'TT/- ’ 
 
 'f‘ 
 
 V 
 
 % 
 
 ‘t* 
 
 ■ 1. 
 
 *f ■ 
 
 r*;'. 
 
 17.^, -' 
 
 V- 
 
 > 
 
 ► 
 
 * 
 

 * 
 
 ^ ^ -4 |( ;l{ 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2018 with funding from 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 https://archive.org/details/devotions00donn_0 
 

 
 .f.i 
 
 
 
 -r-r* 
 
 Li 
 
 t-►‘.iV --.li- 'f/v, 
 
 • ' • '^. i". 
 
 ,hr 1 *• - ■ $** 
 
 • _ • • 
 
 ■<« 
 
 •fe*- .’■ 
 
 .V ’ • '*■* 
 
 
 2 
 
 . i ' t 
 
 ♦ I ',-. 
 
 •' • '■ 3"^f - V 
 
 ' • 
 
 " *• ■ ' *r-T .- .;V • I 
 
 \ 
 
 % -x, ? 
 
 ■.' ■. .♦ ■ ■ * 
 
 it r 
 
 : ■ ri-^'. ’■ . ■ 
 
 f** * 
 
 ,r . . 
 
 
 - =* , ^ » ./: 
 
 
 I -J L ' li 
 
 'j- 
 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 UPON EMERGENT OCCASIONS AND SEVERAL STEPS IN 
 MY SICKNESS DIGESTED INTO 
 
 1 MEDITATIONS UPON OUR HUMAN CONDITION 
 
 2 EXPOSTULATIONS AND DEBATEMENTS WITH GOD 
 
 3 PRAYERS UPON THE SEVERAL OCCASIONS TO HIM 
 
 SERMON COMMEMORATIVE OF LADY DANVERS 
 
 DEATHS DUELL HIS OWN FUNERAL 
 SERMON 
 
 BY JOHN DONNE DD 
 
LONDON 
 
 0 
 
 c. WHITTING HAM, TOOKS COUKT 
 
ADVERTISEMENT OF THE PUBLISHER. 
 
 O render this edition of Dr. Donne’s Devo- 
 
 tlons more acceptable to the public the 
 follmving pieces have been added. I. Waltons 
 Life of the Author, with its original Dedication 
 to Sir Robert Holt of Aston; this dedication 
 first appeared in the second edition, but has been 
 omitted in every subsequent one. II. A letter 
 from Dr. Donne to the Duke of Buckingham. 
 III. A letter to Sir Robert Carr, afterwards 
 Earl of Ancrarn. Both letters relate to the 
 Book of Devotions. IV. A Sermon by Dr. 
 Donne on the death of Lady Danvers, the 
 mother of his friend George Herbert, of which 
 Wcdton has recorded that he was himself n 
 hearer. V. Death’s Duel, called by King James 
 the Doctor’s own funeral sermon. 
 
 The Book of Devotions was first printed in 
 1624, and passed through at least five editions; 
 the fifth appeared in 1638, and from that time 
 to the present it is believed that no edition has 
 been published. In the edition of 1638 was 
 added a frontispiece engraved by Marshall, 
 representing Dr. Donne in his winding sheet. 
 
ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 taken from his monument in old St. Paul's, 
 which has keen copied in the present edition. 
 Of this monument the head and urn still exist 
 in the Crypt of the present Cathedral. It was 
 originally set up hy Dr. Montfort and Dr. 
 Henry King, and executed hy Nicholas Stone. 
 Whether considered as the effigy of this eminent 
 author, or even as a work of art, it is well 
 worthy restoration; together with those of his 
 learned and excellent predecessors, Colet the 
 founder, and Nowell the great benefactor of St. 
 Paul's School. 
 
 London, June 16, 1840. 
 
THE LIFE OF DR. JOHN DONNE 
 
 LATE DEAN OF ST. PAUL’S CHURCH, 
 LONDON. 
 
 BY IZAAK WALTON. 
 
 He did wonders in his life, and at his death his works 
 were marvellous — Ecclus. xlviii. 14. 
 

 • I 
 
 ... ■ - ..t > -■ 
 
 * *. * ‘ 
 
 •y* ' 
 
 'f • • 
 
 
 ►< 
 
 I* 
 
THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY*. 
 
 TO MY NOBLE AND HONOURED FRIEND 
 
 SIR ROBERT HOLT 
 
 OF ASTON, IN THE COUNTY OF WARWICK 
 
 BARONET 
 
 SIR. 
 
 HEN this relation of the life of Doctor Donne 
 
 T T was first made publick, it had, besides the 
 approbation of our late learned and eloquent king, 
 a conjunction with the author’s most excellent sermons 
 to support it; and thus it lay some time fortified 
 against prejudice, and those passions that are by busy 
 and malicious men too freely vented against the 
 dead. 
 
 And yet, now, after almost twenty years, when, 
 though the memory of Dr. Donne himself must not, 
 cannot die, so long as men speak English ; yet when I 
 thought time had made this relation of him so like 
 myself, as to become useless to the world, and content 
 to be forgotten, I find that a retreat into a desired 
 privacy will not be afforded; for the printers w'ill again 
 
 * Prefixed to the life of Dr. Donne, tlie second impression. 
 
 1658. 
 
 b 
 
X 
 
 THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY 
 expose it and me to publick exceptions; and without 
 those supports which w'e first had and needed; and in 
 an age, too, in which ti'uth and innocence have not 
 been able to defend themselves from worse than 
 severe censures. 
 
 This I foresaw; and Nature teaching me self-pre¬ 
 servation, and my long experience of your abilities 
 assuring me that in you it may be found, to you. Sir, 
 do I make mine addresses for an umbrage and protec¬ 
 tion ; and I make it with so much boldness, as to 
 say, it w'ere degenerous in you not to afford it. 
 
 For, Sir, Dr. Donne was so much a part of your¬ 
 self, as to be incorporated into your family by so 
 noble a friendship, that I may say there was a mar¬ 
 riage betwixt bim and your reverend grandfather 
 (John King, bishop of London), who in his life was 
 an angel of our once glorious church, and now no 
 common star in heaven. 
 
 And Dr. Donne’s love died not with him, but was 
 doubled upon his heir, your beloved uncle, the bishop 
 of Chichester (Hemy King), that lives in this fro- 
 ward generation to be an ornament to his calling. 
 And this affection to him was by Dr. Donne so testi¬ 
 fied in his life, that he then trusted him with the very 
 secrets of his soul; and at his death, with what was 
 dearest to him, even his fame, estate, and children. 
 
 And you have yet a further title to what was Dr. 
 Donne’s, by that dear affection and friendship that 
 was betwixt him and your parents, by which he 
 entailed a love upon yourself, even in your infancy; 
 which was increased by the early testimonies of your 
 growing merits, and by them continued till Dr. Donne 
 
THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY xi 
 put on immortality; and so this mortal was turned 
 into a love that cannot die. 
 
 And, Sir, it was pity he was lost to you in your 
 minority, before you had attained a judgment to put a 
 true value upon the living beauties and elegancies of 
 his conversation; and pity too, that so much of them 
 as were capable of such an expression, were not 
 drawn by the pencil of a Titian or a Tintoret, by a 
 pen equal and more lasting than their art; for his 
 life ought to be the example of more than that age 
 in which he died. And yet this copy, though very 
 much, indeed too much short of the original, will 
 present you with some features not unlike your dead 
 friend, and with fewer blemishes and more ornaments 
 than when it was first made publick, which creates a 
 contentment to myself, because it is the more worthy 
 of him, and because I may with more civility entitle 
 you to it. 
 
 And in this design of doing so, I have not a 
 thought of what is pretended in most dedications, a 
 commutation for courtesies: no, indeed sir, I put no 
 such value upon this trifle; for your owning it will 
 rather increase my obligations. But my desire is, 
 that into w'hose hands soever this shall fall, it may to 
 them be a testimony of my gratitude to yourself and 
 family, who descended to such a degree of humility as 
 to admit me into their friendship in the days of my 
 youth, and, notwithstanding my many infirmities, have 
 continued me in it till I am become gray-headed; and 
 as time has added to my years, have still increased 
 and multiplied their favours. 
 
 This, Sii', is the intent of this dedication; and 
 
xii THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY 
 having made the declaration of it thus publick, I 
 shall conclude it with commending them and you to 
 God’s dear love. 
 
 I remain, Sir, 
 
 What your many merits have made me to be. 
 The humblest of your servants, 
 
 IZAAK WALTON. 
 
THE INTRODUCTION 
 
 I F that great master of language and art, Sir 
 Henry Wotton, the late provost of Eton College, 
 had lived to see the publication of these sermons *, he 
 had presented the world with the author’s life exactly 
 written ; and it was pity he did not; for it was a 
 work worthy his undertaking, and he fit to undertake 
 it: betwixt whom, and the author, there w'as so 
 mutual a knowledge, and such a friendship contracted 
 in their youth, as nothing but death could force a 
 separation. And though their bodies were divided, 
 their affections were not: for that learned knight’s 
 love followed his friend’s fame beyond death and the 
 forgetful grave ; which he testified by entreating me, 
 whom he acquainted with his design, to inquire of 
 some particulars that concerned it, not doubting but 
 my knowledge of the author, and love to his memory, 
 might make my diligence useful: I did most gladly 
 undertake the employment, and continued it with 
 great content, till I had made my collection ready to 
 be augmented and completed by his matchless pen: 
 but then, death prevented his intentions. 
 
 * Originally written for, and prefixed to, Dr. Donne’s Eighty 
 Sermons, fo. 1G40. 
 
xiv THE INTRODUCTION 
 
 When I heard that sad news, and heard also that 
 these sermons were to be printed, and want the 
 author’s life, which I thought to be very remarkable; 
 indignation or grief, (indeed I know not which,) 
 transported me so far, that I reviewed my forsaken 
 collections, and resolved the world should see the 
 best plain picture of the author's life that my art¬ 
 less pencil, guided by the hand of truth, could present 
 to it. 
 
