of God hath purchased for us, with the 
inestimable price of his incorruptible blood. Amen. 

48. Sickness. 

PUT all the miseries, that man is subject to, together, 
sickftesse is more then all. It is the immediate 
sword of God. Phalaris could invent a Bull ; and others 
have invented Wheels and Racks ; but no persecutor 
could ever invent a sicknesse or a way to inflict a sicknesse 
upon a condemned man : To a galley he can send him, 
and to the gallows, and command execution that hour ; 
but to a quartane fever, or to a gout, hee cannot condemn 
him. In poverty I lack but other things ; In banishment 
I lack but other men ; But in sicknesse, I lack my self. 
And, as the greatest misery of war, is, when our own 
Country is made the seat of the war ; so is it of affliction, 
when mine own Body is made the subject thereof. How 
shall I put a just value upon Gods great blessings of 
Wine, and Oyle, and Milke, and Honey, when my tast 
is gone, or of Liberty, when the gout fetters my feet ? 

49. Public Opinion. 

THE shame of men, is one bridle, that is cast upon us. 
It is a morall obduration, and in the suburbs, next 
doore to a spirituall obduration, to be Voyce-proofe, 
Censure-proofe, not to be afraid, nor ashamed, what 
the world sayes. He that relyes upon his Plaudo domi. 
Though the world hisse, I give my selfe a Plaudite at 


Public Opinion. 85 

home, I have him at my Table, and her in my bed, 
whom I would have, and I care not for rumor ; he that 
rests in such a Plaudite, prepares for a Tragedy, a Tragedy 
in the Amphitheater, the double Theater, this world, 
and the next too. 

50. Joy. 

JOY is peace for having done that which we ought 
to have done .... To have something to doe, to 
doe it, and then to Rejoyce in having done it, to embrace 
a calling, to performe the Duties of that calling, to joy 
and rest in the peacefull testimony of having done so ; 
this is Christianly done, Christ did it ; Angelically done, 
Angels doe it ; Godly done, God does it. 

51. Women. 

FOR, howsoever some men out of a petulancy and 
wantonnesse of wit, and out of the extravagancy 
of Paradoxes, and such singularities, have called the 
faculties, and abilities of women in question, even in 
the roote thereof, in the reasonable and immortall soul, 
yet that one thing alone hath been enough to create 
a doubt, (almost an assurance in the negative) whether 
S. Ambroses Commentaries upon the Epistles of S. Paul, 
be truly his or no, that in that book there is a doubt 
made, whether the woman were created according to 
Gods Image ; Therefore, because that doubt is made 
in that book, the book it self is suspected not to have 
had so great, so grave, so constant an author as S. Ambrose 
was ; No author of gravity, of piety, of conversation in 
the Scriptures could admit that doubt, whether woman 
were created in the Image of God, that is, in possession 
of a reasonable and an immortall soul. 


86 Women. 

The faculties and abilities of the soul appeare best 
in affaires of State, and in Ecclesiasticall affaires ; in 
matter of government, and in matter of religion ; and 
in neither of these are we without examples of able 
women. For, for State affaires, and matter of govern- 
ment, our age hath given us such a Queen, as scarce any 
former King hath equalled ; And in the Venetian Story, 
I remember, that certain Matrons of that City were sent 
by Commission, in quality of Ambassadours, to an 
Empresse with whom that State had occasion to treate ; 
And in the Stories of the Eastern parts of the World, 
it is said to be in ordinary practise to send women for 
Ambassadours. And then, in matters of Religion, 
women have evermore had a great hand, though some- 
times on the left, as well as on the right hand. Sometimes 
their abundant wealth, sometimes their personall affec- 
tions to some Church-men, sometimes their irregular 
and indiscreet zeale hath made them great assistants 

Ilieron. of great Heretiques ; as S. Hierome tels us of Helena to 
Simon Magus, and so was Lucilia to Donatus, so another 
to Mahomet, and others to others. But so have they been 
also great instruments for the advancing of true Religion, 

Acts 17. 4. as S. Paul testifies in their behalf, at 7hessolonica, Of 
the chiefe women, not a fezv ; Great, and Many. For, 
many times women have the proxies of greater persons 
then themselves, in their bosomes ; many times women 
have voices, where they should have none ; many times 
the voices of great men, in the greatest of Civill, or 
Ecclesiasticall Assemblies, have been in the power and 
disposition of women. . . . 

Women of quality may be up and ready early enough 


Women. 87 

for Gods service, if they will. If they be not, let thein 
but seriously aske themselves that question, whether 
upon no other occasion, no entertainment, no visit, no 
letter to or from another, they could have made more 
haste ; And If they finde they could, I must say In that 
case, as Tertullian said. They have put God and that man Tertul. 
into the balance, and walghed them together, and found 
God too hght. That Mighty, that waighty, that pon- 
derous God, that blasts a State with a breath, that melts 
a Church with a looke, that molders a world with a touch, 
that God Is walghed downe with that man ; That man, 
whose errand, if it be but conversation, is vanity, but, 
if it be sin, is nothing, walghs downe God. The world 
will needs thinke one of these Maries, {Magdalen) to 
have been guilty of such entertainments as these, of 
Incontlnency, and of that In the lowest (that Is, the 
highest) kinde. Prostitution ; perchance she was ; But, 
I would there were that necessity of thinking so, that 
because she was a Woman, and is called a sinner, therefore 
that must be her sin, as though they were capable of 
no other sin ; Alas, it Is not so. There may be women, 
whom even another sin, the sin of Pride, and over- 
valuation of themselves may have kept from that sin, 
and yet may well be called sinners too ; There may be 
found women, whom only their scorne of others, hath 
kept honest, and yet are sinners, though not in that sin. 

52. Cosmetics. 

CERTAINLY the Hmits of adorning and beautifying 
the body are not so narrow, so strict, as by some 
sovvre men they are sometimes conceived to be. Differ- 


88 Cosmetics. 

ences of Ranks, of Ages, of Nations, of Customes, make 
great differences in the enlarging, or contracting of these 
limits, in adorning the body ; and that may come neare sin 
at some time, and in some places, which is not so alwaies, 
nor every where. Amongst the women there, the Jewish 
women, it was so generall a thing to helpe themselves 
with aromaticall Oyles, and Hniments, as that that which 
is said by the Prophets poore Widow, to the Prophet 
2 King 4. Elisha, That she had nothing in the house but a pot of Oyle, 
is very properly by some collected from the Originall 
word, that it was not Oyle for meate, but Oyle for 
unction, aromaticall Oyle, Oyle to make her looke better ; 
she was but poore, but a Widow, but a Prophets Widow, 
(and likely to be the poorer for that) yet she left not that. 
We see that even those women, whom the Kings were 
to take for their Wives, and not for Mistresses, (which 
is but a later name for Concubines) had a certaine, and 
a long time assigned to be prepared by these aromaticall 
unctions, and liniments for beauty. Neither do those 
that consider, that when Abraham was afraid to lose his 
wife Sara in Egypt, and that every man that saw her, 
would fall in love with her, Sara was then above three- 
score ; And when the King Abimelech did fall in love 
with her, and take her from Abraham^ she was fourescore 
and ten, they doe not assigne this preservation of her 
complexion, and habitude to any other thing, then the 
use of those unctions, and liniments, which were ordinary 
to that Nation. But yet though the extent and limit of 
this adorning the body, may be larger then some austere 
persons will allow, yet it is not so large, as that it should be 
limited onely, by the intention and purpose of them that 


Cosmetics. 89 

doe it ; So that if they that beautifie themselves, meane 
no harme in it, therefore there should be no harme 
in it ; for, except they could as well provide, that others 
should take no harme, as that they should meane no 
harme, they may participate of the fault. And since 
we finde such an impossibility in rectifying and governing 
our owne senses, (we cannot take our owne eye, nor stop 
our owne eare, when we would) it is an unnecessary, 
and insupportable burden, to put upon our score, all the 
lascivious glances, and the licentious wishes of other 
persons, occasioned by us, in over-adorning our selves. 

53. The Skin. 

CORRUPTION in the skin, says lob ; In the outward In pelle. 
beauty, These be the Records of veHm, these be 
the parchmins, the endictments, and the evidences that 
shall condemn many of us, at the last day, our ozvn skins ; 
we have the book of God, the Law, written in our own 
hearts ; we have the image of God imprinted in our 
own souls ; wee have the character, and seal of God 
stamped in us, in our baptism ; and, all this is bound 
up in this velim, in this parchmin, in this skin of ours, 
and we neglect book, and image, and character, and 
seal, and all for the covering. It is not a clear case, if 
we consider the originall words properly. That lesabeliReg.g.^o. 
did paint ; and yet all translators, and expositors have 
taken a just occasion, out of the ambiguity of those 
words, to cry down that abomination of painting. It 
is not a clear case, if we consider the propriety of the 
words. That Absolon was hanged by the hair of the head ; 2Sam.i?>.<). 
and yet the Fathers and others have made use of that 


90 The Skin. 

indifferency, and verisimilitude, to explode that abomina- 
tion, of cherishing and curling haire, to the enveagling, 
and ensnaring, and entangling of others ; Indicium 

Hieron. patietur ceternum, says Saint Hierome, Thou art guilty of 
a murder, though no body die ; Quia vinum attulisti, si 
fuisset qui bibisset ; Thou hast poyson'd a cup, if any 
would drink, thou hast prepar'd a tentation, if any would 

Tertul. swallow it. Tertullian thought he had done enough, 
when he had writ his book De Habitu muliebri, against 
the excesse of women in clothes, but he was fain to adde 
another with more vehemence, De cultu faeminarum, 
that went beyond their clothes to their skin. And he 
concludes, Illud anibitionis crimen, there's vain-glory 
in their excesse of clothes, but, Hoc prostitutionis, there's 
prostitution in drawing the eye to the skin. Pliny says, 
that when their thin silke stuffes were first invented at 
Rome, Excogitatum ad fceminas denudandas ; It was but 
an invention that women might go naked in clothes, 
for their skins might bee seen through those clothes, 
those thinne stuffes : Our women are not so carefull, 
but they expose their nakednesse professedly, and paint 
it, to cast bird-lime for the passengers eye. Beloved, 
good dyet makes the best Complexion, and a good 
Conscience is a continuall feast ; A cheerfull heart makes 
the best blood, and peace with God is the true cheerful- 
nesse of heart. Thy Saviour neglected his skin so much, 
as that at last, hee scarce had any ; all was torn with the 
whips, and scourges ; and thy skin shall come to that 
absolute corruption, as that, though a hundred years 
after thou art buryed, one may find thy bones, and say, 
this was a tall man, this was a strong man, yet we shall 


'The Skin. 91 

soon be past saying, upon any relique of thy skinne, This 
was a fair man ; Corruption seises the skinne, all out- 
ward beauty quickly, and so it does the body, the whole 
frame and constitution, which is another consideration ; 
After my skinne, viy Body. 

If the whole body were an eye, or an ear, where zvere the In corpore. 
body, says Saint Paul; but, when of the whole body ^ or.12.1,. 
there is neither eye nor ear, nor any member left, where 
is the body ? And what should an eye do there, where 
there is nothing to be seen but loathsomnesse ; or a nose 
there, where there is nothing to be smelt, but putre- 
faction ; or an ear, where in the grave they doe not 
praise God ? Doth not that body that boasted but 
yesterday of that priviledge above all creatures, that it 
onely could goe upright, he to day as flat upon the earth 
as the body of a horse, or of a dogge ? And doth it not 
to morrow lose his other priviledge, of looking up to 
heaven ? Is it not farther remov'd from the eye of 
heaven, the Sunne, then any dogge, or horse, by being 
cover'd with the earth, which they are not ? Painters 
have presented to us with some horrour, the sceleton, 
the frame of the bones of a mans body ; but the state 
of a body, in the dissolution of the grave, no pencil can 
present to us. 

54. Mud Walls. 

BEHOLD God hath walled us with mud walls, and 
wet mud walls, that waste away faster, then God 
meant at first, they should. And by sinnes, this flesh, 
that is but the loame and plaster of thy Tabernacle, 
thy body, that, all, that, that in the intire substance is 


92 Mud Walls. 

corrupted. Those Gummes, and spices, which should 
embalme thy flesh, when thou art dead, are spent upon 
that diseased body whilest thou art ahve : Thou seemest, 
in the eye of the world, to walk in silks, and thou doest 
but walke in searcloth ; Thou hast a desire to please 
some eyes, when thou hast much to doe, not to displease 
every Nose ; and thou wilt solicite an adulterous entrance 
into their beds, who, if they should but see thee goe into 
thine own bed, would need no other mortification, nor 
answer to thy solicitation. Thou pursuest the works 
of the flesh, and hast none, for thy flesh is but dust held 
together by plaisters : Dissolution and putrefaction is 
gone over thee alive ; Thou hast over liv'd thine own 
death, and art become thine own ghost, and thine own 
hell. 

55. Ignorance. 

THE Schooles have made so many Divisions, and sub- 
divisions, and re-divisions, and post-divisions of 
Ignorance, that there goes as much learning to under- 
stand ignorance, as knowledg. One, much elder then al 
they, & elder (as some will have it) then any but some of 
the first Secretaries of the Holy Ghost in the Bible, that 
is Trismegistus, hath said as much as all, Nequitia anima 
Ignorantia, Ignorance is not onely the drousinesse, the 
sillinesse, but the wickednesse of the soule : Not onely 
dis-estimation in this world, and damnification here, but 
damnation in the next world, proceeds from ignorance. 
And yet, here in this world, knowledge is but as the 
earth, and ignorance as the Sea ; there is more sea then 
earth, more ignorance then knowledge ; and as if the sea 
do gaine in one place, it loses in another, so is it with 


Ignorance. 93 

knowledge too ; if new things be found out, as many, 
and as good, that were knowne before, are forgotten and 
lost. What Anatomist knowes the body of man thorowly, 
or what Casuist the soule ? What Politician knowes the 
distemper of the State thorowly ; or what Master, the 
disorders of his owne family ? Princes glory in Jrcanisy 
that they have secrets which no man shall know, and, God 
knowes, they have hearts which they know not themselves ; 
Thoughts and purposes indigested fall upon them and 
surprise them. It is so in naturall, in morall, in civill 
things ; we are ignorant of more things then we know ; 
And it is so in divine and supernaturall things too ; for, 
for them, the Scripture is our onely light, and of the 
Scripture, S. Augustine professes, Plura se nescire quam 
scire, That there are more places of Scripture, that he 
does not, then that he does understand. 

Hell is darknesse ; & the way to it, is the cloud of 
Ignorance ; hell it self is but condensed Ignorance, 
multiplied Ignorance. 

56. The Imperfection of Knowledge. 

HOW imperfect is all our knowledge ? What one 
thing doe we know perfectly ? Whether wee consider 
Arts, or Sciences, the servant knows but according to 
the proportion of his Masters knowledge in that Art, and 
the Scholar knows but according to the proportion of 
his Masters knowledge in that Science ; Young men 
mend not their sight by using old mens Spectacles ; and 
yet we looke upon Nature, but with Aristotles Spectacles, 
and upon the body of man, but with Galens, and upon 
the frame of the world, but with Ptolomies Spectacles. 


94 The Imperfection of Knowledge. 

Almost all knowledge is rather like a child that is embalmed' 
to make Mummy, then that is nursed to make a Man ; 
rather conserved in the stature of the first age, then growne 
to be greater ; And if there be any addition to knowledge, 
it is rather a new knowledge, then a greater knowledge ; 
rather a singularity in a desire of proposing something 
that was not knowne at all before, then an emproving, 
an advancing, a multiplying of former inceptions ; and 
by that meanes, no knowledge comes to be perfect. One 
Philosopher thinks he is dived to the bottome, when he 
sayes, he knows nothing but this. That he knows nothing ; 
and yet another thinks, that he hath expressed more 
knowledge then he, in saying. That he knows not so much 
as that, That he knows nothing. S. Paul found that to 
be all knowledge. To know Christ ; And Mahomet 
thinks himselfe wise therefore, because he knows not, 
acknowledges not Christ, as S. Paul does. Though a man 
knew not, that every sin casts another shovell of Brimstone 
upon him in Hell, yet if he knew that every riotous feast 
cuts off a year, and every wanton night seaven years of 
his seventy in this world, it were some degree towards 
perfection in knowledge. He that purchases a Mannor, 
will thinke to have an exact Survey of the Land : But 
who thinks of taking so exact a survey of his Conscience, 
how that money was got, that purchased that Mannor ? 
VVe call that a mans meanes, which he hath ; But that is 
truly his meanes, what way he came by it. And yet how 
few are there, (when a state comes to any great propor- 
tion) that know that ; that know what they have, what 
they are worth ? We have seen great Wills, dilated into 
glorious uses, and into pious uses, and then too narrow 


The Imperfection of Knowledge. 95 

an estate to reach to it ; And we have seen Wills, where 
the Testator thinks he hath bequeathed all, and he hath 
not knowne halfe his own worth. When thou knowest 
a wife, a sonne, a servant, a friend no better, but that 
that wife betrayes thy bed, and that sonne thine estate, 
and that servant thy credit, and that friend thy secret, 
what canst thou say thou knowest ? 

57. Change of Mind. 

rHET changed their minds, and said, That he was 
a God, Acts xxviii. 6. . . . Neither have these men of 
Malta (consider them in what quality you will) so much 
honour afforded them, in the Originall, as our translation 
hath given them. We say, they changed their minds ; the 
Original says only this, they changed, and no more. Alas, 
they, we, men of this world, wormes of this dunghil, 
whether Basilisks or blind wormes, whether Scarabs or 
Silkworms, whether high or low in the world, have no 
minds to change. The Platonique Philosophers did not 
only acknowledge Anima in homine, a soule in man, but 
Mentem in anima, a minde in the soul of man. They 
meant by the minde, the superiour faculties of the soule, 
and we never come to exercise them. Men and women 
call one another inconstant, and accuse one another of 
having changed their minds, when, God knowes, they have 
but changed the object of their eye, and seene a better 
white or red. An old man loves not the same sports that 
he did when he was young, nor a sicke man the same 
meats that hee did when hee was well : But these men have 
not changed their mindes ; The old man hath changed 
his fancy, and the sick man his taste ; neither his minde. 


96 Change of Mind. 

The Mind implies consideration, deliberation, con- 
clusion upon premisses ; and wee never come to that ; 
wee never put the soule home ; wee never bend the soule 
up to her height ; we never put her to a tryall what she 
is able to doe towards discerning a tentation, what towards 
resisting a tentation, what towards repenting a tentation ; 
we never put her to tryall what she is able to doe by her 
naturall faculties, whether by them shee cannot be as 
good as a PlatOy or a Socrates, who had no more but those 
naturall faculties ; what by vertue of Gods generall 
grace, which is that providence, in which he inwraps 
all his creatures, whether by that she cannot know her 
God, as well as the Oxe knowes his Crib, and the Stork 
her nest ; what by vertue of those particular graces, 
which God offers her in his private inspirations at home, 
and in his publique Ordinances here, whether by those 
she cannot be as good an houre hence, as she is now ; 
and as good a day after, as that day that she receives 
the Sacrament ; we never put the soule home, we never 
bend the soule up to her height ; and the extent of the 
soule is this minde. When David speaks of the people, 
Psa!. 2. 2. he sayes, They imagine a vaine thing ; It goes no farther, 
then to the fancy, to the imagination ; it never comes 
so neare the minde, as Consideration, Reflection, Examina- 
tion, they onely imagine, fancy a vain thing, which is 
but a waking dreame, for the fancy is the seat, the scene, 
the theatre of dreames. 


Reason and Faith. 97 

58. Reason and Faith. 

THEY had a precious composition for lamps, amongst 
the ancients, reserved especially for Tomhes, which 
kept light for many hundreds of yeares ; we have had 
in our age experience, in some casuall openings of ancient 
vaults, of finding such lights, as were kindled, (as appeared 
by their inscriptions) fifteen or sixteen hundred years 
before ; but, as soon as that light comes to our light, it 
vanishes. So this eternall, and this supernaturall light, 
Christ and faith, enlightens, warmes, purges, and does 
all the profitable offices of fire, and light, if we keep it 
in the right spheare, in the proper place, (that is, if wee 
consist in points necessary to salvation, and revealed in 
the Scripture) but when wee bring this light to the 
common light of reason, to our inferences, and conse- 
quencies, it may be in danger to vanish it selfe, and 
perchance extinguish our reason too ; we may search 
so far, and reason so long oi faith and grace, as that we 
may lose not onely them, but even our reason too, and 
sooner become mad then good. Not that we are bound 
to believe any thing against reason, that is, to believe, 
we know not why. It is but a slacke opinion, it is not 
Beliefe, that is not grounded upon reason. He that 
should come to a Heathen man, a meere naturall man, 
uncatechized, uninstructed in the rudiments of the 
Christian Religion, and should at first, without any 
preparation, present him first with this necessitie ; Thou 
shalt burn in fire and brimstone eternally, except thou 
believe a Trinitie of Persons, in an unitie of one God, 
Except thou beUeve the Incarnation of the second 
3025'3 H 


98 Reason and Faith. 

Person of the Trinitie, the Sonne of God, Except thou 
believe that a Virgine had a Sonne, and the same Sonne 
that God had, and that God was Man too, and being 
the immortall God, yet died, he should be so farre from 
vvojking any spirituall cure upon this poore soule, as 
that he should rather bring Christian Mysteries into 
scorne, then him to a beliefe. For, that man, if you 
proceed so. Believe all, or you burne in Hell, would 
finde an easie, an obvious way to escape all ; that is, 
first not to believe Hell it selfe, and then nothing could 
binde him to believe the rest. 

The reason therefore of Man, must first be satisfied ; 
but the way of such satisfaction must be this, to make 
him see. That this World, a frame of so much harmony, 
so much concinnitie and conveniencie, and such a corre- 
spondence, and subordination in the parts thereof, must 
necessarily have had a workeman, for nothing can make 
it selfe : That no such workeman would deliver over 
a frame, and worke, of so much Majestie, to be governed 
by Fortune, casually, but would still retain the Adminis- 
tration thereof in his owne hands : That if he doe so, 
if he made the World, and sustaine it still by his watchfull 
Providence, there belongeth a worship and service to 
him, for doing so : That therefore he hath certainly 
revealed to man, what kinde of worship, and service, 
shall be acceptable to him : That this manifestation of 
his Will, must be permanent, it must be written, there 
must be a Scripture, which is his Word and his Will : 
And that therefore, from that Scripture, from that 
Word of God, all Articles of our Beliefe are to bee drawne. 

If then his Reason confessing all this, aske farther 


Reason and Faith. 99 

proofe, how he shall know that these Scriptures accepted 
by the Christian Church, are the true Scriptures, let 
him bring any other Booke which pretendeth to be the 
Word of God, into comparison with these ; It is true> 
we have not a Demonstration ; not such an Evidence as 
that one and two, are three, to prove these to be Scrip- 
tures of God ; God hath not proceeded in that manner, 
to drive our Reason into a pound, and to force it by 
a peremptory necessitie to accept these for Scriptures, 
for then, here had been no exercise of our Will, and our 
assent, if we could not have resisted. But yet these 
Scriptures have so orderly, so sweet, and so powerfull 
a working upon the reason, and the understanding, as if 
any third man, who were utterly discharged of all pre- 
conceptions and anticipations in matter of Religion, 
one who were altogether neutrally disinteressed, uncon- 
cerned in either party, nothing towards a Turke^ and as 
little toward a Christian, should heare a Christian pleade 
for his Bible, and a Turke for his Alcoran, and should 
weigh the evidence of both ; the Majesty of the Style, 
the punctuall accomplishment of the Prophecies, the 
harmony and concurrence of the foure Evangelists, the 
consent and unanimity of the Christian Church ever 
since, and many other such reasons, he would be drawne 
to such an Historicall, such a Grammaticall, such a 
Logicall beliefe of our Bible, as to preferre it before any 
other, that could be pretended to be the Word of God. 
He would believe it, and he would know why he did so. 
For let no man thinke that God hath given him so much 
ease here, as to save him by believing he knoweth not 
what, or why. Knowledge cannot save us, but we cannot 

H 2 


100 Reason and Faith. 

be saved without Knowledge ; Faith is not on this 
side Knowledge, but beyond it ; we must necessarily 
come to Knowledge first, though we must not stay at 
it, when we are come thither. For, a regenerate Chris- 
tian, being now a new Creature, hath also a new facultie 
of Reason : and so believeth the Mysteries of Religion, 
out of another Reason, then as a meere naturall Man, 
he believed naturall and morall things. He believeth 
them for their own sake, by Faith, though he take 
Knowledge of them before, by that common Reason, 
and by those humane Arguments, which worke upon 
other men, in naturall or morall things. Divers men may 
walke by the Sea side, and the same beames of the Sunne 
giving light to them all, one gathereth by the benefit of 
that light pebles, or speckled shells, for curious vanitie, 
and another gathers precious Pearle, or medicinall Ambar, 
by the same light. So the common light of reason 
illumins us all ; but one imployes this light upon the 
searching of impertinent vanities, another by a better 
use of the same light, finds out the Mysteries of Religion ; 
and when he hath found them, loves them, not for the 
lights sake, but for the naturall and true worth of the 
thing it self. Some men by the benefit of this light of 
Reason, have found out things profitable and usefull 
to the whole world ; As in particular, Printing, by which 
the learning of the whole world is communicable to one 
another, and our minds and our inventions, our wits 
and compositions may trade and have commerce together, 
and we may participate of one anothers understandings, 
as well as of our Clothes, and Wines, and Oyles, and other 
Merchandize : So by the benefit of this light of reason, 


Reason and Faith. loi 

they have found out Artillery, by which warres come to 
quicker ends then heretofore, and the great expence of 
bloud is avoyded : for the numbers of men slain now, 
since the invention of Artillery, are much lesse then before, 
when the sword was the executioner. Others, by the 
benefit of this hght have searched and found the secret 
corners of gaine, and profit, wheresoever they lie. They 
have found wherein the weakenesse of another man 
consisteth, and made their profit of that, by circum- 
venting him in a bargain : They have found his riotous, 
and wastefull inclination, and they have fed and fomented 
that disorder, and kept open that leake, to their advantage, 
and the others ruine. They have found where was the 
easiest, and most accessible way, to sollicite the Chastitie 
of a woman, whether Discoursey Musicke, or Presents, 
and according to that discovery, they have pursued 
hers, and their own eternaU destruction. By the benefit 
of this light, men see through the darkest, and most 
impervious places, that are, that is. Courts of Princes, 
and the greatest Officers in Courts ; and can submit 
themselves to second, and to advance the humours of 
men in great place, and so make their profit of the 
weakenesses which they have discovered in these great 
men. All the wayes, both of Wisdome, and of Craft lie 
open to this light, this light of naturall reason : But 
when they have gone all these wayes by the benefit 
of this light, they have got no further, then to have 
walked by a tempestuous Sea, and to have gathered 
pebles, and speckled cockle shells. Their light seems to 
be great out of the same reason, that a Torch in a misty 
night, seemeth greater then in a clear, because it hath 


102 Reason and Faith. 

kindled and inflamed much thicke and grosse Ayre round 
about it. So the light and wisedome of worldly men, 
seemeth great, because he hath kindled an admiration, 
or an applause in Aiery flatterers, not because it is so 
in deed. 

But, if thou canst take this light of reason that is in 
thee, this poore snuffe, that is almost out in thee, thy 
faint and dimme knowledge of God, that riseth out of 
this light of nature, if thou canst in those embers, those 
cold ashes, finde out one small coale, and wilt take the 
paines to kneell downe, and blow that coale with thy 
devout Prayers, and light thee a little candle, (a desire 
to reade that Booke, which they call the Scriptures, and 
the Gospell, and the Word of God ;) If with that httle 
candle thou canst creep humbly into low and poore 
places, if thou canst finde thy Saviour in a Manger, and 
in his swathing clouts, in his humiliation, and blesse God 
for that beginning, if thou canst finde him flying into 
Egypt, and finde in thy selfe a disposition to accompany 
him in a persecution, in a banishment, if not a bodily 
banishment, a locall banishment, yet a reall, a spirituall 
banishment, a banishment from those sinnes, and that 
sinnefull conversation, which thou hast loved more then 
thy Parents, or Countrey, or thine owne body, which 
perchance thou hast consumed, and destroyed with that 
sinne ; if thou canst finde him contenting and containing 
himselfe at home in his fathers house, and not breaking 
out, no not about the worke of our salvation, till the 
due time was come, when it was to be done. And if 
according to that example, thou canst contain thy selfe 
in that station and vocation in which God hath planted 


Reason and Faith. 103 

thee, and not, through a hasty and precipitate zeale, 
breake out to an imaginary, and intempestive, and 
unseasonable Reformation, either in Civill or Ecdesiasticall 
businesse, which belong not to thee ; if with this little 
poore light, these first degrees of Knowledge and Faith, 
thou canst follow him into the Garden, and gather up 
some of the droppes of his precious Bloud and sweat, 
which he shed for thy soule, if thou canst follow him to 
Jerusalem, and pick up some of those teares, which he 
shed upon that City, and upon thy soule ; if thou canst 
follow him to the place of his scourging, and to his 
crucifying, and provide thee some of that balme, which 
must cure thy soule ; if after all this, thou canst turne 
this little light inward, and canst thereby discerne where 
thy diseases, and thy wounds, and thy corruptions are, 
and canst apply those teares, and blood and balme to 
them, (all this is. That if thou attend the light of naturall 
reason, and cherish that, and exalt that, so that that 
bring thee to a love of the Scriptures, and that love to 
a beleefe of the truth thereof, and that historic all faith 
to z faith of application, of appropriation, that as all those 
things were certainly done, so they were certainly done /or 
thee) thou shalt never envy the lustre and glory of the great 
lights of worldly men, which are great by the infirmity of 
others, or by their own opinion, great because others think 
them great, or because they think themselves so, but thou 
shalt finde, that howsoever they magnifie their lights, their 
wit, their learning, their industry, their fortune, their 
favour, and sacrifice to their owne nets, yet thou shalt see, Eahak i. 
that thou by thy small hght hast gathered Pearle and 
Amber, and they by their great hghts nothing but shels 


104 Reason and Faith. 

and pebles ; they have determined the light of nature, 
upon the booke of nature, this world, and thou hast carried 
the light of nature higher, thy naturall reason, and even 
humane arguments, have brought thee to reade the 
Scriptures, and to that love, God hath set to the scale of 
Jaith. Their Hght shall set at noone ; even in their 
heighth, some heavy crosse shall cast a damp upon their 
soule, and cut off all their succours, and devest them of 
all comforts, and thy light shall grow up, from a Jaire 
hope, to a modest assurance and infallibility, that that 
light shall never go out, nor the works of darknesse, nor 
the Prince of darknesse ever prevaile upon thee, but as 
thy hght of reason is exalted hy faith here, so thy light of 
faith shall be exalted into the hght of glory, and fruition 
in the Kingdome of heaven. Before the sunne was made, 
there was a light which did that office of distinguishing 
night and day ; but when the sunne was created, that 
did all the offices of the former light,, and more. Reason 
is that first, and primogeniall light, and goes no farther 
in a naturall man ; but in a man regenerate by faith, 
that light does all that reason did, and more ; and all his 
Morall, and Civill, and Domestique, and indifferent 
actions, (though they be never done without Reason) 
yet their principall scope, and marke is the glory of God, 
and though they seeme but Morall, or Civill, or domestique, 
yet they have a deeper tincture, a heavenly nature, 
a relation to God, in them. 


True Knowledge. 105 

59. True Knowledge. 

BLESSED are they that inanimate all their knowledge, 
consummate all in Christ Jesus. The University 
is a Paradise, Rivers of knowledge are there, ,Arts and 
Sciences flow from thence. Counsell Tables are Horti 
conclusi, (as it is said in the Canticles) Gardens that are 
walled, in, and they are Pontes signati. Wells that are 
sealed up ; bottomlesse depths of unsearchable Counsels 
there. But these Aquee quietudinum^ which the Prophet 
speaks of, The waters of rest, they flow a magistro bono, 
from this good master, and flow into him again ; All 
knowledge that begins not, and ends not with his glory, 
is but a giddy, but a vertiginous circle, but an elaborate 
and exquisite ignorance. 

60. Terrible Things, 

IN the frame and constitution of al Religions, these 
Materials, these Elements have ever entred ; Some 
words of a remote signification, not vulgarly understood, 
some actions of a kinde of halfe-horror and amazement, 
some places of reservation and retirednesse, and appro- 
priation to some sacred persons, and inaccessible to all 
others. Not to speake of the services, and sacrifices of 
the Gentiles, and those selfe-mangHngs and lacerations 
of the Priests of Isis, and of the Priests of Baal, (faintly 
counterfaited in the scourgings and flagellations in the 
Roman Church) In that very discipHne which was 
delivered from God, by Moses, the service was full of 
mysterie, and horror, and reservation. By terrible things, 
(Sacrifices of blood in manifold effusions) God answered 


io6 Terrible Things. 

them, then. So, the matter of Doctrine was delivered 
mysteriously, and with much reservation, and in-intelli- 
giblenesse, as Tertullian speaks. The Joy and Glory 
of Heaven was not easily understood by their temporal! 
abundances of Milke, and Honey, and Oyle, and Wine ; 
and yet, in these (and scarce any other way) was Heaven 
presented, and notified to that people by Moses. Christ, 
a Messias, a Saviour of the World, by shedding his blood 
for it, was not easily discerned in their Types and Sacri- 
fices ; And yet so, and scarce any other way was Christ 
Hos.t3,to. revealed unto them. God sayes, / have multiplied visions, 
and used similitudes, by the minis tery of the Prophets. 
They were Visions, they were Simihtudes, not plaine and 
evident things, obvious to every understanding, that God 
led his people by. . . . 

So that God in the Old, and Christ in the New Testa- 
ment, hath conditioned his Doctrine, and his ReHgion 
(that is, his outward worship) so, as that evermore there 
should be preserved a Majesty, and a reverentiall feare, 
and an awfull discrimination of Divine things from 
Civill, and evermore something reserved to be inquired 
after, and laid up in the mouth of the Priest, that the 
People might acknowledge an obligation from him, in 
the exposition, and application thereof. Nay, this way 
of answering us by terrible things, (that is, by things 
that imprint a holy horror, and a Religious reverence) is 
much more in the Christian Church, then it can have 
beene in any other ReHgion ; Because, if wee consider 
the Jews, (which is the onely ReHgion, that can enter 
into any comparison with the Christian, in this kinde) 
yet, we looke more directly and more immediately upon 


Terrible Things. 107 

God in Christ, then they could, who saw him but by 
way of Prophecie, a future thing that should be done 
after ; wc looke upon God, in History, in matter of fact, 
upon things done, and set before our eyes ; and so that 
Majesty, and that holy amazement, is more to us then 
ever it was to any other Religion, because we have 
a nearer approximation, and vicinity to God in Christ, 
then any others had, in any representions of their Gods ; 
and it is a more dazeling thing to looke upon the Sun, 
in a direct, then in an oblique or side line. And therefore, 
the love of God, which is so often proposed unto us, 
is as often seasoned with the feare of God ; nay, all our 
Religious affections are reduced to that one. To a reveren- 
tiall feare ; If he be a Master, he cals for feare, and, Mai, i. 6. 
If he be a Father, he calls for honor ; And honour implies 
a reverentiall feare. And that is the Art that David 
professes to teach, Artem timendi. Come ye children, and Psal.34.12. 
hearken unto me, and I will teach you the feare of the Lord. 
That you thinke not Divinity an Occupation, nor 
Church-Service a recreation ; but still remember. That 
the God of our Salvation (God working in the Christian 
Church) zvill answer you ; but yet, by terrible things ; 
that is, by not being over-fellowly with God, nor over- 
homely with places, and acts of Religion ; which, it 
may be an advancement to your Devotion and edification, 
to consider, in some particulars in the Christian Church. 

And first, consider we it, in our manners, and conversa- In morihus. 
tion. Christ sayes, Henceforth I call you not servants, '^ "^5-i4- 
but friends. But, howsoever Christ called him friend, 
that was come to the feast without the wedding garment, 
he cast hijn out, because he made no difference of that Mat. 22.12. 


io8 Terrible Things. 

place from another. First then, remember by what 
terrible things God answers thee in the Christian Church, 
when he comes to that round and peremptory issue, 
Marke 16. Q^/ ^^j^ crediderit^ damnabitur, He that beleeves not every 
Article of the Christian faith, and with so stedfast a belief, 
as that he would dye for it, Damnabitur, (no modification, 
no mollification, no going lesse) He shal be damned. 
Consider too the nature of Excomunication, That it 
teares a man from the body of Christ Jesus ; That that 
man withers that is torne off, and Christ himselfe is 
wounded in it. Consider the insupportable penances 
that were laid upon sinners, by those penitentiall Canons, 
that went through the Church in those Primitive times ; 
when, for many sins which we passe through now, 
without so much as taking knowledge that they are sins, 
men were not admitted to the Communion all their 
Hves, no, nor easily upon their death-beds. Consider 
how dangerously an abuse of that great doctrine of 
Predestination may bring thee tO' thinke, that God is 
bound to thee, and thou not bound to him, That thou 
maiest renounce him, and he must embrace thee, and 
so make thee too familiar with God, and too homely 
with Religion, upon presumption of a Decree. Con- 
sider that when thou preparest any uncleaae action, 
in any sinfull nakednesse, God is not onely present 
with thee in that roome then, but then tels thee. 
That at the day of Judgement thau must stand in 
his presence, and in the presence of all the World, 
not onely naked, but in that foule, and sinfull, 
and uncleane action of nakednesse, which thou com- 
mittedst then ; Consider all this and confesse, that for 


Terrible Things. 109 

matters of manners, and conversation, T^he God of thy 
Salvation answers thee by terrible things. And so it is 
also, if we consider Prayer in the Church. 