 And if I shall now be demanded, as once Pompey’s 
 poor bondman was,—(the grateful wretch had been 
 left alone on the sea-shore, with the forsaken dead 
 body of his once glorious lord and master: and was 
 then gathering the scattered pieces of an old broken 
 boat to make a funeral pile to burn it, which was the 
 custom of the Romans),—“ Who art thou that alone 
 hast the honour to bury the body of Pompey the 
 great ? ” So, who am I that do thus officiously set 
 the author’s memory on fire? I hope the question 
 will prove to have in it more of wonder than disdain. 
 But wonder indeed the reader may, that I, who pro¬ 
 fess myself artless, should presume with my faint 
 light to show forth his life, whose very name makes it 
 illustrious! But be this to the disadvantage of the 
 person represented: certain I am, it is to the advan¬ 
 tage of the beholder, who shall here see the author’s 
 picture in a natural dress which ought to beget faith 
 in what is spoken; for he that wants skill to deceive, 
 may safely be trusted. 
 
 And if the author’s glorious spirit, which now is in 
 heaven, can have the leisure to look down and see 
 me, the poorest, the meanest of all his friends, in the 
 
XV 
 
 THE INTRODUCTION 
 midst of this officious duty, confident I am, that he 
 will not disdain this well-meant sacrifice to his me¬ 
 mory: for, whilst his conversation made me and 
 many others happy below, I know his humility and 
 gentleness were then eminent; and I have heard 
 divines say, those virtues that were but sparks upon 
 earth, become great and glorious flames in heaven. 
 
 Before I proceed further, I am to entreat the 
 reader to take notice, that when Dr. Donne’s ser¬ 
 mons were first printed, this was then my excuse for 
 daring to write his life; and I dare not now appear 
 without it. 
 
, ■ • ."r# 
 
 i^.i^ ' vJ»J|/ •^j , ! 
 
 tit.: I'.''**!* '■ 
 
 \j^'}'-' • nit i I ..2 ' 
 
 'yijUi Y‘ * -^il 
 • V " i,i 
 
 ' V'f.«iU.,‘3- • - I 
 
 t’*-- * 
 
 
 ai 
 
 ••.-'* ’Irt 
 
 
 V*_„/ -•,. y, ,i '- ^... 
 
 *■ G'-wt ’rtO ’ 
 
 '•'J ASf .1^ 
 
 v ■ 
 
 L 
 
 f 
 
 it'i 
 
 ' •*. • ••- jii / \s *, .Wi'V "•ft-’ 
 
 t «_i.,'. 
 
 ,•1 *. ..• rf*' ;»> 
 
 i 4 i*' 
 
 >iU' 
 
 ‘'i.’Wi/ y,f 
 
 ■* . 
 
 ^ I % 
 
THE LIFE OF JOHN DONNE, 
 
 D.D. 
 
 M aster John Donne was born in London 
 in the year 1373, 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; 
 
xviii THE LIFE OF 
 
 that this age had brought forth another Picus Miran- 
 dula, of whom story says, that he was rather born 
 than made wise by study. 
 
 There he remained 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 w'orthy 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 trans¬ 
 planted from Oxford to Cambridge, where, that he 
 might receive nourishment from both soils, he stayed 
 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 for¬ 
 merly 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-satis¬ 
 faction. 
 
 His father died before his admission into the 
 society, and being a merchant, left him his portion in 
 money. (It was £3000). His mother and those 
 to whose care he was committed, were watchful to 
 
XIX 
 
 DR. DONNE 
 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 wdth 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 
 axicount 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 con¬ 
 sidering 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 begun seriously to survey 
 and consider the body of divinity, as it w^as then con¬ 
 troverted betwixt the Reformed and the Roman Church. 
 And as God’s blessed Spirit did then awaken him to 
 
XX 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 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 tow^ards 
 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 the 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 w^as an eye-witness of those 
 happy and unhappy employments. But he returned 
 not back into England till he had stayed some years 
 first in Italy, and then in Spain, where he made many 
 
XXI 
 
 DR. DONNE 
 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 deplo- 
 ration. 
 
 Not long after his return into England, that ex¬ 
 emplary 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 secre¬ 
 tary, 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 tes¬ 
 tify 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 friends; during which time he (I dare not say 
 
xxii THE LIFE OF 
 
 unhappily) fell into such a liking, (as with her appro¬ 
 bation), increased into a love with a young gentle¬ 
 woman 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 fore¬ 
 sight 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 
 remove feathers, and begets in us an unwearied 
 industry to the attainment of what we desire. And 
 such an industry did, notwithstanding much watchful¬ 
 ness 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 appro¬ 
 bation 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-apprehen- 
 
DR. DONNE xxiii 
 
 sions 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 for¬ 
 bear 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 dis¬ 
 mission, give him such a commendation as the great 
 Emperor Charles the Fifth did of his secretary 
 Eraso, when he presented him to his son and suc¬ 
 cessor, 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. 
 
xxiv THE LIFE OF 
 
 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 strong 
 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 Brook, (who was after Doctor in Divinity, 
 and Master of Trinity College), and his brother, Mr. 
 Christopher Brook, 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, 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 
 
XXV 
 
 DR. DONNE 
 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 dis- 
 passionated 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 readmis- 
 sion w’as 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 acknowledg¬ 
 ment) : but, however, it w'as 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. 
 
 INIr. Donne’s estate was the greatest part spent in 
 many chargeable travels, books, and dear-bought ex¬ 
 perience ; he out of all employment that might yield a 
 
 c 
 
XXVI 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 support for himself and wife, who had been curiously 
 and plentifully educated, both their natures generous, 
 and accustomed to confer, and not to receive, courte¬ 
 sies : these, and other considerations, but chiefly that 
 his wife was to bear a part in his sufferings, sur¬ 
 rounded him with many sad thoughts, and some 
 apparent apprehensions of want. 
 
 But his sorrows were lessened, and his wants pre¬ 
 vented, by the seasonable courtesy of their noble 
 kinsman. Sir Francis Wooley, of Pirford in Surrey, 
 who entreated them to a cohabitation wdth 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. 
 
 It hath been observed by wise and considering 
 men, that wealth hath seldom been the portion, and 
 never the mark, to discover good people ; but that 
 Almighty God, who disposeth all things wisely, hath 
 of his abundant goodness denied it (he only know's 
 why) to many, whose minds he hath enriched with 
 the greater blessings of knowledge and virtue, as the 
 fairer testimonies of his love to mankind; and this 
 was the present condition of this man of so excellent 
 erudition and endowments, whose necessary and daily 
 expenses were hardly reconcilable with his uncertain 
 and narrow estate, which I mention, for that at this 
 time there was a most generous offer made him 
 for the moderating of his worldly cares, the decla¬ 
 ration of which shall be the next employment of my 
 pen. 
 
 God hath been so good to his church, as to afford it 
 
XXVll 
 
 DR. DONNE 
 in every age, some such men to serve at his altar, as 
 have been piously ambitious of doing good to man¬ 
 kind; a disposition that is so like to God himself, 
 that it owes itself only to him, who takes a pleasure 
 to behold it in his creatures. These times (anno 
 1648) he did bless with many such, some of which 
 still live to be patterns of apostolical charity, and of 
 more than human patience. I have said this, because 
 I have occasion to mention one of them in my follow¬ 
 ing discourse; namely. Dr. Morton, the most labo¬ 
 rious and learned bishop of Durham; one that God 
 hath blessed with perfect intellectuals and a cheerful 
 heart at the age of ninety-four years (and is yet 
 living); one, that in his days of plenty, had so large 
 a heart as to use his large revenue to the encourage¬ 
 ment of learning and virtue, and is now (be it spoken 
 with sorrow) reduced to a narrow state, which he 
 embraces without repining, and still shows the beauty 
 of his mind by so liberal a hand, as if this were an age 
 in which to-morrow were to care for itself. I have 
 taken a pleasure in giving the reader a short, but 
 true character of this good man, my friend, from 
 whom I received this following relation:—He sent to 
 Mr. Donne, and entreated to borrow an hour of his 
 time for a conference the next day. After their 
 meeting, there was not many minutes passed before 
 he spake to Mr. Donne to this purpose:—“ Mr. 
 Donne, the occasion of sending for you is to propose 
 to you w'hat I have often revolved in my own thought 
 since I last saw you, which nevertheless I will not 
 declare but upon this condition, that you shall not 
 return me a present answer, but forbear three davs, 
 
xxviii THE LIFE OF 
 
 and bestow some part of that time in fasting and 
 prayer, and after a serious consideration of what I 
 shall propose, then return to me with your answer. 
 Deny me not, Mr. Donne, for it is the effect of a true 
 love, which I would gladly pay as a debt due for 
 yours to me.” 
 
 This request being granted, the doctor expressed 
 himself thus:—“ Mr. Donne, I know your education 
 and abilities; I know your expectation of a state 
 employment, and I know your fitness for it, and I 
 know too the many delays and contingencies that 
 attend court promises; and let me tell you, that my 
 love, begot by our long friendship and your merits, 
 hath prompted me to such an inquisition after your 
 present temporal estate, as makes me no stranger to 
 your necessities, which I know to be such as your 
 generous spirit could not bear, if it were not sup¬ 
 ported with a pious patience: you know I have 
 formerly persuaded you to wave your court hopes, 
 and enter into holy orders; which I now again per¬ 
 suade you to embrace, with this reason added to my 
 former request: the king hath yesterday made me 
 dean of Gloucester, and I am also possessed of a 
 benefice, the profits of which are equal to those of my 
 deanery; I will think my deanery enough for my 
 maintenance (who am, and resolve to die, a single 
 man), and will quit my benefice and estate you in it 
 (which the patron is willing I shall do), if God shall 
 incline your heart to embrace this motion. Remember, 
 Mr. Donne, no man’s education or parts make him 
 too good for this employment, ivhich is to be cm 
 ambassador fo7' the God of gIo7'y ; that God who, 
 
DR. DONNE xxix 
 
 a vile death, opened the gates of life to mankind. 
 Make me no present answer, but remember your 
 promise, and return to me the third day with your 
 resolution.” 
 