Gods House is the house of Prayer ; It is his Court of Inorationf. 
Requests ; There he receives petitions, there he gives 
Order upon them. And you come to God in his House, 
as though you came to keepe him company, to sit downe, 
and talke with him halfe an houre ; or you come as 
Ambassadors, covered in his presence, as though ye came 
from as great a Prince as he. You meet below, and there 
make y-our bargaines, for biting, for devouring Usury, and 
then you come up hither to prayers, and so make God 
your Broker. You rob, and spoile, and eat his people 
as bread, by Extortion, and bribery, and deceitfull 
waights and measures, and deluding oathes in buying 
and selling, and then come hither, and so make God 
your Receiver, and his house a den of Thieves. His 
house is Sanctum Sanctorum, The holiest of holies, and 
you make it onely Sanctuarium ; It should be a place 
sanctified by your devotions, and you make it onely 
a Sanctuary to priviledge Malefactors, A place that 
may redeeme you from the ill opinion of men, who must 
in charity be bound to thinke well of you, because they 
see you here. Offer this to one of your Princes, (as God 
argues in the Prophet) and see, if he will suffer his house 
to be prophaned by such uncivill abuses ; And, Terribilis Psal. 47. 3. 
Rex, The Lord most high is terrible, and a great King over 
all the earth ; and, Terribilis super omnes Deos, More 96. 4- 
terrible then all other Gods. Let thy Master be thy god, 
or thy Mistresse thy god, thy Belly be thy god, or thy 
Back be thy god, thy fields be thy god, or thy chests be 


no Terrible Things. 

thy god, Terrihilis super otnnes Deos, The Lord is terrible 

95- 3- above all gods, A great God, and a great King above all 

gods. You come, and call upon him by his name here, But 

Deut.28.58. Magnum iS' terribile. Glorious and fearefull is the name of 
the Lord thy God. And, as if the Son of God were but 
the Son of some Lord, that had beene your Schoole- 
fellow in your youth, and so you continued a boldnesse 
to him ever after, so, because you have beene brought 
up with Christ from your cradle, and catechized in his 
name, his name becomes lesse reverend unto you, And 

Fsal.111.4. Sanctum U terribile. Holy, and reverend. Holy and 
terrible should his name be. 

61. The Fate of the Heathen. 
Pagani. AND as those blessed Fathers of tender bowels, 
Jr\. enlarged themselves in this distribution, and 
apportioning the mercy of God, that it consisted best 
with the nature of his mercy, that as his Saints had 
suffered temporall calamities in this world, in this world 
they should be recompenced with temporall abundances., 
so did they inlarge this mercy farther, and carry it even 
to the Gentiles, to the Pagans that had no knowledge 
of Christ in any established Church. You shall not 
finde a Trismegistus, a Numa Pompilius, a Plato, a Socrates^ 
for whose salvation you shall not finde some Father, or 
some Ancient and Reverend Author, an Advocate. In 
which liberahty of Gods mercy, those tender Fathers 
proceed partly upon that rule, That in Trismegistus, 
and in the rest, they finde evident impressions, and 
testimonies, that they knew the Son of God, and knew 
the Trinity ; and then, say they, why should not these 


The Fate of the Heathen. 1 1 1 

good men, beleeving a Trinity, be saved ? and partly 
they goe upon that rule, which goes through so many 
of the Fathers, Facienti quod in se est. That to that man 
who does as much as he can, by the light of nature, God 
never denies grace ; and then, say they, why should not 
these men that doe so be saved ? And, upon this ground, 
S. Dionyse, the Areopagite sayes. That from the beginning 
of the world, God hath called some men of all Nations, 
and of all sorts, by the ministry of Angels, though not 
by the ministry of the Church. To me, to whom God 
hath revealed his Son, in a Gospel, by a Church, there 
can be no way of salvation, but by applying that Son of 
God, by that Gospel, in that Church. Nor is there any 
other foundation for any, nor other name by which any 
can be saved, but the name of Jesus. But how this 
foundation is presented, and how this name of Jesus is 
notified to them, amongst whom there is no Gospel 
preached, no Church estabhshed, I am not curious in 
inquiring. I know God can be as mercifull as those 
tender Fathers present him to be ; and I would be as 
charitable as they are. And therefore humbly imbracing 
that manifestation of his Son, which he hath afforded 
me, I leave God, to his unsearchable waies of working 
upon others, without farther inquisition. 

62. The Church a Company. 

THE Key of David, openeth and no man shutteth ; 
The Spirit of Comfort shineth upon us, and would 
not be blown out. Monasterie, and Ermitage, and 
Anchorate, and such words of singularitie are not Synonyma 
with those plurall words Concio, Cactus, Ecdesia, Synagoga 


112 The Church a Company. 

y CongTegatio, in which words God delivereth himselfe 
to us. A Church is a Company, ReUgion is ReHgation, 
a binding of men together in one manner of Worship ; 
and Worship is an exteriour service ; and that exteriour 
service is the Venite exultemus, to come and re Joyce 
in the presence of God. 

63. God Proceeds Legally. 

GOD proceeds legally ; Publication before Judgement. 
God shall condemn no man, for not beleeving in 
Christ, to whom Christ was never manifested, 'TzV 
true, that God is said to have come to Eliah in that 
still small voice, and not in the strong wind^ not in the 
i/?eg.i9.i2. Earth-quake, not in the fire. So God says, Sibilabo 
Mat. 10.21. populum meum, I will but hisse, I will but wliisper for 
my people, and gather them so. So Christ tells us things 
in darknesse ; And so Christ speakes to us in our Ear ; And 
these low voices, and holy whisperings, and halfe-silences, 
denote to us, the inspirations of his Spirit, as his Spirit 
heares zvitnesse with our spirit ; as the Holy Ghost insinu- 
ates himselfe into our soules, and works upon us so, 
by his private motions. But this is not Gods ordinary 
way, to be whispering of secrets. The first thing that 
God made, was light ; The last thing, that he hath reserved 
to doe ; is the manifestation of the light of his Essence 
in our Glorification. And for Publication of himselfe 
here, by the way, he hath constituted a Church, in 
a VisibiHty, in an eminency, as a City upon a hill ; And 
in this Church, his Ordinance is Ordinance indeed ; his 
Ordinance of preaching batters the soule, and by that 
breach, the Spirit enters ; His Ministers are an Earth- 


God Proceeds Legally. 113 

quake, and shake an earthly soule ; They are the sonnes 
of thunder, and scatter a cloudy conscience ; They are 
as the fall of waters, and carry with them whole Congrega- 
tions ; 3000 at a Sermon, 5000 at a Sermon, a whole 
City, such a City as Niniveh at a Sermon ; and they are 
as the roaring of a Lion, where the Lion of the tribe of 
Juda, cries down the Lion that seekes whom he may 
devour ; that is, Orthodoxall and fundamentall truths, 
are established against clamorous, and vociferant innova- 
tions. Therefore what Christ tels us in the darke, he 
bids us speake in the light ; and what he sales in our 
eare, he bids us preach on the house top. Nothing is 
Gospell, not Evangelium, good message, if it be not put 
into a Messengers mouth, and delivered by him ; nothing 
is conducible to his end, nor available to our salvation, 
except it be avowable doctrine, doctrine that may be 
spoke alowd, though it awake them, that sleep in their 
sinne, and make them the more froward, for being so 
awaked. 

God hath made all things in a Roundnesse, from the 
round superficies of this earth, which we tread here, to 
the round convexity of those heavens, w'^'^ (as long as 
they shal have any beeing) shall be our footstool, when 
we come to heaven, God hath wrapped up all things 
in Circles, and then a Circle hath no Angles ; there are 
no Corners in a Circle. Corner Divinity, clandestine 
Divinity are incompatible termes ; If it be Divinity, 
it is avowable. The heathens served their Gods in Temples, 
sub die, without roofs or coverings, in a free opennesse ; 
and, where they could, in Temples made of Specular stone, 
that was transparent as glasse, or crystall, so as they which 

2035'3 I 


114 God Proceeds Legally. 

walked without in the streets, might see all that was done 
within. And even nature it self taught the naturall 
man, to make that one argument of a man truly religious, 
Afcrto vivere voto. That he durst pray aloud, and let 
the world heare, what he asked at Gods hand ; which 
duty is best performed, when we joyne with the Congre- 
gation in publique prayer. Saint Augustine, hath made 
that note upon the Donatists, That they were Clancularii, 
clandestine Divines, Divines in Corners. And in Photius, 
we have such a note almost upon all Heretiques ; as 
the Nestorian was called Coluber, a snake, because though 
he kept in the garden, or in the meadow, in the Church, 
yet he lurked and lay hid, to doe mischief. And the 
Valentinian was called a Grashopper, because he leaped 
and skipped from place to place ; and that creature, the 
Grashopper, you may hear as you passe, but you shall 
hardly find him at his singing ; you may hear a Con- 
venticle Schismatick, heare him in his Pamphlets, heare 
him in his Disciples, but hardly surprize him at his 
exercise. Publication is a fair argument of truth. That 
tasts of Luthcrs holy animosity, and zealous vehemency, 
when he says, Audemus gloriari Christum a nobis primo 
vulgatuvi ; other men had made some attempts at 
a Reformation, and had felt the pulse of some persons, 
and some Courts, and some Churches, how they would 
relish a Reformation ; But Luther rejoyces with a holy 
exultation. That he first published it, that he first put 
the world to it. So the Apostles proceeded ; when they 
came in their peregrination, to a new State, to a new 
Court, to Rome it selfe, they did not enquire, how stands 
the Emperour affected to Christ, and to the preaching 


God Proceeds Legally. 115 

of his Gospel ; Is there not a Sister, or a Wife that might 
be wrought upon to further the preaching of Christ ? 
Are there not some persons, great in power and place, 
that might be content to hold a party together, by 
admitting the preaching of Christ ? This was not their 
way ; They only considered who sent them ; Christ 
Jesus : And what they brought ; salvation to every soul 
that embraced Christ Jesus. That they preached ; and 
still begunne with a Va si non ; Never tell us of dis- 
pleasure, or disgrace, or detriment, or death, for preaching 
of Christ. For, woe be unto us, if we preach him not : 
And still they ended with a Qui non crediderit, Damnabitiir, 
Never deceive your own souls, He, to whom Christ hath 
been preached, and beleeves not, shall be damned. All 
Divinity that is bespoken, and not ready made, fitted 
to certaine turnes, and not to generall ends ; And all 
Divines that have their soules and consciences, so disposed, 
as their Libraries may bee, (At that end stand Papists, 
and at that end Protestants, and he comes in in the 
middle, as neare one as the other) all these have a brackish 
taste ; as a River hath that comes near the Sea, so have 
they, in comming so neare the Sea of Rome. 

64. The Church. 

AS Waspes make combs, but empty ones, so do 
. Heretiques Churches, but frivolous ones, ineffectual! 
ones. And, as we told you before. That errors and 
disorders are as well in wayes, as in ends, so may we 
deprive our selves of the benefit of this judgement, The 
Church, as well in circumstances, as in substances, as 
well in opposing disciphne, as doctrine. The holy Ghost 

I 2 


ii6 The Church. 

reproves thee, convinces thee, oj judgement, that is, offers 
thee the knowledge that such a Church there is ; A Jordan 
to wash thine originall leprosie in Baptisme ; A City 
upon a mountaine, to enhghten thee in the works of 
darknesse ; a continuall apphcation of all that Christ 
Jesus said, and did, and suffered, to thee. Let no soule 
say, she can have all this at Gods hands immediatly, 
and never trouble the Church ; That she can passe her 
pardon between God and her, without all these formalities, 
by a secret repentance. It is true, beloved, a true 
repentance is never frustrate : But yet, if thou wilt 
think thy selfe a little Church, a Church to thy selfe, 
because thou hast heard it said. That thou art a little 
world, a world in thy selfe, that figurative, that meta- 
phoricall representation shall not save thee. Though 
thou beest a world to thy self, yet if thou have no more 
corn, nor oyle, nor milk, then growes in thy self, .or 
flowes from thy self, thou wilt starve ; Though thou be 
a Church in thy fancy, if thou have no more seales of 
grace, no more absolution of sin, then thou canst give 

Grcgor. thy self, thou wilt perish. Per solum Ecclesiam sacrificium 
libenter accipit Deus : Thou maist be a Sacrifice in thy 
chamber, but God receives a Sacrifice more cheerefully 
at Church. Sola, quce pro errantibus Jiducialiter intercedit. 
Only the Church hath the nature of a surety ; Howsoever 
God may take thine own word at home, yet he accepts 
the Church in thy behalfe, as better security. Joyne 

Aujgiisto therefore ever with the Communion of Saints • Et cum 
membriim sis ejus corporis, quod loquitur omnibus Unguis, 
crede te omnibus Unguis loqui. Whilst thou art a member 
of that Congregation, that speaks to God with a thousand 


The Church. 117 

tongues, beleeve that thou speakest to God with all 
those tongues. And though thou know thine own 
prayers unworthy to come up to God, because thou 
liftest up to him an eye, which is but now withdrawne 
from a licentious glancing, and hands which are guilty 
yet of unrepented uncleannesses, a tongue that hath 
but lately blasphemed God, a heart which even now 
breaks the walls of this house of God, and steps home, 
or runs abroad upon the memory, or upon the new 
plotting of pleasurable or profitable purposes, though 
this make thee thinke thine own prayers uneffectuall, 
yet beleeve that some honester man then thy selfe stands 
by thee, and that when he prayes with thee, he prayes 
for thee ; and that, if there be one righteous man in 
the Congregation, thou art made the more acceptable 
to God by his prayers ; and make that benefit of this 
reproofe, this conviction of the holy Ghost, That he 
convinces thee De judicio, assures thee of an orderly 
Church established for thy reliefe, and that the applica- 
tion of thy self to this judgement, The Church, shall 
enable thee to stand upright in that other judgement, 
the last judgement, which is also enwrapped in the 
signification of this word of our Text, ludgement, and 
is the conclusion for this day. 

As God begun all with judgement, (for he made all Indicium 
things in measure, number, and waight) as he proceeded g^'^'^j 
with judgement, in erecting a judiciall seat for our 
direction, and correction, the Church, so he shall end 
all with judgement. The iinall, and generall judgement, 
at the Resurrection ; which he that beleeves not, beleeves 
nothing ; not God ; for, He that commeth to God (that Heb. u. 6. 


ii8 The Church. 

makes any step towards him) must beleeve, Deum retnunera^ 
torem, God, and God in that notion, as he is a Rewarder ; 
Therefore there is judgement. But was this work left 
for the Holy Ghost ? Did not the naturall man that 
knew no Holy Ghost, know this ? Truly, all their 
fabulous Divinity, all their Mythology, their Minos, and 
their Rhadamanthus, tasted of such a notion, as a judge- 
ment. And yet the first planters of the Christian Religion 
found it hardest to fixe this roote of all other articles 
That Christ should come againe to judgement. Miserable 
and froward men ! They would beleeve it in their fables, 
and would not beleeve it in the Scriptures ; They would 
beleeve it in the nine Muses, and would not beleeve it 
in the twelve Apostles ; They would beleeve it by Apollo, 
and they would not beleeve it by the Holy Ghost ; 
They would be saved Poetically, and fantastically, and 
would not reasonably, and spiritually ; By Copies, and 
not by Originals ; by counterfeit things at first deduced 
by their Authors, out of our Scriptures, and yet not by 
the word of God himself. 

65. Reverence in Church. 

THE rituall and ceremoniall, the outward worship 
of God, the places, the times, the manner of meet- 
ings, [which] are in the disposition of Christian Princes, 
and by their favours of those Churches, which are in their 
government : and not to rejoyce in the peacefull exercise 
of those spirituall helps, not to be glad of them, is a trans- 
gression. Now the Prophet expresses this rejoycing thus, 
Ve7iite exultemus, let us come and rejoyce. We must 
doe both. And therefore they who out of a thraldome to 


Reverence in Church. 119 

another Church abstaine from these places of these 

exercises, that doe not come, or if they doc come, doe not 

rejoyce, but though they be here brought by necessity 

of law, or of observation, yet had rather they were in 

another Chappell, or at another kinde of service then 

in this : and they also who abstain out of imaginary 

defects in this church, & think they cannot perform 

Davids De profundis, they cannot call upon God out of 

the depth, except it be in a Conventicle in a cellar, nor 

acknowledge Solomons Excelsis Excelsior, that God is EuUs. 5. S. 

higher then the highest, except it be in a Conventicle 

in a garret, & when they are here wink at the ornaments, 

& stop their ears at the musique of the Church, in which 

manner she hath always expressed her rejoycing in those 

helps of devotion ; or if there bee a third sort who 

abstain, because they may not be here at so much ease, 

and so m.uch liberty, as at their own houses, all these are 

under this transgression. Are they in the Kings house 

at so much liberty as in their own ? and is not this the 

King of Kings house ? Or have they scene the King 

in his owne house, use that hberty to cover himself e in 

his ordinary manner of covering, at any part of Divine 

Service ? Every Preacher will look, and justly, to have 

the Congregation uncovered at the reading of his Text : 

and is not the reading of the Lesson, at time of Prayer, 

the same Word of the same God, to be received with the 

same reverence ? The service of God is one entire 

thing ; and though we celebrate some parts with more, 

or with lesse reverence, some kneeling, some standing, 

yet if we afford it no reverence, we make that no part 

of Gods service. And therefore I must humbly intreat 


120 Reverence in Church. 

them, who make this Quire the place of their Devotion, 
to testifie their devotion by more outward reverence 
there ; wee know our parts in this place, and we doe 
them ; why any stranger should think himself more 
priviledged in this part of Gods House, then we, I know 
not. I presume no man will mis-interpret this that I say 
here now ; nor, if this may not prevaile, mis-interpret 
the service of our Officers, if their continuing in that 
unreverent manner give our Officers occasion to warn 
them of that personally in the place, whensoever they 
see them stray into that uncomely negligence. They 
should not blame me now, they must not blame them 
then, when they call upon them for this reverence in 
this Quire ; neither truly can there be any greater 
injustice, then when they who will not do their duties, 
blame others for doing theirs. 

66. Going to Church. 

BETWEENE that fearefull occasion of comming to 
Church, which S. Augustine confesses and laments, 
That they came to make wanton bargaines with their 
eyes, and met there, because they could meet no where 
else ; and that more fearfull occasion of comming, when 
they came onely to elude the Law, and proceeding in 
their treacherous and traiterous reUgion in their heart, 
and yet communicating with us, draw God himselfe into 
their conspiracies, and to mocke us, make a mocke of God, 
and his religion too : betweene these two, this licencious 
comming, and this treacherous comming, there are many 
commings to Church, commings for company, for observa- 
tion, for musique : And all these indispositions are ill 


Going to Church. 121 

at prayers ; there they are unwholesome, but at the 
Sacrament, deadly : He that brings any collaterall 
respect to prayers, looses the benefit of the prayers of 
the Congregation ; and he that brings that to a Sermon, 
looses the blessing of Gods ordinance in that Sermon ; 
hee heares but the Logique, or the Retorique, or the 
Ethique, or the poetry of the Sermon, but the Sermon of 
the Sermon he heares not ; but he that brings this 
disposition to the Sacrament, ends not in the losse of 
a benefit, but he acquires, and procures his owne damna- 
tion. 

67. Prayer. 

I BRING not a Star-chamber with me up into the 
Pulpit, to punish a forgery, if you counterfeit a zeale 
in coming hither now ; nor an Exchequer, to punish 
usurious contracts, though made in the Church ; nor 
a high Commissioji, to punish incontinencies, if they be 
promoted by wanton interchange of looks, in this place. 
Onely by my prayers, which he hath promised to accom- 
pany and prosper in his service, I can diffuse his over- 
shadowing Spirit over all the corners of this Congregation, 
and pray that Publican, that stands below afar off, and 
dares not hft up his eyes to heaven, to receive a chearfull 
confidence, that his sinnes are forgiven him ; and pray 
that Pharisee, that stands above, and onely thanks God, 
that he is not like other men, to believe himself to be, 
if not a rebellious, yet an unprofitable servant. 


122 Prayer. 

68. Prayer. 

PRAYER is our whole service to God. Earnest 
Prayer hath the nature of Importunity ; Wee 
presse, wee importune God in Prayer ; Yet that puts 
not God to a morosity, to a frowardnesse ; God flings 
not away from that ; Gods suffers that importunity, 
and more. Prayer hath the nature of Impudency ; Wee 
threaten God in Prayer ; as Gregor: Nazi: adventures 
to expresse it ; He saies, his Sister, in the vehemence 
of her Prayer, would threaten God, Et honesta quadam 
impudentia, egit impudentem ; She came, saies he, to 
a religious impudency with God, and to threaten him, 
that she would never depart from his Altar, till she had 
her Petition granted ; And God suffers this Impudency, 
and more. Prayer hath the nature of Violence ; In the 
publique Prayers of the Congregation, we besiege God, 
saies Tertul: and we take God Prisoner, and bring God 
to our Conditions ; and God is glad to be straitned by 
us in that siege. This Prophet here executes before, 
what the Apostle counsailes after. Pray incessantly ; 
Even in his singing he prayes ; And as S. Basil saies, 
Etiam soinniajustorum preces sunt, A Good mans dreames 
are Prayers, he prayes, and not sleepily, in his sleepe, so 
Davids Songs are Prayers. 

69. The Time of Prayer. 

THE comfort of being presented to God as innocent 
as AdaiUy then when God breathed a soule into him, 
yea as innocent as Christ Jesus himselfe, when he breathed 
out his soule to God ; oh how blessed is that soule that 


The Time of Prayer. 123 

enjoyes it, and how bold that tongue that goes about to 
expresse it ! This is the blessednesse which the godly 
attaine to by prayer, but not by every sudden Lord, Lord, 
or every occasionall holy interjection, but by serious 
prayer, invested, as with the former, so with that other 
circumstance that remains, In tempore opportuno, In a 
time when thou mayest he found. 

This time is not those Horcv staiwa, Horce canonica. In tempore. 
those fixed houres in the Romane Church, where men 
are bound to certaine prayers at certaine houres. Not 
that it is inconvenient for men to binde themselves to 
certaine fixed times of prayer in their private Exercises ; 
and though not by such a vow, as that it shall be an 
impiety, yet by so solemne a purpose, as that it shall be 
a levity to breake it. I have known the greatest Christian 
Prince, (in Style and Title) even at the Audience of an 
Ambassador, at the sound of a Bell, kneele downe in 
our presence and pray ; and God forbid, he should be 
blamed for doing so ; But to place a merit in observing 
those times, as they doe, Is not a right understanding of 
this time of finding. Nor is it those transitory and inter- 
locutory prayers, which out of custome and fashion we 
make, and still proceed in our sin ; when we pretend to 
speake to God, but like Comedians upon a stage, turne 
over our shoulder, and whisper to the Devill. . . . 

The Manifestation of the Gospel, that is, the helpes Prosper!- 
which God offers us, more then Jews, or Gentils, in the ^^^' 
Ministery of the Gospel, and the Ordinances of his 
Church, is the time of finding God ; And woe unto us, 
if we seeke him not whilest he affords us these helpes ; 
And then the time of affliction, when God threatens 


124 '^^^ Time of Prayer. 

to hide his face, but hath not yet hidden it, but awakens 
us by a calamity, is a time of finding God. But the best 
and the clearest time is in the Sun-shine, then when 
he appeares to us in the warme and chearefull splendor 
of temporall blessings upon us ; Then when thou hast 
a good estate, and good children to let it descend upon ; 
Then when thou hast good health, and a good profession 
to exercise thy strength, and thy labors in ; Then when 
the dishes upon thy table are doubled, and thy cup 
overflows, and the hungry and thirsty soules of the poore 
doe not onely feed upon the crums under thy table, and 
lick up the overflowings of thy cup, but divide dishes 
with thee, and enter into the midst of thy Bolls ; Then 
when thou hast temporall blessings, (that is Gods silver) 
and his grace to use those blessings well, (that is Gods 
gold) then is the best time of finding the Lord, for then 
he looks upon thee in the Sun-shine, and then thy 
thankfull acknowledgement of former blessings is the 
most effectuall prayer thou canst make, for the continu- 
ance, and enlargement of them. 

70. Jt Table and Bed. 

THEREFORE, beloved, since every master of a family, 
who is a Bishop in his house, should call his family 
together, to humble, and powre out their soules to God, 
let him consider, that when he comes to kneele at the 
side of his table, to pray, he comes to build a Church 
there ; and therefore should sanctifie that place, with 
a due, and penitent consideration how voluptuously 
he hath formerly abused Gods blessings at that place, 
how superstitiously, and idolatrously he hath flatter'd 


At Table and Bed. 125 

and humour'd some great and useful ghests invited by 
him to that place, how expensively, he hath served his 
owne ostentation and vain-glory, by excessive feasts 
at that place, whilest Lazarus hath lien panting, and 
gasping at the gate ; and let him consider what a danger- 
ous Mockery this is to Christ Jesus, if he pretend by 
kneeling at that table, fashionally to build Christ a Church 
by that solemnity at the table side, and then crucifie 
Christ again, by these sinnes, when he is sat at the table. 
When thou kneelest down at thy bed side, to shut up 
the day at night, or to beginne it in the morning, thy 
servants, thy children, thy Httle flock about thee, there 
thou buildest a Church too : And therefore sanctifiie 
that place ; wash it with thy tears, and with a repentant 
consideration ; That in that bed thy children were 
conceived in sinne, that in that bed thou hast turned 
mariage which God afforded thee for remedy, and 
physique to voluptuosnesse, and licenciousnesse ; That 
thou hast made that bed which God gave thee for rest, 
and for reparation of thy weary body, to be as thy 
dwelling, and deUght, and the bed of idlenesse, and 
stupidity. 

71. Unconscious Prayer. 

THAT soule, that is accustomed to direct her selfe 
to God, upon every occasion, that, as a flowre at 
Sun-rising, conceives a sense of God, in every beame of 
his, and spreads and dilates it selfe towards him, in 
a thankfulnesse, in every small blessing that he sheds 
upon her ; that soule, that as a flowre at the Suns 
declining, contracts and gathers in, and shuts up her 


126 Unconscious Prayer. 

selfe, as though she had received a blow, when soever she 
heares her Saviour wounded by a oath, or blasphemy, 
or execration ; that soule, who, whatsoever string be 
strucken in her, base or treble, her high or her low 
estate, is ever tun'd toward God, that soule prayes 
sometimes when it does not know that it prayes. 

72. Sermons^ 

GOD directs the tongue of his Ministers, as he doth 
his showres of rain : They fall upon the face of 
a large compasse of earth, when as all that earth did not 
need that rain. The whole Congregation is, oftentimes, 
in common entendment, conformable, and well setled 
in all matters of Doctrine, and all matters of Discipline. 
And yet God directs us sometimes to extend our discourse 
(perchance with a zeale and a vehemence, which may 
seem unnecessary, and impertinent, because all in the 
Church are presumed to be of one minde) in the proofe 
of our doctrine against Papists, or of our discipline against 
Nonconformitans. For, Gods eye sees, in what seat 
there sits, or in what corner there stands some one man 
that wavers in matters of Doctrine, and enclines to 
hearken after a Seducer, a Jesuit, or a Semi-Jesuit, 
a practising Papist, or a Sesqui-Jesuit, a Jesuited Lady ; 
And Gods eye sees in what seat there sits, or in what 
corner there stands some weak soul that is scandalized, 
with some Ceremony, or part of our Discipline, and in 
danger of falling from the unity of the Church : And 
for the refreshing of that one span of ground, God lets 
fall a whole showre of rain ; for the rectifying of that 
one soul, God poures out the Meditations of the Preacher, 


Sermons. 127 

into such a subject, as perchance doth httle concern the 
rest of the Congregation. S. Mattheiv relates Christs 
Sermon at large, and S. Luke but briefly, and yet S. Luke 
remembers some things that S. Matthew had left out. 
If thou remember not all that was presented to thy 
faith, all the Citations of places of Scriptures, nor all 
that was presented to thy reason, all the deducements, 
and inferences of the Schooles, nor all that was presented 
to thy spirituall dehght, all the sentences of ornament 
produced out of the Fathers, yet if thou remember that 
which concerned thy sin, and thy soul, if thou meditate 
upon that, apply that, thou hast brought away all the 
Sermon, all that was intended by the Holy Ghost to be 
preached to thee. And if thou have done so, as at a 
donative at a Coronation, or other solemnity, when 
mony is throwne among the people, though thou light 
but upon one shilHng of that money, thou canst not 
think that all the rest is lost, but that some others are 
the richer for it, though thou beest not ; so if thou 
remember, or apply, or understand but one part of the 
Sermon, doe not think all the rest to have been idly, 
or unnecessarily, or impertinently spoken, for thou 
broughtest a feaver, and hast had thy Juhps, another 
brought a fainting, and a diffident spirit, and must have 
his Cordials. . , . 

This excuses no mans ignorance, that is not able to 
preach seasonably, and to break, and distribute the bread 
of hfe according to the emergent necessities of that 
Congregation, at that time ; Nor it excuses no mans 
lazinesse, that will not employ his whole time upon his 
calling ; Nor any mans vain-glory, and ostentation, who 


128 Sermons. 

having made a Pye of Plums, without meat, offers it 
to sale in every Market, and having made an Oration 
of Flowres, and Figures, and Phrases without strength, 
sings it over in every Pulpit : It excuses no mans ignor- 
ance, nor lazinesse, nor vain-glory, but yet it reproaches 
their itching and curious eares, to whom any repetition 
of the same things is irksome and fastidious. You may 
have heard an answer of an Epigrammatist applyable to 
this purpose ; When he read his Epigrams in an Auditory, 
one of the hearers stopped him, and said. Did not I heare 
an Epigram to this purpose from you, last yeare ? Yes, 
sayes he, it is like you did ; but is not that vice still in 
you this yeare, which last yeares Epigram reprehended ? 
If your curiosity bring you to say to any Preacher, Did 
not I heare this Point thus handled in your Sermon, 
last yeare ? Yes, must he say, and so you must next 
yeare againe, till it appeare in your amendment, that 
you did heare it. The Devill maintaines a Warre good 
cheap, if he may fight with the same sword, and we may 
not defend with the same buckler ; If he can tempt 
a Son with his Fathers covetousnesse, and a Daughter 
with her Mothers wantonnesse, if he need not vary 
the sin, nor the tentation, must wee vary our Doctrine ? 
This is indeed to put new Wine into old vessels, new 
Doctrine into eares, and hearts not disburdened of old 
Cant. 7.13. sins. We say, as the Spouse sayes, Vetera i^ nova, we 
prepare old and new, all that may any way serve your 
holy taste, and conduce to your spirituall nourishment ; 
And he is not a Preacher sufficiently learned, that must 
of necessity preach the same things againe, but he is not 
a Preacher sufficiently discreet neither, that forbeares 


Sermons J 29 

any thing therefore, because himselfe, or another in 
that place, hath handled that before. Christ himselfe 
varied his Sermon very httle, if this in S. Matthew, and 
that in S. Luke, were divers Sermons. 

73. New Doctrines. 

NEW fashions in men, make us doubt new manners ; 
and new terms in Divinity were ever suspicious in 
the Church of God, that new Doctrines were hid under 
them. Resistibility, and Irresistibility of grace, which 
is every Artificers wearing now, was a stuff that our 
Fathers wore not, a language that pure antiquity spake 
not. They knew Gods ordinary proceeding. They knew 
his Common Law, and they knew his Chancery. They 
knew his Chief Justice Moses, that denounced his Judge- 
ments upon transgressors of the Law ; and they knew 
his Chancellor Christ Jesus, into whose hands he had 
put all Judgements, to mitigate the rigor and condemna- 
tion of the Law. They knew Gods law, and his Chancery : 
but for Gods prerogative, what he could do of his absolute 
power, they knew Gods pleasure, Nolumus disputari : 
It should scarce be disputed of in Schools, much less 
serv'd in every popular pulpit to curious and itching ears ; 
least of all made table-talke, and household-discourse. 
Christ promises to come to the door, and to knock at 
the door, and to stand at the door, and to enter if any 
man open ; but he does not say, he will break open the Revel. 3. 
door : it was not his pleasure to express such an earnest- 
ness, such an Irresistibihty in his grace, so. Let us 
cheerfully rely upon that ; his purpose shall not be 
frustrated ; his ends shall not be prevented ; his ways 
J025-3 K 


130 New Doctrines. 

shall not be precluded : But the depth of the goodness 
of God, how much good God can do for man ; yea the 
depth of the illness of man, how much ill man can do 
against God, are such seas, as, if it be not impossible, 
at least it is impertinent, to go about to sound them. 

74. Papist and Puritan. 

BELOVED, there are some things in which all 
Religions agree ; The worship of God, The holi- 
nesse of life ; And therefore, if when I study this hoHnesse 
of life, and fast, and pray, and submit my selfe to discreet, 
and medicinall mortifications, for the subduing of my 
body, any man will say, this is Papisticall, Papists doe 
this, it is a blessed Protestation, and no man is the lesse 
a Protestant, nor the worse a Protestant for making it, 
Men and brethren, I am a Papist, that is, I will fast and 
pray as much as any Papist, and enable my selfe for the 
service of my God, as seriously, as sedulously, as laboriously 
as any Papist. So, if when I startle and am affected at 
a blasphemous oath, as at a wound upon my Saviour, 
if when I avoyd the conversation of those men, that 
prophane the Lords day, any other will say to me. This 
is Puritanicall, Puritans do this, It is a blessed Protesta- 
tion, and no man is the lesse a Protestant, nor the worse 
a Protestant for making it, Men and Brethren, I am 
a Puritan, that is, I wil endeavour to be pure, as my 
Father in heaven is pure, as far as any Puritan. 


Theological Dissensions. 131 

75. Theological Dissensions. 

PSALME II. 3. If the Foundations be destroyed^ 
what can the righteous doe F . . . 
For, as wee, at last, shall commend our Spirits, into 
the hands of God, God hath commended our Spirits, 
not onely our civill peace, but our Rehgion too, into 
the hand of the Magistrate. And therefore, when the 
Apostle sayes, Studie to bee quiet, it is not quiet in the 
blindnesse of the Eye, nor quiet in the Deafenesse of 
the Eare, nor quiet in the Lamenesse of the Hand ; the 
iust discharge of the dueties of our severall places, is no 
disquieting to any man. But when private men will 
spend all their thoughts upon their Superiours actions, 
this must necessarily disquiet them ; for they are off of 
their owne Center, and they are extra Sphceram Activitatis, 
out of their owne Distance, and Compasse, and they 
cannot possibly discerne the Ende, to which their 
Superiours goe. And to such a iealous man, when his 
jealousie is not a tendernesse towards his owne actions, 
which is a holy and a wholesome jealousie, but a suspition 
of his Superiours actions, to this Man, every Wheele is 
a Drumme, and every Drumme a Thunder, and every 
Thunder-clapp a dissolution of the whole frame of the 
World : If there fall a broken tyle from the house, hee 
thinkes Foundations are destroyed ; if a crazie woman, 
or a disobedient childe, or a needie servant fall from 
our Religion, from our Church, hee thinkes the whole 
Church must necessarily fall, when all this while there 
are no Foundations destroyed ; and till foundations bee 
destroyed, the righteous should be quiet, 

K 2 


132 Theological Dissensions. 

Hence have wee just occasion, first to condole amongst 
oiir selves, who, for matters of Foundations professe one 
and the same Religion, and then to complain of our 
Adversaries, who are of another. First, that amongst our 
selves, for matters not Doctrinall, or if Doctrinall, yet 
not Fundamentall, onely because we are sub-divided in 
divers Names, there should be such Exasperations, such 
Exacerbations, such Vociferations, such Ejulations, such 
Defamations of one another, as if all Foundations were 
destroyed. Who would not tremble, to heare those 
Infernall words, spoken by men, to men, of one and the 
same Rehgion fundamentally, as Indiabolificata, Per- 
diabolijicata, and Super diabolijicata, that the Devill, 
and all the Devills in Hell, and worse then the Devill 
is in their Doctrine, and in their Divinitie, when, God 
in heaven knowes, if their owne uncharitablenesse did 
not exclude him, there were roome enough for the Holy 
Ghost, on both, and on either side, in those Fundamentall 
things, which are unanimely professed by both ; And 
yet every Mart, wee see more Bookes written by these 
men against one another, then by them both, for Christ. 
But yet though this Torrent of uncharitablenesse 
amongst them, bee too violent, yet it is within some 
bankes ; though it bee a Sea, and too tempestuous, it 
is limitted within some bounds : The poynts are certaine, 
knowen, limitted, and doe not grow upon us every 
yeare, and day. But the uncharitablenesse of the Church 
of Rome towards us all, is not a Torrent, nor it is not a Sea, 
but a generall Flood, an universall Deluge, that swallowes 
all the world, but that Church, and Church-yard, that 
lowne, and Suburbes, themselves, and those that depend 


Theological Dissensions. 133 

upon them ; and will not allowe possibilitie of Salvation to 
the whole Arke, the whole Christian Church, but to one 
Cabin in that Arke, the Church of Rome ; and then 
denie us this Salvation, not for any Positive Errour, that 
ever they charged us to affirme ; not because we affirme 
any thing, that they denie, but because wee denie some 
things, which they in their afternoone are come to 
affirme. 

76. Despair. 

WHO ever comes into a Church to denounce an 
excommunication against himselfe ? And shall any 
sad soule come hither, to gather arguments, from our 
preaching, to excommunicate it selfe, or to pronounce an 
impossibility upon her owne salvation ? God did a new Nitnb. i5. 
thing, says Moses, a strange thing, a thing never done ^°' 
before, when the earth opened her mouth and Dathan, 
and Abiram went downe quicke into the pit. Wilt thou 
doe a stranger thing then that ? To teare open the 
jawes of Earth, and Hell, and cast thy self actually 
and really into it, out of a mis-imagination, that God 
hath cast thee into it before ? Wilt thou force God to 
second thy irreligious melancholy, and to condemne thee 
at last, because thou hadst precondemned thy selfe, and 
renounced his mercy ? 

77. The Sociahleness of God. 

OUR first step then in this first part, is, the sociable- i Part 
nesse, the communicablenesse of God ; He loves holy 
meetings, he loves the communion of Saints, the houshold 
of the faithfull : Delicia ejus, says Solomon, his delight is 
to he with the Sons of men, and that the Sons of men 


134 The Sociableness of God. 

should be with him : Rehgion is not a melancholy ; the 
spirit of God is not a dampe ; the Church is not a grave : 
it is a fold, it is an Jrke, it is a net, it is a city, it is a king- 
dome, not onely a house, but a house that hath many 
mansions in it : still it is a plurall thing, consisting of 
many : and very good grammarians amongst the Hebrews, 
have thought, and said, that that name, by which God 
notifies himself to the world, in the very beginning of 
Genesis, which is Elohim, as it is a plurall word there, so 
it hath no singular : they say we cannot name God, but 
plurally : so sociable, so communicable, so extensive, so 
derivative of himself, is God, and so manifold are the 
beames, and the emanations that flow out from him. 

78. God a Circle. 

ONE of the most convenient Hieroglyphicks of God, 
is a Circle ; and a Circle is endlesse ; whom God 
loves, hee loves to the end : and not onely to their own 
end, to their death, but to his end, and his end is, that 
he might love them still. His hailestones, and his thunder- 
bolts, and his showres of bloud (emblemes and instru- 
ments of his Judgements) fall downe in a direct line, and 
affect and strike some one person, or place : His Sun, 
and Moone, and Starres, (Emblemes and Instruments 
of his Blessings) move circularly, and communicate them- 
selves to all. His Church is his chariot ; in that, he moves 
more gloriously, then in the Sun ; as much more, as his 
begotten Son exceeds his created Sun, and his Son of 
glory, and of his right hand, the Sun of the firmament ; 
and this Church, his chariot, moves in that communicable 
motion, circularly ; It began in the East, it came to us. 


God a Circle. 135 

and is passing now, shining out now, in the farthest 
West. 

79. God's Mirror. 

THERE is not so poore a creature but may be thy 
glasse to see God in. The greatest flat glasse that 
can be made, cannot represent any thing greater then 
it is :j If every gnat that flies were an Arch-angell, all 
that could but tell me, that there is a God ; and the 
poorest worme that creeps, tells me that. If I should 
aske the Basilisk, how camest thou by those killing eyes, 
he would tell me. Thy God made me so ; And if I should 
aske the Slow-worme, how camest thou to be without 
eyes, he would tell me. Thy God made me so. The 
Cedar is no better a glasse to see God in, then the Hyssope 
upon the wall ; all things that are, are equally removed 
from being nothing ; and whatsoever hath any beeing, 
is by that very beeing, a glasse in which we see God, who 
is the roote, and the fountaine of all beeing. The whole 
frame of nature is the Theatre, the whole Volume of 
creatures is the glasse, and the light of nature, reason, is 
our light. 

80. Gods Names. 

FIRST then, lest any man in his dejection of spirit, Vmbra 
or of fortune, should stray into a jealousie or suspi- 
tion of Gods power to deliver him. As God hath spangled 
the firmament with starres, so hath he his Scriptures 
with names, and Metaphors, and denotations of power. 
Sometimes he shines out in the name of a Sword, and of 
a Target, and of a Wall, and of a Tower, and of a Rocke, 
and of a Hill ; And sometimes in that glorious and 


136 God*s Names. 

manifold constellation of all together, Domimis exercituum. 
The Lord of Hosts. God, as God, is never represented to 
us, with Defensive Armes ; He needs them not. When 
the Poets present their great Heroes, and their Worthies, 
they alwayes insist upon their Armes, they spend much of 
their invention upon the description of their Armes ; 
both because the greatest valour and strength needs 
Armes, (Goliah himselfe vi^as armed) and because to expose 
ones selfe to danger unarmed, is not valour, but rashnesse. 
But God is invulnerable in himselfe, and is never repre- 
sented armed ; you finde no shirts of mayle, no Helmets, 
no Cuirasses in Gods Armory. 

81. God's Mercies, 
Psal.ioi.i. T WILL sing of thy mercy and judgement, sayes David ; 
■^ when we fixe our selves upon the meditation and 
modulation of the mercy of God, even his judgements 
cannot put us out of tune, but we shall sing, and be 
chearefull, even in them. As God made grasse for beasts, 
before he made beasts, and beasts for man, before he 
made man : As in that first generation, the Creation, so 
in the regeneration, our re-creating, he begins with that 
which was necessary for that which followes, Mercy 
before Judgement. Nay, to say that mercy was first, 
is but to post-date mercy ; to preferre mercy but so, 
is to diminish mercy ; The names of first or last derogate 
from it, for first and last are but ragges of time, and his 
mercy hath no relation to time, no limitation in time, 
it is not first, nor last, but eternall, everlasting ; Let the 
Devill make me so far desperate as to conceive a time 
when there was no mercy, and he hath made me so far an 


God's Mercies, 137 

Atheist, as to conceive a time when there was no God ; 
if I despoile him of his mercy, any one minute, and say, 
now God hath no mercy, for that minute I discontinue his 
very Godhead, and his beeing. Later Grammarians have 
wrung the name of mercy out of misery ; Misericordia 
frcesumit tniseriam, say these, there could be no subsequent 
mercy, if there were no precedent misery ; But the true 
roote of the word mercy, through all the Prophets, is 
Racham, and Racham is diligere, to love ; as long as there 
hath been love (and God is love) there hath been mercy : 
And mercy considered externally, and in the practise and 
in the effect, began not at the helping of man, when man 
was fallen and become miserable, but at the making of man, 
when man was nothing. So then, here we consider not 
mercy as it is radically in God, and an essentiall attribute 
of his, but productively in us, as it is an action, a working 
upon us, and that more especially, as God takes all 
occasions to exercise that action, and to shed that mercy 
upon us : for particular mercies are feathers of his wings, 
and that prayer. Lord let thy mercy lighten upon us, as 
our trust is in thee, is our birdlime ; particular mercies 
are that cloud of Quailes which hovered over the host of 
Israel, and that prayer. Lord let thy mercy lighten upon us, 
is our net to catch, our Gomer to fill of those Quailes. 
The aire is not so full of Moats, of Atomes, as the Church 
is of Mercies ; and as we can suck in no part of aire, 
but we take in those Moats, those Atomes ; so here in 
the Congregation we cannot suck in a word from the 
preacher, we cannot speak, we cannot sigh a prayer to 
God, but that that whole breath and aire is made of 
mercy. But we call not upon you from this Text, to 


138 God's Mercies. 

consider Gods ordinary mercy, that which he exhibltes 
to all in the ministery of his Church ; nor his miraculous 
mercy, his extraordinary deliverances of States and 
Churches ; but we call upon particular Consciences, by 
occasion of this Text, to call to minde Gods occasionall 
mercies to them ; such mercies as a regenerate man will 
call mercies, though a naturall man would call them 
accidents, or occurrences, or contingencies ; A man 
wakes at midnight full of unclean thoughts, and he heares 
a passing Bell ; this is an occasionall mercy, if he call 
that his own knell, and consider how unfit he was to be 
called out of the world then, how unready to receive 
that voice, Foole, this night they shall fetch away thy soule. 
The adulterer, whose eye waites for the twy-light, goes 
forth, and casts his eyes upon forbidden houses, and would 
enter, and sees a Lord have mercy upon us upon the doore ; 
this is an occasionall mercy, if this bring him to know 
that they who lie sick of the plague within, passe through 
a furnace, but by Gods grace, to heaven ; and hee 
without, carries his own furnace to hell, his lustfuU 
lolnes to everlasting perdition. What an occasionall 
mercy had Balaam, when his Asse Catechized him J 
What an occasionall mercy had one Theefe, when the 
other catechized him so. Art not thou afraid being under 
the same condemnation F What an occasionall mercy had 
all they that saw that, when the Devil himself fought 
Act. 19. 14. for the name of Jesus, and wounded the sons of Sceva 
for exorcising in the name of Jesus, with that indignation, 
with that Increpation, lesus we know, and Paul we know, 
hut who are ye ? If I should declare what God hath done 
(done occasionally) for my soule, where he instructed me 


God's Mercies. I39 

for feare of falling, where he raised me when I was fallen, 
perchance you would rather fixe your thoughts upon my 
illnesse, and wonder at that, then at Gods goodnesse, 
and glorifie him in that ; rather wonder at my sins, 
then at his mercies, rather consider how ill a man I was, 
then how good a God he is. If I should inquire upon 
what occasion God elected me, and writ my name in 
the book of Life, I should sooner be afraid that it were 
not so, then finde a reason why it should be so. God 
made Sun and Moon to distinguish seasons, and day, and 
night, and we cannot have the fruits of the earth but in 
their seasons : But God hath made no decree to distin- 
guish the seasons of his mercies ; In paradise, the fruits 
were ripe, the first minute, and in heaven it is alwaies 
Autumne, his mercies are ever in their maturity. We 
ask panem quotidianum, our daily bread, and God never 
sayes you should have come yesterday, he never sayes 
you must againe to morrow, but to day if you will heare 
his voice, to day he will heare you. If some King of the 
earth have so large an extent of Dominion, in North, 
and South, as that he hath Winter and Summer together 
in his Dominions, so large an extent East and West, as 
that he hath day and night together in his Dominions, 
much more hath God mercy and judgement together : 
He brought hght out of darknesse, not out of a lesser 
light ; he can bring thy Summer out of Winter, though 
thou have no Spring ; though in the wayes of fortune, 
or understanding, or conscience, thou have been benighted 
till now, wintred and frozen, clouded and eclypsed, 
damped and benummed, smothered and stupified till 
now, now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of 


140 God*s Mercies. 

the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the Sun 
at noon to illustrate all shadowes, as the sheaves in harvest, 
to fill all penuries, all occasions invite his mercies, and all 
times are his seasons. 

82. God 7ioi Cruel. 

NEVER propose to thy self such a God, as thou wert 
not bound to imitate : Thou mistakest God, if 
thou make him to be any such thing, or make him to 
do any such thing, as thou in thy proportion shouldst 
not be, or shouldst not do. And shouldst thou curse 
any man that had never offended, never transgrest, 
never trespast thee ? Can God have done so ? Imagine 
God, as the Poet saith, Ludere in humanis, to play but 
a game at Chesse with this world ; to sport himself 
with making little things great, and great things nothing : 
Imagine God to be but at play with us, but a gamester ; 
yet will a gamester curse^ before he be in danger of losing 
any thing ? Will God curse man, before man have 
sinned ? 

83. The Voice of God. 
Audivii. TTOW often does God speake, and nobody heares the 
JL A. voyce ? He speaks in his Canon, in Thunder, and 
he speaks in our Canon, in the rumour of warres. He 
speaks in his musique, in the harmonious promises of 
the Gospel, and in our musique, in the temporall blessings 
of peace, and plenty ; And we heare a noyse in his 
Judgements, and wee heare a sound in his mercies ; but 
we heare no voyce, we doe not discern that this noyse, 
or this sound comes from any certain person ; we do 
not feele them to be mercies, nor to be judgements 


The Voice of God. 141 

uttered from God, but naturall accidents, casuall occur- 
rencies, emergent contingencies, which as an Atheist 
might think, would fall out though there were no God, 
or no commerce, no deaHng, no speaking between God 
and Man. Though Saul came not instantly to a perfect 
discerning who spoke, yet he saw instantly, it was a Person 
above nature, and therefore speakes to him in that phrase 
of submission, Quis es Domine ? Lord, who art thou f 
And after, with trembling and astonishment, (as the Text 
sayes) Domine quid me vis facere ? Lord what wilt thoji 
have me to do P Then we are truliest said to hear, when 
we know from whence the voyce comes. Princes are 
Gods Trumpet, and the Church is Gods Organ, but 
Christ Jesus is his voyce. When he speaks in the Prince, 
when he speaks in the Church, there we are bound to 
heare, and happy if we doe hear. Man hath a natural 
way to come to God, by the eie, by the creature ; So 
Visible things shew the Invisible God : But then, God 
hath super-induced a supernaturall way, by the eare. 
For, though hearing be naturall, yet that faith in God 
should come by hearing a man preach, is supernatural. 
God shut up the naturall way, in Saul, Seeing ; He 
struck him blind ; But he opened the super-naturall 
way, he inabled him to heare, and to heare him. God 
would have us beholden to grace, and not to nature, and 
to come for our salvation, to his Ordinances, to the 
preaching of his Word, and not to any other meanes. 


142 God's Language. 

84. God's Language. 

GOD multiplies his mercies to us, in his divers ways 
of speaking to us. Coeli enarrant, says David, The 
heavens declare the glory of God ; and not onely by showing, 
but by saying ; there is a language in the heavens ; for. 
it is enarrant, a verball declaration ; and, as it followes 
literally, Day unto day uttereth speech. This is the true 
harmony of the Spheares, which every man may heare. 
Though he understand no tongue but his owne, he may 
heare God in the motions of the same, in the seasons of 
the yeare, in the vicissitudes and revolutions of Church, 
and State, in the voice of Thunder, and lightnings, and 
other declarations of his power. This is Gods English 
to thee, and his French, and his Latine, and Greek, and 
Hebrew to others. God once confounded languages ; 
that conspiring men might not understand one another, 
but never so, as that all men might not understand him. 
When the holy Ghost fell upon the Apostles, they spoke 
so, as that all men understood them, in their owne tongues. 
When the holy Ghost fell upon the waters, in the Crea- 
tion, God spoke so, in his language of Workes, as that 
all men may understand them. For, in this language, 
the language of workes, the Eye is the eare, seeing is 
hearing. How often does the holy Ghost call upon us, 
in the Scriptures, Ecce, quia os Domini locutum. Behold, 
the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it ? he calls us to 
behold, (which is the office of the eye) and that that we 
are to behold, is the voice of God, belonging to the eare ; 
seeing is hearing, in Gods first language, the language of 
works. But then God translates himself, in particular 


God's Language. 143 

works ; nationally, he speaks in particular judgments, 
or deliverances to one nation ; &, domestically, he speaks 
that language to a particular family ; & so personally too, 
he speaks to every particular soul. God will speak unto 
me, in that voice, and in that way, which I am most 
delighted with, & hearken most to. If I be covetous, 
God wil tel me that heaven is a pearle, a treasure. If 
cheerfull and affected with mirth, that heaven is all Joy. 
If ambitious, and hungry of preferment, that it is all 
Glory. If sociable, and conversable, that it is a communion 
of Saints. God will make a Fever speake to me, and tell 
me his minde, that there is no health but in him ; God 
will make the disfavour, and frowns of him I depend upon, 
speake to me, and tell me his minde, that there is no safe 
dependence, no assurance but in him ; God will make 
a storme at Sea, or 2. fire by land, speake to me, and tell mee 
his minde, that there is no perpetuity, no possession but 
in him ; nay, God will make my sinne speake to me, and 
tell me his minde ; even my sinne shall bee a Sermon, 
and a Catechisme to me ; God shall suffer mee me to 
fall into some such sinne, as that by some circumstances 
in the sinne, or consequences from the sinne, I shall be 
drawn to hearken unto him ; and whether I heare 
Hosannaes, acclamations, and commendations, or Cruci- 
figes, exclamations and condemnations from the world, 
I shall stil finde the voice and tongue of God, though 
in the mouth of the Devill, and his instruments. God 
is a declaratory God. The whole yeare, is, to his Saints, 
a continuall Epiphany, one day of manifestation. In 
every minute that strikes upon the Bell is a syllable, nay 
a syllogisme from God. And, and in my last Bell, God 


144 God's Language. 

shall speake too ; that Bell, when it tolls, shall tell me 
I am going, and when it rings out, shall tell you I am gone 
into the hands of that God, who is the God of the living 
and not of the dead, for, they dye not that depart in him. 


H 


85. God's Anger. 
'ONOUR not the.mahce of thine enemy so much, 
as to say, thy misery comes from him : Dishonour 
not the complexion of the times so much, as to say, thy 
misery comes from them ; justifie not the Deity of 
Fortune so much, as to say, thy misery comes from her ; 
Finde God pleased with thee, and thou hast a hook in 
the nostrils of every Leviathan, power cannot shake thee, 

lob^o. 19. Thou hast a wood to cast into the waters of Mar ah, the 
bitternesse of the times cannot hurt thee, thou hast 

Exod.is-2Z' a Rock to dwell upon, and the dream of a Fortunes wheel, 
cannot overturn thee. But if the Lord be angry, he 
needs no Trumpets to call in Armies, if he doe but 
sibilare muscam, hisse and whisper for the flye, and the 
Bee, there is nothing so little in his hand, as cannot 
discomfort thee, discomfit thee, dissolve and powr out, 
attenuate and annihilate the very marrow of thy soul. 


G 


86. Gods Faults. 
0T> in the Scriptures is often by the Holy Ghost 
invested, and represented in the qualities and affec- 
tions of man ; and to constitute a commerce and familiar- 
ity between God and man, God is not onely said to have 
bodily lineaments, eyes and eares, and hands, and feet, 
and to have some of the naturall affections of man, as 
Deut.3o.9» Joy, in particular, {The Lord will rejoyce over thee for 


God's Faults 145 

good, as he rejoyced over thy Fathers) And so, pity too, 

{The Lord was with Joseph, and extended kindnesse unto Gen.39.21. 

him) But some of those inordinate and irregular passions 

and perturbations, excesses and defects of man, are 

imputed to God, by the Holy Ghost in the Scriptures. 

For so, lazinesse, drowsinesse is imputed to God ; {Awake Psal.44.23. 

Lord, why sleepest thou ?) So corruptiblenesse, and 

deterioration, and growing worse by ill company, is 

imputed to God ; {Cum perversa perverteris, God is said 18. 26. 

to grow froward with the froward, and that hee learnes 

to go crookedly with them that go crookedly) And 

prodigality and wastfulnesse is imputed to God ; {Thou 44- 12. 

sellest thy people for naught, and doest not increase thy 

wealth by their price) So sudden and hasty choler ; {Kisse 2. 12. 

the Son lest he be angry, and ye perish In ira brevi, though 

his wrath be kindled but a little) And then, iUimited and 

boundlesse anger, a vindicative irreconciliablenesse is 

imputed to God ; (/ was but a little displeased, (but it Zech. 1. 15. 

is otherwise now) / am very sore displeased) So there is 

Ira devorans ; {Wrath that consumes like stubble) So there Exod.15.4. 

is Ira multiplicata, {Plagues renewed, and indignation loh 10. i-j. 

increased) So God himselfe expresses it, (/ will fight ler. 21. 5. 

against you in anger and injury) And so for his inexorable- 

nesse, his irreconciliablenesse, (O Lord God of Hosts, Psal. 80. 4. 

Quousque, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer 

of thy people P) Gods owne people, Gods own people 

praying to their owne God, and yet their God irrecon- 

ciHable to them. Scorne and contempt is imputed to 

God ; which is one of the most enormious, and dispro- 

portioned weakenesses in man ; that a worme that 

crawles in the dust, that a graine of dust, that is hurried 

3025.3 L 


146 God's Faults. 

with every blast of winde, should find any thing so much 
inferiour to it selfe as to scorne it, to deride it, to contemne 
it ; yet scorne, and derision, and contempt is imputed 

I'sal. 2. 4. to God, {He that sittest in the Heavens shall laugh, the 

Prov. 1. 26. Lord shall have them in derision) and againe, (/ will 
laugh at your calamity, I will mock you when your jeare 
commeth.) Nay beloved, even inebriation, excesse in 
that kinde, Drunkennesse, is a Metaphor which the Holy 
Ghost hath mingled in the expressing of Gods proceedings 
with man ; for God does not onely threaten to make his 
enemies drunke, (and to make others drunke is a circum- 
stance of drunkennesse) (so Jerusalem being in his 

Lam. 3. 15. displeasure complaines, Inebriavit ahsynthio, {He hath 
made me drunke with wormewood) and againe, {They 

Esay49.26. shall he drunke with their owne blood, as with new Wine) 
Nor onely to expresse his plentifull mercies to his 
friends and servants, does God take that Metaphore, 

ler. 31. 14. {Inebriabo animam Sacerdotis, I will make the soide of 

Ver. 25. the Priest drunke ; fill it, satiate it) and againe, (/ will 
make the weary soule, and the sorrowjull soule drunke) But 
not onely all this, (though in all this God have a hand) 
not onely towards others, but God in his owne behalfe 

Esay43.24. complaines of the scant and penurious Sacrificer, Non 
inebriasti me. Thou hast not made me drunke with thy 
Sacrifices. And yet, though for the better applying of 
God to the understanding of man, the Holy Ghost 
impute to God these excesses, and defects of man (lazinesse 
and drowsiness, deterioration, corruptiblenesse by ill 
conversation, prodigality and wastfulnesse, sudden choler, 
long irreconciablenesse, scorne, inebriation, and many 
others) in the Scriptures, yet in no place of the Scripture 


God's Faults. 147 

is God, for any respect said to be proud ; God in the 
Scriptures is never made so like man, as to be made 
capable of Pride ; for this had not beene to have God 
like man, but like the devill. 

87. God''s Judgements. 

HOW desperate a state art thou in, if nothing will 
convert thee, but a speedie execution, after which, 
there is no possibility, no room left for a Conversion ! 
God is the Lord of Hosts, and he can proceed by Martial 
Law : he can hang thee upon the next tree ; he can 
choak thee with a crum, with a drop, at a voluptuous 
feast ; he can sink down the Stage and the Player, The bed 
of wantonness, and the wanton actor, into the jaws of 
the earth, into the mouth of hell : he can surprise thee, 
even in the act of sin ; and dost thou long for such a speedy 
execution, for such an expedition ? Thou canst not lack 
Examples, that he hath done so upon others, and will no 
proof serve thee, but a speedy judgement upon thyself ? 
Scatter thy thoughts no farther then ; contract them in 
thy self, and consider Gods speedy execution upon thy 
soul, and upon thy body, and upon thy soul and body 
together. Was not Gods judgement executed speedily 
enough upon thy soul, when in the same instant that it 
was created, and conceiv'd, and infus'd, it was put to 
a necessity of contracting Original sin, and so submitted 
to the penalty of Adam's disobedience, the first minute ? 
Was not Gods judgement speedily enough executed upon 
rhy body, if before it had any temporal life, it had a 
spiritual death ; a sinful conception, before any inanima- 
tion ? If hereditary diseases from thy parents, Gouts 

L 2 


148 God's Judgements. 

and Epilepsies, were in thee, before the diseases of thine 
own purchase, the effects of thy licentiousness and thy 
riot ; and that from the first minute that thou beganst 
to live, thou beganst to die too ? Are not the judge- 
ments of God speedily enough executed upon thy soul 
and body together, every day, when as soon as thou 
commitst a sin, thou are presently left to thine Impeni- 
tence, to thine Insensibleness, and Obduration ? Nay, 
the judgement is more speedy then so : for, that very 
sin it self, was a punishment of thy former sins. 

88. Terrible Things. 

Ttrrililis. ' I ^HOUGH there be a difference between timoTy and 

JL terror, (feare and terror) yet the difference is not 

so great, but that both may fall upon a good man ; Not 

onely a feare of God must, but a terror of God may fall 

Cen. 15.12. upon the Best. When God talked with Abraham^ a horror 
of great darknesse fell upon him, sayes that Text. The 
Father of lights, and the God of all comfort present, and 
present in an action of Mercy, and yet, a horror of great 
darknesse fell upon Abraham. When God talked person- 

Exod.13.6. ally, and presentlally with Moses, Moses hid his face, for 
(sayes that Text) he was afraid to looke upon God. When 
I look upon God, as I am bid to doe in this Text, in those 
terrible Judgements, which he hath executed upon some 
men, and see that there is nothing between mee and the 
same Judgement, (for I have sinned the same sinnes, and 
God is the same God) I am not able of my selfe to dye 
that glasse, that spectacle, thorow which I looke upon 
this God, in what colour I will ; whether this glasse shall 
be black, through my despaire, and so I shall see God in 


Terrible Things. 149 

the cloud of my sinnes, or red in the blood of Christ 
Jesus, and I shall see God in a Bath of the blood of his 
Sonne, whether I shall see God as a Dove with an Olive 
branch, (peace to my soule) or as an Eagle, a vulture to 
prey, and to prey everlastingly upon mee, whether in 
the deepe floods of Tribulation, spirituall or temporall, 
I shall see God as an Arke to take mee in, or as a Whale to 
swallow mee ; and if his Whale doe swallow mee, (the 
Tribulation devour me) whether his purpose bee to restore 
mee, or to consume me, I, I of my selfe cannot tell. 
I cannot look upon God, in what line I will, nor take 
hold of God, by what handle I will ; Hee is a terrible 
God, I take him so ; And then I cannot discontinue, 
I cannot breake off this terriblenesse, and say, Hee hath 
beene terrible to that man, and there is an end of his 
terror ; it reaches not to me. Why not to me ? In me 
there is no merit, nor shadow of merit ; In God there 
Is no change, nor shadow of change. I am the same 
sinner, he is the same God ; still the same desperate 
sinner, still the same terrible God. 

89. God's Malediction. 

THERE is a malediction deposited in the Scriptures, 
denounced by the Church, ratified by God, brought 
into execution, yet it may be born, men doe bear it. 
How men do bear it, we know not ; what passes between 
God and those men, upon whom the curse of God lieth, 
in their dark horrours at midnight, they would not have 
us know, because it is part of their curse, to envy God 
that glory. But we may consider in some part the insup- 
portablenesse of that weight, if we proceed but so farre, 


150 God's Malediction. 

as to accommodate to God, that which is ordinarily 
said of naturall things. Corruptio optimi pessima ; when 
the best things change their nature, they become worst. 
When God, who is all sweetnesse, shall have learned 
frowardnesse from us, as David speaks ; and being all 
rectitude, shall have learned perversenesse and crooked- 
nesse from us, as Moses speaks ; and being all providence, 
shall have learned negligence from us : when God who 
is all Blessing, hath learned to curse of us, and being of 
himself spread as an universall Hony-combe over All, 
takes in an impression, a tincture, an infusion of gall 
from us, what extraction of Wormwood can be so bitter, 
what exaltation of fire can be so raging, what multiplying 
of talents can be so heavy, what stifnesse of destiny can 
be so inevitable, what confection of gnawing W'Orms, 
of gnashing teeth, of howling cries, of scalding brimstone, 
of palpable darknesse, can be so, so insupportable, so 
inexpressible, so in-imaginable, as the curse and male- 
diction of God ? And therefore let not us by our works 
provoke, nor by our words teach God to curse. 

90. God's Pozver. 
AS some Schoolemasters have usd that Discipline^ to 
jljL correct the Children of great Persons, whose personall 
correction they finde reason to forbeare, by correcting 
other Children in tlieir names, and in their sight, and have 
wrought upon good Natures, that way, So did Almightie 
God correct the Jewes in the /Egyptians ; for the ten 
plagues of Egypt, were as Moses Decern Verba, as the teti 
Commandenients to Israel, that they should not provoke 
God. Every judgment that falls upon another, should 


God's Power. 15^ 

be a Catechisme to me. But when this Discipline pre- 
vaild not upon them, God sold them away, gave them 
away, cast them away, in the tempest, in the whirlewinde, 
in the inundation of his indignation, and scatterd them 
as so much dust in a windy day, as so many broken 
strawes upon a wrought Sea. With one word. One 
Fiat {Let there bee a world,) nay with one thotight of God 
cast toward it, (for Gods speaking in the Creation, was 
but a thinking) God made all of Nothing. And is any one 
rationall Ant, (the wisest Phylosofher is no more) Is any 
roaring Lyon (the most ambitious and devouring Prince 
is no more) Is any hive of Bees, (The wisest Councels, 
and Parliaments are no more) Is any of these so estabhshd, 
as that, that God who by a word, by a thought, made them 
of nothing, cannot, by recalling that word, and withdrawing 
that thought, in sequestring his Providence, reduce them 
to nothing againe ? That Man, that Prince, that State 
thinks Past-board Canon-proofe, that thinkes Power, 
or PoHcy a Rampart, when the Ordinance of God is 
planted against it. Navyes will not keepe off Navies, if 
God be not the Pilot, Nor Walles keepe out Men, if God 
be not the Sentinell. If they could, if wee were walld 
with a Sea of fire and brimstone without, and walld 
with with Brasse within, yet we cannot ciel the Heavens 
with a roofe of Brasse, but that God can come downe in 
Thunder that way. Nor pave the Earth with a floare 
of Brasse, but that God can come up in Earthquakes 
that way. God can call up Da^nps, 8c Vapors from below, 
and powre down putride dejluxions from above, and bid 
them meet and condense into a plague, a plague that shall 
not be onely uncureable, uncontrollable, unexorable, but 


152 God's Power. 

undisputable, unexaminable, unquestionable ; A plague 
that shall not onely not admit a remedy, when it is come, 
but not give a reason how it did come. 

91. Access to God. 
J~\AVID knew he could not retyre himselfe from God 
-^--^in his bedchamber ; Guards and Ushers could not 
keepe him out. He knew he could not defend himselfe 
from God in his Army ; for the Lord of Hosts is Lord of 
his Hosts. If he Jled to Sea, to Heaven, to Hell, he was 
sure to meet God there ; and there thou shalt meet him 
too, if thou fly from God, to the rehefe of outward 
comforts, of musicke, of mirth, of drinke, of cordialls, 
of Comedies, of conversation. Not that such recreations 
are unlawfuU ; the minde hath her physick as well as 
the body ; but when thy sadnesse proceeds from a sense 
of thy sinnes, (which is Gods key to the doore of his 
mercy, put into thy hand) it is a new, and a greater sin, 
to goe about to overcome that holy sadnesse, with these 
prophane diversions ; to fly Ad consolatiunculas creaturulce 
(as that elegant man Luther expresses it, according to 
his naturall delight in that elegancy of Diminutives, with 
which he abounds above all Authors) to the httle and 
contemptible comforts of little and contemptible crea- 
tures. And as Luther uses the physick, lob useth the 
Physitian ; Luther calls the comforts. Miserable comforts ; 
and lob calls them that minister them, Onerosos consola- 
tores. Miserable comforters are you all. David could not 
drowne his adultery in blood ; never thinke thou to 
drowne thine in wine. The Ministers of God are Sonnes 
of Thunder, they are falls of waters, trampUng of horses, 


Access to God. 153 

and runnings of Chariots ; and if these voyces of these 
Ministers, cannot overcome thy musick, thy security, yet 
the Angels trumpet will ; That Surgite qui dormitis, 
Arise yee that sleeps in the dust, in the dust of the grave, is 
a Treble that over-reaches all ; That Ite maledicti, Goe 
yee accursed into Hell Jire, is a Base that drowns all. 
There is no recourse but to God, no reliefe but in God ; 
and therefore David applied himselfe to the right method, 
to make his first accesse to God. 

92. The Image of God in Man. 

NO image, but the image of God, can fit our soul ; 
every other seal is too narrow, too shallow for it. 
The magistrate is sealed with the Lion ; the Wolf will 
not fit that seal : the magistrate hath a power in his 
hand, but not oppression. Princes are sealed with the 
Crown ; the Mitre will not fit that seal. Powerfully, and 
graciously they protect the Church, and are supream 
heads of the Church ; but they minister not the Sacra- 
ments of the Church : they give preferments ; but they 
give not the capacitie of preferments : they give order 
who shall have, but they have not Orders by which 
they are enabled to have that they have. Men of inferiour 
and laborious callings in the world are sealed with the 
Crosse ; a Rose, or a himch of Grapes will not answer that 
seal : ease and plentie in age must not be looked for 
without crosses, and labour, and Industrie in youth. 
All men. Prince, and people ; Clergie, and Magistrate, 
are sealed with the image of God, with a conformitie 
to him ; and worldly seals will not answer that, nor fill 
up that seal. We should wonder to see a mother in the 


154 "T^^ Image of God in Man. 

midst of many sweet children, passing her time in making 
babies and puppets for her own delight. We should 
wonder to see a man, whose chambers and galleries were 
full of curious master-pieces, thrust in a village fayre, to 
look upon sixpenie pictures, & three-farthing prints. 
We have all the image of God at home ; and we all make 
babies, fancies of honour in our ambitions. The master- 
piece is our own, in our own bosome ; and we thrust 
in countrey fayres, that is, we endure the distempers of 
any unseasonable Aveather, in night-journeys and watch- 
ings ; we endure the oppositions, and scorns, and 
triumphs of a rivall, and competitour, that seeks with us, 
and shares with us. We endure the guiltinesse and re- 
proach of having deceived the trust which a confident 
friend reposes in us, and solicit his wife or daughter. We 
endure the decay of fortune of bodie, of soul, of honour, 
to possesse lovers pictures ; pictures that are not originals, 
not made by that hand of God, Nature ; but artificiall 
beauties : and for that bodie we give a soul ; and for 
that drug, which might have been bought where they 
bought it, for a shilling, we give an estate. The image 
of God is more worth then all substances ; and we give 
it for colours, for dreams, for shadows. 

93. Man God's Enemy, 
Inimiciis. AMONGST naturall Creatures, because howsoever 
jljL they differ in bignesse, yet they have some proportion 
to one another, we consider that some very httle creatures, 
contemptible in themselves, are yet called enemies to 
great creatures, as the Mouse is to the Elephant. (For 
the greatest Creature is not Infinite, nor the least is not 


Man God's Enemy. 155 

Nothing.) But shall man, betweene whom and nothing, 
there went but a word, Let us make Man, That Nothing, 
which is infinitely lesse then a Mathematical! point, then 
an imaginary Atome, shall this Man, this yesterdayes 
Nothing, this to morrow worse then Nothing, be capable 
of that honour, that dish onotir able honour, that confound- 
ing honour, to be the enemy of God, of God who is not 
onely a multiplied Elephant, milHons of Elephants 
multiplied into one, but a multipHed World, a multipHed 
All, All that can be conceived by us, infinite many times 
over ; Nay, (if we may dare to say so,) a multiplyed 
God, a God that hath the MiUions of the Heathens gods 
in himselfe alone, shall this man be an enemy to this God ? 
Man cannot be allowed so high a sinne, as enmity with 
God. The Devill himselfe is but a slave to God, and 
shall Man be called his enemy ? It is true, if we consider 
the infinite disproportion between them, he cannot ; 
but to many sad purposes, and in many heavy applications 
Man is an enemy to God. 

94. ^he Atheist. 

POORE intricated soule ! Riddhng, perplexed, 
labyrinthicall soule ! Thou couldest not say, that 
thou beleevest not in God, if there were no God ; Thou 
couldest not beleeve in God, if there were no God ; If 
there were no God, thou couldest not speake, thou 
couldest not thinke, not a word, not a thought, no not 
against God ; Thou couldest not blaspheme the Name 
of God, thou couldest not sweare, if there were no 
God : For, all thy faculties, how ever depraved, and 
perverted by thee, are from him ; and except thou canst 


156 The Atheist. 

seriously beleeve, that thou art nothing, thou canst not 
beleeve that there is no God. If I should aske thee at 
a Tragedy, where thou shouldest see him that had 
drawne blood, lie weltring, and surrounded in his owne 
blood, Is there a God now ? If thou couldst answer me. 
No, These are but Inventions, and Representations of 
men, and I beleeve a God never the more for this ; If 
I should ask thee at a Sermon, where thou shouldest 
heare the Judgements of God formerly denounced, and 
executed, re-denounced, and applied to present occasions, 
Is there a God now ? If thou couldest answer me. No, 
These are but Inventions of State, to souple and regulate 
Congregations, and keep people in order, and I beleeve 
a God never the more for this ; Bee as confident as thou 
canst, in company ; for company is the Atheists Sanc- 
tuary ; I respit thee not till the day of Judgement, when 
I may see thee upon thy knees, upon thy face, begging 
of the hills, that they would fall downe and cover thee 
from the fierce wrath of God, to aske thee then, Is there 
a God now ? I respit thee not till the day of thine own 
death, when thou shalt have evidence enough, that there 
is a God, though no other evidence, but to finde a Devill, 
and evidence enough, that there is a Heaven, though 
no other evidence, but to feele Hell ; To aske thee then, 
Is there a God now ? I respit thee but a few houres, 
but six houres, but till midnight. Wake then ; and then 
darke, and alone, Heare God aske thee then, remember 
that I asked thee now, Is there a God ? and if thou darest, 
say No. 


The Angels. i57 

95. The Angels. 

THAT there are distinct orders of Angels, assuredly 
I beleeve ; but what they are, I cannot tell ; Dicant 
qui possunt ; si tanten probare possunt quod dicunt, sales 
that Father, Let them tell you that can, so they be able 
to prove, that they tell you true. They are Creatures, 
that have not so much of a Body zs flesh is, as froth is, 
as a vapor is, as a sigh is, and yet with a touch they shall 
molder a rock into lesse Atomes, then the sand that it 
stands upon ; and a milstone into smaller flower, then 
it grinds. They are Creatures madey and yet not a minute 
elder now, then when they were first made, if they were 
made before all measure of time began ; nor, if they 
were made in the beginning of Time, and be now six 
thousand yeares old, have they one wrinckle of Age in 
their face, or one sobbe of wearinesse in their lungs. 
They are primogeniti Dei, Gods eldest sonnes ; They 
are super-elementary meteors, they hang between the 
nature of God, and the nature of man, and are of middle 
Condition ; And, (if we may offencelessely expresse it 
so) they are anigmata Divina, The Riddles of Heaven, 
and the perplexities of speculation. 