 At the hearing of this, Mr. Donne’s faint breath 
 and perplexed countenance gave a visible testimony 
 - of an inward conflict, but he performed his promise, 
 and departed without returning an answer till the 
 third day, and then his answer was to this effect:— 
 
 “ My most worthy and most dear friend, since 
 I saw you I have been faithful to my promise, and 
 have also meditated much of your great kindness, 
 which hath been such as would exceed even my grati¬ 
 tude, but that it cannot do, and more I cannot return 
 you; and I do that with a heart full of humility and 
 thanks, though I may not accept of your offer. But, 
 sir, my refusal is not for that I think myself too 
 good for that calling, for which kings, if they think 
 so, are not good enough; nor for that my education 
 and learning, though not eminent, may not, being 
 assisted with God’s grace and humility, render me in 
 some measure fit for it; but I dare make so dear a 
 friend as you are my confessor. Some irregularities 
 of my life have been so visible to some men, that 
 though I have, I thank God, made my peace with 
 him by penitential resolutions against them, and by 
 the assistance of his grace banished them my affec¬ 
 tions ; yet this, which God knows to be so, is not so 
 visible to man, as to free me from their censures, and 
 it may be, that sacred calling from a dishonour. 
 And besides, whereas it is determined by the best of 
 casuists, that God’s glory should he the first end, 
 
XXX THE LIFE OF 
 
 and a maintenance the second motive to embrace 
 that calling; and though each man may propose to 
 himself both together, yet the first may not be put 
 last without a violation of conscience, which he that 
 searches the heart will judge. And truly my present 
 condition is such, that if I ask my own conscience 
 whether it be reconcilable to that rule, it is at this 
 time so perplexed about it, that 1 can neither give 
 myself nor you an answer. You know, sir, who says, 
 Happy is that man whose conscience doth not 
 accuse him for that thing which he does. To these 
 I might add other reasons that dissuade me; but I 
 crave your favour that 1 may forbear to express 
 them, and thankfully decline your otfer.” 
 
 This was his present resolution; but the heart of 
 man is not in his own keeping, and he was destined 
 to this sacred service by a higher hand; a hand so 
 powerful, as at last forced him to a compliance: of 
 which I shall give the reader an account before I shall 
 give a rest to my pen. 
 
 Mr. Donne and his wife continued with Sir Francis 
 Wooley till his death; a little before which time. Sir 
 Francis was so happy as to make a perfect reconcilia¬ 
 tion betwixt Sir George and his forsaken son and 
 daughter; Sir George conditioning by bond to pay 
 to Mr. Donne £800 at a certain day, as a portion 
 with his wife, or £20 quarterly for their mainte¬ 
 nance, 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 pro- 
 
DR. DONNE 
 
 XXXI 
 
 portion 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 lodg¬ 
 ings 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 councils 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 friend¬ 
 ship was sought for by most ambassadors of foreign 
 nations, and by many other strangers whose learning 
 or business occasioned their stay in this nation. 
 
 He was much importuned by many friends to make 
 his constant residence in London, but he still denied 
 it, having settled his dear wife and children at 
 Mitcham, and near some friends that were bountiful 
 to them and him; for they, God knows, needed it: 
 and that you may the better now judge of the then 
 present condition of his mind and fortune, I shall 
 present you with an extract collected out of some few 
 of his many letters. 
 
 -“ And the reason why I did not send an 
 
 answer to your last week’s letter was, because it then 
 found me under too great a sadness, and at pi'esent it 
 is thus with me. There is not one person but myself 
 well of my family: I have already lost half a child. 
 
xxxu 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 and with that mischance of hers, my wife is fallen into 
 such a discomposure, as would afflict her too ex¬ 
 tremely, but that the sickness of all her other children 
 stupifies her; of one of which, in good faith, I have 
 not much hope ; and these meet with a fortune so ill 
 provided for physic, and such relief, that if God 
 should ease us with burials, I know not how to per¬ 
 form even that; but I flatter myself with this hope, 
 that I am dying too, for I cannot waste faster than by 
 
 such griefs. As for- 
 
 “ From my hospital at Mitcham, 
 
 Aug. 10. “ JOHN DONNE.” 
 
 Thus did he bemoan himself: and thus in other 
 letters:— 
 
 -“ For we hardly discover a sin, when it is hut 
 
 an omission of some good, and no accusing act. With 
 this or the former, I have often suspected myself to 
 be overtaken, which is with an over-earnest desire of 
 the next life. And though I know it is not merely a 
 weariness of this; because I had the same desire when 
 I went with the tide, and enjoyed fairer hopes than I 
 now do; yet I doubt worldly troubles have increased 
 it. It is now spring, and all the pleasures of it displease 
 me; every other tree blossoms, and I wither; I grow 
 older and not better; m}'^ strength diminisheth, and 
 my load grows heavier, and yet I would fain be or do 
 something: but that I cannot tell what, is no wonder 
 in this time of my sadness; for to choose is to do ; but 
 to be no part of anybody is as to be nothing; and so 
 I am, and shall so judge myself, unless 1 could be so 
 
DR. DONNE 
 
 XXXlll 
 
 incorporated into a part of the world, as by business 
 to contribute some sustentation to the whole. This I 
 made account; I began early, when I understood the 
 study of our laws; but was diverted by leaving that 
 and embracing the worst voluptuousness, an hyd^'op- 
 tic immoderate desire of human learning and 
 languages: beautiful ornaments indeed to men of 
 great fortunes; but mine was grown so low as to need 
 an occupation, which I thought I entered well into, 
 when I subjected myself to such a service as I thought 
 might exercise my poor abilities ; and there I stumbled 
 and fell too : and now I am become so little, or such 
 a nothing, that I am not a subject good enough for 
 one of my own letters. Sir, I fear my present discon¬ 
 tent does not proceed from a good root, that I am so 
 well content to be nothing, that is, dead. But, sir, 
 though my fortune hath made me such, as that I am 
 rather a sickness or a disease of the world, than any 
 part of it, and therefore neither love it nor life; yet I 
 would gladly live to become some such thing as you 
 should not repent loving me. Sir, your own soul cannot 
 be more zealous for your good than I am; and God, who 
 loves that zeal in me, will not suffer you to doubt it. 
 You would pity me now if you saw me write, for my 
 pain hath drawn my head so much awry, and holds it 
 so, that my eye cannot follow my pen. I therefore 
 receive you into my prayers with mine own weary 
 soul, and commend myself to yours. 1 doubt not but 
 next week will bring you good news; for I have either 
 mending or dying on my side; but if I do continue 
 longer thus, I shall have comfort in this, that my 
 blessed Saviour, in exercising his justice upon my two 
 
XXXIV 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 worldly parts, my fortune and my body, reserves all 
 his mercy for that which most needs it, my soul; 
 which is, I doubt, too like a porter that is very often 
 near the gate, and yet goes not out. Sir, I profess to 
 you truly, that my loathness to give over writing 
 now, seems to myself a sign that I shall write no 
 more- 
 
 “ Your poor friend, and God’s poor patient. 
 Sept. 7. “ JOHN DONNE.” 
 
 By this you have seen a part of the picture of his 
 narrow fortune, and the perplexities of his generous 
 mind; and 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 him¬ 
 self, 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 
 Drewi’y, a gentleman of a very noble estate, and a 
 more liberal mind, assigned him and his wife a 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 sympathised 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 bouse, the Lord Hay was, by King 
 James, sent upon a glorious embassy to the then 
 
XXXV 
 
 DR. DONNE 
 French king, Henry the Fourth ; and Sir Robert put 
 on as sudden a resolution to accompany him to the 
 French court, and to be present at his audience there. 
 And Sir Robert put on as sudden a resolution, to 
 subject 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, wRo did therefore with an unwillingness give 
 a faint consent to the journey, which was proposed to 
 be but for tw'o months ; for about that time they deter¬ 
 mined 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 
 
xxxvi THE LIFE OF 
 
 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 I am as sure, that at her second appearance 
 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 was alive : and if alive, in what condition 
 she was as to her health. The twelfth day the mes¬ 
 senger 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 
 
XXX Vll 
 
 DR. DONNE 
 it well may, for most of our world are at present pos¬ 
 sessed 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 which 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 con¬ 
 sider, many wise men have believed that the ghost 
 of Julius Csesar 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.), 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 (chap, iv.), says 
 these words :—“ 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 also commend this following consideration:—that 
 there be many pious and learned men that believe 
 our merciful God hath assigned to every man a par- 
 * ^Yalton should have said Eliphaz. 
 
xxxvili THE LIFE OF 
 
 ticular gaiardian 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 par¬ 
 ticular angel, may gain some authority by the relation 
 of St. Peter’s miraculous deliverance out of prison 
 (Acts xii.), 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 Rhoda, the maid-servant, 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 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 forbear the reader’s farther trouble, as to the 
 relation and what concerns it, and will conclude mine 
 
XXXIX 
 
 DR. DONNE 
 with commending to his view a copy of verses given 
 by Mr. Donne to his wife at the time that he then 
 parted from her: and I beg leave to tell, that I have 
 heard some critics, learned both in languages and 
 poetry, say, that none of the Greek or Latin poets did 
 ever equal them. 
 
 A VALEDICTION, FORBIDDING TO MOURN. 
 
 As virtuous men pass mildly away, 
 
 And whisper to their souls to go, 
 
 W hile some of their sad friends do say, 
 
 The breath goes now, and some say—No. 
 
 So let us melt and make no noise; 
 
 No wind-sighs or tear-lloods us move : 
 
 ’Twere profanation of our joys 
 To tell the laity our love. 
 