96. The Devil. 

SOME of the ancient Fathers, delivering the mercies IlUs omni- 
of God, so, as the articles of our Church enjoyne *^' 
them to bee delivered, that is, generally, as they are 
delivered in the Scriptures, have delivered them so 
over-generally, that they have seemed loth to thinke 
the devill himselfe excluded from all benefit of Christs 


158 The Devil. 

comming. Some of the later Authors in the Roman 
Church, (who, as pious as they pretend to be towards 
the Fathers, are apter to discover the nakednesse of the 
Fathers, then we are) have noted in Iiistin Martyr, and 
in Epiphanius, and in Clement of Alexandria, and in 
Oecumenius, (and Oecumenius is no single Father, but 
Pater patratus, a manifold Father, a compHcated father, 
a Father that collected Fathers) and even in S. lerome 
himselfe, and S. Ambrose too, some inclinations towards 
that opinion, that the devill retaining still his faculty 
of free will, is therefore capable of repentance, and so of 
benefit by this comming of Christ ; And those Authors 
of the Roman Church, that modifie the matter, and 
excuse the Fathers herein, excuse them no other way but 
this, that though that opinion and doctrine of those 
Fathers, bee not true in it self e, yet it was never condemned 
by any Councell, nor by any ancient Father. So very 
far, did very many goe in enlarging the mercies of God 
in Christ, to all. But waiving this over-large extention 
and profusion thereof, and directing it upon a more 
possible, and a more credible object, that is, Man ; 
S. Cyril of Alexandria, speaking of the possibility of the 
salvation of all men, sales, by way of objection to himselfe, 
Omnes non credunt, How can all be saved since all doe not 
beleeve ? but, sales he. Because actually they do not 
beleeve, is it therefore impossible they should beleeve ? 
And for actuall beleefe, sales he, though all doe not, yet 
so many doe, ut facile qui pereant, svperent, that, by Gods 
goodnesse, more are saved, then lost, sales that Father of 
tender and large bowels, S. Cyril. And howsoever he 
may seeme too tender, and too large herein, yet it is 


The Devil. i59 

a good peece of counsaile, which that Rabbi whom I Moses, 
named before, gives, Ne redarguas en falsitatis, de quorum 
contrariis nulla est demonstration Be not apt to call any 
opinion false, or hereticall, or damnable, the contrary 
whereof cannot be evidently proved. 

97. The Creation. 

THERE is but one God ; but yet was that one God 
ever alone F There were more generations (infinitely 
infinite) before the world was made, then there have been 
minutes, since it was made : all that while, there were 
no creatures ; but yet was God alone, any one minute 
of al this ? was there not alwais a Father and a Son, 
& a holy Ghost ? And had not they, always an acquies- 
cence in one another, an exercise of Affection, (as we may 
so say) a love, a delight, and a complacency towards one 
another ? So, as that the Father could not be without 
the Son and the holy Ghost, so as neither Sonne, nor holy 
Ghost could be without the Father, nor without one 
another ; God was from all eternity collected into one 
God, yet from all eternity he derived himselfe into three 
persons : God could not be so alone, but that there have 
been three persons, as long as there hath been one God. 

Had God company enough of himselfe ; was he satisfied Creaiio. 
in the three Persons ? We see he proceeded further ; he 
came to a Creation ; And as soon as he had made light, 
(which was his first Creature) he took a pleasure in it ; 
he said it zvas good ; he was glad of it ; glad of the Sea, 
glad of the Earth, glad of the Sunne, and Moone, and 
Starres, and he said of every one, It is good ; But when he 
had made All, peopled the whole world, brought all 


i6o The Creation. 

creatures together, then he was very glad, and then he 
said, not onely, that it was good, but that it was very 
good : God was so far from being alone, as that he found 
not the fulnesse of being well, till all was made, till all 
Creatures met together, in an Host, as Moses calls it ; 
then the good was extended into very good. 

Angeli. Did God satisfie himselfe with this visible and discernible 

world ; with all on earth, and all between that, and him ? 
were those Joure Monarchies, the foure Elements, and 
all the subjects of those foure Monarchies, (if all the foure 
Elements have Creatures) company enough for God ? 
was that Heptarchie, the seven kingdomes of the seven 
Planets, conversation enough for him ? Let every Starre 
in the firmament, be (so some take them to be) a severall 
world, was all this enough ? we see, God drew persons 
nearer to him, then Sunne, or Moon, or Starres, or any 
thing, which is visible, and discernible to us, he created 
Angels ; How many, how great ? Arithmetique lacks 
numbers to to expresse them, proportion lacks Dimensions 
to figure them ; so far was God from being alone. 

Homines. And yet God had not shed himselfe far enough ; he 
had the Leviathan, the Whale in the Sea, and Behemoth 
and the Elephant upon the land ; and all these great 
heavenly bodies in the way, and Angels in their infinite 
numbers, and manifold offices, in heaven ; But, because 
Angels, could not propagate, nor make more Angels, 
he enlarged his love, in making man, that so he might 
enjoy all natures at once, and have the nature of Angels, 
and the nature of earthly Creatures, in one Person. God 
would not be without man, nor he would not come 
single, not alone to the making of man ; but it is Faciamus 


The Creation. i6i 

hominem, Let us^ ns, make man ; God, in his whole 
counsail, in his whole Colledge, in his whole society, in 
the whole Trinity, makes man, in whom the whole 
nature of all the world should meet. 

•98. The Heavens and Earth. 

NEVER such a frame so soon set up, as this in this 
chapter : For, for the thing it self, there is no other 
thing to compare it with ; for it is all, it is the whole 
world. And for the time, there was no other time to 
compare it with ; for this was the beginning of time, 
In the beginning God created heaven and earth. That 
earth, which in some thousands of yeares men could not 
look over, nor discern what form it had (for neither 
Lactaniius, almost three hundred yeares after Christ ; 
nor S. Augustine, more then one hundred yeares after 
him, would beleeve the earth to be round) That earth, 
which no man in his person is ever said to have compassed 
till our age : That earth which is too much for man yet, 
(for, as yet a very great part of the earth is unpeopled) 
That earth, which, if we will cast it all but into a Map, 
costs many moneths labour to grave it ; nay, if we will 
cast but a piece of an acre of it into a garden, costs many 
yeares labour to fashion and furnish it ; all that earth : 
And then that heaven, which spreads so farre, as that 
subtill men have, with some appearance of probabilitie, 
imagined, that in that heaven, in those manifold Spheres 
of the Planets and the Starres, there are many earths, 
many worlds, as big as this which we inhabit : That earth 
and that heaven, which spent God himself, Almightie 
God, six dayes in finishing ; Moses sets up in a few 


1 62 The Heavens and Earth. 

syllables, in one line, In principio, In the beginning God 
created heaven and earth. If a Livie or a Guicciardine, or 
such extensive and voluminous authours had had this 
story in hand, God must have made another world, to 
have made them a library to hold their books, of the 
making of this world. Into what wire would they have 
drawn out this earth! Into what leaf-gold would they 
have beat out these heavens ! It may assist our conjecture 
herein, to consider, that amongst those men, who proceed 
with a sober modestie and limitation in their writing, & 
make a conscience not to clog the world with unnecessary 
books ; yet the volumes which are written by them, upon 
the beginning of Genesis, are scarce lesse than infinite. 
God did no more but say, Let this & this be done ; and 
Moses doth no more but say, that upon Gods saying it 
was done. God required not Nature to help him to doit; 
Moses required not Reason to help him to beleeve. 

99. The Creation of a Harmonious World,. 

GOD made this whole world in such an uniformity, 
such a correspondency, such a concinnity of parts, 
as that it was an Instrument, perfectly in tune : we may 
say, the trebles, the highest strings were disordered first ; 
the best understandings. Angels and Men, put this 
instrument out of tune. God rectified all again, by 
putting in a new string, semen mulieriSf the seed of the 
woman, the Messias : And onely by sounding that string 
in your ears, become we musicum carmen, true musick, 
true harmony, true peace to you. If we shall say, that 
Gods first string in this instrument, was Reprobation, 
that Gods first intention, was, for his glory to damn 


Creation of a Harmonious World. 16-^ 

man ; and that then he put in another string, of creating 
Man, that so he might have some body to damn ; and 
then another of enforcing him to sin, that so he might 
have a just cause to damne him ; and then another, of 
disabhng him to lay hold upon any means of recovery : 
there's no musick in all this, no harmony, no peace in 
such preaching. But if we take this instrument, wlien 
Gods hand tun'd it the second time, in the promise of 
a Messias, and offer of the love & mercy of God to all that 
will receive it in him ; then we are truely inusicum carmen^ 
as a love-song, when we present the love of God to you, 
and raise you to the love of God in Christ Jesus : for, 
for the musick of the Sphears, whatsoever it be, we cannot 
hear it ; for the decrees of God in heaven, we cannot say we 
have seen them; our musick is onely that salvation which is 
declared in the Gospel to all them, and to them onely, who 
take God by the right hand, as he delivers himself in Christ. 

100. God and Adam and Eve. 

WHO hath divided heaven into shires or parishes, 
or limited the territories or jurisdictions there, 
that God should not have and exercise judicium dis- 
cretionisy the power of discerning all actions in all places, 
when there was no more to be seen nor considered upon 
the whole earth, but the garden of Paradise ? for from 
the beginning, Delicicc ejus esse cum filiis homi7iuvi^ 
Gods delight was to be with the sonnes of tnen ; and man 
was only there. Shall we diminish God, or speak too 
vulgarly of him, to say that he hovered like a falcon 
over Paradise, and that from that height of heaven the 
piercing eye of God saw so Httle a thing as the forbidden 

M 2 


164 God and Adam and Eve. 

fruit, and what became of that ? and the reaching eare 
of God heard the hissing of the serpent, and the whisper- 
ing of the woman, and what was concluded upon that ? 
shall we think it little to have seen things done in Paradise, 
when there was nothing else to divert his eye, nothing 
else to distract his counsels, nothing else done upon the 
face of the earth ? take the earth now as it is replenished, 
and take it either as it is torn and crumbled in rags and 
shivers, not a kingdome, not a family, not a man agreeing 
with himself ; or take it in that concord which is in it, as 
all the kings of the earth set themselves, and all the rulers 
of the earth take counsel together against the Lord ; take 
it in this union, or this disunion ; in this concord, or this 
disconcord ; still the Lord that sitteth in the heavens 
discerns all, looks at all, laughs at all, and hath them in 
derision. Earthly judges have their districtions, and so 
their restrictions ; some things they cannot know : what 
mortall man can know all ? some things they cannot 
take knowledge of, for they are bounded : no cloud, no 
darkness, no disguise keeps him from discerning and 
judging all our actions. 

1 01. The World since the Fall. 
Morieiur. "\ T THEN Paradise should have extended, as man should 
Vt have multiplied, and every holy family, every 
religious Colony have constituted a new Paradise, that 
as it was said of Egypt, when it abounded with Hermitages 
in the Primitive persecutions, That Egypt was a continuall 
City of Hermitages ; so all the world should have been 
a continuall Garden of Paradises, when all affections 
should have been subjects, and all creatures servants, 


The World since the Fall. 165 

and all wives helpers, then life was a sincere blessing. 
But, but a mixt blessing now, when all these are so much 
vitiated ; onely a possible blessing ; a disputable, a con- 
ditionable, a circumstantiall blessing now. If there 
were any other way to be saved and to get to Heaven, 
then by being born into this life, I would not wish to 
have come into this world. And now that God hath 
made this life a Bridge to Heaven ; it is but a giddy, and 
a vertiginous thing, to stand long gazing upon so narrow 
a bridge, and over so deep and roaring waters, and desper- 
ate whirlpools, as this world abounds with : So teach Psal.go.12. 
us to number our dayes, saith David, that zve may apply our 
hearts unto wisedome : Not to number them so, as that 
we place our happinesse, in the increase of their number. 

102* Silkworms. 

SHALL we that are but wormes, but silke-wormesy but 
gloio-wormes at best^ chide God that hee hath made 
slozv-<oornies, and other venimous creeping things ? shall 
we that are nothing but boxes of poyson in our selves, 
reprove God for making Toads and Spiders in the world ? 
shall we that are all discord, quarrell the harmony of 
his Creation, or his providence ^ Can an Apothecary 
make a Soveraign triacle of Vipers, and other poysons, 
and cannot God admit offences, and scandals into his 
physick ? scandals, and offences, tentations, and tribula- 
tions, are our leaven that ferment us, and our lees that 
preserve us. Use them to Gods glory, and to thine own 
estabhshing, and then thou shall be a particular exception 
to that generall Rule, the Va mundo a scandalis, shall 
be an Euge tibi a scandalis, thou shalt see that it was 


1 66 Silkworms. 

well for thee, that there were scandals and offences In 
the world, for they shall have exercised thy patience, 
they shall have occasioned thy victory, they shall have 
assured thy triumph. 

103. Original Sin. 

SCARCE any man considers the weight of Originall 
sinne ; And yet, as the strongest tentations fall upon 
us when wee are weakest, in our death-bed^ so the heavyest 
sinne seises us, when wee are weakest ; as soon as wee 
are any thing, we are sinners, and there, where there can 
be no more tentations ministred to us, then was to the 
Angels that fell in heaven, that is, in our mothers womb, 
when no world, nor flesh, nor Devill could present 
a provocation to sinne to us, when no faculty of ours is 
able to embrace, or second a provocation to sin, yet there, 
in that weaknesse, we are under the weight of Originall 
sin. And truly, if at this time, God would vouchsafe 
mee my choice, whether hee should pardon me all those 
actual and habituall sins, which I have committed in 
my life, or extinguish Originall sinne in me, I should 
chuse to be delivered from Originall sin, because, though 
T be delivered from the imputation thereof, by Baptism^ so 
that I shall not fall under a condemnation for Originall 
sin onely, yet it still remains in me, and practices upon 
me, and occasions all the other sins, that I commit : 
now, for all my actuall and habituall sins, I know God 
hath instituted meanes in his Church, the Word, and the 
Sacraments, for my reparation ; But with what a holy 
alacrity, with what a heavenly joy, with what a cheerfull 
peace, should I come to the participation of these meanes 


Original Sin. 167 

and seals of my reconciliation, and pardon of all my 
sins, if I knew my selfe to be delivered from Originall 
sinne, from that snake in my bosome, from that poyson 
in my blood, from that leaven and tartar in all my actions, 
that casts me into Relapses of those sins which I have 
repented ? And what a cloud upon the best serenity 
of my conscience, what an interruption, what a dis- 
continuance from the sincerity and integrity of that 
joy, which belongs to a man truly reconciled to God, 
in the pardon of his former sins, must it needs be still 
to know, and to know by lamentable experiences, that 
though I wash my selfe with Soap, and Nitre, and Snow- 
water, mine own cloathes will defile me again, though 
I have washed my selfe in the tears of Repentance, and 
in the blood of my Saviour, though I have no guiltinesse 
of any former sin upon me at that present, yet I have 
a sense of a root of sin, that is not grub'd up, of Originall 
sinne, that will cast me back again. Scarce any man 
considers the weight, the oppression of Originall sinne. 
No man can say, that an Akorn weighs as much as an 
Oak ; yet in truth, there is an Oak in that Akorn : no 
man considers that Originall sinne weighs as much as 
Actuall, or Habituall, yet in truth, all our Actuall and 
Habituall sins are in Originall. Therefore Saint Pauls 
vehement, and frequent prayer to God, to that purpose, 
could not deliver him from Originall sin, and that 
stimulus carnis, that provocation of the flesh, that 
Messenger of Satan, which rises out of that, God would 
give him sufficient grace, it should not worke to his 
destruction, but yet he should have it : Nay, the infinite 
merit of Christ Jesus himself, that works so upon all 


i68 Original Sin. 

actuall and habituall sins, as that after that liierit is 
applyed to them, those sins are no sins, works not so upon 
Originall sin, but that, though I be eased in the Dominion, 
and Imputation thereof, yet the same Originall sin is 
in me still ; and though God doe deliver me from 
eternall death, due to mine actuall and habituall sins, yet 
from the temporall death, due to Originall sin, he 
delivers not his dearest Saints. 

104. Original Sin. 

MISERABLE man ! a Toad is a bag of Poyson, and 
a Spider is a blister of Poyson, and yet a Toad and 
a Spider cannot poyson themselves ; Man hath a dram 
of poyson, originall-Sin, in an invisible corner, we know 
not where, and he cannot choose but poyson himself 
and all his actions with that ; we are so far from being 
able to begin without Grace, as then where we have the 
first Grace, we cannot proceed to the use of that, 
without more. 

105. J he Heart of the Sinner. 

THE holyest man cannot at all times finde his own 
heart, (his heart may be bent upon Religion, and yet 
he cannot tell in which Religion ; and upon Preaching, 
and yet he cannot tell which Preacher ; and upon Prayer, 
and yet he shall finde strayings and deviations in his 
Prayer) much more hardly is the various and vagabond 
heart of such an indifferent sinner, to be found by any 
search. If he enquire for his heart, at that Chamber 
where he remembers it was yesterday, in lascivious and 
lustful purposes, he shall hear that it went from thence 


The Heart of the Sinner. 169 

to some riotous Feasting, from thence to some Blas- 
phemous Gaming, after, to some Malicious Consultation 
of entanghng one, and supplanting another ; and he 
shall never trace it so close, as to drive it home, that is, 
to the consideration of itself, and that God that made it ; 
nay, scarce to make it consist in any one particular 
sin. . . . 

This is' the full setting of the heart to do evil, when 
a man fills himself with the Uberty of passing into any 
sin, in an indifferencie ; and then iindes no reason why he 
should leave that way, either by the love, or by the fear 
of God. If he prosper by his sin, then he findes no reason ; 
if he do not prosper by it, yet he iindes a wrong reason. 
If unseasonable flouds drown his Harvest, and frustrate 
all his labours, and his hopes ; he never findes, that his 
oppressing, and grinding of the Poor, was any cause of 
those waters, but he looks only how the Winde sate, and 
how the ground lay ; and he concludes, that if Noah, andEzek.14.14. 
Job, and Daniel had been there their labour must have 
perished, and been drown'd, as well as his. If a vehement 
Fever take hold of him, he remembers where he sweat, 
and when he took cold ; where he walked too fast, where 
his Casement stood open, and where he was too bold 
upon Fruit, or meat of hard digestion ; but he never 
remembers the sinful and naked Wantonnesses, the pro- 
fuse and wastful Dilapidations of his own body, that 
have made him thus obnoxious and open to all dangerous 
Distempers. Thunder from heaven burns his Barns, 
and he says, What luck was this ? if it had fallen but 
ten foot short or over, my barns had been safe : whereas 
his former blasphemings of the Name of God, drew down 


lyo The Heart of the Sinner. 

that Thunder upon that house, as it was his ; and that 
Lightning could no more fall short or over, then the 
Angel which was sent to Sodom could have burnt another 
Citie, and have spar'd that ; or then the plagues of 
Moses and of Aaron could have fallen upon Goshen, and 
have spar'd Egypt. His Corners abound with Manna, 
he overflows with all for necessities, and with all delicacies, 
in this life ; and yet he finds worms in his Manna, 
a putrefaction, and a mouldring away, of this abundant 
state ; but he sees not that that is, because his Manna 
was gathered upon the Sabbath, that there were profana- 
tions of the Name and Ordinances of God, mingled m 
his means of growing rich. 

1 06. Light Sins.. 

THERE are some sins so rooted, so riveted in men, so 
incorporated, so consubstantiated in the soule, by 
habituall custome, as that those sins have contracted the 
nature of Ancient possessions. As men call Manners 
by their names, so sins have taken names from men, and 
from places ; Simon Magus gave the name to a sin, and 
so did Gehazi, and Sodom did so : There are sins that 
run in Names, in Famihes, in Blood ; Hereditary sins, 
entailed sins ; and men do almost prove their Gentry 
by those sins, and are scarce beleeved to be rightly 
borne, if they have not those sins ; These are great 
possessions, and men do much more easily part with 
Christ, then with these sins. But then there are lesse 
sins, light sins, vanities ; and yet even these come to 
possesse us, and separate us from Christ. How many 
men neglect this ordinary meanes of their Salvation, 


Light Sins. 171 

the comming to these Exercises, not because their undoing 
lyes on it, or their discountenancing ; but meerely out 
of levity, of vanity, of nothing ; they know not what 
to do else, and yet do not this. You heare of one man 
that was drowned in a vessel! of Wine ; but how many 
thousands in ordinary water ? And he was no more 
drowned in that precious liquor, then they in that 
common water. A gad of Steele does no more choake 
a man, then a feather, then a haire ; Men perish with 
whispering sins, nay with silent sins, sins that never tell 
the conscience they are sins, as often as with crying 
sins: And in hell there shall meet as many men, that 
never thought what was sin, as that spent all their 
thoughts in the compassing of sin ; as many, who in 
a slack inconsideration, never cast a thought upon that 
place, as that by searing their conscience, overcame the 
sense and feare of the place. Great sins are great 
possessions ; but levities and vanities possesse us too ; 
and men had rather part with Christ, then with any 
possessions. 

107. 7 he Sin (tf Reason. 

PSAL. 55. 19. Because They have no changes, therefore 
They fear not God. In a Prison, where men wither'd 
in a close and perpetual imprisonment ; In a Galley, where 
men were chain'd to a laborious and perpetual slavery ; In 
places, where any change that could come, would put them 
in a better state, then they were before, this might seem 
a fitter text, then in a Court, where every man having set 
his foot, or plac'd his hopes upon the present happy 
state, and blessed Government, every man is rather to 
be presum'd to love God, because there are no changes, 


172 The Sin of Reason. 

then to take occasion of murmuring at the constancie 
of Gods goodness towards us. But because the first 
murmuring at their present condition, the first Innovation 
that ever w^as, w^as in Heaven ; The Angels kept not 
their first Estate : Though as Princes are Gods, so their 
well-govern'd Courts, are Copies, are representations of 
Heaven ; yet the Copy cannot be better then the 
Original : And therefore, as Heaven it self had, so all 
Courts will ever have, some persons, that are under the 
Increpation of this text, Th!it, Because they have no changes, 
therefore they fear not God : At least, if I shall meet with 
no conscience, that finds in himself a guiltiness of this 
sin, if I shall give him no occasion of repentance, yet 
I shall give him occasion of praysing, and magnifying 
that gracious God, which hath preserved him from such 
sins, as other men have fallen into, though he have not : 
For, I shall let him see first. The dangerous slipperiness, 
the concurrence, the co-incidence of sins ; that a habit 
and custom of sin, sHps easily into that dangerous degree 

Divisio. of Obduration, that men come to sin upon Reason ; they 
find a Quia, a Cause, a Reason why they should sin : 
and then, in a second place, he shall see, what perv^erse 
and frivolous reasons they assign for their sins, when they 
are come to that ; even that which should avert them, 
they make the cause of them, Because they have no changes. 
And then, lastly, by this perverse mistaking, they come 
to that infatuation, that dementation, as that they loose 
the principles of all knowledge, and all wisedom : 7he 
fear of God is the beginning of wisdotn. ; and, Because they 
have no changes y they fear not God. 

Part I. First then, We enter into our first Part, the slipperiness 


The Sin of Reason. 173 

of habitual sin, with that note of S. Gugorie, Peccatum 
cum voce, est culpa cum actione ; peccatum cum clamore, 
est culpa cum libertate ; Sinful thoughts produc'd into 
actions, are speaking sins ; sinful actions continued into 
habits, are crying sins. There is a sin before these ; 
a speechless sin, a whispering sin, which no body hears, 
but our own conscience ; which is, when a sinful thought 
or purpose is born in our hearts, first we rock it, by tossing, 
and tumbling it in our fancies, and imaginations, and by . 
entertaining it with delight and consent, & with remem- 
bring, with how much pleasure we did the Hke sin before, 
and how much we should have, if we, could bring this 
to pass ; And as we rock it, so we swathe it, we cover 
it, with some pretences, some excuses, some hopes of 
covercling it ; and this is that, which we call Morosam 
delectationem, a delight to stand in the air and prospect 
of a sin, and a loathness to let it go out of our sight. Of 
this sin S. Gregory sayes nothing in this place, but onely 
of actual sins, which he calls speaking ; and of habitual, 
which he calls crying sins. And this is as far, as the 
Schools, or the Casuists do ordinarily trace sin ; To find 
out peccata Infantia, speechless sins, in the heart ; peccata 
vacantia, speaking sins, in our actions ; And peccata 
clamantia, crying and importunate sins, which will not 
suffer God to take his rest, no nor to fulfil his own Oath, 
and protestation : He hath said. As I live, I would not 
the death of a sinner ; and they extort a death from him. 
But besides these. Here is a farther degree, beyond 
speaking sins, and crying sins ; beyond actual sins and 
habitual sins ; here are peccata cum ratione, and cjim 
disputatione ; we will reason, we will debate, we will 


174 The Sin of Reason. 

dispute it out with God, and we will conclude against 
all his Arguments, that there is a Quia^ a Reason, why we 
should proceed and go forward in our sin : Et pudet 
non esse impudentes, as S. Augustiiie heightens this sinful 
disposition ; Men grow asham'd of all holy shamefac'd- 
ness, and tenderness towards sin ; they grow asham'd 
to be put off, or frighted from their sinful pleasure, with 
the ordinary terror of Gods imaginary judgements ; 
asham'd to be no wiser than S. Paul would have them, 
J Cor. 1. 21. to be mov'd, or taken hold of, by the foolishness of preaching; 
or to be no stronger of themselves then so, that we should 
Matth. 8. trust to anothers taking of our infirmities, and bearing 
of our sicknesses ; Or to be no richer, or no more provi- 
dent then so. To sell all, and give it away, and make 
I-UC.I2. a treasure in Heaven, and all this for fear of Theeves, 
and Rust, and Canker, and Moths here. That which is 
not allowable in Courts of Justice, in criminal Causes, 
to hear Evidence against the King, we will admit 
against God ; we will hear Evidence against God ; we 
will hear what mans reason can say in favor of the 
Dehnquent, why he should be condemned ; why God 
should punish the soul eternally, for the momentany 
pleasures of the body : Nay, we suborn vwtnesses 
against God, and we make Philosophy and Reason 
speak against Religion, and against God ; though 
indeed, Omne verum, omni vero consentiens ; what- 
soever is true in Philosophy, is true in Divinity too ; 
howsoever we distort it, and wrest it to the contrary. 
We hear Witnesses, and we suborn Witnesses against 
God, and we do more ; we proceed by Recriminations, 
and a cross Bill, with a Quia Deus, because God 


The Sin of Reason. 175 

does as he does, we may do as we do ; Because God 
does not punish Sinners, we need not forbear sins ; 
whilst we sin strongly, by oppressing others, that 
are weaker, or craftily by circumventing others that 
are simple. This is but Leoninum, and Fulpinum, 
that tincture of the Lyon, and of the Fox, that 
brutal nature that is in us. But when we come to 
sin, upon reason, and upon discourse, upon Meditation, 
and upon plot. This is Humanum^ to become the Man of 
Sin, to surrender that, which is the Form, and Essence 
of man. Reason, and understanding, to the service of 
sin. When we come to sin wisely and learnedly, to sin 
logically, by a Quia, and an Ergo, that, Because God does 
thus, we may do as we do, we shall come to sin through 
all the Arts, and all our knowledge. To sin Grammatically, 
to tie sins together in construction, in a Syntaxis, in 
a chaine, and dependance, and coherence upon one 
another : And to sin Historically, to sin over sins of 
other men again, to sin by precedent, and to practice 
that which we had read : and we come to sin Rhetori- 
cally, perswasively, powerfully ; and as we have found 
examples for our sins in History, so we become examples 
to others, by our sins, to lead and encourage them, in 
theirs ; when we come to employ upon sin, that which 
is the essence of man. Reason, and discourse, we will 
also employ upon it, those which are the properties 
of man onely, which are. To speak, and to laugh ; we 
will tome to speak, and talk, and to boast of our sins, 
and at last, to laugh and jest at our sins ; and as we have 
made sin a Recreation, so we will make a jest of our 
condemnation. And this is the dangerous slipperiness 


176 The Sin of Reason. 

of sin, to slide by Thoughts and Actions, and Habits, 
to contemptuous obduration. 


f: 


108. Delight in Evil, 
'IRST then, what is this setting of the heart ufon evil ; 
and then, what is this fulness, that leaves no room 
for a Cure ? When a man receives figures and images 
of sin, into his Fancie and Imagination, and leads them 
on to his understanding and Discourse, to his Will, 
to his Consent, to his Heart, by a delightful dwelling 
upon the meditation of that sin ; yet this is not a setting 
of the heart upon doing evil. To be surpris'd by a Tenta- 
tion, to be overthrown by it, to be held down by it for 
a time, is not it. It is not when the devil looks in at the 
window to the heart, by presenting occasions of tentations, 
to the eye ; nor when he comes in at the door, to our 
heart, at the ear, either in lascivious discourses, or Satyrical 
and Libellous defamations of other men : It is not, 
when the devil is put to his Circuit, to seek whom he 
may devour, and how he may corrupt the King by his 
Council, That is, the Soul by the Senses : But it is, when 
by a habitual custom in sin, the sin arises meerly and 
immediately from my self : It is, when the heart hath 
usurp'd upon the devil, and upon the world too, and is 
able and apt to sin of it self, if there were no devil, and 
if there were no outward objects of tentation : when our 
Chrysost. own heart is become spontanea insania, if? voluntarius 
dcemon. Such a wilful Madness, and such a voluntary and 
natural Devil to it self, as that we should be ambitious, 
though we were in an Hospital ; and Ucentious, though 
we were in a wilderness ; and voluptuous, though in 


Delight in Evil. 177 

a famine : so that such a mans heart, is as a land of such 
Gyants, where the Children are born as great, as the Men 
of other nations grow to be ; for those sins, which in 
other men have their birth, and their growth, after their 
birth, they begin at a Concupiscence, and proceed to a 
Consent, and grow up to Actions, and swell up to Habits ; 
In this man, sin begins at a stature and proportion above 
all this ; he begins at a delight in the sin, and comes 
instantly to a defence of it, and to an obduration and 
impenitibleness in it : This is the evil of the heart, by 
the mis-use of Gods grace, to devest and lose all tender- 
ness and remorse in sin. 


109. Excuses. 

LET no man therefore think to present his complexion 
J to God for an excuse, and say. My choler with which 
my constitution abounded, and which I could not 
remedy, encHned me to wrath, and so to bloud ; My 
Melancholy encHned me to sadnesse, and so to 
Desperation, as though thy sins were medicinall sins, 
sins to vent humors. Let no man say, I am continent 
enough all the yeare, but the spring works upon me, 
and inflames my concupiscencies, as though thy sins 
were seasonable and anniversary sins. Make not thy 
CaUing the occasion of thy sin, as though thy sin were 
a Mysterie, and an Occupation ; Nor thy place, thy 
station, thy office the occasion of thy sin, as though thy 
sin were an Heir-loome, or furniture, or fixed to the 
freehold of that place : for this one proposition, God 
is no accepter of persons^ is so often repeated, that all 
2oa5'3 N 


178 Excuses. 

circumstances of Dispositions, and Callings, and tiiric, 
and place might be involved in it. 

1 10. Rebuke of Sin. 

THE rebuke of sin, is like the fishing of Whales ; the 
Marke is great enough ; one can scarce missc 
hitting ; but if there be not sea room and line enough, 
& a dexterity in letting out that line, he that hath fixed 
his harping Iron, in the Whale, endangers himselfe, and 
his boate ; God hath made \x% fishers of Men \ and when 
we have struck a Whale, touch'd the conscience of 
any person, which thought himselfe above rebuke, and 
increpation, it struggles, and strives, and as much as 
it can, endevours to draw fishers, and boate, the Man 
and his fortune into contempt, and danger. But if 
God tye a sicknesse, or any other calamity, to the end of 
the line, that will winde up this Whale againe, to the 
boate, bring back this rebellious sinner better advised, 
to the mouth of the Minister, for more counsaile, and to 
a better souplenesse, and inclinablenesse to conforme 
himselfe, to that which he shall after receive from him ; 
onely calamity makes way for a rebuke to enter. 

111. Names of Sins. 

1 Part. I .^IRST then in this mystery of Confession, we con- 
hoiumject. J_^ sider Davids reflected act, his preparatory act, 
preceding his confession to God, and transacted in him- 
selfe, of which the first motion is, the Notum feci, I 
acknowledged in my selfe, I came to a feeling in my selfe, 
what my sinfull condition was. This is our quickning 
in our regeneration, and second birth ; and til this come. 


Names of Sins. 179 

a sinner lies as the Chaos in the beginning of the Creation, 
before the Spirit of God had moved upon the face of the 
waters. Dark, and voyd, and without forme ; He lies, as 
we may conceive, out of the Authors of Naturall Story, 
the shme and mud of the River Nilus to lie, before the 
Sun-beames strike upon it ; which after, by the heat 
of those beames, produces severall shapes, and formes 
of creatures. So till this first beame of grace, which we 
consider here, strike upon the soule of a sinner, he lies 
in the mud and slime, in the dregs and lees, and tartar 
of his sinne, Hee cannot so much as wish, that that 
Sunne would shine upon him, he doth not so much as 
know, that there is such a Sunne, that hath that influence^ 
and impression ; But if this first beame of Grace enlighten 
him to himselfe, reflect him upon himselfe, notum facit, 
(as the Text sayes) if it acquaint him with himselfe, then, 
as the creatures in the Creation, then, as the new creatures 
at Nilus, his sins begin to take their formes, and their 
specifications, and they appeare to him in their particular 
true shapes, and that which hee hath in a generall name, 
called Pleasure or Wantonnesse, now cals it selfe in his 
conscience, a direct Adultery, a direct Incest ; and that 
which he hath called Frugality, and providence for family 
and posterity, tells him plainly. My name is Oppression, 
and I am the spirit of covetousnesse. Many times men 
fall into company, and accompany others to houses of 
riot and uncleannesse, and doe not so much as know their 
sinful! companions names ; nay they doe not so much 
as know the names of the sins that they commit, nor those 
circumstances in those sinnes, which vary the very name 
and nature of the sin. 

N 2 


i8o Pride. 

112. Pride. 

SOLITUDE is not the scene of Pride ; The danger 
of pride is in company, when we meet to looke upon 
another. But in Adams wife, Eve, her first act (that is 
noted) was an act of Pride, a hearkning to that voyce 

Gen. 3. 5. of the Serpent, Te shall be as Gods. As soone as there were 
two, there was pride. How many may we have knowne, 
(if we have had any conversation in the world) that have 
been content all the weeke, at home alone, with their 
worky day faces, as well as with their worky day clothes, 
and yet on Sundayes, when they come to Church, and 
appeare in company, will mend both, their faces as vvell 
as their clothes. Not solitude, but company is the scene 
of pride ; And therefore I know not what to call that 
practice of the Nunnes in Spaine, who though they never 
see man, yet will paint. So early, so primary a sin is 
Pride, as that it grew instantly from her, whom God 

Gen. 3. 18. intended for a Helper, because he saw that it was not 
good for man to be alone. God sees that it is not good for 
man to be without health, without wealth, without 
power, and jurisdiction, and magistracy, and we grow 
proud of our helpers, proud of our health and strength, 
proud of our wealth and riches, proud of our ofhce and 
authority over others. 

So early, so primary a sin is pride, as that, out of every 
mercy, and blessing, which God affords us, (and. His 
mercies are new every morning we gather Pride ; wee are 
not the more thankfull for them, and yet we are the 
prouder of them. Nay, we gather Pride, not onely out 
of those things, which mend and improve us, (Gods 


Pride. i8i 

blessings and mercies) but out of those actions of our own, 
that destroy and ruine us, we gather pride ; sins over- 
throw us, demolish us, destroy and ruine us, and yet we 
are proud of our sinnes. How many men have we heard 
boast of their sinnes ; and, (as S. Augustine confesses of 
himselfe) belie themselves, and boast of more sinnes then 
ever they committed ? Out of every thing, out of nothing 
sin grows. Therefore was this commandment in our 
text, Sequere, Follow^ come after, well placed first, for 
we are come to see even children strive for place and 
precedency, and mothers are ready to goe to the Heralds 
to know how Cradles shall be ranked, which Cradle shall 
have the highest place ; Nay, even in the wombe, there 
was contention for precedency ; lacob tooke hold of Gen.25.26. 
his brother Esaiis heele, and would have been borne: 
before him. 

And as our pride begins in our Cradle, it continues Superbia 
in our graves and Monuments. It was a good while |"^*")^""' 
in the primitive Church, before any were buried in the 
Church ; The best contented themselves with the 
Churchyards. After, a holy ambition, (may we call it 
so) a holy Pride brought them ad Liniina, to the Church- 
threshold, to the Church-doore, because some great 
Martyrs were buried in the Porches, and devout men 
desired to lie neare them, as one Prophet did to lie neare 
another, (Lay my bones besides his bones.) But now, i King. 13. 
persons whom the Devill kept from Church all their ^^* 
lives. Separatists, Libertines, that never came to any 
Church, And persons, whom the Devill brought to 
Church all their Hves, (for, such as come meerly out of 
the obhgation of the Law, and to redeem that vexation, 


1 82 Pride. 

or out of custome, or company, or curiosity, or a perverse 
and sinister aifection to the particular Preacher, though 
they come to Gods house, come upon the Devils 
invitation) Such as one Devill, that is, worldly respect, 
brought to Church in their lives, another Devill, that 
is. Pride and vain-glory, brings to Church after their 
deaths, in an affectation of high places, and sumptuous 
Monuments in the Church. And such as have given 
nothing at all to any pious uses, or have determined their 
almes and their dole which they have given, in that one day 
of their f unerall, and no farther, have given large annuities, 
perpetuities, for new painting their tombes, and for new 
flags, and scutcheons, every certaine number of yeares. 