 Movings of the earth cause harms and fears ; 
 
 Men reckon what they did or meant; 
 
 But trepidation of the spheres. 
 
 Though greater far, is innocent. 
 
 Dull sublunary lovers’ love 
 
 (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit 
 
 Absence, because that doth remove 
 Those things that elemented it. 
 
 But we by a soul so much refined. 
 
 That our souls know not what it is. 
 
 Inter-assured of the mind. 
 
 Care not hands, eyes, or lips to miss. 
 
 Our two souls therefore, which are one. 
 
 Though I must go, endure not yet 
 
 A breach, but an expansion, 
 
 Like gold to airy thinness beat. 
 
xl 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 If we be two, we are two so 
 
 As stiff twin-compasses are two: 
 
 Thj soul, the fix’d foot, makes no show 
 To move, but does if th’ other do. 
 
 And thouajh thine in the centre sit. 
 
 Yet, when my other far does roam, 
 
 Thine leans and hearkens after it. 
 
 And grows erect as mine comes home. 
 
 Such thou must be to me, who must. 
 
 Like tir other foot, obliquely run : 
 
 Thy firmness makes my circle just. 
 
 And me to end where I begun. 
 
 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 secu¬ 
 lar 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 Dr. Andrews, the 
 late learned Bishop of Winchester, who was then the 
 king’s almoner. 
 
 About this time there grew many disputes that 
 
DR. DONNE 
 
 xli 
 
 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 ansv^ers 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 : and though 
 his majesty had promised him a favour, and many 
 persons of worth mediated with his majesty for some 
 secular employment for him (to which his education 
 had adapted him), and particularly the Earl of Somer¬ 
 set, when in his greatest height of favour; who being 
 then at Theobald’s with the king, where one of the 
 clerks of the council died that night; the earl posted a 
 messenger for Mr. Donne to come to him immediately, 
 and, at Mr. Donne’s coming, said, “ Mr. Donne, to 
 testify the reality of my affection, and my purpose 
 to prefer you, stay in this garden till I go up to the 
 
 d 
 
xlii THE LIFE OF 
 
 king and bring you word that you are clerk of the 
 council: doubt not my doing this, for I know the king 
 loves you, and know the king will not deny me.” But 
 the king gave a positive denial to all requests; and 
 having a discerning spirit, replied, “ I know Mr. Donne 
 is a learned man, has the abilities of a learned divine, 
 and will prove a powerful preacher, and my desire is to 
 prefer him that way, and in that way I will deny you 
 nothing for him.” After that time, as he professeth 
 in his book of Devotions, “ the king descended to a 
 persuasion, almost to a solicitation, of him to enter 
 into sacred orders ;” which though he then denied not, 
 yet he deferred it for almost three years. All which 
 time he applied himself to an incessant study of textual 
 divinity, and to the attainment of a greater perfection 
 in the learned languages, Greek and Hebrew. 
 
 In the first and most blessed times of Christianity, 
 when the clergy were looked upon with reverence, 
 and deserved it, when they overcame their opposers 
 by high examples of virtue, by a blessed patience and 
 long-suffering; those only were then judged worthy 
 the ministry, whose quiet and meek spirits did make 
 them look upon that sacred calling with an humble 
 adoration and fear to undertake it; which indeed re¬ 
 quires such great degrees of humility., and and 
 
 care, that none but such were then thought worthy of 
 that celestial dignity; and such only were then sought 
 out, and solicited to undertake it. This I have men¬ 
 tioned, because forwardness and inconsideration could 
 not in Mr. Donne, as in many others, be an argument 
 of insufficiency or unfitness; for he had considered 
 long, and had many strifes within himself, concerning 
 
DR. DONNE xliii 
 
 the strictness of life and competency of learning re¬ 
 quired in such as enter into sacred orders ; and doubt¬ 
 less, considering his own demerits, did humbly ask 
 God with St. Paul, “ Lord, who is sufficient for these 
 things ?” and with meek Moses, “ Lord, who am 1 ?” 
 And sure, if he had consulted with flesh and blood, he 
 had not for these reasons put his hand to that holy 
 plough. But God, who is able to prevail, w’restled 
 with him as the angel did with Jacob, and marked 
 him; marked him for his own; marked him with a 
 blessing, a blessing of obedience to the motions of his 
 blessed Spirit. And then, as he had formerly asked 
 God with Moses, “ Who am I?” so now, being inspired 
 with an apprehension of God’s particular mercy to 
 him in the king’s and others’ solicitations of him, he 
 came to ask King David’s thankful question, “ Lord, 
 who am I, that thou art so mindful of me ?” So mind¬ 
 ful of me, as to lead me for more than forty years 
 through this wilderness of the many temptations and 
 various turnings of a dangerous life; so merciful to 
 me, as to move the learnedst of kings to descend to 
 move me to serve at the altar; so merciful to me, as at 
 last to move my heart to embrace this holy motion:— 
 Thy motions I will and do embrace :—and now I say 
 with the blessed Virgin, “ Be it with thy servant 
 as seemeth best in thy sightand so, blessed Jesus, I 
 do take the cup of salvation, and will call upon thy 
 name, and will preach thy gospel. 
 
 Such strifes as these St. Austin had, when St. 
 Ambrose endeavoured his conversion to Christianitv, 
 with which he confessed he acquainted his friend 
 Alipius. Our learned author (a man fit to write after 
 
xliv 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 no mean copy) did the like. And declaring his inten¬ 
 tions to his dear friend Dr. King, then bishop of 
 London, a man famous in his generation, and no 
 sti’anger 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 reve¬ 
 rend 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. 
 
 Now the English church had gained a second 
 St. Austin, for I think none was so like him before his 
 conversion; none so like St. Ambrose after it: and 
 if his youth had the infirmities of the one, his age had 
 the excellences of the other; the learning and holiness 
 of both. 
 
 And now all his studies, which had been occasionally 
 diffused, were all concentred in divinity. Now he had 
 a new calling, new thoughts, and a new employment 
 for his wit and eloquence. Now’ all his earthly affec¬ 
 tions w'ere changed into divine love ; and all the facul¬ 
 ties of his own soul were engaged in the conversion of 
 others ;—in preaching the glad tidings of remission to 
 repenting sinners, and peace to each troubled soul. 
 To these he applied himself with all care and diligence: 
 And now such a change w’as w’rought in him that he 
 could say with David, “ O how amiable are thy taber¬ 
 nacles, O Lord God of Hosts!” Now he declared 
 openly, “ That when he required a temporal, God 
 gave him a spiritual blessing.” And that “ He was 
 now gladder to be a door-keeper in the house of God, 
 
DR. DONNE xlv 
 
 than he could be to enjoy the noblest of all temporal 
 employments.” 
 
 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 auditoi’y; yet his modesty in this employ¬ 
 ment 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 was 
 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 
 showed 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 court¬ 
 ship 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 be beloved even by those that loved 
 it not; and all this with a most particular grace and 
 an inexpressible addition of comeliness. 
 
 There may be some that may incline to think (such 
 
xlvi 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 indeed as have not heard him), that my affection to 
 my friend hath transported me to an immoderate 
 commendation of his preaching: if this meets with 
 any such, let me entreat, though I will omit many, yet 
 that they will receive a double witness for what I say, it 
 being attested by a gentleman of worth (Mr. Chidley, 
 a frequent hearer of his sermons), in part of a funeral 
 elegy wrote by him on Dr. Donne; and is a known 
 truth though it be in verse. 
 
 .Each altar bad his fire .... 
 
 He kept his love but not his object. Wit 
 He did not banish, but transplanted it; 
 
 Taught it both time and place, and brought it home 
 To Piety, which it doth best become. 
 
 For say, had ever pleasure such a dress? 
 
 Have you seen crimes so shaped, or loveliness 
 Such as his lips did clothe religion in? 
 
 Had not reproof a beauty passing sin ? 
 
 Corrupted Nature sorrow’d that she stood 
 So near the danger of becoming good. 
 
 And when he preach’d she wish’d her ears exempt 
 From Piety that had such power to tempt. 
 
 How did his sacred flattery beguile 
 Men to amend ?. 
 
 More of this, and more witnesses might be brought, 
 but I forbear and return. 
 
 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: 
 Dr. Harsnett (after archbishop of York) was then 
 
DR. DONNE 
 
 xlvii 
 
 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 uni¬ 
 versity, who presently assented, and expressed a glad¬ 
 ness 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 con¬ 
 versation multiplied the joys of his life: but an em¬ 
 ployment 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. 
 
 ' Mrs. Donne died August 15, 1617, on the seventh day after 
 the hirtli of her twelfth child, and was buried in the parish church 
 of St. Clement Danes, near Temple Bar. 
 
 ‘ It appears that Nicholas Stone, a noted statuary in the reign 
 of James I. made a tomb for Mrs. Donne, to be placed in the 
 
xlviii 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 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. Nor is it hard to think 
 (being passions which may be both changed and height¬ 
 ened by accidents) but that that abundant affection 
 which once was betwixt him and her, who had long 
 
 church of St. Clement Danes, for the which he had fifteen pieces. 
 (Walpole’s Anecdotes of Painting, 8pc. vol. ii. p. 44.) The fol¬ 
 lowing is the inscription on her tomb : 
 
 Georgii 
 
 Rof.rbti 
 
 WiLIELMI 
 Christoph ERi 
 
 ANN.E 
 \ / More de 
 j Lothesley 
 
 
 L \ Equitum 
 ’ V. Aurator. 
 