O the earlinesse ! O the latenesse ! how early a Spring, 
and no Autumne ! how fast a growth, and no declination, 
of this branch of this sin Pride, against which, this first 
word of ours, Sequcre, Follow, come after, is opposed ! 
this love of place, and precedency, it rocks us in our 
Cradles, it lies down with us in our graves. 


Hi 


113. Covetousness. 
^AST thou found honey F Eat so much as is sufficient 
■for thee, lest thou he filled therewith, and vomit it. — 
Prov. XXV. 16. . . . 
le $2iirris. Hee doth not say yet, lest thou bee satisfied ; there 
is no great feare, nay there is no hope of that, that 
he will be satisfied. We know the receipt, the capacity 
of the ventricle, the stomach of man, how much 
it can hold ; and wee know the receipt of all the 
receptacles of blood, how much blood the body can have ; 
so wee doe of all the other conduits and cisterns of the 


Covetousness. 183 

body ; But this infinite Hive of honey, this insatiable 
vvhirlpoole of the covetous mind, no Anatomy, no 
dissection hath discovered to us. When I looke into the 
larders, and cellars, and vaults, into the vessels of our 
body for drink, for blood, for urine, they are pottles, 
and gallons : when I looke into the furnaces of our 
spirits, the ventricles of the heart and of the braine, 
they are but thimbles ; for spirituall things,, the things 
of the next vv^orld, we have no roome ; for temporall 
things, the things of this world, we have no bounds. 
How then shall this over-eater bee filled with his honey ? 
So filled, as that he can receive nothing else. More of 
the same honey hee can ; Another Manner, and another 
Church, is but another bit of meat, with another sauce 
to him ; Another Office, and another way of Extortion, 
is but another garment, and another lace to him. But 
he is too full to receive any thing else ; Christ comes to 
this Bethlem, (Bethlem which is Domus pants) this house 
of abundance, and there is no roome for Christ in this 
Inne ; there are no crums for Christ under this table ; 
There comes Boanerges, {Boanerges, that is, Jilius Tonitruty 
the Sonne of Thunder) and he thunders out the Vce''Sy 
the Comminations, the Judgements of God upon such 
as hee ; but if the Thunder spoile not his drink, he sees 
no harme in Thunder ; As long as a Sermon is not 
a Sentence in the Starre-chamber, that a Sermon cannot 
fine and imprison him, hee hath no room for any good 
effect of a Sermon. The Holy Ghost, the Spirit of 
Comfort comes to him, and offers him the consolation 
of the Gospel ; but hee will die in his old religion, 
which is to sacrifice to his owne Nets, by which his 


1 84 Co vetousness . 

portion is plenteous ; he had rather have the God of 
the Old Testament, that payes in this world with milke 
and honey, then the God of the New Testament, that 
cals him into his Vineyard in this World, and payes him 
no wages till the next : one lupiter is worth all the three 
Elohims, or the three lehovahs (if we may speake so) to 
him. lupiter that can come in a showre of gold, out- 
waighs lehova, that comes but in a showre of water, but 
in a sprinkling of water in Baptisme, and sels that water 
so deare, as that he will have showres of teares for it, 
nay showres of blood for it, when any Persecutor hath 
a mind to call for it. The voyce of God whom he hath 
contemned, and wounded. The voyce of the Preacher 
whom he hath derided, and impoverished. The voyce 
of the poore, of the Widow, of the Orphans, of the 
prisoner, whom he hath oppressed, knocke at his doore, 
and would enter, but there is no roome for them, he is 
so full. This is the great danger indeed that accompanies 
this fulnesse, but the danger that affects him more is 
that which is more literally in the text, Evomet, he shall 
be so filled as that he shall vomit ; even that fulnesse, 
those temporall things which he had, he shall cast up. 

114. Blasphemy, 

BLASPHEMY, as it is a contumelious speech, dero- 
gating from any man, that good that is in him, or 
attributing to any man, that ill that is not in him, may 
be fastned upon any man. For the most part it is 
understood a sin against God, and that directly ; and 
here, by the manner of Christ expressing himselfe, it is 
made the greatest sin ; All sin, even blasphemy. And yet, 


Blasphemy. 185 

a drunkard that cannot name God, will spue out a blas- 
phemy against God : A child that cannot spell God, 
will stammer out a blasphemy against God : If we 
smart, we blaspheme God, and we blaspheme him if 
we be tickled ; If I lose at play, I blaspheme, and if my 
fellow lose, he blasphemes, so that God is alwayes sure 
to be a loser. An Usurer can shew me his bags, and an 
Extortioner his houses, the fruits, the revenues of his 
sinne ; but where will the blasphemer shew mee his 
blasphemy, or what hee hath got by it ? The licentious 
man hath had his love in his armes, and the envious man 
hath had his enemy in the dust, but wherein hath the 
blasphemer hurt God ? 

In the Schoole we put it for the consummation of Aquin.22a; 
the torment of the damned, that at the Resurrection, '^•^^•^^'^' 
they shall have bodies, and so be able, even verbally, 
to blaspheme God ; herein we exceed the Devill already, 
that we can speake blasphemously. There is a rebellious 
part of the body, that J dam covered with figge leaves, 
that hath damned many a wretched soule ; but yet, 
I thinke, not more then the tongue ; And therefore the 
whole torment that Dives suffered in hell, is expressed 
in that part. Father Abraham, have mercy upon me, and Lukei6.24. 
send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, 
and coole my tongue. The Jews that crucified God, will 
not sound the name of God, and we for whom he was 
Crucified, belch him out in our surfets, and foame him 
out in our fury : An Impertinent sin, wdthout occasion 
before, and an unprofitable sin, without recompence 
after, and an incorrigible sin too ; for, almost what 
Father dares chide his son for blasphemy, that may not 


F 


1 86 Blasphemy. 

tell him, Sir I learnt it of you ? or what Master his 
servant, that cannot lay the same recrimination upon 

him ? 

115. The Burden of Sin. 

'OR mine iniquities are gone over my head, as a heavy 

Burden, they are too heavy for me. — Ps. xxxviii. 4 

A second inconvenience intimated in this Metaphore, 
Fatigat. a burden^ is the fatigat, a burden wearies us, tires us : and 
so does our sinne, and our best beloved sinne. It hath 
wearied us, and yet we cannot devest it. We would 
leave that sin, and yet there is one talent more to be added, 
one childe more to be provided for, one office, or one title 
more to be compassed, one tentation more to be satisfied. 
Though we grumble, not out of remorse of conscience, 
but out of a bodily wearinesse of the sinne, yet wee 
proceed in it. How often men goe to Westminster, how 
often to the Exchange, called by unjust suits, or called 
by corrupt bargaines to those places, when their ease, 
or their health perswades them to stay at home ? How 
many go to forbidden beds, then when they had rather 
stay at home, if they were not afraid of an unkind inter- 
pretation ? We have wearied our selves in the ways oj 
wickednesse ; Plus miles in uno torneamento, qudm sanctus 
Monachus in decern annis, says our Holkot, upon that 
place, a soldier suffers more in one expedition, then 
a Monk does, in ten years, says he ; and perchance he 
says true, and yet no commendation to his Monke neither ; 
for that soldier may doe even the cause of God, more 
good, in that one expedition, then that Monke in ten 
years : But it is true as Holkot intended it, (though 
perchance his example doe not much strengthen it) 


The Burden of Sin. 187 

vicious men are put to more pains, and to doe more 

things against their own mindes, then the Saints of God 

are in the ways of holinesse. We have wearied our selves 

in the ways of wickednesse, says he, that is, in doing as 

other wicked men have done, in ways which have been 

beaten out to us, by the frequent practise of other men ; 

but he addes more, We have gone thorough Deserts, where 

there lay no way ; that is, through sins, in which, wee had 

no example, no precedent, the inventions of our hearts. 

The covetous man lies still, and attends his quarter days, 

and studies the endorsements of his bonds, and he 

wonders that the ambitious man can endure the shufflings 

and thrustings of Courts, and can measure his happinesse 

by the smile of a greater man : And, he that does so, 

wonders as much, that this covetous man can date his 

happinesse by an Almanack, and such revolutions, and 

though he have quick returns of receipt, yet scarce affords 

himself bread to live till that day come, and though all 

his joy be in his bonds, yet denies himself a candles end 

to look upon them. Hilly ways are wearisome ways, 

and tire the ambitious man ; Carnall pleasures are dirty 

ways, and tire the licentious man ; Desires of gain, are 

thorny ways, and tire the covetous man ; Emulations 

of higher men, are dark and blinde ways, and tire the 

envious man ; Every way, that is out of the way, wearies 

us ; But, lassati sumus ; sed lassis non datur requies ; we Lam. 5. 5. 

labour, and have no rest, when we have done ; we are 

wearied with our sins, and have no satisfaction in them ; 

we goe to bed to night, weary of our sinful! labours, 

and we will rise freshly to morrow, to the same sinfull 

labours again ; And when a sinner does so little remember 


1 88 The Burden of Sin. 

yesterday^ how little does he consider to morrow ? He 
that forgets what he hath done, foresees not what he shall 
suffer : so sin is a burden ; it crookens us, it wearies us ; 
And those are the two first inconveniences. 

1 1 6. The dinner, 

IT is thy pleasure O God, and thy pleasure shall be 
infallibly accomplished, that every wicked person 
should be his owne Executioner. He is Spontaneus Dcemon, 
as S. Chrysostome speaks, an In-mate, an in-nate Devill ; 
a bosome devill, a selfe-Devill ; That as he could be a 
tempter to himselfe, though there were no Devill, so he 
could be an Executioner to himselfe, though there were 
no Satan, and a Hell to himselfe, though there were no 
other Torment. Sometimes he stales not the Assises, 
but prevents the hand of Justice ; he destroies himselfe 
before his time. But when he stales, he is evermore 
condemned at the Assises. Let him sleepe out as much 
of the morning as securely as he can ; embellish, and 
adorne himselfe as gloriously as he can ; dine as largely 
and as delicately as he can ; weare out as much of the 
afternoone, in conversation, in Comedies, in pleasure, as 
hee can ; sup with as much distension, and inducement 
of drousinesse as he can, that he may scape all remorse, 
by falling asleepe quickly, and fall asleepe with as much 
discourse, and musicke, and advantage as he can, he hath 
a conscience that will survive, and overwatch all the 
company ; he hath a sorrow that shall joyns issue with 
him when he is alone, and both God, and the devill, who 
doe not meet wilHngly, shall meet in his case, and be in 
league, and be on the sorrowes side, against him. The 


The Sinner. 189 

anger of God, and the malice of the devill, shall concurre 
with his sorrow, to his farther vexation. No one wicked 
person, by any diversion or cunning, shall avoid this 
sorrow, for it is in the midst, and in the end of all his 
forced contentments ; Even in laughing, the heart is Prov. 14. 
sorrowful, and the end of that mirth is heavinesse. ^^' 

ny- The Sorrows of the Wicked. 

AND if we consider farther, the manifold Topiques, 

XjL and places, from which the sorrowes of the wicked 

arise, That every inch of their ground is overgrown with 

that venomous weed, that every place, and every part 

of time, and every person buddes out a particular occasion 

of sorrow to him, that he can come into no chamber, 

but he remembers. In such a place as this, I sinned thus, 

That he cannot heare a Clock strike, but he remembers. 

At this hour I sinned thus. That he cannot converse 

with few persons, but he remembers. With such a person 

I sinned thus. And if he dare goe no farther then to 

himselfe, he can look scarcely upon any limb of his body, 

but in that he sees some infirmity, or some deformity, 

that he imputes to some sin, and must say. By this sin, 

this is thus : When he can open the Bible in no place, 

but if he meet a judgement, he must say, Vindicta mihi. 

This vengeance belongs to me, and if he meet a mercy, 

he must say. Quid mihi ? What have I to doe to take 

this mercy into my mouth ? In this deluge of occasions 

of sorrow, I must not say with God to Abraham, Look 

up to heaven, and number the Starres, (for this man 

cannot look up to heaven) but I must say, Continue thy 

dejected look, and look downe to the earth, thy earth. 


190 The Sorrows of the Wicked. 

and number the graines of dust there, and the sorrowes 
of the wicked are more then they. 

1 1 8. The Sins of Memory. 

A HOUSE is not clean, though all the Dust be swept 
. together, if it lie still in a corner, within Dores ; 
A Conscience is not clean, by having recollected all her 
sinnes in the Memory, for they may fester there, and 
Gangreen even to Desperation, till she have emptied them 
in the bottomlesse Sea of the bloud of Christ Jesus : and 
the mercy of his Father, by this way of Confession. But 
a house is not clean neither, though the Dust be thrown 
out, if there hang Cobwebs about the Walls, in how dark 
corners soever. A Conscience is not clean, though the 
sins, brought to our memory by this Examination, be 
cast upon Gods mercy, and the merits of his Sonne, by 
Confession, if there remaine in me, but a Cobweb, a little, 
but a sinfull delight in the Memory of those sins, which 
I had formerly committed. How many men sinne over 
the sinnes of their youth again, in their age, by a sinfull 
Delight in remembring those sinnes, and a sinfull Desire, 
that their Bodies were not past them ? How many men 
sin over some sins, but imaginarily, (and yet Damnably) 
a hundred times, which they never sinned actually at 
all, by filling their Imaginations, with such thoughts 
as these, How would I be revenged of such an Enemy, 
if I were in such a place of Authority ? How easily 
could I overthrow such a wastfuU young Man, and com- 
passe his Land, if I had but Money, to feed his humours ? 
Those sinnes which we have never been able to doe 
actually, to the harme of others, we doe as hurtfuUy to 


The Sins of Memory. 191 

our owne Souls, by a sinfull Desire of them, and a sinfull 
Delight in them. 

119. fhe Eye of God. 
/'~^0D cannot be mocked, saith the Apostle, nor God 
^^ cannot be blinded. He seeth all the way, and at 
thy last gaspe, he will make thee see too, through the 
multipljdng Glasse, the Spectacle of Desperation. Canst 
thou hope that that God, that seeth this darke Earth 
through all the vaults and arches of the severall spheares 
of Heaven, that seeth thy body through all thy stone 
walls, and seeth thy soul through that which is darker 
then all those, thy corrupt flesh, canst thou hope that 
that God can be blinded vdth drawing a curtain between 
thy sinne and him ? when he is all eye, canst thou hope 
to put out that eye, with putting out a candle ? when 
he hath planted legions of Angels about thee, canst 
thou hope that thou hast taken away all Intelligence, if 
thou have corrupted, or silenced, or sent away a servant ? 
O bestow as much labour, as thou hast done, to finde 
corners for sin, to finde out those sinnes, in those corners 
where thou hast hid them. As Princes give pardons by 
their own hands, but send Judges to execute Justice, 
come to him for mercy in the acknowledgement of thy 
sinnes, and stay not till his Justice come to thee, when 
he makes inquisition for blood ; and doe not think, that 
if thou feel now at this present, a little tendernesse in 
thy heart, a little melting in thy bowels, a little dew in 
thine eyes, that if thou beest come to know, that thou 
art a sinner, thou dost therefore presently know thy 
sinnes. Thou wouldst have so much tendcrnes, so much 


192 The Eye of God. 

compassion, if thou knewest that he that sits next thee, 
were in this danger of Gods heavy indignation ; thou 
wouldst commiserate thy neighbours wretched condition 
so much. But proceed with thy self further, bring this 
dawning and breake of day to a full light, and this Httle 
sparke to a perfect acknowledgement of thy sinnes. 
Go home, with this spark of Gods Spirit in you, and there 
looke upon your Renialls, and know your oppressions, 
and extorsions ; looke upon your shop-bookes, and know 
your deceits and falsifications ; looke upon your ward- 
robes^ and know your excesses ; looke upon your childrens 
faces, and know your fornications. Till then, till you 
come to this scrutiny, this survey, this sifting of the 
Conscience, if we should cry peace, peace, yet there were 
no peace. 

1 20. The World Drowned in Sin. 

WHEN the Holy Ghost hath brought us into the 
Ark from whence we may see all the world without, 
sprawling and gasping in the flood, (the flood of sinfull 
courses in the world, and of the anger of God) when we 
can see this violent flood, (the anger of God) break in 
at windowes, and there devoure the licentious man in 
his sinfull embracements, and make his bed of wanton- 
nesse his death-bed ; when we can see this flood (the 
anger of God) swell as fast as the ambitious man swels, 
and pursue him through all his titles, and at last 
suddenly, and violently wash him away in his owne 
blood, not alwayes in a vulgar, but sometimes in an 
ignominious death ; when we shall see this flood (the 
flood of the anger of God) over-flow the valley of the 


The World Drowned in Sin. 193 

voluptuous mans gardens, and orchards, and follow him 
into his Arbours, and Mounts, and Terasses, and carry 
him from thence into a bottomlesse Sea, which no 
Plummet can sound, (no heavy sadnesse relieve him) no 
anchor take hold of, (no repentance stay his tempested 
and weather-beaten conscience) when wee finde our 
selves in this Ark, where we have first taken in the fresh 
water of Baptisme, and then the Bread, and Wine, and 
Flesh, of the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus, Then are 
we reproved, forbidden all scruple, then are we convinced. 
That as the twelve Apostles shall sit upon twelve seats^ 
and judge the twelve Tribes at the last day ; So doth the 
Holy Ghost make us Judges of all the world now, and 
inables us to pronounce that sentence, That all but they, 
who have sincerely accepted the Christian Religion, are 
still suh peccato^ under sin, and without remedy. 

121. The Hand of God. 

THE hand of God shall grow heavy upon a silent 
sinner, in his body, in his health ; and if he con- 
ceive a comfort, that for all his sicknesse, he is rich, and 
therefore cannot fayle of helpe and attendance, there 
comes another worme, and devours that, faithlesnesse 
in persons trusted by him, oppressions in persons that 
have trusted him, facility in undertaking for others, 
corrupt Judges, heavy adversaries, tempests and Pirats 
at Sea, unseasonable or ill Markets at land, costly and 
expensive ambitions at Court, one worme or other shall 
devoure his riches, that he eased himselfe upon. If he 
take up another Comfort, that though health and wealth 
decay, though he be poore and wcake, yet he hath learning, 
2025-3 o 


194 The Hand of God. 

and philosophy, and morall constancy, and he can content 
himselfe with himselfe, he can make his study a Court, 
and a few Books shall supply to him the society and the 
conversation of many friends, there is another worme 
to devoure this too, the hand of divine Justice shall grow- 
heavy upon him, in a sense of an unprofitable retirednesse, 
in a disconsolate melancholy, and at last, in a stupidity, 
tending to desperation. 

122. The Sick Soul. 

HE shall suspect his Religion, suspect his Repentance, 
suspect the Comforts of the Minister, suspect the 
efficacy of the Sacrament, suspect the mercy of God 
himselfe. Every fit of an Ague is an Earth-quake that 
swallows him, every fainting of the knee, is a step to Hell ; 
every lying down at night is a funerall ; & every quaking 
is a rising to judgment ; every bell that distinguishes 
times, is a passing-bell, and every passing-bell, his own ; 
every singing in the ear, is an Angels Trumpet ; at every 
dimnesse of the candle, he heares that voice, Fool, this 
night they will fetch away thy soul', and in every judge- 
ment denounced against sin, he hears an Ito maledicte 
upon himselfe, Goe thou accursed into helljire. 

123. Sleep. 
Ephes. 4. if HE Sun must not set upon my anger ; much lesse will 
-^ I let the Sun set upon the anger of God towards me, 
or sleep in an unrepented sin. Every nights sleep is a Nunc 
dimittis ; then the Lord lets his servant depart in peace. 
Thy lying down is a valediction, a parting, a taking 
leave, (shall I say so ?) a shaking hands with God ; and, 


24 


Sleep. 195 

when thou shakest hands with God, let those hands be 
clean. Enter into thy grave, thy metaphoricall, thy 
quotidian grave, thy bed, as thou entredst into the Church 
at first, by Water, by Baptisme ; Re-baptise thy self 
every night, in lobs Snow water. . . . Sleep with cleane 
hands, either kept cleane all day, by integrity ; or 
washed cleane, at night, by repentance ; and whensoever 
thou wakest, though all lobs messengers thunder about 
thee, and all lobs friends multiply mis-interpretations 
against thee, yet lobs protestation shall be thy pro- 
testation, what end soever God have in this proceeding, 
It is not for any injustice in my hands, and the other 
part of his protestation too, Also my prayer is pure. 

124. The Gate of Death. 
AS he that travails weary, and late towards a great 
XjL City, is glad when he comes to a place of execu- 
tion, becaus he knows that is neer the town ; so when 
thou comest to the gate of death, glad of that, for it 
is but one step from that to thy Jerusalem. Christ hath 
brought us in some neerness to Salvation, as he is vere 
Salvator mundi, in that we know, that this is indeed the Jo. 4. 42. 
Christy the Saviour of the world : and he hath brought 
it neerer than that, as he is Salvator corporis sui, in that Eph. 5. 23. 
we know. That Christ is the head of the Church, and the 
Saviour of that body: And neerer than that, as he is Esay.43.3. 
Salvator tuus sanctus. In that we know. He is the Lord 
our God, the holy One of Israel, our Saviour : But neerest 
of all, in the Ecce Salvator tuus venit. Behold thy Salvation Esa. 62. 11, 
commeth. It is not only promised in the Prophets, nor 

o 2 


196 The Gate of Death. 

only writ in the Gospel, nor only seal'd in the Sacraments, 
nor only prepared in the visitations of the holy Ghost, 
but, Ecce, behold it, now, when thou canst behold nothing 
else : The sun is setting to thee, and that for ever ; thy 
houses and furnitures, thy gardens and orchards, thy 
titles and offices, thy wife and children are departing 
from thee, and that for ever ; a cloud of faintnesse is 
come over thine eyes, and a cloud of sorrow over all 
theirs ; when his hand that loves thee best hangs 
tremblingly over thee to close thine eyes, Ecce Salvator 
tuus venit, behold then a new light, thy Saviours hand 
shall open thine eyes, and in his light thou shalt see light ; 
and thus shalt see, that though in the eyes of men thou 
lye upon that bed, as a Statue on a Tomb, yet in the 
eyes of God, thou standest as a Colossus, one foot in one, 
another in another land ; one foot in the grave, but the 
other in heaven ; one hand in the womb of the earth, 
and the other in Abrahams bosome : And then vere prope. 
Salvation is truly neer thee, and neerer than when thou 
believedst, which is our last word. 

125. Our Prison. 

WE are all conceived in close Prison ; in our 
Mothers wombes, we are close Prisoners all ; when 
we are borne, we are borne but to the liberty of the 
house ; Prisoners still, though within larger walls ; and 
then all our life is but a going out to the place of Execu- 
tion, to death. Now was there ever any man seen to 
sleep in the Cart, between New-gate, and Tyborne ? 
between the Prison, and the place of Execution, does 
any man sleep ? And we sleep all the way ; from the 


Our Prison. 197 

womb to the grave we are never throughly awake ; but 
passe on with such dreames, and imaginations as these, 
I may live as well, as another, and why should I dye, 
rather then another ? but awake, and tell me, sayes 
this Text, Quis homo ? who is that other that thou 
talkest of ? What man is he that liveth, and shall not see 
death ? 

126. All must Die. 

DOTH not man die even in his birth ? The breaking 
of prison is death, and what is our birth, but a break- 
ing of prison ? Assoon as we were clothed by God, our 
very apparell was an Embleme of death. In the skins of 
dead beasts, he covered the skins of dying men. Assoon 
as God set us on work, our very occupation was an 
Embleme of death ; It was to digge the earth ; not to 
digge pitfals for other men, but graves for our selves. 
Hath any man here forgot to day, that yesterday is dead ? 
And the Bell tolls for to day, and will ring out anon ; 
and for as much of every one of us, as appertaines to this 
day. Quotidie morimur, y tamen nos esse ceternos putamus, 
sayes S. Hierome ; We die every day, and we die all the 
day long; and because we are not absolutely dead, we 
call that an eternity, an eternity of dying : And is there 
comfort in that state ? why, that is the state of hell it 
self, Eternall dying, and not dead. 

But for this there is enough said, by the Morall man ; 
(that we may respite divine proofes, for divine points 
anon, for our severall Resurrections) for this death is 
meerly naturall, and it is enough that the morall man sayes, 
Mors lex, tributum, officiiim mortaliu?n. First it is lex, you Seneca. 


198 All must Die. 

were born under that law, upon that condition to die : 
so it is a rebelhous thing not to be content to die, it 
opposes the Law. Then it is Tributuviy an imposition 
which nature the Queen of this world layes upon us, 
and which she will take, when and where she list ; here 
a yong man, there an old man, here a happy, there a 
miserable man ; And so it is a seditious thing not to be 
content to die, it opposes the prerogative. And lastly, 
it is Officimn^ men are to have their turnes, to take their 
time, and then to give way by death to successors ; and 
so it is Inciviley inqfficiosiim, not to be content to die, it 
opposes the frame and form of government. It comes 
equally to us all, and makes us all equall when it comes. 
The ashes of an Oak in the Chimney, are no Epitaph of 
that Oak, to tell me how high or how large that was ; 
It tels me not what flocks it sheltered while it stood, 
nor what men it hurt when it fell. The dust of great 
persons graves is speechlesse too, it sayes nothing, it 
distinguishes nothing : As soon the dust of a wretch 
whom thou wouldest not, as of a Prince whom thou 
couldest not look upon, will trouble thine eyes, if the 
winde blow it thither ; and when a whirle-winde hath 
blowne the dust of the Church-yard into the Church, and 
the man sweeps out the dust of the Church into the 
Church-yard, who will undertake to sift those dusts 
again, and to pronounce. This is the Patrician, this is 
the noble flowre, and this the yeomanly, this the Plebeian 
bran. . . . 

Novissi- Death is the last, and in that respect the worst enemy. 

mushostis. jj^ ^^ enemy, that appeares at first, when we are or may 
be provided against him, there is some of that, which 


All must Die. I99 

we call Honour : but in the enemie that reserves himselfe 
unto the last, and attends our weake estate, there is 
more danger. Keepe it, where I intend it, in that which 
is my spheare, the Conscience : If mine enemie meet 
me betimes in my youth, in an object of tentation, (so 
Josephs enemie met him in Putifars Wife) yet if I doe 
not adhere to this enemy, dwell upon a delightfuli 
meditation of that sin, if I doe not fuell, and foment 
that sin, assist and encourage that sin, by high diet, 
wanton discourse, other provocation, I shall have reason 
on my side, and I shall have grace on my side, and I shall 
have the History of a thousand that have perished by 
that sin, on my side ; Even Spittles will give me souldiers 
to fight for me, by their miserable example against that 
sin ; nay perchance sometimes the vertue of that woman, 
whom I solHcite, will assist me. But when I lye under 
the hands of that enemie, that hath reserved himselfe 
to the last, to my last bed, then when I shall be able 
to stir np limbe in any other measure then a Feaver or 
a Palsie shall shake them, when everlasting darknesse 
shall have an inchoation in the present dimnesse of mine 
eyes, and the everlasting gnashing in the present chatter- 
ing of my teeth, and the everlasting worme in the present 
gnawing of the Agonies of my body, and anguishes of 
my minde, when the last enemie shall watch my remedi- 
lesse body, and my disconsolate soule there, there, where 
not the Physitian, in his way, perchance not the Priest 
in his, shall be able to give any assistance. And when he 
hath sported himselfe with my misery upon that stage, 
my death-bed, shall shift the Scene, and throw me from 
that bed, into the grave, and there triumph over me, 


200 All must Die. 

God knowes, how many generations, till the Redeemer, 
my Redeemer, the Redeemer of all me, body, as well as 
soule, come againe ; As death is Novissimus hostis, the 
enemy which watches me, at my last weaknesse, and shall 
hold me, when I shall be no more, till that Angel come, 
Who shall say, and sweare that time shall he no more, in 
that consideration, in that apprehension, he is the 
powerfullest, the fearefulest enemy ; and yet even there 
this enemy Aholehitur, he shall be destroyed. 

127. Death Inevitahle, 

/fDAM might have liv'd, if he would, but I cannot. 
'^yj' God hath placed an Ecce, a marke of my death, upon 
every thing hving, that I can set mine eye upon ; every 
thing is a remembrancer, every thing is a Judge upon 
me, and pronounces, I must dye. The whole frame of 

Eeh. 9, 27. the world is mortall, Heaven and Earth passe away : and 
upon us all, there is an irrecoverable Decree past, statutum 
est. It is appointed to all men, that they shall once dye. 
But when ? quickly ; If thou looke up into the aire, 

Job 7. 7. remember that thy life is hut a winde. If thou see a cloud 
in the aire, aske St. James his question, what is your 

lam. 4. 14. life ? and give St. James his answer. It is a vapour that 
appeareth and vanisheth away. If thou behold a Tree, 
then Job gives thee a comparison of thy selfe ; A Tree 
is an embleme of thy selfe ; nay a Tree is the originall, 
thou art but the copy, thou art not so good as it : for, 

lob 14. 7 There is hope of a tree (as you reade there) if the roote wax 
old, if the stock be dead, if it be cut down, yet by the 
sent of the waters, it will bud, but man is sick, and dyeth, and 


Death Inevitable. 201 

where is he ? he shall not wake againe, till heaven be 
no more. Looke upon the water, and we are as that, 
and as that spilt upon the ground : Looke to the earth, 
and we are not like that, but we are earth it self : At 
our Tables we feed upon the dead, and in that Temple we 
tread upon the dead : and when we meet in a Church, 
God hath made many echoes, many testimonies of our 
death, in the walls, and in the windowes, and he onely 
knowes, whether he will not make another testimony of 
our mortality, of the youngest amongst us, before we 
part, and make the very place of our huriall, our deathbed. 

128. The Expectation of Death. 

NOW the general condemnation, which is upon all 
mankind, that they must dye, this alone scarce frights 
any man, scarce averts any man from his purposes. He 
that should first put to Sea in a tempest, he might easily 
think, it were in the nature of the Sea to be rough always. 
He that sees every Church-yard swell with the waves 
and billows of graves, can think it no extraordinary thing 
to dye ; when he knows he set out in a storm, and he was 
born into the world upon that condition, to go out of 
it again. 

129. The Death-bed. 

77'T infnem, he loved them to the end. It is much 
-'—^that he should love them infne, at their end ; that 
he should look graciously at last ; that when their sunne 
sets, their eyes faint, his sunne of grace should arise, and 
his East should be brought to their West ; that then, 
in the shadow of death, the Lord of life should quicken 


203 The Death-bed. 

and inanimate their hearts ; that when their last bell 
tolls, and calls them to their first and last judgement, 
which to this purpose is all one ; for the passing bell 
and the Angels trump sound all but one note : Surgite 
qui dormitis in pulvere. Arise ye that sleep in the dust, 
which is the voice of the Angels ; and, Surgite qui 
vigilatis in plumis, Arise ye that cannot sleep in feathers, 
for the pangs of death, which is the voice of the bell, 
is in effect but one voice : for God at the generall judge- 
ment, shall never reverse any particular judgement, 
formerly given : that God should then come to thy bed 
side Ad sibilandum populum suuni, as the Prophet Ezechiel 
saith, to hisse softly for his childe, to speak comfortably 
in his eare, to whisper gently to his departing soul, and 
to drown and overcome with this soft musick of his all 
the clangour of the Angels trumpets, all the horrour of 
the ringing bell, all the cries, and vociferations of a 
distressed, and distracted, and scattering family ; yea 
all the accusations of his own conscience, and all the 
triumphant acclamations of the devil himself : that 
God should love a man thus in fine, at his end, and return 
to him then, though he had suffered him to go astray 
before, is a great testimonie of an inexpressible love. 
Butt this love is not in fine, in the end ; but infinem, to 
the end. 

130. The Death of Ecstasy. 

Prov, 18. CT~\EATH and life are in the power of the tongue, sayes 

-^—^ Solomon, in another sense ; and in this sense too, If 

my tongue, suggested by my heart, and by my heart 

rooted in faith, can say, Non moriar, non moriar ; If 


The Death of Ecstasy. 203 

I can say, (and my conscience doe not tell me, that 
I belye mine owne state) if I can say, That the blood 
of my Saviour runs in my veines. That the breath of 
his Spirit quickens all my purposes, that all my deaths 
have their Resurrection, all my sins their remorses, all 
my rebellions their reconciliations, I will harken no more 
after this question, as it is intended de morte naturali, 
of a naturali death, I know I must die that death, what 
care I ? nor de morte spiritually the death of sin, I know 
I doe, and shall die so ; why despaire I ? but I will finde 
out another death, mortem raptus, a death of rapture, and 2 Cor. 12. 
of extasie, that death which S. Paul died more then once. Acts 9. 
The death which S. Gregory speaks of, Divina contem- Greg. 
platio quoddam sepulchrum animce^ The contemplation of 
God, and heaven, is a kinde of buriall, and Sepulchre, 
and rest of the soule ; and in this death of rapture, and 
extasie, in this death of the Contemplation of my interest 
in my Saviour, I shall finde my self, and all my sins 
enterred, and entombed in his wounds, and like a Lily 
in Paradise, out of red earth, I shall see my soule rise 
out of his blade, in a candor, and in an innocence, con- 
tracted there, acceptable in the sight of his Father. 

131. The Dead with Us. 

IITTLE know we, how little a way a soule hath to 
-i goe to heaven, when it departs from the body ; 
Whether it must passe locally, through Moone, and Sun, 
and Firmament, (and if all that must be done, all that 
may be done, in lesse time then I have proposed the doubt 
in) or whether that soule finde new light in the same 
roome, and be not carried into any other, but that 


204 The Dead with Us. 

the glory of heaven be diffused over all, I know not, 
I dispute not, I inquire not. Without disputing, or 
inquiring, I know, that when Christ sayes. That God is 
not the God of the dead, he saies that to assure me, that 
those whom I call dead, are alive. And when the Apostle 

Heb. 11.16. tels me, That God is not ashamed to be called the God of 
the dead, he tels me that to assure me, That Gods servants 
lose nothing by dying. 

Menander. He was but a Heathen that said, If God love a man, 
luvenis tollitur. He takes liim young out of this world ; 
And they were but Heathens, that observed that custome, 
To put on mourning when their sons were born, and to 
feast and triumph when they dyed. But thus much we 
may learne from these Heathens, That if the dead, and 
we, be not upon one floore, nor under one story, yet we 
are under one roofe. We think not a friend lost, because 
he is gone into another roome, nor because he is gone 
into another Land ; And into another world, no man 
is gone ; for that Heaven, which God created, and this 
world, is all one world. If I had fixt a Son in Court, 
or married a daughter into a plentifull Fortune, I were 
satisfied for that son and that daughter. Shall I not be 
so, when the King of Heaven hath taken that son to 
himselfe, and maried himselfe to that daughter, for ever ? 
I spend none of my Faith, I exercise none of my Hope, in 
this, that I shall have my dead raised to life againe. 

This is the faith that sustaines me, when I lose by the 
death of others, or when I suffer by living in misery 
my selfe. That the dead, and we, are now all in one 
Church, and at the resurrection, shall be all in one Quire. 


Mourning. 205 

132. Mournifig. 

HERE, in this world, we who stay, lack those who are 
gone out of it : we know they shall never come to 
us ; and when we shall go to them, whether we shall 
know them or no, we dispute. They who think that it 
conduces to the perfection of happinesse in heaven, that 
we should know one another, think piously if they think 
we shall. For, as for the maintenance of publique peace. 
States, and Churches, may think diversly in points of 
Religion, that are not fundamentall, and yet both be 
true and Orthodoxall Churches ; so for the exaltation 
of private devotion in points that are not fundamentall, 
divers men may think diversly, and both be equally 
good Christians. Whether we shall know them there, 
or no, is problematical! and equall ; that we shall not 
till then, is dogmatical! and certain : Therefore we weep. 
I know there are Philosophers that will not let us weep, 
nor lament the death of any : And I know that in the 
Scriptures there are rules, and that there are instructions 
convayed in that example, that David left mourning 
as soon as the childe was dead ; And I know that there are 
Authors of a middle nature, above the Philosophers, and 
below the Scriptures, the Apocryphal! books, and I know 
it is said there. Comfort thy selfe, for thou shalt do him 
no good that is dead, Et te ipsum pessimabis (as the vulgat Ecclus. 38. 
reads it) thou shalt make thy self worse and worse, in 
the worst degree. But yet all this is but of inordinate 
lamentation ; for in the same place, the same Wise man 
sayes, My Son, let thy tears fall down over the dead ; 
weep bitterly and make great moane, as he is worthy. 


2o6 Mourning. 

When our Saviour Christ had uttered his consummatii'tn 
est, all was finished, and their rage could do him no more 
harm, when he had uttered his In manus tuas, he had 
delivered and God had received his soul, yet how did 
the whole frame of nature mourn in Eclipses, and tremble 
in earth-quakes, and dissolve and shed in pieces in the 
opening of the Temple, Quia mortuus, because he was 
dead. 

Truly, to see the hand of a great and mighty Monarch, 
that hand that hath governed the civill sword, the sword 
of Justice at home, and drawn and sheathed the forraigne 
sword, the sword of war abroad, to see that hand lie 
dead, and not be able to nip or fillip away one of his own 
wormes (and then Quis homo, what man, though he be one 
of those men, of whom God hath said, Te are gods, yet 
Quis homo, what man is there that lives, and shall not see 
death V) To see the brain of a great and religious 
Counsellor (and God blesse all from making, all from 
calling any great that is not religious) to see that brain 
that produced means to becalme gusts at Councell 
tables, stormes in Parliaments, tempests in popular 
commotions, to see that brain produce nothing but 
swarmes of wormes and no Proclamation to disperse 
them ; To see a reverend Prelate that hath resisted 
Heretiques & Schismatiques all his life, fall like one of 
them by death, & perchance be called one of them when 
he is dead. To re-collect all, to see great men made no 
men, to be sure that they shall never come to us, not 
to be sure, that we shall know them when we come to 
them, to see the Lieutenants and Images of God, Kings, 
the sinews of the State, religious Counsellors, the spirit 


Mourning. 207 

of the Church, zealous Prelates, And then to see vulgar, 
ignorant, wicked, and facinorous men thrown all by one 
hand of death, into one Cart, into one common Tide- 
boate, one Hospitall, one Almeshouse, one Prison, the 
grave, in whose dust no man can say. This is the King, 
this is the Slave, this is the Bishop, this is the Heretique, 
this is the Counsellor, this is the Foole, even this miserable 
equality of so unequall persons, by so foule a hand, is 
the subject of this lamentation, even Quia mortuus, 
because Lazarus was dead, lesus wept. 

133. A Quiet Grave. 

HOW low soever God be pleased to cast you. Though 
it be to the earth, yet he does not so much cast you 
downe, in doing that, as bring you home. Death is not 
a banishing of you out of this world ; but it is a visitation 
of your kindred that lie in the earth ; neither are any 
nearer of kin to you, then the earth it selfe, and the 
wormes of the earth. You heap earth upon your soules, 
and encumber them with more and more flesh, by a super- 
fluous and luxuriant diet ; You adde earth to earth in 
new purchases, and measure not by Acres, but by Manors, 
nor by Manors, but by Shires ; And there is a little 
Quillet, a little Close, worth all these, A quiet Grave. 
And therefore, when thou readest, That God makes thy 
bed in thy sicknesse, rejoyce in this, not onely that he 
makes that bed, where thou dost He, but that bed where 
thou shalt He ; That that God, that made the whole earth, 
is new making thy bed in the earth, a quiet grave, where 
thou shalt sleep in peace, till the Angels Trumpet wake 
thee at the Resurrection, to that Judgement where thy 


2o8 A Quiet Grave. 

peace shall be made before thou commest, and writ, 
and sealed, in the blood of the Lamb. 


w; 


134. Eternal Damnation. 
"HEN we shall have given to those words, by which 
hell is expressed in the Scriptures, the heaviest 
significations, that either the nature of those words can 
admit, or as they are types and representations of hell, 
as fire, and brimstone, & weeping, and gnashing, and 
darknesse, and the zoorme, and as they are laid together 

Esay3o.33. in the Prophet, Tophet, (that is, hell) is deepe and large, 
(there is the capacity & content, roome enough) It is 
a pile of fire and much wood, (there is the durablenesse of 
it) and the breath of the Lord to kindle it, like a streame of 
Brimstone, (there is the vehemence of it :) when all is 
done, the hell of hels, the torment of torments is the 
everlasting absence of God, and the everlasting impossi- 
biUty of returning to his presence ; Horrendum est, sayes 

Heb. 10.31. the Apostle, It is a fearefull thing to fall into the hands 
of the living God. Yet there was a case, in which David 
found an ease, to fall into the hands of God, to scape the 
hands of men : Horrendum est, when Gods hand is bent 
to strike, it is a fearefull thing, to fall into the hands of 
the living God ; but to fall out of the hands of the living 
God, is a horror beyond our expression, beyond our 
imagination. 

That God should let my soule fall out of his hand, into 
a bottomlesse pit, and roll an unremoveable stone upon 
it, and leave it to that which it finds there, (and it shall 
finde that there, which it never imagined, till it came 
thither) and never thinke more of that soule, never have 


Eternal Damnation. 209 

more to doe with it. That of that providence of God, 
that studies the hfe of every vv^eed, and worme, and ant, 
and spider, and toad, and viper, there should never, 
never any beame flow out upon me ; that that God, who 
looked upon me, when I was nothing, and called me when 
I was not, as though I had been, out of the womb and 
depth of darknesse, will not looke upon me now, when, 
though a miserable, and a banished, and a damned 
creature, yet I am his creature still, and contribute 
something to his glory, even in my damnation ; that that 
God, who hath often looked upon me in my foulest 
uncleannesse, and when I had shut out the eye of the 
day, the Sunne, and the eye of the night, the Taper, and 
the eyes of all the world, with curtaines and windowes 
and doores, did yet see me, and see me in mercy, by 
making me see that he saw me, and sometimes brought 
me to a present remorse, and (for that time) to a forbearing 
of that sinne, should so turne himselfe from mCj to his 
glorious Saints and Angels, as that no Saint nor Angel, 
nor Christ Jesus himselfe, should ever pray him to looke 
towards me, never remember him, that such a soule 
there is ; that that God, who hath so often said to my 
soule, Quare morieris ? Why wilt thou die ? and so 
often sworne to my soule, Vivit Dominus, As the Lord 
liveth, I would not have thee dye, but live, will nether 
let me dye, nor let me live, but dye an everlasting life, 
and live an everlasting death ; that that God, who, when 
he could not get into me, by standing, and knocking, by 
his ordinary meanes of entring, by his Word, his mercies, 
hath applied his judgements, and hath shaked the house, 
this body, with agues and palsies, and set this house on 


210 Eternal Damnation. 

fire, with fevers and calentures, and frighted the Master 
of the house, my soule, with horrors, and heavy appre- 
hensions, and so made an entrance into me ; That that 
God should frustrate all his owne purposes and practises 
upon me, and leave me, and cast me away, as though 
I had cost him nothing, that this God at last, should let 
this soule goe away, as a smoake, as a vapour, as a bubble, 
and that then this soule cannot be a smoake, a vapour, 
nor a bubble, but must lie in darknesse, as long as the 
Lord of light is light it selfe, and never sparke of that 
light reach to my soule ; What Tophet is not Paradise, 
what Brimstone is not Amber, what gnashing is not 
a comfort, what gnawing of the worme is not a tickling, 
what torment is not a marriage bed to this damnation, to 
be secluded eternally, eternally, eternally from the sight of 
God ? Especially to us, for as the perpetuall losse of that 
is most heavy, with which we have been best acquainted, 
and to which wee have been most accustomed ; so shall 
this damnation, which consists in the losse of the sight 
and presence of God, be heavier to us then others, because 
God hath so graciously, and so evidently, and so diversly 
appeared to us, in his pillar of fire, in the light of pros- 
perity, and in the pillar of the Cloud, in hiding himselfe 
for a while from us ; we that have scene him in all the 
parts of this Commission, in his Word, in his Sacraments, 
and in good example, and not beleeved, shall be further 
removed from his sight, in the next world, then they to 
whom he never appeared in this. But Vincenti i^ 
credenti, to him that beleeves aright, and overcomes 
all tentations to a wrong behefe, God shall give the 
accomphshment of fulnesse, and fulnesse of joy, and joy 


Eternal Damnation. 2ii 

rooted in glory, and glory established in eternity, and this 
eternity is God ; To him that beleeves and overcomes, 
God shall give himselfe in an everlasting presence and 
fruition, Amen. 

135. Death of the Good and the Bad Man. 

TRULY, if the Death of the wicked ended in Death, 
yet to scape that manner of death were worthy 
a Religious life. To see the house fall, and yet be afraid 
to goe out of it ; To leave an injur'd world, and meet an 
incensed God ; To see oppression and wrong in all thy 
professions, and to foresee ruine and wastefulnesse in 
all thy Posterity ; and Lands gotten by one sin in the 
Father, molder away by another in the Sonne ; To see 
true figures of horror, and ly, and fancy worse ; To 
begin to see thy sins but then, and finde every sin (at 
first sight) in the proportion of a Gyant, able to crush 
thee into despair ; to see the Blood of Christ, imputed, 
not to thee, but to thy Sinnes ; to see Christ crucified, 
and not crucifyed for thee, but crucified by thee ; To 
heare this blood speake, not better things, then the blood 
of Abel, but lowder for vengeance then the blood of 
Abel did ; This is his picture that hath been Nothing, 
that hath done nothing, that hath proposed no Stephen, 
No Law to regulate. No example to certifie his Conscience: 
But to him that hath done this. Death is but a sleepe. . . . 

Now of this dying Man, that dies in Christ, that dies 
the Death of the Righteous, that embraces Death as 
a Sleepe, must wee give you a Picture too. 

There is not a minute left to do it ; not a minutes 
sand ; Is there a minutes patience ? Bee pleased to 

p 2 


212 Death of the Good 

remember that those Pictures which are dehver'd in 
a minute, from a print upon a paper, had many dayes, 
weeks, Moneths time for the graving of those Pictures 
in the Copper ; So this Picture of that dying Man, that 
dies in Christ, that dies the death of the Righteous, that 
embraces Death as a Sleepe, was graving all his life ; All 
his publique actions were the lights, and all his private 
the shadowes of this Picture. And when this Picture 
comes to the Presse, this Man to the streights and agonies 
of Death, thus he lies, thus he looks, this he is. His 
understanding and his will is all one faculty ; He under- 
stands Gods purpose upon him, and he would not have 
God's purpose turned any other way ; hee sees God will 
dissolve him, and he would faine be dissolved, to be with 
Christ ; His understanding and his will is all one faculty ; 
His memory and his fore-sight are fixt, and concentred 
upon one object, upon goodnesse ; Hee remembers 
that hee hath proceeded in the sinceritie of a good 
Conscience in all the wayes of his calling, and he foresees 
that his good name shall have the Testimony, and his 
Posterity the support of the good men of this world ; 
His sickness shall be but a fomentation to supple and 
open his Body for the issuing of his Soule ; and his Soule 
shall goe forth, not as one that gave over his house, but 
as one that travelled to see and learne better Architecture, 
and meant to returne and re-edifie that house, according 
to those better Rules : And as those thoughts which 
possesse us most awake, meete us again when we are 
asleepe ; So his holy-thoughts, having been alwaies 
conversant upon the directing of his family, the education 
of his Children, the discharge of his place, the safety of 


and the Bad Man. 213 

the State, the happinesse of the King all his life ; when 
he is fain a sleepe in Death, all his Dreames in that blessed 
Sleepe, all his devotions in heaven shall be upon the same 
Subjects, and he shal solicite him that sits upon the 
Throne, & the Lamb, God for Christ Jesus sake, to blesse 
all these with his particular blessings : for so God giveth Ps. 127. 2. 
his beloved sleep, so as that they enjoy the next world 
and assist this. 

136. 'The Northern Passage. 

NO man kills his enemy therefore, that his enemy 
might have a better life in heaven ; that is not his 
end in killing him : It is Gods end ; Therefore he brings 
us to death, that by that gate he might lead us into life 
everlasting ; And he hath not discovered, but made that 
Northerne passage, to passe by the frozen Sea of calamity, 
and tribulation, to Paradise, to the heavenly Jerusalem. 

137. The Resurrection, 

THE dead heare not Thunder, nor feele they an In damore. 
Earth-quake. If the Canon batter that Church 
walls, in which they lye buryed, it wakes not them, nor 
does it shake or affect them, if that dust, which they are, 
be thrown out, but yet there is a voyce, which the dead 
shall heare ; The dead shall heare the voyce of the Son of lohn 5 25. 
God, (sayes the Son of God himself) and they that heare 
shall live ; And that is the voyce of our Text. It is here 
called a clamour, a vociferation, a shout, and varied 
by our Translators, and Expositors, according to the 
origination of the word, to be clamor hortatoriuSy and 
suasoriuSj and jussorius, A voyce that carries ^vith it 


214 The Resurrection. 

a penetration, (all shall heare it) and a perswasion, (all 
shall beleeve it, and be glad of it) and a power, a command, 
(all shall obey it.) Since that voyce at the Creation, 
Fiat, Let there be a world, was never heard such a voyce 
as this, Surgite mortui, Arise ye dead. That was spoken 
to that that was meerely nothing, and this to them, who 
in themselves shall have no cooperation, no concurrence 
to the hearing or answering this voyce. 

138. The Awakening. 

CXEMITERIA are Dormitoria, Churchyards are our 
beds. And in those beds, (and in all other beds of 
death) (for, the dead have their beds in the Sea too, and 
sleepe even in the restlesse motion thereof) the voyce 
of the Archangel, and the Trumpet of God shall awake 
them. 

139. The Resurrection of the Body. 

THERE are so many evidences of the immortality 
of the soule, even to a naturall mans reason, that it 
required not an Article of the Creed, to fix this notion of 
the Immortality of the soule. But the Resurrection of 
the Body is discernible by no other light, but that of 
Faith, nor could be fixed by any lesse assurance then an 
Article of the Creed. Where be all the splinters of that 
Bone, which a shot hath shivered and scattered in the 
Ayre ? Where be all the Atoms of that flesh, which a 
Corrasive hath eat away, or a Consumption hath breath'd, 
and exhal'd away from our arms, and other Limbs r 
In what wrinkle, in what furrow, in what bowel of the 
earth, ly all the graines of the ashes of a body burnt 
a thousand years since ? In what corner, in what 


The Resurrection of the Body. 215 

ventricle of the sea, lies all the jelly of a Body drowned 

in the generall flood ? What coh^erence, what sympathy, 

what dependence maintaines any relation, any corres- 

spondence, between that arm that was lost in Europe, 

and that legge that was lost in Afrique or Asia, scores of 

yeers between ? One humour of our dead body produces 

worms, and those worms suck and exhaust all other 

humour, and then all dies, and all dries, and molders 

into dust, and that dust is blowen into the River, & 

that puddled water tumbled into the sea, and that ebs 

and flows in infinite revolutions, and still, still God 

knows in what Cabinet every seed-Pearle lies, in what 

part of the world every graine of every mans dust lies ; 

and, sibilat populum suum, (as his Prophet speaks in Zecli.io. S. 

another case) he whispers, he hisses, he beckens for the 

bodies of his Saints, and in the twinckling of an eye, that 

body that was scattered over all the elements, is sate down 

at the right hand of God, in a glorious resurrection. 


T 


140. The Last Day. 
HE grave it self shall be open againe ; and Aperti Mat.2-j.s2. 
caeli, The heavens shall be open, and I shall see the "^ ' '' ^ ' 


Sonne of man, the Sonne of God, and not see him at 
that distance, that Stefheti saw him there, but see him, 
and sit down with him. I shall rise from the dead, from 
the darke station, from the prostration, from the proster- 
nation of death, and never misse the sunne, which shall 
then be put out, for I shall see the Sonne of God, the 
Sunne of glory, and shine my self, as that sunne shines. 
I shall rise from the grave, and never misse this City, 
which shall be no where, for I shall see the City of God, 


21 6 The Last Day. 

the new Jerusalem. I shall looke up, and never wonder 

when it will be day, for, the Angell will tell me that 
Apoc.io. 6. time shall be no more, and I shall see, and see cheerefuUy 

that last day, the day of judgement, which shall have no 
Dan. -. g. night, never end, and be united to the Antient of dayes, 

to God himselfe, who had no morning, never began. 


n: 


141. The Day oj Judgement. 
OVV, in respect of the time after this judgement, 
(which is Eternity) the time between this and it 
cannot be a minute ; and therefore think thy self at that 
Tribunall, that judgement now : Where thou shalt 
not onely heare all thy sinfull workes, and words, and 
thoughts repeated, which thou thy selfe hadst utterly 
forgot, but thou shalt heare thy good works, thine almes, 
thy comming to Church, thy hearing of Sermons given 
in evidence against thee, because they had hypocrisie 
mingled in them ; yea thou shalt finde even thy repent- 
ance to condemne thee, because thou madest that but 
a doore to a relapse. There thou shalt see, to thine 
inexpressible terror, some others cast downe into hell, 
for thy sins ; for those sins which they would not have 
done, but upon thy provocation. There thou shalt 
see some that occasioned thy sins, and accompanied 
thee in them, and sinned them in a greater measure 
then thou didst, taken up into heaven, because in the 
way, they remembred the end, and thou shalt sink under 
a lesse waight, because thou never lookedst towards him 
Bernard, that would have eased thee of it. Ouis non cogitans 
hcec in desperationis rotetur ahyssum ? Who can once 
thinke of this and not be tumbled into desperation ? 


Joy. 


217 


142. Joy. 

IF you. looke upon this world in a Map, you find two 
Hemisphears, two half worlds. If you crush heaven 
into a Map, you may find two Hemisphears too, two half 
heavens ; Halfe will be Joy, and halfe will be Glory ; 
for in these two, the joy of heaven, and the glory of heaven, 
is all heaven often represented unto us. And as of those 
two Hemisphears of the world, the first hath been knowne 
long before, but the other, (that of America, which is 
the richer in treasure) God reserved for later Discoveries ; 
So though he reserve that Hemisphear of heaven, which 
is the Glory thereof, to the Resurrection, yet the other 
Hemisphear, the Joy of heaven, God opens to our Dis- 
covery, and delivers for our habitation even whilst we 
dwell in this world. As God hath cast upon the unre- 
pentant sinner two deaths, a temporall, and a spirituall 
death, so hath he breathed into us two lives ; for so, 
as the word for death is doubled, MorU moruris, Thou Gen. 2. 17. 
shalt die the death, so is the word for life expressed in 
the plurall, Chaiirn, vitarum^ God breathed into his 
nostrils the breath of lives, of divers lives. Though our 
naturall life were no Hfe, but rather a continuall djing, 
yet we have two lives besides that, an eternall life reserved 
for heaven, but yet a heavenly life too, a spirituall life, 
even in this world ; And as God doth thus inflict two 
deaths, and infuse two lives, so doth he also passe two 
Judgements upon man, or rather repeats the same 
Judgement twice. For, that which Christ shall say to 
thy soule then at the last Judgement, Enter into thy Maii.25.23. 
Masters joy y Hee sayes to thy conscience now. Enter into 


2i8 Joy. 

thy Masters joy. The everlastingnesse of the joy is the 
blessednesse of the next hfe, but the entring, the inchoa- 
tion is afforded here. ... 

Howling is the noyse of hell, singing the voyce of heaven ; 
Sadnesse the damp of Hell, Rejoycing the serenity of 
Heaven. And he that hath not this joy here, lacks one 
of the best pieces of his evidence for the joyes of heaven ; 
and hath neglected or refused that Earnest, by which 
God uses to binde his bargaine, that true joy in this 
world shall flow into the joy of Heaven, as a River flowes 
into the Sea ; This joy shall not be put out in death, and 
a new joy kindled in me in Heaven ; But as my soule, 
as soone as it is out of my body, is in Heaven, and does 
not stay for the possession of Heaven, nor for the fruition 
of the sight of God, till it be ascended through ayre, and 
fire, and Moone, and Sun, and Planets, and Firmament, 
to that place which we conceive to be Heaven, but 
without the thousandth part of a minutes stop, as soone 
as it issues, is in a glorious light, which is Heaven, (for 
all the way to Heaven is Heaven ; And as those Angels, 
which came from Heaven hither, bring Heaven with 
them, and are in Heaven here. So that soule that goes 
to Heaven, meets Heaven here ; and as those Angels 
doe not devest Heaven by comming, so these soules invest 
Heaven, in their going.) As my soule shall not goe 
towards Heaven, but goe by Heaven to Heaven, to the 
Heaven of Heavens, So the true joy of a good soule in 
this world is the very joy of Heaven ; and we goe thither, 
not that being without joy, we might have joy infused 
lohn 16.34. into us, but that as Christ sayes. Our joy might be full, 
' perfected, sealed with an everlastingnesse ; for, as he 


Joy. 219 

promises, That no man shall take our joy from us, so neither 
shall Death it selfe take it away, nor so much as interrupt 
it, or discontinue it, But as in the face of Death, when he 
layes hold upon me, and in the face of the Devill, when 
he attempts me, I shall see the face of God, (for, every- 
thing shall be a glasse, to reflect God upon me) so in 
the agonies of Death, in the anguish of that dissolution, 
in the sorrowes of that valediction, in the irreversiblenesse 
of that transmigration, I shall have a joy, which shall 
no more evaporate, then my soule shall evaporate, 
A joy, that shall passe up, and put on a more glorious 
garment above, and be joy superinvested in glory. Amen. 

143. The Joy of Heaven. 

HUMILIATION is the beginning of sanctification ; 
and as without this, without hoHnesse, no man 
shall see God, though he pore whole nights upon the 
Bible ; so without that, without humility, no man shall 
heare God speake to his soule, though hee heare three 
two-houres Sermons every day. But if God bring thee 
to that humiliation of soule and body here, hee will 
emprove, and advance thy sanctification abundantiuSy 
more abundantly, and when he hath brought it to the 
best perfection, that this life is capable of, he will 
provide another abundantius, another maner of abundance 
in the life to come ; which is the last beating of the 
pulse of this text, the last panting of the breath thereof, 
our anhelation, and panting after the joyes, and glory, 
and eternity of the kingdome of Heaven ; of which, 
though, for the most part, I use to dismisse you, with 
saying something, yet it is alwaies little that I can say 


220 The Joy of Heaven. 

thereof ; at this time, but this, that if all the joyes of all 
the Martyrs, from Abel to him that groanes now in the 
Inquisition, were condensed into one body of joy, (and 
certainly the joyes that the Martyrs felt at their deaths, 
would make up a far greater body, then their sorrowes 
would doe,) (for though it bee said of our great Martyr, 
Apoc. I. 5. or great Witnesse, (as S. lohn calls Christ Jesus) to whom, 
all other Martyrs are but sub-martyrs, witnesses that 
Lam. 3. 12. testifie his testimony, Non dolor sicut dolor ejus, there was 
Heb. 12. 2. never sorrow like unto his sorrow, it is also true, Non 
gaudiurn sicut gaudium ejus. There was never joy like 
unto that joy which was set before him, when he endured 
the crosse ;) If I had all this joy of all these Martyrs, 
(which would, no doubt, be such a joy, as would worke 
a liquefaction, a melting of my bowels) yet I shall have 
it abundantius, a joy more abundant, then even this 
superlative joy, in the world to come. What a dimme 
vespers of a glorious festivall, what a poore halfe-holyday, 
is Methusalems nine hundred yeares, to eternity ? what 
a poore account hath that man made, that sales, this land 
hath beene in my name, and in my Ancestors from the 
Conquest ? what a yesterday is that ? not six hundred 
yeares. If I could beleeve the transmigration of soules, 
and thinke that my soule had beene successively in some 
creature or other, since the Creation, what a yesterday 
is that ? not six thousand yeares. What a yesterday 
for the past, what a to morrow for the future, is any terme, 
that can be comprehended in Cyphar or Counters ? 
But as, how abundant a life soever any man hath in this 
world for temporall abundances, I have life more abun- 
dantly then hee, if I have the spirituall life of grace, so 


The Joy of Heaven. 221 

what measure soever I have of this spirituall life of grace, 
in this world, I shall have that more abundantly in Heaven, 
for there, my terme shall bee a terme for three lives ; 
for those three, that as long as the Father, and the Son, 
and the holy Ghost live, I shall not dye. 

144. Little Stars. 

IN that glistering circle in the firmament, which we 
call the Galaxie, the milkie-way, there is not one 
starre of any of the six great magnitudes, which Astrono- 
mers proceed upon, belonging to that circle : it is 
a glorious circle, and possesseth a great part of heaven, 
and yet is all of so little starres, as have no name, no 
knowledge taken of them : So certainly there are many 
Saints in heaven, that shine as starres, and yet are not 
of those great magnitudes, to have been Patriarchs, or 
Prophets, or Apostles, or Martyrs, or Doctours, or Virgins ; 
but good & blessed souls, that have religiously performed 
the duties of inferior callings, and no more. 

145. Heirs of Heaven, 

HEIRES of heaven, which is not a Gavel-kinde, every 
son, every man alike ; but it is an universall primo- 
geniture, every man full, so full, as that every man hath 
all, in such measure, as that there is nothing in heaven, 
which any man in heaven wants. Heires of the joyes of 
heaven ; Joy in a continuall dilatation of thy heart, 
to receive augmentation of that which is infinite, in the 
accumulation of essentiall and accidentall joy. Joy 
in a continuall melting of indissoluble bowels, in joyfull, 


222 Heirs of Heaven. 

and yet compassionate beholding thy Saviour ; Rejoycing 
at thy being there, and almost lamenting (in a kindc 
of affection, which we can call by no name) that thou 
couldst not come thither, but by those wounds, which 
are still wounds, though wounds glorified. Heires of 
the joy, and heires of the glory of heaven ; where if 
thou look down, and see Kings fighting for Crownes, 
thou canst look off as easily, as from boyes at stool-ball 
for points here ; And from Kings triumphing after 
victories, as easily, as a Philosopher from a Pageant of 
children here. Where thou shalt not be subject to any 
other title of Dominion in others, but lesus of Nazareth 
King of the lews, nor ambitious of any other title in 
thy selfe, but that which thou possessest, To he the childe 
of God. Heires of joy, heires of glory, and heires of the 
eternity of heaven ; Where, in the possession of this joy, 
and this glory, The Angels which were there almost 
6000. yeares before thee, and so prescribe, and those 
soules which shall come at Christs last comming, and so 
enter but then, shall not survive thee, but they, and thou, 
and all, shall Hve as long as he that gives you all that life, 
as God himselfe. 

146. Seeing God. 
jILL the world is but Speculum, a glasse, in which we 
XjL see God ; The Church it self, and that which the 
Ordinance of the Church begets in us, faith it self, is 
but anigma, a dark representation of God to us, till 
we come to that state. To see God face to face, and to knoWy 
as also we are knowen. 
Sphcera. Now, as for the sight of God here, our Theatre was the 


' Seeing God. 223 

world, our Medium and glasse was the creature, and our 
light was reason, And then for our knowledge of God 
here, our Academy was the Church, our Medium the 
Ordinances of the Church, and our Light the light of 
faith, so we consider the same Termes, first, for the sight 
of God, and then for the knowledge of God in the next 
life. First, the Sphear, the place where we shall see him, 
is heaven ; He that asks me what heaven is, meanes not 
to heare me, but to silence me ; He knows I cannot tell 
him ; When I meet him there, I shall be able to tell him, 
and then he will be as able to tell me ; yet then we shall 
be but able to tell one another. This, this that we enjoy 
is heaven, but the tongues of Angels, the tongues of 
glorified Saints, shall not be able to expresse what that 
heaven is ; for, even in heaven our faculties shall be 
finite. Heaven is not a place that was created ; for, all 
place that was created, shall be dissolved. God did not 
plant a Paradise for himself, and remove to that, as he 
planted a Paradise for Adam^ and removed him to that ; 
But God is still where he was before the world was made. 
And in that place, where there are more Suns then there 
are Stars in the Firmament, (for all the Saints are Suns) 
And more light in another Sun, The Sun of righteous- 
nesse, the Son of Glory, the Sun of God, then in all 
them, in that illustration, that emanation, that effusion 
of beams of glory, which began not to shine 6000. yeares 
ago, but 6000. millions of millions ago, had been 6000. 
millions of millions before that, in those eternall, in those 
uncreated heavens, shall we see God. . . . 

The light of glory is such a Hght, as that our School- Lux Gloria . 
men dare not say confidently, That every beam of it, 


224 Seeing God. 

is not all of it. When some of them say, That some soules 
see some things in God, and others, others, because all 
have not the same measure of the light of glory, the rest 
cry down that opinion, and say, that as the Essence of 
God is indivisible, and he that sees any of it, sees all of 
it, so is the light of glory communicated intirely to every 
blessed soul. God made hght first, and three dayes 
after, that light became a Sun, a more glorious Light : 
God gave me the Hght of Nature, when I quickned in 
my mothers wombe by receiving a reasonable soule ; and 
God gave me the light of faith, when I quickned in my 
second mothers womb, the Church, by receiving my 
baptisme ; but in my third day, when my mortahty 
shall put on immortality, he shall give me the light of 
glory, by which I shall see himself. To this light of 
glory, the light of honour is but a glow-worm ; and 
majesty it self but a twihght ; The Cherubims and 
Seraphims are but Candles ; and that Gospel it self, 
which the Apostle calls the glorious Gospel, but a Star 
of the least magnitude. And if I cannot tell, what to 
call this Hght, by which I shall see it, what shall I call 
that which I shaH see by it. The Essence of God himself ? 

147. The Sight of God. 
Demn. '\ JO man ever sazv God and liv^d ; and yet, I shall not 

-*- ^ live till I see God ; and when I have seen him 
I shall never dye. What have I ever seen in this world, 
that hath been truly the same thing that it seemed to 
me ? I have seen marble buildings, and a chip, a crust, 
a plaster, a face of marble hath pilld off, and I see brick- 
bowels within. I have seen beauty, and a strong breath 


The Sight of God. 225 

from another, tels me, that that complexion is from 
without, not from a sound constitution within. I have 
seen the state of Princes, and all that is but ceremony ; 
and, I would be loath to put a Master of ceremonies to 
define ceremony, and tell me what it is, and to include 
so various a thing as ceremony, in so constant a thing, 
as a Definition. I see a great Officer, and I see a man of 
mine own profession, of great revenues, and I see not the 
interest of the money, that was paid for it, I see not the 
pensions, nor the Annuities, that are charged upon that 
Office, or that Church, As he that fears God, fears 
nothing else, so, he that sees God, sees every thing else : 
when we shall see God, Sicuti est, as he is, we shall see i John 7,. 2. 
all things Sicuti sunt, as they are ; for that's their Essence, 
as they conduce to his glory. We shall be no more 
deluded with outward appearances : for, when this 
sight, which we intend here comes, there will be no 
delusory thing to be seen. All that we have made as 
though we saw, in this world, will be vanished, and I 
shall see nothing but God, and what is in him ; and him 
I shall see In came, in the flesh, which is another degree 
of Exaltation in mine Exinanition. 

I shall see him. In carne sua, in his flesh : And this was In came. 
one branch in Saint Augustines great wish. That he might 
have seen Rome in her state. That he might have heard 
S. Paul preach. That he might have seen Christ in the 
flesh : Saint Augustine hath seen Christ in the flesh one 
thousand two hundred yeaers ; in Christs glorifyed 
flesh ; but, it is with the eyes of his understanding, 
and in his soul. Our flesh, even in the Resurrection, 
cannot be a spectacle, a perspective glasse to our soul. 

2025*3 Q 


226 The Sight of God. 

We shall see the Humanity of Christ with our bodily 
eyes, then glorifyed ; but, that flesh, though glorifyed, 
cannot make us see God better, nor clearer, then the soul 
alone hath done, all the time, from our death, to our 
resurrection. But as an indulgent Father, or as a tender 
mother, when they go to see the King in any Solemnity, 
or any other thing of observation, and curiosity, delights 
to carry their child, which is flesh of their flesh, and bone 
of their bone, with them, and though the child cannot 
comprehend it as well as they, they are as glad that the 
child sees it, as that they see it themselves ; such a glad- 
nesse shall my soul have, that this flesh, (which she will 
no longer call her prison, nor her tempter, but her friend, 
her companion, her wife) that this flesh, that is, I, in 
the re-union, and redintegration of both parts, shall see 
God ; for then ; one principall clause in her rejoycing, 
and acclamation, shall be, that this flesh is her flesh ; 
In came med, in my flesh I shall see God. 
Mea. It was the flesh of every wanton object here, that would 

allure it in the petulancy of mine eye. It was the flesh 
of every Satyricall Libeller, and defamer, and calumniator 
of other men, that would call upon it, and tickle mine ear 
with aspersions and slanders of persons in authority. 
And in the grave, it is the flesh of the worm ; the posses- 
sion is transfer'd to him. But, in heaven, it is Caro mea, 
My flesh, my souls flesh, my Saviours flesh. As my meat 
is assimilated to my flesh, and made one flesh with it ; 
2 Pel. 1. 4- as my soul is assimilated to my God, and made partaker 
iCor.^.i-j. of the divine nature, and Idem Spiritus, the same Spirit 
with it ; so, there my flesh shall be assimilated to the 
flesh of my Saviour, and made the same flesh with him 


The Sight of God. 227 

too. Verhum caro factum, ut caro resurgeret ; Therefore Athanas. 
the Word was made flesh, therefore God was made man, 
that that union might exalt the flesh of man to the right 
hand of God. That's spoken of the flesh of Christ ; and 
then to facihtate the passage for us, Reformat ad wimorta- Cyril. 
litatem suam participes sui ; those who are worthy 
receivers of his flesh here, are the same flesh with him ; 
And, God shall quicken your mortall bodies, by his Spirit Rom. 8. n. 
that dwelleth in you. But this is not in consummation, 
in full accomplishment, till this resurrection, when it 
shall be Caro mea, my flesh, so, as that nothing can draw 
it from the allegiance of my God ; and Caro mea. My 
flesh, so, as that nothing can devest me of it. Here a 
bullet will aske a man, where's your arme ; and a Wolf 
wil ask a woman, where's your breast. A sentence in 
the Star-chamber will aske him, where's your ear, and 
a months close prison will aske him, where's your flesh ? 
A fever will aske him, where's your Red, and a morphew 
will aske him, where's your white ? But when after 
all this, when after my skinne worms shall destroy my body, 
I shall see God, I shall see him in my flesh, which shall 
be mine as inseparably, (in the effect, though not in the 
manner) as the Hypostaticall union of God, and man, in 
Christ, makes our nature and the Godhead one person 
in him. My flesh shall no more be none of mine, then 
Christ shall not be man, as well as God. 

148. The State of Glory. 

IF Origen could lodge such a conceit, that in heaven 
at last all things should ebbe back into God, as all 
things flowed from him at first ; and so there should 

Q 2 


228 The State of Glory. 

be no other essence but God, all should be God, even 
the devil himself : how much more may we conceive 
an uxexpressible association (that is too farre off) an 
assimilation (that is not neare enough) an identification 
(the School would venture to say so) with God in that 
state of glorie ! Whereas the sunne by shining upon the 
moon, makes the moon a planet, a starre as well as itself, 
which otherwise would be but the thickest, and darkest 
part of that sphere : so those beams of glorie which shall 
issue from my God, and fall upon me, shall make me 
(otherwise a clod of earth, and worse, a dark soul, a spirit 
of darknesse) an angel of light, a starre of glorie, a some- 
thing that I cannot name now, not imagine now, nor 
to morrow, nor next yeare ; but even in that particular, 
I shall be Uke God : that as he that asked a day to give 
a definition of God, the next day asked a week, and then 
a moneth, and then a yeare ; so undeterminable would 
my imaginations be, if I should go about to think now, 
what I shall be there : I shall be so like God, as that the 
devil himself shall not know me from God, so farre as 
to finde any more place to fasten a temptation upon me, 
then upon God ; not to conceive any more hope of my 
falling from that kingdome, then of Gods being driven 
out of it ; for though I shall not be immortall as God, 
yet I shall be as immortall God. And there is my image 
of God ; of God considered altogether, and in his unitie, 
in the state of grace. 

I shall have also then the image of all the three persons 
of the Trinitie. Power is the Fathers ; and a greater 
power, then he exercises here, I shall have there : here 
he overcomes enemies, but yet here he hath enemie.- ; 


The State of Glory. 229 

there, there are none : here they cannot prevail ; there 
they shall not be. So Wisdome is the image of the Sonne ; 
and there I shall have better wisdome : the spirituall 
wisdome it self is here : for, here our best wisdom is, 
but to go towards our end ; there it is to rest in our end : 
here it is to seek to be glorified by God ; there it is that 
God may be everlastingly glorified by me. The image 
of the Holy Ghost is Goodnesse. Here our goodnesse is 
mixt with some ill ; faith mixt with scruples, & good 
works mixt with a love of praise, and hope of better mixt 
with fear of worse : there I shall have sincere goodnesse, 
goodnesse impermixt, intemerate, and indeterminate 
goodnesse ; so good a place, as no ill accident shall annoy 
it ; so good companie as no impertinent, no importune 
person shall disorder it ; so full a goodnesse, as no evil 
of sinne, no evil of punishment for former sins can enter ; 
so good a God, as shall no more keep us in fear of his 
anger, nor in need of his mercie ; but shall fill us first, 
and establish us in that fulnesse in the same instant, and 
give us a satietie that we can wish no more, and an 
infalHbilitie that we can lose none of that, and both 
at once. Whereas the Cabalists expresse our nearnesse 
to God, in that state, in that note, that the name of 
man and the name of God, Adam, and Jehovah, in their 
numerall letters are equall : so I would have leave to 
expresse that inexpressible state, so farre as to say, that 
if there can be other worlds imagined besides this that 
is under our moon, and if there could be other Gods 
imagined of those worlds, besides this God to whose 
image we are made, in Nature, in Grace, in Glorie ; I had 
rather be one of these Saints in this heaven, than of those 


230 The State of Glory. 

gods in those other worlds. I shall be like the angels 
in a glorified soul, and the angels shall not be Hke me in 
a glorified bodie. 