 Foeminae lectissimae, dilectissiinaeque, 
 Coujugi charissiinm, castissiniaeque, 
 Matri piissimae, indulgentissiraaeque, 
 XV anriis in conjugio transactis, 
 YII post XII partum (quorum VII 
 Superstant) dies 
 Iramaui febre correptm 
 (Quod hoc saxum fari jussit 
 Ipse pras dolore infans) 
 Maritas (miserrimum dictu) olim 
 Charae charus 
 
 Cineribus cineres spondet suos 
 Novo matrimonio (annuat Deus) hoc 
 Loco sociandos 
 
 Filiae, 
 
 Sorori, 
 
 Nepti, 
 
 Pronepti 
 
 JOANNES DONNE 
 Sacrae Tbeologim Professor. 
 Seoessit 
 
 Anno XXXIII jEtat. suae et sui Jesu 
 
 CIO. DC. XVII. 
 
 Aug. XV. 
 
 (^Strype’s State’s Survey of London, 1720, vol, ii. 6. 4, p. 113.) 
 
DR. DONNE 
 
 xlix 
 
 been the delight of his eyes and the companion of his 
 youth; her with whom he had divided so many pleasant 
 sorrows and contented fears, as common people are 
 not capable of; not hard to think but that she, being 
 now removed by death, a commeasurable grief took as 
 full possession of him as joy had done ; and so indeed 
 it did; for now his very soul was elemented of nothing 
 but sadness, now grief took so full a possession of his 
 heart, as to leave no place for joy; if it did, it was a 
 joy to be alone, where, like a pelican in the wilder¬ 
 ness, he might bemoan himself without witness or 
 restraint, and pour forth his passions like Job in the 
 days of his affliction, “ Oh that I might have the desire 
 of my heart! Oh that God would grant the thing that 
 I long for!” For then, as the grave is become her 
 house, so I would hasten to make it mine also, that we 
 two might there make our beds together in the dark. 
 Thus, as the Israelites sat mourning by the rivers of 
 Babylon, when they remembered Sion; so he gave 
 some ease to his oppressed heart by thus venting his 
 sorrows : thus he began the day, and ended the night; 
 ended the restless night and began the weary day in 
 lamentations. And thus he continued till a considera¬ 
 tion of his new engagements to God, and St. Paul’s 
 “ Wo is me if I preach not the gospel,” dispersed those 
 sad clouds that had then benighted his hopes, and now 
 forced him to behold the light. 
 
 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 Jeremiah’s Lamentation; “ Lo, 
 I am the man that have seen affliction.” 
 
1 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 And indeed his very words and looks testified him 
 to be truly such a man ; and they, with the addition of 
 his sighs and tears, expressed in his sermon, did so 
 w'ork upon the affections of his hearers, as melted and 
 moulded them into a companionable sadness, and so 
 they left the congregation; but then their houses 
 presented them with objects of diversion, and his pre¬ 
 sented him with nothing but fresh objects of sorrow, in 
 beholding many helpless children, a narrow fortune, 
 and a consideration of the many cares and casualties 
 that attend their education. 
 
 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. 
 
 And now his life was as a shining light among his 
 old friends, now he gave an ocular testimony of the 
 strictness and regularity of it; now he might say as 
 St. Paul adviseth his Corinthians, “ Be ye followers of 
 me, as I follow Christ, and walk as ye have me for an 
 example.” Not the example of a busy-body, but of a 
 contemplative, a harmless, a humble, and a holy life 
 and conversation. 
 
 The love of that noble society w^as expressed to him 
 many ways; for, besides fair lodgings that were set 
 
DR. DONNE li 
 
 apart and newly furnished for him with all necessaries, 
 other courtesies were also daily added; indeed, so 
 many, and so freely, as if they meant their gratitude 
 should exceed his merits: and in this love-strife of 
 desert and liberality, they continued for the space of 
 two years, he preaching faithfully and constantly to 
 them, and they liberally requiting him. 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 Bo¬ 
 hemia; the unhappy beginning of many miseries in 
 that nation. 
 
 King James, whose motto f Dead 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 endea¬ 
 vours, did then send the Lord Hay, Earl of Doncas¬ 
 ter, 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 of 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. 
 
 At his going he left his friends of Lincoln’s Inn, and 
 they him with many reluctations ; for though he could 
 not say as St. Paul to his Ephesians, “ Behold you to 
 whom I have preached the kingdom of God shall from 
 
Hi 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 henceforth see my face no moreyet, he believing 
 himself to be in a consumption, questioned, and they 
 feared it; all concluding that his troubled mind, with 
 the help of his unintermitted studies, hastened the 
 decays of his weak body : but God, who is the God of 
 all wisdom and goodness, turned it to the best; for this 
 employment (to say nothing of the event of it) did not 
 only divert him from those too serious studies and sad 
 thoughts, but seemed to give him a new life, by a true 
 occasion of joy, to be an eye-witness of the health 
 of his most dear and most honoured mistress, the 
 queen of Bohemia, in a foreign nation, and to be 
 witness of that gladness which she expressed to see 
 him; who, having formerly known him a courtier, was 
 much joyed to see him in a canonical habit, and more 
 glad to be an ear-witness of his excellent and powerful 
 preaching. About fourteen months after his depar¬ 
 ture 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 con¬ 
 stant course of preaching. 
 
 About a year after his return out of Germany, 
 Dr. Carey was made Bishop of Exeter j-, 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; 
 
 t He was elected 27 Sept. 1621. 
 
DR. DONNE 
 
 liii 
 
 for knowing you love London, I do therefore make 
 you Dean of 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 em¬ 
 ployed 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 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 contractand 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 honour¬ 
 able friend, Richard Earl of Dorset, then the patron, 
 and confirmed by his brother, the late deceased Ed¬ 
 ward, both of them men of much honour. 
 
 By these, and other ecclesiastical endowments which 
 fell to him about the same time, given to him formerly 
 by the Earl of Kent, he was enabled to become chari¬ 
 table to the poor and kind to his friends, and to make 
 
liv 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 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 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 in¬ 
 clinable 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 discon¬ 
 tent and restlessness, that he would not suffer the sun 
 
DR. DONNE 
 
 Iv 
 
 to set and leave him under this doubt, but sent for 
 Dr. Donne, and required his answer to the accusation ; 
 
 I 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 
 I therefore “ desired that he might not rise, till, as in 
 ' like cases he always had from God, so he might have 
 i 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; hut it continued 
 long and threatened him with death, which he dreaded 
 not. 
 
 In this distemper of body, his dear friend, Dr. Henry 
 King (then chief residentiary of that church, and late 
 bishop of Chichester), a man generally known by the 
 clergy of this nation, and as generally noted for his 
 
Ivi THE LIFE OF 
 
 obliging nature, visited him daily, and observing that 
 his sickness rendered his recovery doubtful, he chose 
 a seasonable time to speak to him to this purpose: 
 
 “ Mr. Dean, I am by your favour no stranger to 
 your temporal estate, and you are no stranger to the 
 offer lately made us, for the renewing a lease of the 
 best prebends corps belonging to our church, and you 
 know it was denied, for that our tenant being very rich, 
 offered to fine at so low a rate as held not pi'oportion 
 with his advantages; hut I will either raise him to a 
 higher sum, or procure that the other residentiaries 
 shall join to accept of what was offered: one of these 
 I can and will by your favour do without delay, and 
 without any trouble either to your body or mind. I 
 beseech you to accept of my offer ; for I know it will be 
 a considerable addition to your present estate, which I 
 know needs it.” 
 
 To this, after a short pause, and raising himself 
 upon his bed, he made this reply: 
 
 “ My most dear friend, I most humbly thank you 
 for your many favours, and this in particular ; but in 
 my present condition I shall not accept of your pro¬ 
 posal ; for doubtless there is such a sin as sacrilege ; if 
 there were not, it could not have a name in scripture: 
 and the primitive clergy were watchful against all 
 appearances of that evil; and indeed then all Christians 
 looked upon it with horror and detestation, judging it 
 to he even an open defiance of the power and provi¬ 
 dence of Almighty God, and a sad presage of 
 declining religion. But instead of such Christians, 
 who had selected times set apart to fast and pray 
 to God for a pious clergy, which they then did obey. 
 
DR. DONNE 
 
 Ivii 
 
 oui’ times abound with men that are busy and litigious 
 about trifles and church ceremonies, and yet so far 
 from scrupling sacrilege, that they make not so much 
 as a query what it is: but I thank God I have; and 
 dare not now upon my sick-bed, when Almighty God 
 hath made me useless to the service of the church, 
 make any advantages out of it. But if he shall again 
 restore me to such a degree of health as again to serve 
 at his altar, I shall then gladly take the reward which 
 the bountiful benefactors of this church have designed 
 me; for God knows my children and relations will 
 need it; in which number my mother (whose credulity 
 and charity has contracted a very plentiful to a very 
 narrow estate) must not be forgotten: but. Doctor 
 King, if I recover not, that little worldly estate that I 
 shall leave behind me (that very little when divided 
 into eight parts) must, if you deny me not so charitable 
 a favour, fall into your hands as my most faithful friend 
 and executor, of whose care and justice I make no 
 more doubt than of God’s blessing on that which I 
 have conscientiously collected for them, but it shall 
 not be augmented on my sick-bed; and this I declare 
 to be my unalterable resolution.” 
 
 The reply to this was only a promise to observe his 
 request. 
 
 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 Spiri- 
 
 e 
 
Iviii 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 tual Ecstasies, occasioned and appliable to the emer¬ 
 gencies of that sickness ; which hook, being a compo¬ 
 sition of meditations, disquisitions, and prayers, he writ 
 on his sick-bed; herein imitating the holy patriarchs, 
 who were wont to huild 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 observa¬ 
 tions of his life, which, whilst a gentle slumber gives 
 rest to his spirits, may, I hope, not unfitly exercise 
 thy considei'ation. 
 
 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 
 
DR. DONNE 
 
 lix 
 
 justifying it; and though his wife’s competent years, 
 and others reasons, might be justly urged to moderate 
 severe censures, yet he w'ould occasionally condemn 
 himself for it. And doubtless it had been attended 
 with a 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 wTich 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 
 I he was no friend to them, he was not so fallen out 
 
 I with heavenly poetry as to forsake that, no, not in his 
 
 declining age, witnessed then by many divine son- 
 ;! nets, and other high, holy, and harmonious compo¬ 
 sures ; 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. 
 
lx 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 A HYMN TO GOD THE FATHER. 
 