149. Justice. 
AS it is said of old Costnographers, that when they had 
JTJl said all that they knew of a Countrey, and yet much 
more was to be said, they said that the rest of those 
countries were possesst with Giants, or Witches, or Spirits, 
or Wilde beasts, so that they could pierce no farther into 
that Countrey, so when wee have travell'd as farre as 
wee can, with safetie, that is, as farre as Ancient, or 
Moderne Expositors lead us, in the discoverie of these 
new Heavens, and new Earth, yet wee must say at last, 
that it is a Countrey inhabited with Angells, and Arch- 
angells, with Cherubins, and Seraphins, and that wee 
can looke no farther into it, with these eyes. Where 
it is locally, wee enquire not ; We rest in this, that it 
is the habitation prepar'd for the blessed Saints of God ; 
Heavens where the Moone is more glorious than our 
Sunne, and the Siinne as glorious as Hee that made it ; 
For it is he himselfe, the Sonne of God, the Sunne of 
glorie. A new Earth, where all their waters are milke, 
and all their milke, honey ; where all their grasse is come, 
and all their corne, Manna ; where all their glebe, all 
their clods of earth are gold, and all their gold of innumer- 
able carats ; Where all their minutes are ages, and all 
their ages, Eternity ; Where every thing, is every minute, 
in the highest exaltation, as good as it can be, and yet 
super-exalted, & infinitely multiplied, by every minutes 
addition ; every minute, ii\finitely better, then ever 


Justice. 231 

it was before. Of these new heavens, & this new earth 
we must say at last, that wee can say nothing ; For, the 
eye of Man hath not scene, nor eare heard, nor heart con- 
ceived, the State of this place. We Hmit, and determine 
our consideration with that Horizon, with which the 
Holy Ghost hath Hmited us, that it is that new Heavens, 
and new Earth, wherein dwelleth Righteousnesse. 

Here then the Holy Ghost intends the same new Righteou? 


Heavens, and new Earth, which he doe's in the Apocalyps, "^^^^' 


21. I. 


and describes there, by another name, the new Jerusalem. 
But here, the Holy Ghost doe's not proceed, as there, to 
enamour us of the place, by a promise of improvement 
of those things, which we have, and love here ; but by 
a promise of that, which here wee have not at all. There, 
and elsewhere, the holy Ghost applies himselfe, to the 
naturall affections of men. To those that are affected 
with riches, he sales, that that new City shall be all o/Verg. 18. 
gold, and in the foundations, all manner of precious stones; 
To those that are affected with beauty, hee promises an 
everlasting association, with that beautifull Couple, that 
faire Paire, which spend their time, in that contempla- 
tion, and that protestation, Ecce tu pulchra dilecta me a ;Cant. i. 15, 
Ecce, tu pulcher ; Behold, thou art fair, my Beloved, says 
he ; and then, she replies, Behold, thou art fair too ; 
noting the mutuall complacencie betweene Christ and 
his Church there. To those which delight in Musicke, 
hee promises continuall singing, and every minute, a new 
song : To those, whose thoughts are exerciz'd upon 
Honour, and Titles, Civill, or Ecclesiasticall, hee promises 
Priesthood, and if that be not honour enough, a Royall 
Priesthood ; And to those, who looke after military 


232 Justice. 

honor^ Triumph after their victory, in the Militant Church ; 
And to those, that are carried with sumptuous, and 
magnifique feasts, a Mariage supper of the Lambe, where, 
not onely all the rarities of the whole world, but the 
whole world it selfe shall be serv'd in ; The whole world 
shall bee brought to that Jire, and serv'd at that Table. 
But here, the holy Ghost proceeds not that way ; by 
improvement of things, which wee have, and love here ; 
riches, or beauty, or musicke or honour, or feasts ; but by 
an everlasting possession of that, which wee hunger, 
and thirst, and pant after, here, and cannot compasse, 
that is. Justice or Righteousnesse ; for both these, our 
present word denotes, and both those wee want here, 
and shall have both, for ever, in these new Heavens, and 
nezv Earth. 

What would a worne and macerated suter, opprest by 
the bribery of the rich, or by the might of a potent 
Adversary, give, or doe, or suffer, that he might have 
Justice ? What would a dejected Spirit, a disconsolate 
soule, opprest with the weight of heavy, and habituall 
sinne, that stands naked in a frosty Winter of desperation, 
and cannot compasse one fig leafe, one colour, one excuse 
for any circumstance of any sinne, give for the garment 
of Righteousnesse ? here there is none that doe's right, 
none that executes Justice ; or, not for Justice sake. 
Hee that doe's Justice, doe's it not at first ; and Christ 
Luk. 18. 2. doe's not thanke that Judge, that did Justice, upon the 
womans importunity. Justice is no Justice, that is 
done for fear of an Appeale, or a Commission. There may 
bee found, that may doe Justice at first ; At their first 
entrance into a place, to make good impressions, to 


Justice. 233 

establish good opinions, they may doe some Acts of 
Justice ; But after, either an Uxoriousnesse towards 
the wife, or a Solicitude for children, or a facility towards 
servants, or a vastnesse of expense, quenches, and over- 
com's the love of Justice in them ; Non habitat. In most 
it is not : but it dzuels not in any. In our new Heavens, and 
and new Earth, dwelleth justice. And that's my comfort ; 
that when I come thither, I shall have Justice at God's 
hands. 


150. Knowledge in Heaven. 

SOME things the Angels do know by the dignity of 
their Nature, by their Creation, which we know 
not ; as we know many things which inferior Crea- 
tures do not ; and such things all the Angels, good 
and bad know. Some things they know by the Grace 
of their confirmation, by which they have more given 
them, then they had by Nature in their Creation ; and 
those things only the Angels that stood, but all they, do 
know. Some things they know by Revelation, when 
God is pleased to manifest them unto them ; and so 
some of the Angels know that, which the rest, though 
confirm'd, doe not know. By Creation, they know as 
his Subjects ; by Confirmation, they know as his Servants ; 
by revelation, they know as his Councel. Now, Erimus 
sicut Angeli, says Christ, There we shall be as the Angels : 
The knowledge which I have by Nature, shall have no 
Clouds ; here it hath : That which I have by Grace, 
shall have no reluctation, no resistance ; here it hath : 
That which I have by Revelation, shall have no suspition. 


234 Knowledge in Heaven. 

no jealousie ; here it hath : sometimes it is hard to dis- 
tinguish between a respiration from God, and a suggestion 
from the Devil. There our curiosity shall have this 
noble satisfaction, we shall know how the Angels know, 
by knowing as they know. We shall not pass from 
Author, to Author, as in a Grammar School, nor from 
Art to Art, as in an University ; but, as that General 
which Knighted his whole Army, God shall Create us 
all Doctors in a minute. That great Library, those 
infinite Volumes of the Books of Creatures, shall be 
taken away, quite away, no more Nature ; those reverend 
Manuscripts, written with Gods own hand, the Scriptures 
themselves, shall be taken away, quite away ; no more 
preaching, no more reading of Scriptures, and that great 
School-Mistress, Experience, and Observation shall be 
remov'd, no new thing to be done, and in an instant, 
I shall know more, then they all could reveal unto me. 
I shall know, not only as I know already, that a Bee-hive, 
that an Ant-hill is the same Book in Decimo sexto^ as 
a Kingdom is in Folio, That a Flower that lives but 
a day, is an abridgment of that King, that lives out his 
threescore and ten years ; but I shall know too, that 
all these Ants, and Bees, and Flowers, and Kings, and 
Kingdoms, howsoever they may be Examples, and 
Comparisons to one another, yet they are all as nothing, 
altogether nothing, less than nothing, infinitely less than 
nothing, to that which shall then be the subject of my 
knowledge, for, it is the knowledge of the glory of God. 


Eternity. 235 

151. Eternity. 

HOW barren a thing is Arithmetique ? (and yet 
Arithmetique will tell you, how many single graines 
of sand, will fill this hollow Vault to the Firmament) 
How empty a thing is Rhetorique ? (and yet Rhetorique 
will make absent and remote things present to your 
understanding) How weak a thing is Poetry ? (and yet 
Poetry is a counterfait Creation, and makes things that 
are not, as though they were) How infirme, how impotent 
are all assistances, if they be put to expresse this Eternity ? 

152. Eternity. 

IF I had Methusalems yeers, and his yeers multiplyed 
by the minutes of his yeers, (which were a faire terme) 
if I could speak till the Angels Trumpets blew, and you 
had the patience of Martyrs, and could be content to 
heare me, till you heard the Surgite Mortui, till you were 
called to meet the Lord Jesus in the clouds, all that time 
would not make up one minute, all those words would 
not make up one syllable, towards this Eternity, the 
period of this blessednesse. 

153. Eternity, 

A STATE but of one Day, because no Night shall 
over-take, or determine it, but such a Day, as is not 
of a thousand yeares, which is the longest measure in the 
Scriptures, but of a thousand millions of millions of 
generations : Qui nee frceceditur he sterna, nee excluditur August. 
crastino, A day that hath no -pridie, nor postridie, yesterday 
doth not usher it in, nor to morrow shall not drive it 
out. Methusalem, with all his hundreds of yeares, was 


236 Eternity. 

but a Mushrome of a nights growth, to this day, And all 
the foure Monarchies, with all their thousands of yeares, 
And all the powerfull Kings, and all the beautifull 
Queenes of this world, were but as a bed of flowers, 
some gathered at six, some at seaven, some at eight. All 
in one Morning, in respect of this Day. In all the two 
thousand yeares of Nature, before the Law given by 
Moses, And the two thousand yeares of Law, before the 
Gospel given by Christ, And the two thousand of Grace, 
which are running now, (of which last houre we have 
heard three quarters strike, more then fifteen hundred 
of this last two thousand spent) In all this six thousand, 
and in all those, which God may be pleased to adde, 
In domo patris, In this House of his Fathers, there was 
never heard quarter clock to strike, never seen minute 
glasse to turne. 


I 


154. Joy in Heaven. 

'T is time to end ; but as long as the glasse hath a 

gaspe, as long as I have one, I would breathe in this 

ayre, in this perfume, in this breath of heaven, the 

Pi'aZ.89.15. contemplation of this Joy, Blessed is that man, qui scit 

jubilationem, says David, that knowes the joyfull sound : 

August. For, Nulla inodo beatus, nisi scias unde gaudeas ; For 

though we be bound to rejoyce alwayes, it is not a blessed 

joy, if we do not know upon what it be grounded : or 

if it be not upon everlasting blessednesse. Comedite 

Cant. 5. I. amici, says Christ, bibite i^ inebriamini. Eat and drink^ 

and be filled. Joy in this life, Vbi in sudore vescimur, where 

grief is mingled with joy, is called meat, says Saint 

Bernard. Bernard, and Christ cals his friends to eat in the first 


Joy in Heaven. 237 

word. Potus infuturo, says he, Joy in the next life, where 
it passes down without any difficulty, without any opposi- 
tion, is called drink ; and Christ calls his friends to drink : 
but the overflowing, the Ebrietas anima, that is reserved 
to the last time, when our bodies as well as our souls, 
shall enter into the participation of it : Where, when wee 
shall love every one, as well as our selves, and so have 
that Joy of our owne salvation multiplied by that number, 
wee shall have that Joy so many times over, as there 
shall bee soules saved, because wee love them as our 
selves, how infinitely shall this Joy be enlarged in loving 
God, so far above our selves, and all them. Wee have 
but this to add. Heaven is called by many pretious names ; Mati. 9. 15. 
Life. Simply and absolutely there is no life but that. L?<c. 12.32. 
And Kingdome ; Simply, absolutely there is no Kingdom, Esay 66.23. 
that is not subordinate to that. And Sabbatum ex 
Sabbato, A Sabbath flowing into a Sabbath, a perpetuall 
Sabbath : but the Name that should enamour us most, 
is that, that it is Satietas gaudiorum ; fulnesse of Joy. P^aZ.i6.u. 
Fulnesse that needeth no addition ; Fulnesse, that 
admitteth no leake. And then though in the Schoole 
we place Blessednesse, In visione, in the sight of God, yet 
the first thing that this sight of God shall produce in 
us (for that shall produce the Reformation of the Image 
of God, in us, and it shall produce our glorifying of God) 
but the first thing that the seeing of God shall produce 
in us, is Joy. The measure of our seeing of God is the 
measure of Joy. See him here in his Blessings, and you 
shall joy in those blessings here ; and when you come to 
see him Sicuti est, in his Essence, then you shall have 
tliis Joy in Essence, and in fulnesse ; of which, God of 


238 Joy in Heaven. 

his goodnesse give us such an earnest here, as may binde 
to us that inheritance hereafter, which his Sonne our 
Saviour Christ Jesus hath purchased for us, with the 
inestimable price of his incorruptible blood. Amen. 

155. Dormers Last Sermon. 

IN all our periods and transitions in this life, are so 
many passages from death to death ; our very birth 
and entrance into this life, is exitus a morte, an issue 
from death, for in our mothers womhe wee are dead so, as 
that wee doe not know wee live, not so much as wee do in 
our sleepe, neither is there any grave so close, or so putrid 
a prison, as the wombe would be unto us, if we stayed in 
it beyond our time, or dyed there before our time. In 
the grave the wormes doe not kill us, we breed and jeed^ 
and then kill those wormes, which we our selves produc'd. 
In the wombe the dead child kills the Mother that 
conceived it, & is a murtherer, nay a parricide, even 
after it is dead. And if wee bee not dead so in the 
wombe, so as that being dead wee kill her that gave us 
our first life, our life of vegetation, yet wee are dead so, 

Psal. 115. as Davids Idols are dead. In the wombe we have eves and 
vers. 6. , 

see not, eares and heare not ; There in the wombe wee are 

fitted for workes of darkenes, all the while deprived of 

light : And there in the wombe wee are taught cruelty, 

by being fed with blood, and may be damned, though we 

be never borne. . . . 

Wee have a winding sheete in our Mothers wombe, 

which growes with us from our conception, and wee 

come into the world, wound up in that winding sheet, 

for wee come to seeke a grave ; And as prisoners discharg'd 


Donne's Last Sermon. 239 

of actions may lye for fees ; so when the womhe hath 
discharg'd us, yet we are bound to it by cordes of flesh 
by such a string, as that wee cannot goe thence, nor stay 
there ; wee celebrate our owne funeralls with cryes, even 
at our birth ; as though our threescore and ten years life 
were spent in our mothers labour, and our circle made 
up in the first point thereof ; we begge our Baptisme, 
with another Sacrament, with teares ; And we come into 
a world that lasts many ages, but we last not. . . . 

This whole world is but an universall churchyard, but 
our common grave, and the life & motion that the greatest 
persons have in it, is but as the shaking of buried bodies 
in their grave, by an earth-quake. That which we call life, 
is but Hebdomada mortium, a weeke of death, seaven dayes, 
seaven periods of our life spent in dying, a dying seaven 
times over, and there is an end. Our birth dyes in infancy, 
and our infancy dyes in youth, and youth and the rest 
dye in age, and age also dyes, and determines all. Nor 
doe all these, youth out of infancy, or age out of youth 
arise so, as a Phcenix out of the ashes of another Phoenix 
formerly dead, but as a waspe or a serpent out of caryon, 
or as a Snake out of dung. Our youth is worse then our 
infancy, and our age worse then our youth. Our youth is 
hungry and thirsty, after those sinnes, which our infancy 
knew not ; And our age is sory and angry, that it cannot 
pursue those sinnes which our youth did ; & besides, al 
the way, so many deaths, that is, so many deadly calamities 
accompany every condition, and every period of this 
life, as that death it selfe would bee an ease to them that 
suffer them : Upon this sense doth Job wish that God 
had not given him an issue from xYio. first death, from the 


240 Donne's Last Sermon. 

10. 18. zvombe^ Wherefore hast thou brought me forth out of the 
womhe ? O that I had given up the Ghost, and no eye scene 
me ? I should have beene as though I had not beene. . . . 
But for us that dye now and sleepe in the state of the 
dead, we must al passe this posthume death, this death 
after death, nay this death after buriall, this dissolution 
after dissolution, this death of corruption and putrefaction, 
of vermiculation and incineration, of dissolution and 
dispersion in and from the grave, when these bodies that 
have been the children of royall parents, & the parents 
of royall children, must say with Job, Corruption thou art 
my father, and to the Worme thou art my mother iff my sister. 
Miserable riddle, when the sa?ne worme must bee my 
mother, and my sister, and my selfe. Miserable incest, 
when I must be maried to my mother and my sister, and 
bee hoth. father and mother to my own mother and sister, 
beget & beare that worme which is all that miserable 
penury ; when my mouth shall he. filled with dust, and the 

Vers.24.20. worme shall feed, and feed sweetely upon me, when the 
ambitious man shall have no satisfaction, if the poorest 
alive tread upon him, nor the poorest receive any content- 
ment in being made equall to Princes, for they shall bee 

Job 23. 24. equall but in dust. One dyeth at his full strength, being 
wholly at ease, & in quiet, and another dyes in the 
bitternes of his soul, and never eates with pleasure, but 
they lye downe alike in the dust, and the worme covers 

^^15.14.11. them ; In Job and in Esay, it covers them and is spred 
under them, the worme is spred under thee, and the 
worme covers thee. There's the Mats and the Carpets 
that lye under, and there's the State and the Canapye, that 
hangs over the greatest of the sons of men ; Even those 


Donne's Last Sermon. 241 

bodies that were the temples of the holy Ghost, come to 
this dilapidation, to ruine, to rubbidge, to dust, even the 
Israel of the Lord, and Jacob himself hath no other 
specification, no other denomination, but that, vermis 
Jacob, Thou worme of Jacob. Truely the consideration 
of this posthume death, this death after buriall, that after 
God, (with whom are the issues of death) hath deUvered 
me from the death of the wombe, by bringing mee into 
the world, and from the manifold deaths of the world, 
by laying me in the grave, I must dye againe in an 
Incineration of this flesh, and in a dispersion of that 
dust. That all that Monarch, who spred over many 
nations alive, must in his dust lye in a corner of that 
sheete of lead, and there, but so long as that lead will 
laste, and that privat and retir''d man, that thought 
himselfe his owne for ever, and never came forth, must 
in his dust of the grave be published, and, (such are 
the revolutions of the graves) bee mingled with the dust 
of every high way, and of every dunghill, and swallowed 
in every puddle and pond ; This is the most inglorious 
and contemptible vilification, the most deadly and 
peremptory nullification of man, that we can consider. 


aoas's 


NOTES 

No. 1. The Preacher. I, p. 338. Sermon XXXIV. ^ Preached upon 
Whitsunday.'' 

1. 5. ' red earth '. Cf. The Lttante, i. 

From this red earth, O Father, purge away- 
All vicious tinctures. 

[Poems, ed. Grierson, i, p. 338.) 
Donne was extremely fond of this pun on the Hebrew word Adam 
or red earth — a pun, Coleridge remarks, which was common in 
Donne's age, but unworthy of him {Coleridge, p. 148). 

p. 2, I. 7. 'a little parke in the midst of a forest '. In a prayer 
printed at the end of his Essays in Divinity, Donne writes, ' I am 
a man and no worm, and within the pale of Thy Church and not in 
the wild forest' (Gosse, Life, ii, p. 103). 

1. II. ' Sancerraes '. Sancerre in France was a stronghold of 
Protestantism during the religious wars. In 1 573 it was besieged by 
the Catholics for nine months, and its defenders suffered extreme 
privations. In his Elegie, viii, 1. 10, Donne refers to ' Sancerra's 
starved men ' {Poems, i, p. 91, and note ii, p. 74). 

2. When I consider. I, p. 223. Sermon XXII. ' Preached at S. 
Pauls, upon Easter-day, 1627 ' (March 25). 

3. / am Not all Here. II, p. 116. Sermon XIV. ' Preached at 
Lincolns Inne.' Donne was Reader at Lincoln's Inn from October 
I 61 6 to February 1622. 

4. Imperfect Prayers. I, p. 820. Sermon LXXX. ' Preached at 
the funerals of Sir William Cokayne Knight, Alderman of London, 
Decefnber 12. 1626.' See note on No. 47. 

5. Powers and Principalities. I, pp. 452-3. Sermon XLV. 
' Preached upon All-Saints Day.' 

6. Infecting God. I, pp. 589-90. Sermon LVIII. '' Preached upon 
the Penitential! Psalmes.' 

7. Forgiveness of Sins. I, p. 311. Sermon XXXI. ^ Preached at 
S. Pauls, upon Whitsunday. 1629' (May 24). 

8. Forgive my Sins. II, p. 224. Sermon XXVI. ' Preached to 
the King, at White-Hall, the first Sunday in Lent.' Probably 1627 
(E. M. Spearing, A Chronological Arrangetnent of Donne's Sermons, 
Mod. Lang. Review, October 1913). 

R 2 


244 Notes. 


9. Let Me Wither. I, pp. 665-6. Sermon LXVI. ' The second 
of my Prebend Sermons upon my five Psalmes. Preached at S. Pauls, 
January 29. 1625' (1626). 'This Second Prebend Sermon, which 
is a long poem of victory over death, is one of the most magnificent 
pieces of religious writing in English literature' {Gosse, ii, p. 239). 
For Donne's Prebend Sermons, see note on No. 20. For other passages 
from this sermon, see Nos. 20, 41, 80, 142. 

10. Donne and the Worm. II, p. 7. Sermon I. * A Sermon 
Preached At the Earl of Bridgewaters hoi4se in London at the inariage 
of his daughter, the Lady Mary, to the eldest sonne of the L. Herbert 
of Castle-iland, Novemb. 19. 1627.' 

This Earl of Bridgewater was John, first Earl, 1 579-1649, son 
of Donne's former patron Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Ellesmere. 
Donne's wife, Mary More, was a niece of the second Lady Egerton. 
It was this Lord Bridgewater's children who acted in Conius in 1634. 
His daughter Mary married Richard, son of Edward, Lord Herbert 
of Cherbury (Z). A^. B.). 

11. Preaching Consolation. I, p. 745. Sermon LXXIII. 'Preached 
to the King in my Ordinary zvayting at White-hall, 18. Aprill 1626.' 

In Donne's Divine Poeftis there is one addressed ' To M'' Tilman 
after he had taken orders ' in which several phrases occur similar to 
phrases in this extract : 

Chang'd onely Gods old image by Creation, 
To Christs new stampe, at this thy Coronation. 

(U. 17,18.) 
Alaries prerogative was to beare Christ, so 
'Tis preachers to convey him, for they doe 
As angels out of clouds, from Pulpits speake ; (11. 41-3.) 

{Poems, i, pp. 351-2.) 

12. The Beauty of the Soul. II, p. 367. Sermon XL. 'Preached 
at Saint Pauls.' 

13. Spiritual Liberality. I, pp. 762-3. Sermon LXXV. 'Preached 
to the King at White-hall, April 15. 1628 ' (Easter Sunday). 

1. 21. ' that Meteor '. Donne used meteor in the sense of a body 
in mid-air, between heaven and earth. Thus he writes in a letter to 
Sir H. Goodyer, ' Our nature is Meteorique, we respect (because we 
partake so) both earth and heaven ' {Letters, 1651, p. 46). 

p. 15, 1. 12. ' To bow downe those Heavens '. Cf. Donne's verse- 
cpistle To M'' Tilman after he had taken orders, 

How brave are those, who with their' Engine, can 
Bring man to heaven, and heaven againe to man .'' 

{Poems, i, p. 352.) 


Notes. 245 

14. Eagles Wings. I, pp. 435-6. Sermon XLIV. 'Preached 
at S. Dunstanes upon Trinity-Sunday. 1627.' 

p. 16, I. 12. ' He flings open the gates of Heaven '. Cf. To M^ 
Tilman, 11. 39-40: 

To open life, to give kingdoms to more 

Than Kings give dignities ; to keepe heavens doore ? 

{Poems, i, p. 352.) 

15. The Hour-Glass. IH, p. 61. Sermon V. ' A Lent-Sermon 
Preached to the King, At White-hall, February 12. 1629 ' (1630). 

1. 14. ' stare ', i. e. a starHng. 

16. Preaching. I, pp. 692-3. Sermon LXYHI. 'The fourth of 
my Prebend Sermons upon my five Psalmes : Preached at S. Pauls, 
28. January, 1626' (1627). 

17. Applause. H, p. 371. Sermon XL. Ante, No. 12. 

p. 20, 1. 6. ' murmurings '. ' The sermons of this time seem to 
us now to be overloaded — too long — artificial, and sometimes in 
bad taste .... That they were listened to with great attention, and often 
produced very great effect upon the audience, we know. Frequently 
the preacher was interrupted by expressions of dissent or by loud 
applause ' {Jessopp, pp. 137-8). 

In an elegy ' In memory of Doctor Donne ', by R. B. (Richard 
Brathwaite ?) the author states that the old-fashioned ' doctrine- 
men ' did not like or approve of Donne's preaching, and ' humm'd 
against him ' (Poems, i, p. 386). 

18. The Bellman. Ill, p. 205. Sermon XV. ' A Sermon Preached 
at White-hall. February 29. 1627' (1628). 

p. 2 1, 1. 6. ' that good Custome in these Cities ', i. e. the ' Waits ', 
or wind-instrumentalists maintained by the city, who perambulated 
the streets, often in the morning. 

^.9. Favourite Scriptures. II, pp. 159 (correctly 151)-! 52. Sermon 
XIX. ' Preached at Lincolns Inne? 

p. 22, 1. II. 'such forms, as I have been most accustomed to'. 
Donne almost never refers to himself as an author in his sermons. 
He once, however, says, ' Adams sin, 6000 years agoe, is my sin ; 
and their sin, that shall sinne by occasion of any wanton "writings 
of mine, will be my sin, though they come after '. (II, p. 171.) 

20. The Psalms. I, p. 663. Sermon LXVI. See ante. No. g. 
The Sermon was on Psalm Ixiii. 7. 

p. 24, 1. 3. ' third obUgation '. Donne, as Dean, was one of the 
prebendaries of St. Paul's. ' The Psalter was divided up among the 
thirty prebendaries, each of whom was supposed to recite his five 
psalms daily, and to make them his special subject of meditation. 
Donne took his place in the Chapter as prebendary of Chiswick, 


246 


Notes. 


and his five psalms were the 62nd to the 66th inclusive ' (Jessopp, 
p. 141). See note on No. 46. 

21. Sanctified Passions. Ill, pp. 257-8. Sermon XVIII. 'A 
Sermon Preached to Queen Anne, at Denmarke-house. December. 14, 
1 61 7.' 

22. Style and Language. I, pp. 556-7. Sermon LV. 'Preached 
upon the Penitentiall Psalmes.' 

23. Style oj the Holy Ghost. I, p. 812. Sermon LXXIX. 'Preached 
at S. Pauls.' 

24. Compliments. I, p. 176. Sermon XVIII. 'Preached at S. 
Pauls, in the Evening, upon Easter-day. 1623 ' (April 13). 

1. 2. ' Complement ' in the sense of the more modern ' compliment '. 
First instance in the N. E. D., 1578. 
Donne in his Fourth Satire writes, 

so did hee 
With his long complementall thankes vexe me. 

{Poems, i, p. 164.) 

This use (not noted in the A^. E. D.) is probably the first appearance 
of the word in this sense, if the Satire was written in 1597. 

25. Lying at Aix. II, p. 183. Sermon XXI. ' Preached at Lincolns 
Jnne.' 

1. I. ' Aquisgrane '. The Roman name for Aix-la-Chapelle was 
Aquisgranum. This visit to Aix was no doubt in 161 2, when Donne 
accompanied Sir Robert and Lady Drury to France, and afterwards 
to Spa. 

26. Farezvell on Going to Germany. Ill, p. 280. Sermon XIX. 
' A Sermon of Valediction at my going into Germany, at Lincolns- 
Inne, April. 18. 161 9.' Donne was appointed to go as King's Chaplain 
with Viscount Doncaster on his mission to the German Princes. 
In Donne's Divine Poems there is A Hynine to Christ, at the Authors 
last going into Germany {Poems, i, p. 352). In his Bibliography 
of John Donne, Mr. Geoffrey Keynes mentions a volume Sapientia 
Clamitans, by William Milbourne Priest (1638), which includes 
(pp. 251-319) a different, and probably earlier, text of this farewell 
sermon. I have not been able to examine this book, as the copy 
said to be in the British Museum could not be found there. 

27. The Vicar oj St. Dunstan's. II, pp. 424-5. Sermon XLV. 
'Preached at Saint Dunstans Aprill 11. 1624. The first Sermon in 
that Church, as Vicar thereof.' In March 1624 Donne was presented 
to the living of St. Dunstan's by Richard Sackville, Earl of Dorset. 
This first sermon, Dr. Jessopp says, was ' a kind of manifesto setting 


Notes. 247 

forth the preacher's view of the reciprocal duties of the pastor and 
his flock ' (Jessopp, p. 164). 

28. Funeral Sermon on Magdalen Herbert, Lady Danvers. ' A 
Sermon of Commemoration of the Lady Ddners, late Wife of S"". 
John Dduers. Preach'd at Chilsey, where she was lately buried. 
By lohn Donne D. of S^ Pauls, Lond. i. luly 1627' (London, 1627), 
pp. 1-4, 126-70. This sermon was not reprinted in the folios, but 
is included in Alford's edition (vi, p. 244) and was printed in Picker- 
ing's edition of Devotions by John Donne, D.D. (1840), pp. 158-97. 

Lady Danvers was, by her first husband, Richard Herbert, of 
Montgomery Castle, the mother, among other children, of Lord 
Herbert of Cherbury, and George Herbert. In 1608 she married 
' Sir John Danvers, an intelligent and wealthy young man not quite 
half her age ' (Gosse, ii, p. 228). For her friendship with Donne, see 
ibid.,'i, p. 162 f.. Poems, ii., pp. xxivf., and Walton's ' Life of George 
Herbert'. For Donne's poems to Mrs. Herbert, see Poems, i, pp. 61, 
92,216,317. 

Lady Danvers lived at Danvers House, Chelsea, where Donne 
took refuge during the plague of 1625 (see No. 35). Lady Danvers 
died in the first days of June 1627, and was buried in Chelsea Church 
on June 8. Donne had undertaken to preach her funeral sermon, 
but it was postponed to July i {Go$se, ii, p. 247). Walton in his 
Life of Mr. George Herbert, says ' I saw and heard this Mr. John 
Donne (who was then Dean of St. Pauls) weep, and preach her 
Funeral Sermon, in the Parish-Church of Chelsey near London, 
where she now rests in her quiet Grave ' (Walton's Lives, 1670, 
' The Life of Mr. George Herbert ', p. 19). Donne's ' affection to her 
was such, that he turn'd Poet in his old Age, and then made her 
Epitaph ; wishing, all his Body were turn'd into Tongues, that he 
might declare her just praises to posterity ' {ibid., p. 16). 

29. Death of Elizabeth and Accession of James L IH, p. 351. 
Sermon XXIV. ' A Sermon Preached at Pauls Cross to the Lords 
of the Council, and other Honorable Persons, 24. Mart. 1616 [1617]. 
It being the Anniversary of the Kings coming to the Crown, and his 
Majesty being then gone into Scotland.'' 

' When James I started on his memorable " Progress " to Scotland 
on the 15th March 161 7, he appears to have ordered that Donne 
should preach at Paul's Cross on the 24th of March, the anniversary 
of his coming to the Crown ' (Jessopp, p. 122). This was Donne's 
first appearance in the famous open-air pulpit, which stood at the 
north-east corner of old St. Paul's. ' Paul's Cross was the pulpit not 
only of the Cathedral ; it might almost be said, as preaching became 
more popular, and began more and more to rule the public mind, 
to have become that of the Church of England. . . . Excepting the 
King and his retinue, who had a covered gallery, the congregation. 


248 


Notes. 


even the Mayor and the Aldermen, stood in the open air ' (H. H. 
Milman, Annals of S. Paul's Cathedral, 1869, pp. 163-4). For Donne's 
Sermon on this occasion, see Jessopp, pp. 1 22-3 ; Gosse, ii, pp. 1 14-1 6. 
On March 29, 161 7, John Chamberlain wrote to Sir Dudley Carleton, 
' I had almost forgotten, that on Monday, the 27th [24th] of this 
month, being the king's day, the archbishop of Canterbury, the lord 
keeper [Bacon], lord privy seal, the Earl of Arundel, the Earl of 
Southampton, the Lord Hay, the comptroller, Secretary Winwood, 
the master of the Rolls, with divers other great men, were at Paul's 
Cross, and heard Donne, who made there a dainty sermon upon the 
nth verse of the 22d of Proverbs, and was exceedingly well liked 
generally, the rather for that he did Queen Elizabeth great right, 
and held himself close to the text, without flattering the time too 
much ' (C. & T. Jas. I, ii, p. 4). On May 10 Chamberlain writes, 
' I know not how to procure a copy of Dr. Donne's sermon if it come 
not in print, but I will inquire after it ' [ibid., p. 10). 

p. 48,1. 8. 'recognitions'. Misprinted ' recognitious ' in the folio. 
A few other obvious misprints have been silently corrected. 

30. The Gunpowder Plot. II, pp. 402-3. Sermon XLIII. ' A 
Sermon upon the fift o/Novemb. i6zz. being the Anniversary celebra- 
tion of our Deliverance from ?^f Powder Treason. Intended for Pauls 
Crosse, but by reason of the weather. Preached in the Church.^ 

On December i, 1622, Donne wrote to Sir Thomas Roe, James I's 
Ambassador to the Ottoman Porte, and after mentioning his sermon 
at St. Paul's Cross on September 14, 1622 (which was printed by 
royal command in 1622) he adds: ' Some weeks after that I preached 
another at the same place, upon the Gunpowder Day ; therein I was 
left more to mine own liberty, and therefore I would I could also 
send your Lordship a copy of that, but that one, which also by 
commandment I did write after the preaching, is as yet in his 
Majesty's hand, and I know not whether he will in it, as he did in 
the other, after his reading thereof, command it to be printed ; and 
whilst it is in that suspense, I know your Lordship would call it 
indiscretion to send out any copy thereof ; neither truly am I able 
to commit that fault, for I have no copy ' {Gosse, ii, pp. 174-5). 

31. Preached to the Honourable Company of the Virginian Plantation, 
1622. ' A Sermon upon the VIII Verse of the I. Chapter of the Acts 
of the Apostles. Preach'd to the Honourable Company of the 
Virginian Plantation. 13°. Novemb. 1622. By lohn Donne Deane of 
S'' Pauls, London 1622' (London, 1622), pp. 11-13, 18-22, 42-6. 
This sermon is not in the folios ; it was re-issued m Four Sermons 1625, 
and Five Sermons 1626, and reprinted by Alford, vi, pp. 223-41. In 
1622 the Earl of Southampton was chosen treasurer of the Virginia 
Company, and Nicholas Ferrar, afterwards of Little Gidding, 
deputy treasurer. ' It must have been at their invitation that Donne 


Notes. 249 

was invited to preach before the Company, and to impress upon the 
adventurers, who included among them a large number of bishops, 
clergy, and devout laity, an appeal from the missionary point of 
view ' (Jessopp, p. 149)- ' This sermon may with truth, be called 
the first missionary sermon ever preached in England since Britain 
had become a Christian land' [ibid., p. 148). See, however, next. 

32. The Mission of England. Ill, p. 195. Sermon XIV. 'A 
Second Sermon Preached at White-hall. April 2. 1621.' 

1. 6. 'Islands . . . Islands,' misprinted 'Island . . . Island' in 
the foHo. 

33. James I. II, p. 406. Sermon XLIII. See ante, No. 30, 
Donne's ' Gunpowder Plot ' Sermon. Now that James I was nego- 
tiating for the Spanish Marriage, and had released from prison 
a large number of Roman Catholics, there were many rumours that 
the King intended to make a change of religion (C. & T. Jas. I, i, 
pp. 300, 326, 356). 

3^. Death of James I. II,.p. 303. Sermon XXXIII. 'Preached 
at Denmark house, some few days before the body of King James, 
was removed from thence, to his buriall, Apr. 26. 1625.' James I 
died at Theobalds on March 27. His body was embalmed and taken 
on April 4 to Denmark House, where it lay in state until the funeral 
on May 7 (C. & T. Charles I, i, pp. 3, 22). On April 3 Donne delivered 
his first sermon before Charles I at Saint James's (see No. 75). 

35.The Plague, i6z^. Ill, pp. 293-6 (Qqq 1-2 v). Sermon XXI. 
'A Sermon Preached at St. Dunstans January 15. i625[i626]. The 
First Sermon after Our Dispersion, by the Sickness.' During the great 
plague of 1625, when London was almost deserted, Donne withdrew 
to Sir John Danvers's house in Chelsea, where he spent his time 
writing out and revising his sermons. (Gosse, ii, pp. 222, 225.) 

36. Difficult Times. II, p. 158 (correctly 150). Sermon XVIII. 
' Preached at Lincolns Inne.' Donne resigned his divinity reader- 
ship at Lincoln's Inn on February 11, 1622. This undated sermon 
was probably preached shortly before his resignation, during the 
negotiations for the Spanish Match. 

p. 62, 1. 30. ' hull it out '. To ' hull ' is an obsolete nautical term, 
meaning ' to float or be driven by the force of the wind or current 
on the hull alone ; to drift to the wind with sails furled ; to He 
a-huU' (N. E. D.). Cf. Richard III, iv. iv. 439, s^nA Henry VIII, 
II. iv. 197 ' thus hailing in The wild Sea of my Conscience '. 

37. Polemical Preaching. I, pp. 778-9. Sermon LXXVII. 
'Preached at S. Pauls, May 21. 1626.' In 1622, during his negotia- 
tions with Spain, James I had forbidden polemical preaching, and 
Donne had, by royal command, deUvered a Sermon at Paul's Cross 


250 Notes. 

on September 15, to explain to the populace the King's Instructions 
to Preachers (Gosse, ii, p. 160). ' He gave no great satisfaction ' ; 
Chamberlain writes, ' or, as some say, spoke as if himself were not 
so well satisfied ' (C & T. Jas. /, ii, p. 333). Now that England was 
at war with Spain and fighting to help the German Protestants, 
what Donne calls ' the beating of our Drums in the Pulpit ' was 
again allowed. 