 Wilt tliou forgive that sin wliere 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 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 choristers 
 of St. Paul’s church in his own hearing, especially at 
 the evening service, and at his return from his cus¬ 
 tomary 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 
 
DR. DONNE ki 
 
 duty of prayer and praise to God, with an unexpres- 
 sible 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 pi*aises to Almighty 
 God; and the readers of St. Augustine’s life may 
 there find, that towards his dissolution he wept abun¬ 
 dantly, 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, 
 O Lord, how is that place become desolate! ” Anno 
 1636. 
 
 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 engi'aven 
 very small in Helitropium stones *, and set in gold, 
 and of those he sent to many of his deai*est friends? 
 
 '* The seal given to Walton is now in the possession of Mr. 
 H. A. Merryweather; another is in the possession of Rev. Dr. 
 Bliss, registrar of the University of Oxford; a third is figured 
 in the Gents. Mag, 
 
Ixii 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 to be' used as seals or rings, and kept as memorials of 
 him, and 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 mor¬ 
 tality, 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 wKom 
 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 Ejaculationsa book in which, 
 by declaring his own spiritual conflicts, he hath com¬ 
 forted 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 
 
DR. DONNE 
 
 Ixiii 
 
 deal* friendship, made up by such a sympathy of incli¬ 
 nations, 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. 
 
 A sheaf of snakes used heretofore to be my seal, which is the crest 
 of our poor family. 
 
 Qui prills assuefus serpentum falce tabellas 
 Signare, liaec nostra; sjmbola parva donuis 
 Adscitus doinui 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 ray 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. 
 
Ixiv 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 Under that little seal great gifts I send, 
 
 Both works and prayers, 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 Christ here detain. 
 
 When nail'd unto’t, but be 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 certaiu 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 quire of St. Paul’s 
 church, he did also shorten and beguile many sad 
 hours by composing other sacred ditties; and he 
 writ a hymn on his death-bed which bears this 
 title:— 
 
DR. DONNE 
 
 Ixv 
 
 A HYMN TO GOD MY GOD, 
 
 IN MY SICKNESS, MARCH 23, 1630. 
 
 Since I am coming to that I 10 I 3 ' room. 
 
 Where, with thy quire 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 me. 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, w'hich he concludes 
 in these words, “ The Lord w'as ready to save, there¬ 
 fore I will sing my songs to the stringed instruments 
 all the days of my life in the temple of my God.” 
 
Ixvi THE LIFE OF 
 
 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 wmuld say, 
 “ that he gave both his body and mind that refresh¬ 
 ment, that he might be enabled to do the work of the 
 day following not faintly, but with courage and cheer¬ 
 fulness.” 
 
 Nor was his age only so industrious, but in the 
 most unsettled days of his youth, his bed w^as 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 re¬ 
 main as testimonies of what is here written, for he left 
 the resultance of fourteen hundred authors, most of 
 them abridged and analyzed with his own hand: he 
 left also six score of his sermons, all written with his 
 own hand; also an exact and laborious treatise con¬ 
 cerning self-murder, called “ Biathanatos,” wherein 
 all the laws violated by that act are diligently sur¬ 
 veyed and judiciously censured; a treatise written in 
 
DR. DONNE Ixvii 
 
 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 w'ere 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 methodi¬ 
 cally 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 remem¬ 
 bered 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 
 
THE LIFE OF 
 
 Ixviii 
 
 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. Winnitf (who suc¬ 
 ceeded him in his 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 men¬ 
 tion 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 Eng¬ 
 land, Priest, being at this time in good health and 
 peyfect uyiderstanding (praised be God therefore), 
 
DR. DONNE Ixix 
 
 do herehi/ make my last Will and Testament, in 
 the 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 no^v of the salvation of the one, and the resurrec¬ 
 tion 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 Residen- 
 tiaries have at my request designed for that purpose, 
 S)'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 ivith my 
 own hand, and my name subscribed to every page, 
 of which there are five in number. 
 
 Sealed Decemb. 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 vvas 
 dejected, or his fortune necessitous. He was inquisi¬ 
 tive 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 
 
}xx 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 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 Savioui*. 
 He gave a 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, 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 I'eply, whose answer was,— 
 “ I know you want not what will sustain nature, for a 
 little will do that; but my desire is, that you, W'ho 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 ownand upon these terms it w^as 
 received. He was a happy reconciler of many differ¬ 
 ences in the families of his friends and kindred 
 (which he never undertook faintly, for such under¬ 
 takings 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 
 
DR. DONNE 
 
 Ixxi 
 
 been destitute, but that God raised him up to prevent 
 her necessities, who having sucked in the religion of 
 the Homan church with her 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— 
 
 “ Deo Opt. Max. benigtio 
 Largitori, ;i me, et ab iis 
 Quibus liaeo a me reservantur, 
 
 Gloria et gratia in asternum. 
 
 “ Amen.” 
 
 “ So that this year God hath blessed me and mine 
 with— 
 
 “ Multiplicatae sunt super 
 Nos misericordiac tua3, 
 
 Domine. 
 
 “ Da, Domine, ut quae ex immense 
 Donitate tuft nobis elargiri 
 
Ixxii 
 
 THE LIFE OE 
 
 Dignatus sis, in quorumcunqne 
 Manus devenerint, in tuam 
 Semper cedant gloriara. 
 
 “ Amen.” 
 
 “ In fine horura sex annorum manet— 
 
 “ Quid habeo quod non accepi a Domino? 
 
 Largitur etiam ut quae largitus est 
 Sua iterum fiant, bono eorum usu ; ut 
 Quemadraodum nec olliciis bujus niundi, 
 
 Nec loci in quo me posuit dignitati, nec 
 Servis, nec egenis, in toto bujus anni 
 Curriculo inibi conscius sum me defuisse; 
 
 Ita et liberi, quibus quae supersunt, 
 
 Supersunt, grato animo ea accipiant, 
 
 Et beneficum autborem recognoscant. 
 
 “ 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,—T his 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 
 
DR. DONNE 
 
 Ixxiii 
 
 me to after, that I am so much the oftener at my 
 prayers, in which I shall never leave out your happi¬ 
 ness, and I douht 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 un¬ 
 friendly, and, God knows, an ill-grounded interpreta¬ 
 tion ; for I have always been sorrier when I could 
 not preach, than any could be that 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 ser¬ 
 vice. 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.” 
 
 f 
 
THE LIFE OF 
 
 Ixjiiv 
 
 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 it, assuring him, however, it was likely 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 un¬ 
 expected 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 organize 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 precon¬ 
 ceived meditations, which were of dying, the text 
 
DR. DONNE Ixxv 
 
 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 jireached 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 a fter 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, “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 shall go hence and he no more 
 seen. And my preparation for this change is become 
 my nightly meditation upon my bed,- which my infir- 
 
 ® This discourse was printed at London in 1633, in 4to. under 
 the quaint title of “ Death’s Duel, or a Consolation to the Soule 
 against the Dying Life and Living Death of the Body.” The 
 text is from Psalm Ixviii. 20. It is the last discourse in the 
 third volume of Dr. Donne’s Sermons, and will be found at the 
 end of this volume. 
 
Ixxvi THE LIFE OF 
 
 mities 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 employ¬ 
 ment, and that it was his will I should never settle 
 or 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 
 who showed me kindness when my fortune was very 
 low, as God knows it was; and (as it hath occasioned 
 the expression of my gratitude) 1 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 a great decay in her very old age. I have 
 quieted the consciences of many that have groaned 
 under the burthen of a wounded spirit, whose prayers 
 1 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; / am 
 
DR. DONNE ’ Ixxvii 
 
 therefore full of inex'pressible joy, and shall die in 
 peaceT 
 
 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 
 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 pro¬ 
 bability of his restoration to healthbut he passion¬ 
 ately denied to drink it. Nevertheless Dr. Fox, who 
 loved him most entirely, wearied him with solicita¬ 
 tions, 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 was the king of terrors, 
 that he longed for the day of his dissolution.” 
 
 It is observed, that a desire of glory or commenda¬ 
 tion 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 
 
1XXVHi 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 made for him; but Dr. Fox undertook not to per¬ 
 suade 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 wind¬ 
 ing-sheet in his hand; and having put otf 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 show his lean, pale, and 
 death-like face, which was purposely turned toward 
 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 bed¬ 
 side, where it continued, and became his hourly object 
 till his death; and was then given to his dearest friend 
 and executor. Doctor Henry King, then chief residen¬ 
 tiary 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 appoint¬ 
 ment, these words were to be affixed to it as his 
 epitaph:— 
 
DR. DONNE 
 
 Ixxix 
 
 JOHANNES DONNE 
 
 SAC THEOL. PROFESS. 
 
 POST VARIA STUDIA QUIBUS AB ANNIS TENERRIMIS 
 FIDELITER, NEC INFELICITER INCUBCIIT ; 
 
 INSTINCTU ET IMPCLSU SP. SANCTI, MONITU 
 ET HORTATU 
 
 REGIS JACOBI, ORDINES SACROS AMPLEXUS 
 ANNO SUI JESC, MDCXIV. ET SUjE ^TATIS XLII. 
 
 DECANATC HlIJUS ECCLESI5; 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 he changed, 
 
 Before I am changed®!” 
 
 And if that young, and his now dying picture, 
 were at this time set together, every beholder might 
 
 ® “ Antes muerta que mudada.” The words antes muerta qtte 
 tnudada are supposed by a Spanish author to have been originally 
 written on the sand by a lady promising fidelity to her lover. 
 The following lines were composed by Izaak Walton, and in- 
 
Ixxx 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 say, “ Lord ! how much is Dr. Donne already changed, 
 before he is changed I” 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 he 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; espe¬ 
 cially 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 employ¬ 
 ment 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 
 bed-chamber, and that week sent at several times for 
 many of his most considerable friends, with whom he 
 
 scribed under the print taken from this picture, and prefixed to 
 an edition of Dr. Donne’s Poems in 1639 : 
 
 “ This was for youth, strength, mirth, and wit, that time 
 Most count their golden age, but was not thine. 
 
 Thine was thy later years, so much refin’d 
 From youth’s dross, mirth and wit, as thy pure mind 
 Thought (like the angels) nothing but the praise 
 Of thy Creator, in those last best days. 
 
 Witness this hook thy emblem, which begins 
 With love, but ends with sighs and tears for sins.” 
 
Ixxxi 
 
 DR. DONNE 
 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 dis¬ 
 robed from her garment of mortality, makes me con¬ 
 fident, 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 Beati¬ 
 fical Vision, he said, “ I were miserable if I might not 
 die;” and after those words closed many periods of 
 his faint hreath by saying often, “ Thy kingdom come, 
 thy will be done.” His speech, which had long been 
 
,xxxii THE LIFE OF 
 
 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 
 eai'th, 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 Fatherand being satisfied with this blessed 
 sight, as his soul ascended, and his last breath de¬ 
 parted 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 memo¬ 
 rable 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 pri¬ 
 vately, though he desired it; for, beside an unnum¬ 
 bered number of others, many persons of nobility, and 
 of eminency 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 
 
DR. DONNE 
 
 Ixxxiii 
 
 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, a hundred 
 marks sent to his two faithful friends and executors 
 (Dr. King and Dr. Monfort) 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 
 
Ixxxiv 
 
 THE LIFE OF 
 
 can express; a statue indeed so like Dr. Donne, that 
 (as his friend Sir Henry Wotton had expressed him¬ 
 self) “ It seems to breathe faintly, and posterity shall 
 look upon it as a kind of artificial miracle’.” 
 
 He was of a stature moderately tall, of a straight 
 and equally-proportioned body, to which all his words 
 and actions gave an unexpressible addition of comeli¬ 
 ness. 
 
 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 inimitably high, equalled only by 
 his great wit, both being made useful by a command¬ 
 ing 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 compassion; of too brave a soul to offer inju- 
 
 On the south side of the choir of St. Paul’s Cathedral, stood 
 a white marble Monument, with the figure of Dr. Donne, in his 
 shroud, standing erect, his feet in an urn, and placed in a niche. 
 Above are the arms of the deanery, impaled with his own, viz. 
 a tvolf saliant. This monument is engraven by Hollar, in 
 Dugdale’s St. Paul’s, and the head and urn now remain in the 
 crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral. 
 
 “ In 1631 I made a tombe for Dr. Donne, and sette it up in 
 St. Paul’s, London, for which I was paid by Dr. Mountford the 
 sum of £T20. I took £60 in plate, in part of payment.”— 
 “ 1631, Humphrey Mayor, a workman employed under Stone, 
 finisht the statue for Dr. Donne’s monument, £8 : 0 : 0.”— 
 Extract from the Pocket-book of Nicholas Stone. 
 
DR. DONNE Ixxxv 
 
 ries, 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 Al¬ 
 mighty God, the immortality of the soul, and the joys 
 of heaven; and would often say, in a kind of sacred 
 ecstasy, “ Blessed be God that he is God, only and 
 divinely like himself.” 
 
 He was by nature 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 satis¬ 
 fied, 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 reanimated. 
 
 IZ. WALTON. 
 
 Feb. 15, 1639. 
 
J. . I 
 
 I' ^ r 
 
 
 't* 
 
 ■.■smi-v'Wi' ' 
 
 ■■\^:. . ... ■ */ y.rK^ 
 
 • 1,v’ ' r>^ 
 
 ^i,v-' i^9i 
 Rb ' ■'' 
 
 * '** -WH*^ 
 
 :^r-’ >r^'^ Mfei 
 
 ' Wfi /Uj ■ ^^■'l»{^> V^iS .h<*v;;.#r 0«f fc<WV« 
 
 v •,(,,* r...;.,,'. ":■ •<■.'* >.Hr<. 
 
 vi’*,*u'%;.i’h#; .-.• '•'*» ■•■ •“''«‘*j.i’|^‘/ 
 
 ;. *iiii!i/^.‘'f 'f»M'W^'- ■ •■'' 
 
 ..'/? ■*« .t 1. 
 
 'ii- t<>H V> frWW'*»J<.V‘ 
 
 !!|m 'j.v/^i^ii^t^:: ^ ;/(iWri»ii 
 Y, •: ■ ■ .r^J'vt»Mr^MvW^ 
 
 »'iiiL“*Wv»-w^.^; ,^|j' 
 
 rt, /'■ 
 
 
 * rv 
 
 «*jU**!"*' ■ ■•• 
 
 , *V4. * ,r*.<.•■ .6,/'« ,4V>'. V> 
 
 ^ '»■, ' n ('-i !•'V <i>(tf'’’’f. ■ " 
 
 , , , . ,.,. »•.. a'^ V; 
 
 . » h 
 
 ., • O'. ■ I ..St,' Jf . 
 
 “ < 
 
VERSES TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 DR. J. DONNE. 
 
 AN EPITAPH WRITTEN BY DOCTOR CORBET, LATE 
 BISHOP OF OXFORD, ON HIS FRIEND, 
 DOCTOR DONNE. 
 
 H e that would write an epitaph for thee, 
 
 And write it well, must first begin to be 
 Such as thou wert; for none can truly know 
 Thy life and worth, but he that hath liv’d so. 
 
 He must have wit to spare, and to hurl down; 
 Enough to keep the gallants of the town. 
 
 He must have learning plenty; both the laws, 
 
 Civil and common, to judge any cause; 
 
 Divinity great store above the rest. 
 
 Not of the last edition, but the best. 
 
 He must have language, travel, all the arts. 
 Judgment to use, or else he wants thy parts. 
 
 He must have friends the highest, able to do, 
 
 Such as Maecenas, and Augustus too. 
 
 He must have such a sickness, such a death. 
 
 Or else his vain descriptions come beneath. 
 
 He that would write an epitaph for thee 
 Should first be dead; let it alone for me. 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF MY EVER DESIRED 
 DOCTOR DONNE. 
 
 AN ELEGY BY HENRY KING, LATE BISHOP OF 
 CHICHESTER. 
 
 T O have liv’d eminent, in a degree 
 
 Beyond our loftiest thoughts, that is, like thee; 
 Or to have had too much merit is not safe. 
 
 For such excesses find no epitaph. 
 
 At common graves we have poetic eyes, 
 
 Can melt themselves in easy elegies; 
 
 Each quill can drop his tributary verse. 
 
 And pin it, like the hatchments, to the hearse; 
 
 But at thine, poem or inscription 
 
 (Rich soul of wit and language) we have none. 
 
 Indeed a silence does that tomb befit. 
 
 Where is no herald left to blazon it. 
 
 Widow’d invention justly doth forbear 
 To come abroad, knowing thou art not there : 
 
 Late her great patron, whose prerogative 
 Maintain’d and cloth’d her so, as none alive 
 Must now presume to keep her at thy rate. 
 
 Though he the Indies for her dower estate. 
 
 Or else that awful fire which once did burn 
 In thy clear brain, now fallen into thy urn. 
 
 Lives there to fright rude empirics from thence, 
 Which might profane thee by their ignorance. 
 Whoever writes of thee, and in a style 
 Unworthy such a theme, does but revile 
 Thy precious dust, and wakes a learned spirit. 
 
 Which may revenge his rapes upon thy merit. 
 
ELEGY ON DR. DONNE Ixxxix 
 
 For all a low-pitch’d fancy can devise 
 Will prove at best but hallow’d injuries. 
 
 Thou, like the dying swan, didst lately sing 
 Thy mournful dirge in audience of the king; 
 
 When pale looks and faint accents of thy breath 
 Presented so to life that piece of death. 
 
 That it was fear’d and prophesied by all 
 Thou thither cam’st to preach thy funeral. 
 
 Oh! hadst thou in an elegiac knell 
 
 Rung out unto the world thine own farewell, 
 
 And in thy high victorious numbers beat 
 The solemn measures of thy grieved retreat, 
 
 Thou mightst the poet’s service now have miss’d. 
 
 As well as then thou didst prevent the priest: 
 
 And never to the world beholden be, 
 
 So much as for an epitaph for thee. 
 
 I do not like the office ; nor is’t fit 
 
 Thou, who didst lend our age such sums of wit, 
 
 Shouldst now reborrow from her bankrupt mine 
 That oar to bury thee which first was thine; 
 
 Rather still leave us in thy debt:—and know. 
 
 Exalted soul! more glory ’tis'to owe 
 Thy memory, what we can never pay, 
 
 Than with embased coin those rites defray. 
 
 Commit we then thee to thyself, nor blame 
 Our drooping loves, that thus to thine own fame 
 Leave thee executor, since but thine own 
 No pen could do thee justice, nor bays crown 
 Thy vast deserts; save that we nothing can 
 Depute to be thy ashes’ guardian. 
 
 So jewellers no art or metal trust 
 
 To form the diamond, but the diamond’s dust. 
 
 H. K. 
 
 S 
 
AN ELEGY ON DOCTOR DONNE. 
 
 BY IZAAK WALTON. 
 
 O UR Donne is dead ! and we may sighing say, 
 
 We had that man where Language chose to stay 
 And show her utmost power. I would not praise 
 That and his great wit, which in our vain days 
 Make others proud ; but as these served to unlock 
 That cabinet, his mind, where such a stock 
 Of knowledge was reposed, that I lament 
 Our just and general cause of discontent. 
 
 And I rejoice I am not so severe, 
 
 But as I write a line, to weep a tear 
 For his decease. Such sad extremities 
 Can make such men as I write elegies. 
 