38. The World Decays. I, p. 357. Sermon XXXVI. 'Preached 
upon Whitsunday.' Donne, as Dean, was required to preach the 
Whitsunday Sermon at St. Paul's. For the letter of St. Cyprian, 
see Ramsay^ p. 86. Cf. Donne's First Anniversary, 11. 201-4: 

So did the world from the first houre decay, 
That evening was beginning of the day, 
And now the Springs and Sommers which we see, 
Like sonnes of women after fiftie bee. 

{Poetns, i, p. 237.) 

39. Imperfection. I, pp. 823-4. Sermon LXXX. See ante, No. ^. 
The ' new philosophy ' is of course the Copernican hypothesis. 
' Copernicus' displacement of the earth, and the consequent distur- 
bance of the accepted mediasval cosmology with its concentric 
arrangement of elements and heavenly bodies, arrests and disturbs 
Donne's imagination much as the later geology with its revelation 
of vanished species and first suggestion of a doctrine of evolution 
absorbed and perturbed Tennyson when he wrote In Memoriam and 
throughout his life' (Grierson, Po^w^, ii, pp. 188-9). ^^ ^'^ First 
Anniversary Donne writes : 

And new Philosophy calls all in doubt. 

The Element of fire is quite put out ; 

The Sun is lost, and th' earth, and no mans wit 

Can well direct him where to looke for it. 

{Poems, i, p. 237.) 

40. Man. I, pp. ^4-5. Sermon VII. ' Preached upon Christmas 
day.'' Probably 1629 {Spearing). 

41. Afflictions. I, pp. 664-5. The Second Prebend Sermon 
(LXVI). See ante, Nos. 9, 20. 

42. Discontent. I, p. 45. Sermon V. 'Preached at Pauls, upon 
Christmas Day. 1627.' 

43. The World a House. I, p. 146. Sermon XV. ' Preached at 
White-hall, March 8. 1^21' (1622). Coleridge, referring to this 
extract, writes, ' This is one of Donne's least estimable discourses . . . 
yet what a Donne-like passage is this that follows ! ' {Coleridge, p. 132). 

44. Mundus Mare. I, pp. 735-7. Sermon LXXII. 'At the 


Notes. 251 

Haghe Decemb. 19. 161 9. I Preached upon this Text [Mat. iv. i8-2o]i 
Since in my sicknesse at Abrey-hatche in Essex, 1630, revising my 
short notes of that Sermon, I digested them into these two.' LXXII 
is the second of these two sermons. Donne arrived with Lord 
Doncaster (see ante, No. 26) at The Hague in December 161 9. In his 
will Donne bequeaths to his friend Henry King ' that medal of gold 
of the synod of Dort which the estates presented me withal at the 
Hague '. {Gosse, ii, p. 360.) 

45. The Indifference of Nature. II, p. 37. Sermon V. 'Preached 
at a Christning.' 

1. 4. * hoise ' is the older form of ' hoist '. 

46. Wealth. I, p. 659. ' The first of the Prebend of Cheswicks five 
Psalmes; which five are appointed for that Prebend; as there are 
five other, for every other of our thirty Prebendaries. Serm. LXV. 
Preached at S. Pauls, May 8. 1625.' 

47. A London Merchant. I, pp. 824-6. See ante, Nos. 4, 39. 
Funeral Sermon of Sir William Cokayne, who was Lord Mayor of 
London, 1619-20 {Diet. Nat. Biog.). He was ' a merchant of great 
consequence, reputed to be one of the richest men in England. Lady 
Cokayne's father, Richard Morris, had preceded Donne's father as 
Master of the Ironmongers' Company.' {Gosse, ii, pp. 237-8.) 

p. 78, 1. 7. 'A publique heart '. Publiqiie is here used with the 
meaning of the later ' public-spirited ', first found in 1677 {N. E. D.). 

p. 80, 1. 17. ' this Quire '. It is plain from this, that (as Mr. Gosse 
remarks) ' the Aldermen of the City had been lately admitted by 
the Dean and Chapter to seats in the choir of St. Paul's. . . . From 
this it appears that until that date the choir had, as in Catholic times, 
been reserved for the clergy ' {Gosse, ii, p. 238). 

^tS. Sickness. II, p. 167. Sermon XX. ' Preached at Lincolnslnne.* 

49. Public Opinion. I, p. 589. Sermon LVIII. See ante. No. 6. 

50. Joy. II, p. 467. Sermon L. * A Servion Preached in Saint 
Dunstans.' 

51. Women. I, pp. 242-3. Sermon XXV. ' Preached at S.Va.uh, 
upon Easter -day. 1630' (March 28). 

52. Cosmetics. I, p. 642. Sermon LXIV. * Preached upon the 
Penitentiall Psalmes.' 

53. The Skin. II, p. 113. Sermon XIV. See ante. No. 3. 

54. Mud Walls. II, pp. 168-9. Sermon XX. See a«/^. No. 48. 

^S. Ignorance. I, p. 287. Sermon XXIX. ' Preached at S.Vaxxl'i 
upon Whitsunday. 1628.' 


252 Notes. 

56. The Imperfection of Knowledge. I, p. 818. Sermon LXXX. 
See ante, Nos. 4, 39, 4 7. 

57. Change of Mind. I, p. 483. Sermon XLVIII. ' Preached at 
S. Pauls in the Evening, Vpon the day of S. Pauls Conversion. 1628' 
(January 25, 1629). 

58. Reason and Faith. II, pp. 324-7. SermonXXXVI. ^Preached 
at Saint Pauls tipon Christmasse day, 1621.' In his verse epistle to 
the Countess of Bedford, Donne writes, 

Reason is our Soules left hand. Faith her right. 
By these wee reach divinity, thats you. 

{Poems, i, p. 189; see also p. 267.) 

1. I. ' lamps '. In his Epithalamions, xi, Donnfi ■vPrites, 

Now, as in Jullias tombe, one lampe burnt cleare, 
Unchang'd for fifteene hundred yeare, 

{Poems, i, p. 140 ; for origin of this legend, see note, ibid., ii, p. 98.) 
1. 15. ' vanish it selfe '. In his Litanie, vii, Donne writes. 

Let not my minde be blinder by more light 
Nor Faith, by Reason added, lose her sight. 

{Poems, i, p. 340.) 

p. 102, 1. II. * blow that coale '. Cf. Devotions, p. 3. ' God, who as 
hee is immortall himselfe, had put a coale, a beame of Immortahtie 
into us, which we might have blowen into a flame, but blew it out, 
by our first sinne.' 

59. True Knowledge. I, p. 165. Sermon XVII. 'Preached at 
White-hall^ March 4. 1624' (1625). 

60. Terrible Things. I, pp. 690-2. Sermon LXVIII. See ante, 
No. 16. 

61. The Fate of the Heathen. I, pp. 261-2. Sermon XXVI. 
' Preached upon Easter-day.' Probably 1623 {Spearing). 

62. The Church a Company. II, p. 469. Sermon L. See No. 50. 

63. God Proceeds Legally- II, pp. 230-1. Sermon XXVII. 
' Preached to the King, at White-Hall, the first of April, 1627.' Laud, 
then Bishop of Bath and Wells, was present at this sermon, and seems 
to have suspected from it that Donne was preparing to support 
Abbot, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Calvinistic party, in 
the controversy then under discussion, about Montague's attack on 
them. Laud wrote to Donne at once commanding a copy of the 
sermon to be sent to the king, greatly to Donne's dismay. But 
when Charles I had read the sermon and listened to Donne's explana- 
tion, he restored him to favour. For Donne's letters about this 
incident, see Gosje, ii, pp. 243-6. Dr. Jessopp, quoting the end of 


Notes. 253 

the extract as given in this volume (p. 1 14, I. 28 f.) says, ' after 
carefully reading the sermon several times, I can find only one passage 
that may have hurt the prejudices or irritated the susceptibilities 
of some of the audience as possibly reflecting upon themselves' 
(Jessopp, p. 188). 

1. 7. ' hisse ', misprinted ' kisse ' in folio. 

64k. T be Church. I, pp. 369-70. Sermon XXXVII. 'Preached 
upon Whitsunday.' 

p. 116, 1. 13. ' thou art a little world '. Cf. Sacred Sonnets, 
I am a little world made cunningly 
Of Elements. [Poems, i, p. 324.) 

For this notion, which frequently recurs in Donne, of man as a 
microcosm, or Httle world, see Ramsay, p. 275. 

65. Reverence in Church. II, pp. 470-1. Sermon L. See ante, 
Nos. 50, 62. 

66. Going to Church. I, pp. 35-6. Sermon IV. ' Preached at S. 
Pauls upon Christmas day. 1626.' 

1. 9. ' mocke us '. Coleridge notes ' What then, was their guilt, 
who by terror and legal penalties tempted their fellow Christians to 
this treacherous mockery ? Donne should have asked himself that 
question.' {Coleridge, p. 112.) 

67. Prayer. II, p. 366. Sermon XL. See ante, Nos. 12, 17. 

68. Prayer. I, p; 522. Sermon LII. 'Preached upon the Peni- 
tentiall Psalmes.' 

1. 8. ' his Sister '. Donne repeats this in his Devotions, p. 255. 

69. The Time of Prayer. I, pp. 596-7. Sermon LIX. 'Preached 
upon the Penitentiall Psalmes.' 

p. 123,1. 15. 'the greatest Christian Prince'. The King cf 
France's title was RoJ tres chretien. Donne was in Paris in 1612 with 
Sir Robert Drury, but Louis XIII was then only eleven years old. 
In a letter to Sir Henry Wotton, written in 161 2, Donne refers to 
a previous visit to France during the Hfetime of Henry IV {Gosse, 
i, p. 293). The above reference is probably therefore to Henry IV. 

p. 124, L 13. ' Bolls ', earHer speUing of * bowls '. 

70. At Table and Bed. II, p. 88. Sermon XL ' Preached at 
Lincolns Inne, preparing them to build their Chappell.' In 161 7, when 
the foundation-stone of the new chapel was laid. On Ascension Day, 
1623 (May 22), Donne preached at the consecration of the chapel 
his ' Encaenia ' Sermon, which was published in the same year, 
but has not been reprinted. On May 30 Chamberlain wrote, ' Lin- 
coln's Inn new chapel was consecrated with much solemnity, by 
the Bishop of London, on Ascension-day, where there was great 


254 Notes. 

concourse of noblemen and gentlemen ; whereof two or three were 
endangered, and taken up dead for the time, with the extreme 
press and thronging. The Dean of St. Paul's made an excellent 
sermon, they say, about dedications ' (C. & T. Jas. /, ii, p. 402). 

1. 5. ' table '. In an undated letter Donne writes, ' we at our lay 
altars (which are our tables, or bedside, or stools) '. {Gosse, i, p. 223.) 

71. Unconscious Prayer. I, p. 90. Sermon IX. ' Preached upon 
Candlemas day.' Probably either in 161 7, or 1623 {Spearing). 

72. Sermons. I, pp. 1 13-14. Sermon XII. 'Preached upon 
Candlemas day.'' 

73. New Doctrines. Ill, p. 4. Sermon I. ' A Lent-Sermon 
Preached at White-hall, February 20. 1617.' (1618). On February 21 
Chamberlain wrote ' Dr. John Donne preached yesterday at White- 
hall ; but the king was not there, being weary beUke of the former 
night's watching ' {C. & T. Jas. I, ii, p. 67). 

I. 4. ' Resistibility, and Irresistibility of grace '. This was a much 
disputed point between the Calvinist and Arminian parties ; in 1622 
James I forbade any one under the degree of a bachelor of divinity 
to ' presume to preach in any popular auditory the deep points of 
predestination, election, reprobation, or of the universality, efficacy, 
resistibility or irresistiblUty of God's grace ' (Gardiner, History of 
England, 1603 -1642, iv, p. 347). For Donne's use of these con- 
troversies in his secular verse, see Poems, ii, p. 46. 

74. Papist and Puritan. I, p. 493. Sermon XLIX. 'Preached 
on the Conversion of S. Paul. 1629 ' (January 25, 1630). 

75. Theological Dissensions. 'The First Sermon Preached to 
King Charles, At Saint lames: 3° April. 1625. .ffy lohn Donne, 
Deane of Saint Pauls London 1625 ', pp. 12-16. This sermon has 
never been reprinted. On April 5 Sir William Neve, after describing 
the removal of James I's body to Denmark House, wrote : ' The 
King kept privately his bed, or chamber, at St. James's until Sunday 
last, and then dined abroad, in the privy-chamber, being in plam 
black cloth cloak to the ancle ; and so went after dinner into the 
chapel. Dr. Donne preaching. Lord Davers carrying the sword before 
him, his majesty looking very pale, his visage being the true glass 
of his inward, as well as his accoutrements of external mourning.' 
(C. & T. Chas. /, i, pp. 3-4.) Donne's letters show plainly the extreme 
agitation caused in him by the royal command to preach before the 
new king. ' Towards the time of the service,' he writes to Sir Robert 
Ker at Court, ' I ask your leave that I may hide myself in your out- 
chamber ' ; and in another note he refuses an invitation to dinner, 
saying 'after the sermon, I will steal into my coach home'. {Gosse, 
ii, p. 220.) 

p. 132, 1. 8. ' Ejulations ', old word for wailing, lamentation. 


Notes. 255 


76. Despair. II, p. 363. Sermon XXXIX. ' Preached at Saint 
Pauls.' 

77. The Sociableness oj God. II, p. 280. Sermon XXXII. 
' Preached to the Earl of Exeter, and his company^ in his Chappell at 
Saint Johns; 13. Jun. 1624.' William Cecil, son of Thomas Cecil, 
first Earl of Exeter. 

78. God a Circle. I, pp. 13-14. Sermon II. ^ Preached at VthmXs, 
upon Christmas Day, in the Evening. 1624.' 

In a verse-epistle to the Countess of Bedford Donne wrote ' In 
those poor types of God (round circles) ' [Poems, i, p. 220, and note 
ii, p. 176). See also Divine Poems, The Annunciation and Passion 
{ibid., i, p. 334), and Devotions, p. 16, ' O Eternall, and most gracious 
God, who considered in thy selfe, art a Circle.' 

79. God's Mirror. I, pp. 226-7. Sermon XXIII. ' Preached at 
S. Pauls, /or Easter-day. 1628' (April 13). 

80. God's Na7nes. I, p. 670. Sermon LXVI. See ante, Nos. 9, 20, 
41- 

81. God^s Mercies. I, pp. 12-13. Sermon II. See awrc, No. 78. 

1. 13. ' ragges of time'. Donne in his famous poem beginning 
' Busie old foole, unruly Sunne ' uses this phrase, 

Love, all alike, no season knowes, nor clyme, 

Nor houres, dayes, moneths, which are the rags of time. 

{Poems, i, p. 11.) 

p. 139, 1. 9. ' God made Sun and Moon'. Professor Saintsbury, in 
quoting this passage, describes it as ' a passage than which I hardly 
know anything more exquisitely rhythmed in the whole range of 
English from ^Ifric to Pater. . . . The Shakespearian magnificence 
of the diction, such as the throng of kindred but never tautological 
phrase in " wintered and frozen ", etc., and the absolute perfection 
of rhythmical — never metrical — movement, could not be better 
wedded. It has, I have said, never been surpassed. I sometimes 
doubt whether it has ever been equalled ' {A History of English Prose 
Rhythm, 1912, pp. 162-3). 

82. God not Cruel. II, p. 224. Sermon XXVI. See ante, No. 8. 

83. The Voice of God. I, p. 465. Sermon XLVI. ' Preached at S. 
Pauls, The Sunday after the Conversion of S. Paul. 1624.' (January 30, 
1625). 

84. God's Language. II, pp. 359-60. Sermon XXXIX. See 
ante, No. 76. 

p. 143, 1. 21. * fall into some such sinne '. In 1608 Donne wrote 
to Sir H. Goodyer, ' when a man is purposed to do a great sin, God 


256 Notes. 

infuses some good thoughts which make him choose a less sin '. 
{Gosse, i, p. 190.) 

85. GoiTs Anger. II, p. 170. Sermon XX. See ante, Nos. 48, 54. 

86. God's Faults. I, pp. 726-7. Sermon LXII. Preached at 
The Hague. See ante, No. 44. 

1. 2. ' quahties and affections of man '. Cf. Devotions, p. 178, ' God 
is presented to us under many human affections, as far as infirmities : 
God is called angry, and sorry and weary, and heavy.' 

p. 145, 1. 29. ' enormious ' ; obsolete form of ' enormous '. 

87. God's Judgements. Ill, pp. 82-3. Sermon VI. ' A Sermon 
Preached at White-hall, April 21. 1616.' Donne was ordained in 
January 161 5. His earliest dated sermon that has come down to 
us was preached before Queen Anne at Greenwich on April 30, 161 5 
(the Sermon II, No. XXXV, ascribed to February 21, 161 1, must be 
wrongly dated). This sermon is the next in date which has been 
preserved, as was perhaps his first sermon at Court, after his appoint- 
ment as Chaplain to the King in the summer of 161 5. Izaak 
Walton says of his first sermon at Whitehall ' though much were 
expected from him, both by His Majesty and others, yet he was so 
happy (which few are) as to satisfie and exceed their expectations ' 
(Walton's Lives, 1670, p. 38). Dr. Jessopp writes of this sermon : 
' On the 2ist April 1616 we find Donne preaching at Whitehall just at 
the time when the horrible revelations connected with the murder 
of Sir Thomas Overbury were being discussed by every one and were 
the subject of common talk. The sermon . . . contains some fine 
passages which the congregation can hardly have helped applying to 
the dreadful circumstances uppermost in the minds of all ' {Jessopp, 
p. 1 12). For other passages from this sermon, see also Nos. 105, 108. 

1. 19. ' infus'd '. In a verse-epistle of Donne's to Sir Edward 
Herbert, written in 1610, he says, 

As Soules (they say) by our first touch, take in 
The poysonous tincture of Originall sinne. 

(Poems, i, p. 194.) 

See also Donne's letter of October 9, 1607 {Gosse, i, p. 176). 

88. Terrible Things. I, pp. 701-2. Sermon LXIX. 'The fifth 
of my Prebend Sermons upon my five Psalmes : Preached at S. 
Pauls.' On January 28, 1627, Donne preached his fourth prebend 
sermon (I, LXVIII). The prebend sermons followed one another 
at intervals of a few months, so this sermon may be safely assigned 
to 1627 {Spearing). 

1. 17. 'spectacle', old use of the singular for 'spectacles'. 

89. God's Malediction. II, p. 227. Sermon XXVI. See ante, 
Nos. 8, 82. 


Notes. 257 


90. God's Power. 'A Sermon, Preached to the Kings M*'« at 
Whitehall, 24 Febr. 1625. By lohn Donne Deane of Saint Pauls, 
London. And now by his Maiestes commandmetit Published.' London, 
1626, pp. 16-18. This sermon was re-issued in Five Sermons, but 
has not been reprinted since. 

91. Access to God. I, pp. 500-1. Sermon L. ' Preached upon the 
Penitentiall Psalmes.' 

92. The Image oj God in Man. ' The Second Sermon preached 
before King Charles, Upon the xxvi verse of the first Chapter of 
Genesis. By Dr. Donne Dean of Pauls ' (Cambridge, 1634), pp. 22-3. 
In Six Sermons, No. II ; reprinted 11, No. XXIX. This is evidently 
a continuation of II, No. XXVIII, which was preached to the King 
in April 1629, on the same text {Spearing). For the origin of the 
idea in this extract, see Ramsay, p. 229. 

93. Man God's Enemy. II, p. 372. Sermon XL. See ante, Nos. 12, 
17, 67. 

1. 5. ' as the Mouse is to the Elephant '. See Donne's Progresse 
of the Soule, 11. 381-91 {Poems, i, pp. 310-11, and note, II, p. 223). 

94. The Atheist. I, p. 486. Sermon XL VIII. See ante, No. 57. 

95. The Angels. II, p. 7. Sermon I. See ante. No. 10. 

96. The Devil. I, pp. 65-6. Sermon VII. See ante, No. 40. 
Miss Ramsay has collected many passages from Donne's sermons 
on the important question of the possible salvation of the Devil. 
{Ramsay, p. 210 f.) 

97. The Creation. II, p. 280. Sermon XXXII. See ^m/^, No. 77. 

98. The Heavens and Earth. Six Sermons. I, pp. 1-3. 'Two 
Sermons preached before King Charles, Upon the xxvi verse of the 
first Chapter of Genesis.' Reprinted, II, No. XXVIII. ' Preached to 
the King, at the Court in April, 1629.' 

99. The Creation of a Harmonious World. Ill, p. 20. Sermon II. 
' A Lent-Sermon Preached at White-hall, February 12. 1618 ' (1619). 

L 3. ' an Instrument, perfectly in tune '. In his Obsequies to the 
Lord Harrington (1614) Donne begins : 

Faire soule, which wast, not onely, as all soules bee, 
Then when thou wast infused, harmony. 
But did'st continue so ; and now dost beare 
A part in Gods great organ, this whole Spheare : 

{Poems, i, p. 271.) 

100. God and Adam and Eve. * A Sermon Upon the xxii verse of 
the V Chapter of John. By D"'* Donne Dean of Pauls ' (Cambridge, 

J025-3 s 


2S8 


Notes. 


1634), pp. 9-10. This Sermon is No. V of the Six Sermons \ re- 
printed, II, No. XII. ' Preached at Lincolns Inne.' 

I. 9. ' Shall we ', ' Shall we not ' in original quarto, and folio. 

101. The World since the Fall. II, p. 223. Sermon XXVI. See 
ante, Nos. 8, 82, 89. . 

102. Silkworms. II, p. 143. Sermon XVII. ^ Preached at Lincolns 
Inne.^ 

lOZ. Original Sin. II, pp. 187-8. Sermon XXII. ' Preached at 
Lincolns Inne.' 

104. Original Sin. Ill, p. 183 (Bb 4). Sermon XIII. ' A Sermon 
Preached at White-hall, April 19. 1618.' 

105. The Heart of the Sinner. Ill, pp. 86-7. Sermon VI. Donne's 
first sermon at Court. See ante, No. 87. 

106. Light Sins. I, p. 164. Sermon XVII. See ante, No. 59. 
p. 171, 1. 8. ' gad ' is an old word for ' spike '. 

107. The Sin of Reason. Ill, pp. 89-92. Sermon VII. 'A Sermon 
Preached at White-hall, Novemb. 2. 161 7.' 

p. 173,1. 15- ' covercling ', Alford's emendation of 'coveraling' 
in the folio, from the 0I4 word found in Chaucer, ' covercle ', a cover, 
a lid. But the Bodleian copy of the folio has the correction 
* conceahng ' in a contemporary hand. 

\0S. Delight in Evil. Ill, pp. 84-5. Sermon VI. See anr^,Nos. 87, 
105. 

109. Excuses. I, p. 390. Sermon XXXIX. * Preached upon 
Trin ity-Sunday. ' 

110. Rebuke of Sin. II, pp. 74-5. Sermon X. ' Preached at the 
Churching of the Countess of Bridgewater.' Frances, daughter of 
Ferdinand Stanley, Earl of Derby. See note on No. 10. 

111. Names of Sins. I, p. 584. Sermon LVIII. See ante, Nos. 6, 
49. 

112. Pride. I, p. 730. Sermon LXXII. Preached at The Hague. 
See ante, Nos. 44, 86. 

p. 181, 1. 5. * boast of theirsinnes '. Ci. Devotions, p. 24.0. 'There 
are many sins, which we glorie in doing, and would not do, if no body 
should know them.' 

113. Covetousness. I, pp. 714-15. Sermon LXX. * Preached at 
White-hall, April 8. 1621.' 

p. 1 83, 1. 8. ' not thimbles ' in the folio. Corrected to ' but ' by Alford. 

Wi, Blasphemy. I, pp. 343-4. Sermon XXXV. Preached upon 
Whitsunday. 


Notes. 259 


115. The Burden of Sin. II, pp. 193-4. Sermon XXIII. 

* Preached at Lincolns Inne.' 

116. The Sinner. I, p. 634. Sermon LXIII. ' Preached upon the 
Penitentiall Psalmes.' 

117. The Sorrows of the Wicked. I, p. 631. Sermon LXIII. See 
ante, No. 116. 

118. The Sins of Memory. II, pp. 462-3. Sermon XLIX. 'A 
Sermon Preached at Saint Dunstan's upon New-years-day, 1624.' 

119. The Eye of God. II, pp. 336-7. Sermon XXXVII. 'Preached 
at St. Pauls on Midsommer day. 1622.' 

120. The World Drowned in Sin. I, pp. 365-6. Sermon XXXVII- 

* Preached upon Whitsunday.'' 

12,1. The Hand of God. I, p. 579. Sermon LVII. ' Preached upon 
the Penitential] Psalmes.' 

122. The Sick Soul. II, p. 169. Sermon XX. See ante, No. 48. 

123. Sleep. I, p. 129. Sermon XIII. ' Preached in Lent, to the 
King. April 20. 1630.' This date must be a mistake, as Easter fell 
on March 28 in 1630 (Spearing). 

A few sentences, too outspoken for modern reprinting, have 
been omitted from this extract. 

p. 195, 1. 2. 'thy metaphoricall, thy quotidian grave*. Cf. 
Meditations, p. 44, * every nights bed is a type of the grave '. 

1. 5. ' lobs Snow water '. See Job ix. 30. 

124. The Gate of Death. Ill, pp. 294-5. Sermon XX. ' Two 
Sermons, to the Prince and Princess Palatine, the Lady Elizabeth, 
at Heydelberg when I was commanded by the King to wait upon 
my L. of Doncaster in his Embassage to Germany. First Sermon as 
we went out, ]une 16. 1619.' The other sermon has not been preserved. 
The Ambassador and his party arrived on June 10 at Heidelberg, 
the capital of the Elector Palatine (afterwards King of Bohemia) 
who had married the Lady Elizabeth, daughter of James I. Donne's 
epithalamlon beginning ' Halle Bishop Valentine, whose day this is ', 
was written for the marriage of the Lady Elizabeth. {Poems, i, 
p. 127.) 

I. 4. * glad of that ', read ' be glad of that '. P. 294 of the folio 
ends ' becaus he knows ' with ' that ' as catchword ; p. 295 begins 

* be that is ' with ' glad ' as the first word of the second line. The 

* be ' has been printed at the beginning of the first line Instead 
of the second. It may be noted that ' glad ' Is found In Elizabethan 
English In the old sense ' be glad ', ' rejoice ', but ' is glad ' in 1. 2 is 
against its use in this sense here. 

125. Our Prison. I, p. 267. Sermon XXVII. * Preached to the 


26o Notes. 

LL. upon Easter-day, at the Communion, The King being then danger- 
ously sick at New-Market.'' In 1619. 'On the 28th March 1619, 
being Easter Day, he was called upon to preach before the Lords at 
a time of great public anxiety. Queen Anne of Denmark had died 
on the first of the month, and James I, after taking his leave of his 
Consort, had gone to Newmarket. Here he had himself fallen 
seriously ill, and on the day when Donne preached at Whitehall, 
he was reported to be " dangerously sick " ' (Jessopp, p. 124). 

126. All must Die. I, pp. 147-9. Sermon XV. ^Preached at 
White-hall, March 8. 1621 ' (1622). 

p. 198,1. 14. 'The ashes of an Oak '. Coleridge quotes the passage 
that follows, adding, ' Very beautiful indeed '. (Coleridge, p. 130.) 

p. 199, 1. 13. 'Spittles', i.e. spitals or hospitals. 

1. 16. ' when I lye '. Coleridge quotes this passage also, remarking, 
' This is powerful ; but is too much in the style of the monkish 
preachers : Papam redolet. Contrast with this Job's description 
of death, and St. Paul's sleep in the Lord' {ibid., p. 131). 

127. Death Inevitable. II, p. 270. Sermon XXX. ' Preached to 
the Countesse of Bedford, then at Harrington house. January 7. 1620 ' 
(1621). For Donne's friendship with Lucy, Countess of Bedford, 
who, as Professor Grierson says, ' occupies the central place among 
Donne's noble patrons and friends ', see Poems,'n, p. 152. A study 
of the Countess of Bedford's life, with that of the other ladies who 
patronized the Elizabethan poets, would be of considerable interest 
for the light it would throw on the social background of the age of 
Shakespeare — a subject about which we have really very little 
information. 

I. 2. 'Ecce\ short for ' Ecce signum\ P. 201, 1. 5, 'echoes' 
is apparently a mistake for ' ecces '. 

1. 19. sent, old form of ' scent '. 

p. 201, 1. 5. ' that Temple ', printed * this Temple ' in some copies 
of the folio ; in others, ' the Temple '. 

128. The Expectation of Death. Ill, p. 13. Sermon I. See ante. 
No. 73. 

129. The Death-bed. ' A Sermon Upon the xliiii verse of the xxi 
Chapter of Matthew. By D""- Donne Dean of Pauls ' (Cambridge, 
MDCXXXIIII, pp. 5-6). In Six Sermons, No. IV. Reprinted, II, 
No. XXXV, where it is dated ' February 21. 161 1 ' — plainly an error, 
as Donne was ordained in 161 5. 

130. The Death of Ecstasy. I, pp. 273-4. Sermon XXVII. See 
ante, No. 125. Professor Grierson quotes this passage, remarking, 
' This is the highest level that Donne ever reached in eloquence 
inspired by the vision of the joy and not the terror of the Christian 
iaith '. {Poems, ii, p. llv. See also Ramsay, p. 260 f.) 


Notes. 261 

131. The Dead with Us. I, pp. 219-20. Sermon XXII. See 
ante, No. 2. 

p. 204, 1. 18. 'into another Land'. In 1629 Donne wrote to 
Mrs. Cockain, consoling her for the death of her son, ' Since I am well 
content to send one son to the Church, the other to the Wars, why 
should I be loth to send one part of either son to heaven and the 
other to the earth .-' ' {Gosse, ii, p. 261). 

132. Mourning. I, pp. 157-8. Sermon XVI. 'Preached at 
White-hall, the first Friday in Lent. 1622 ' (February 28, 1623). 

1. 21. 'Authors of a middle nature'. 'A whimsical instance of 
the disposition in the mind for every pair of opposites to find an 
intermediate, — a mesothesis for every thesis and antithesis. Thus 
Scripture may be opposed to philosophy ; and then the Apocryphal 
books will be philosophy relatively to Scripture, and Scripture 
relatively to philosophy.' {Coleridge, p. 135.) 

133. A Quiet Grave. I, p. 463. Sermon XLVI. See ante, No. 83. 
1. 12. 'Quillet'. A beautiful old word, now only in local or 

antiquarian use, for a small plot or narrow strip of land. 

134. Eternal Datnnation. I, pp. 776-7. Sermon LXXVI. 
' Preached to the Earle of Carhle, and his Company, at Sion.' Probably 
after 1622, when Donne's friend, Viscount Doncaster, was created 
Earl of Carlisle {Spearing). 

This passage, on the ground that Marston also wrote sermons, 
which have perished, while those of Donne have been preserved, is 
quoted by Mr. A. H. Bullen, in his introduction to The Works of 
John Marston, 1887, i, pp. Hx-lx. I must express my debt to 
Mr. Bullen, for although two folios of Donne's Sermons had stood 
for years on my bookshelves, it was not until I read this extract in 
his Marston, that it occurred to me that it might be interesting to 
read them. 

p. 209, 1. 28. ' standing, and knocking '. Cf. Holy Sonnets, xiv : 
Batter my heart, three person'd God ; for you 
As yet but knocke. {Poems, i, p. 328.) 

135. Death of the Good and the Bad Man. Ill, pp. 217-18. 
Sermon XV. See ante. No. 18. 

136. The Northern Passage. I, p. 463. Sermon XLVI. See ante, 
Nos. 83, 133. 

137. The Resurrection. I, p. 257. Sermon XXVI. See ante. 
No. 61. 

138. The Awakening. I, p. 263. Sermon XXVI. See ante, 
Nos. 61, 137. 

139. The Resurrection of the Body. II, p. 3. Sermon I. See ante, 
Nos. 10, 95. In an undated letter, probably written in 1612, in which 


262 Notes. 

Donne wrote begging some favour of Lord Rochester, he says, ' And 
since good divines have made this argument against deniers of the 
Resurrection, that it is easier for God to unite the principles and 
elements of our bodies, howsoever they be scattered, than it was at 
first to create them out of nothing, I cannot doubt but that any 
distractions or diversions in the ways of my hopes will be easier to 
your Lordship to reunite than it was to create them '. (Gosse, ii, p. 23.)' 

140. Tbe Last Day. II, p. 343. Sermon XXXVII. See ante, 
No. 119. 

1^1. The Day oj Judgement. I, p. 371. Sermon XXXVII. See 
ante, No. 120. 
1. 14. * for thy sins *. Cf. A Hytnne to God the Father, ii, 

Wilt thou forgive that sinne which I have wonne 
Others to sinne ? and, made my sinne their doore ? 

{Poems, i, p. 369.) 

142. Joy. I, pp. 672-3. Sermon LXVI. The Second Prebend 
Sermon. See ante, Nos. 9, 20, 41, 80. 

143. The Joy of Heaven. Ij p. 75- Sermon VII. See anr^, No. 40. 

144. Little Stars. Six Sermons, II, pp. 9, 10. See ante. No. 92. 

145. Heirs of Heaven. I, p. 340. Sermon XXXIV. See ante, 
No. 1. 

146. Seeing God. I, pp. 230-1. Sermon XXIII. See an/f , No. 79. 
1. I. Speculum. This is an earlier instance of speculum for mirror 

or reflector than the one given in the N. E. D. (1646). 

147. The Sight of God. II, p. 117. Sermon XIV. See ante, 
Nos. 3, 53. 

148. The State of Glory. Six Sermons, II, pp. 36-8, Reprinted 
II, p. 261. See ante, Nos. 92, 144. 

149. Immortality. The Chelsea Sermon, pp. 106-18. See ante, 
No. 28. Reprinted in Alford, vi, pp. 265-7. 

150. Knowledge in Heaven. Ill, pp. 389-90. Sermon XXV. 
'A Sermon Preached at the Spittle Upon Easter-Munday, 1622' 
(April 22). The ' Spittle * was the old priory of St. Mary Spital, 
Bethnal Green, where there was a pulpit Cross, something like St. 
Paul's Cross, where sermons on the Resurrection were preached in 
the afternoons of Easter Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. 

151. Eternity. I, p. 266. Sermon XXVI. See ante. No. 61. 

152. Eternity. II, p. 413. Sermon XLIV. 'Preached at St. 
Pauls Cro55e, Novemb. 22, 1629.' 'The preaching of this sermon 
overtaxed Donne's failing strength ; for when Christmas day came 


Notes. 263 

he was, for the first time, unable to appear In the pulpit of St. Pauls.' 
{Jessopp, p. 200.) 

153. Eternity. I, pp. 747-8. Sermon LXXIII. See a«re, No. 1 1. 

15i. Joy in Heaven. II, pp. 473-4. Sermon L. See ame, Nos. 50, 
62, 65. 

155. Donne's Last Sermon. ' Deaths Duell, or, A Consolation to 
the Soule, against the dying Life, and liuing Death of the Body. 
Deliuered in a Sermon at White Hall, before the Kings Maiesty, in 
the beginning of Lent, 1 630 [163 1]. By that late learned and Reuerend 
Diuine, lohn Donne, D""' in Diuinity, & Deane of S. Pauls, London. 
Being his last Sermon, and called by his Maiesties housbold The 
Doctors owne Funerall Sermon' (London, 1632), pp. 5-6, 9-12, 20. 
This sermon was reprinted in the third folio, No. XXVI. 

p. 239, 1. 2. ' flesh'. This is the reading in the folio for * hesta' in 
the'quarto. 

p. 240, 1. 30. ' state '. ' State ' is used here in the old sense of 
* canopy '. Cf. Paradise Lost, x. 445 : 

Ascended his high Throne, which under state 
Of richest texture spred, at th' upper end 
Was plac't in regal lustre. 


The devices on the back and front of the cover represent 
Donne'' s family seal {a sheaf of snakes) and the seal designed 
for himself {Christ crucified on an anchor). 

To M*" George Herbert, with one of my 
Seals, of the Anchor and Christ. 

A Sheafe of Snakes used heretofore to be 
My Seal, The Crest of our poore Family. 
Adopted in Gods Family, and so 
Our old Coat lost, unto new armes I go. 
The Crosse (my seal at Baptism) spred below, 
Does, by that form, into an Anchor grow. 
Crosses grow Anchors ; Bear, as thou shouldst do 
Thy Crosse, and that Crosse grows an Anchor too. 
But he that makes our Crosses Anchors thus. 
Is Christ, who there is crucifi'd for us. 
Yet may I, with this, my first Serpents hold, 
God gives new blessings, and yet leaves the old ; 
The Serpent, may, as wise, my pattern be ; 
My poison, as he feeds on dust, that 's me. 
And as he rounds the Earth to murder sure, 
My death he is, but on the Crosse, my cure. 
Crucifie nature then, and then implore 
All Grace from him, crucified there before ; 
When all is Crosse, and that Crosse Anchor grown. 
This Seal 's a Catechism, not a Seal alone. 
Under that little Seal great gifts I send. 
Wishes, and prayers, pawns, and fruits of a friend. 
And may that Saint which rides in our great Seal, 
To you, who bear his name, great bounties deal. 

From Izaak Walton's Life of Donne. 


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