 And wonder not; for when so great a loss 
 Falls on a nation, and they slight the cross, 
 
 God hath raised prophets to awaken them 
 From their dull lethargy; witness my pen. 
 
 Not used to upbraid the world, though now it must 
 Freely and boldly, for the cause is just. 
 
 Dull age ! oh, I would spare thee, but thou’rt worse : 
 
 Thou art not only dull, but hast a curse 
 
 Of black ingratitude : if not, couldst thou 
 
 Part with this matchless man, and make no vow 
 
 For thee and thine successively to pay 
 
 Some sad remembrance to his dying day ? 
 
 Did his youth scatter poetry, wherein 
 Lay love’s philosophy ? Was every sin 
 
ELEGY ON DR. DONNE 
 
 Pictured in his sharp satires, made so foul 
 
 That some have fear’d Sin’s shapes, and kept their soul 
 
 Safer by reading verse ? Did he give days. 
 
 Past marble monuments, to those whose praise 
 He would perpetuate ? Did he (I fear 
 Envy will doubt) these at his twentieth year? 
 
 But, more matured ; did his rich soul conceive. 
 
 And in harmonious holy numbers weave 
 A crown of sacred sonnets, fit to’ adorn 
 A dying martyr’s brow, or to be worn 
 On that bless’d head of Mary Magdalen, 
 
 After she wiped Christ’s feet, but not till then ? 
 
 Did he (fit for such penitents as she 
 
 And he to use) leave us a Litany 
 
 Which all devout men love, and doubtless shall. 
 
 As times grow better, grow more classical ? 
 
 Did he write hymns, for piety and wit. 
 
 Equal to those great grave Prudentius writ? 
 
 Spake he all languages ? Knew he all laws ? 
 
 The grounds and use of physic—but, because 
 ’Twas mercenary, waved it ? went to see 
 That happy place of Christ’s nativity ? 
 
 Did he return and preach him ? preach him so. 
 
 As, since St. Paul, none ever did ? they know— 
 
 Those happy souls that heard him know this truth. 
 
 Did he confirm thy ag’d, convert thy youth? 
 
 Did he these wonders ? and is his dear loss 
 Mourn’d by so few ?—few for so great a cross. 
 
 But sure the silent are ambitious all 
 To be close mourners at his funeral. 
 
 If not; in common pity they forbear. 
 
 By repetitions, to renew our care : 
 
 Or knowing grief conceived and hid, consumes 
 
 Man’s life insensibly (as poison’s fumes 
 
 Corrupt the brain), take silence for the way 
 
 To’ enlarge the soul from these walls, mud and clay, 
 
 (Materials of this body) to remain 
 
 With him in heaven, where no promiscuous pain 
 
xcii ELEGY ON DR. DONNE 
 
 Lessens those joys we have ; for with him all 
 Are satisfied with joys essential. 
 
 Dwell on these joys, ray thoughts !—Oh ! do not call 
 Grief back, by thinking on his funeral. 
 
 Forget he loved me: waste not my swift years 
 Which haste to David’s seventy, fill’d with fears 
 And sorrows for his death : forget his parts, 
 
 They find a living grave in good men’s hearts : 
 
 And, for my first is daily paid for sin, 
 
 Forget to pay my second sigh for him: 
 
 Forget his powerful preaching; and forget 
 I am his convert. Oh my frailty ! let 
 IVIy flesh be no more heard ; it will obtrude 
 This lethargy : so should my gratitude. 
 
 My vows of gratitude should be so broke. 
 
 Which can no more be, than his virtues, spoke 
 By any but himself: for which cause I 
 Write no encomiums, but this elegy; 
 
 Which, as a free-will offering, I here give 
 Fame and the world; and, parting with it, grieve 
 I want abilities fit to set forth 
 A monument as matchless as his worth, 
 
 IZ. WA. 
 
 April 7, 1631. 
 
TO MY OLD AND MOST WORTHY FRIEND, 
 
 Mr. IZAAK WALTON, 
 
 ON HIS LIFE OF DOCTOR DONNE, &C. 
 
 W HEN, to a nation’s loss, the virtuous die, 
 
 There’s justly due from every hand and eye 
 That can, or write, or weep, an elegy. 
 
 Which though it be the poorest, cheapest way. 
 
 The debt we owe great merits, to defray. 
 
 Yet it is almost all that most men pay. 
 
 And these are monuments of so short date, 
 
 That with their birth they oft receive their fate; 
 Dying with those whom they would celebrate. 
 
 And though to verse great reverence is due, 
 
 Yet what most poets write proves so untrue. 
 
 It renders truth in verse suspected too. 
 
 Something more sacred then, and more entire 
 The memories of virtuous men require. 
 
 Than what may with their funeral-torch expire : 
 
 This history can give; to which alone 
 
 The privilege to mate oblivion 
 
 Is granted, when denied to brass and stone. 
 
 • 
 
 Wherein, my friend, you have a hand so sure. 
 
 Your truths so candid are, your style so pure. 
 
 That what you write may Envy’s search endure. 
 
 Your pen, disdaining to be bribed or prest. 
 
 Flows without vanity, or interest; 
 
 A virtue with which few good pens are blest. 
 
xciv VERSES ADDRESSED TO 
 
 How happy was my father then ! to see 
 Those men he loved, by him he loved, to be 
 Rescued from frailties and mortality. 
 
 VVotton and Donne, to whom his soul was knit, 
 Those twins of virtue, eloquence and wit, 
 lie saw in Fame’s eternal annals writ: 
 
 Where one has fortunately found a place. 
 
 More faithful to him than his marble was, 
 
 Which eating age nor fire shall e’er deface. 
 
 A monument that, as it has, shall last 
 And prove a monument to that defaced; 
 
 Itself, but with the world, not to be razed. 
 
 And even in their flowery characters. 
 
 My father’s grave, part of your friendship shares ; 
 For you have honour’d his in strewing theirs. 
 
 Thus by an office, though particular. 
 
 Virtue’s whole commonweal obliged are; 
 
 For in a virtuous act all good men share. 
 
 And by this act, the world is taught to know. 
 
 That the true friendship we to merit owe. 
 
 Is not discharged by compliment and show. 
 
 But yours is friendship of so pure a kind. 
 
 From all mean ends and interest so refined. 
 
 It ought to be a pattern to mankind : 
 
 For, whereas most men’s friendships here beneath. 
 Do perish with their friends’ expiring breath. 
 Yours proves a friendship living after death; 
 
 By which the generous Wotton, reverend Donne, 
 Soft Herbert, and the church’s champion. 
 
 Hooker, are rescued from oblivion. 
 
 For though they each of them his time so spent. 
 As raised unto himself a monument. 
 
 With which Ambition might rest well content; 
 
 Yet their great works, though they can never die. 
 And are in truth superlatively high. 
 
 Are no just scale to take their virtues by : 
 
xcv 
 
 IZAAK WALTON 
 
 Because they show not how th’ Almighty’s grace, 
 By various and more admirable ways, 
 
 Brought them to be the organs of his praise. 
 
 But what their humble modesty would hide. 
 
 And was by any other means denied. 
 
 Is by your love and diligence supplied. 
 
 Wotton,—a nobler soul was never bred!— 
 
 You, by your narrative’s most even thread, 
 
 Through all his labyrinths of life have led ; 
 
 Through his degrees of honour and of arts. 
 
 Brought him secure from Envy’s venom’d darts. 
 Which are still levell’d at the greatest parts; 
 
 Through all th’ employments of his wit and spirit. 
 Whose great effects these kingdoms still inherit. 
 
 The trials then, now trophies of his merit; 
 
 Nay, through disgrace, which oft the worthiest have. 
 Thro’ all state-tempests, thro’ each wind and wave. 
 And laid him in an honourable grave. 
 
 And yours, and the whole world’s beloved Donne, 
 When he a long and wild career had run. 
 
 To the meridian of his glorious sun; 
 
 And being then an object of much ruth. 
 
 Led on by vanities, error, and youth. 
 
 Was long ere he did find the way to truth: 
 
 By the same clew, after his youthful swing. 
 
 To serve at his God’s altar here you bring. 
 
 Where an once wanton muse doth anthems sing. 
 
 And though by God’s most powerful grace alone 
 His heart was settled in Religion, 
 
 Yet ’tis by you we know how it was done; 
 
 ‘ And know, that having crucified vanities 
 And fixt his hope, he closed up his own eyes. 
 
 And then your friend a saint and preacher dies. 
 
 The meek and learned Hooker too, almost 
 r the church’s ruins overwhelm’d and lost. 
 
 Is by your pen recover’d from his dust; 
 
XCVl 
 
 VERSES ^c. 
 
 And Herbert;—he, whose education, 
 
 Manners, and parts, by high applauses blown, 
 
 Was deeply tainted with Ambition, 
 
 And fitted for a court, made that his aim; 
 
 At last, without regard to birth or name. 
 
 For a poor country cure does all disclaim ; 
 
 Where, with a soul composed of harmonies, 
 
 Like a sweet swan, he warbles as he dies 
 His Maker’s praise, and his own obsequies. 
 
 All this you tell us, with so good success, 
 
 That our obliged posterity shall profess, 
 
 T’ have been your friend, was a great happiness. 
 
 And now ! when many worthier would be proud 
 To’ appear before you, if they were allow’d, 
 
 I take up room enough to serve a crowd : 
 
 Where to commend what you have choicely writ. 
 
 Both my poor testimony and my wit 
 Are equally invalid and unfit: 
 
 Yet this, and much more, is most justly due. 
 
 Were what I write as elegant as true. 
 
 To the best friend I now or ever knew. 
 
 But, my dear friend, ’tis so, that you and I, 
 
 By a condition of mortality, 
 
 With all this great, and more proud world, must die : 
 
 In which estate I ask no more of Fame, 
 
 Nor other monument of Honour claim. 
 
 Than that of your true friend, to’ advance my name. 
 
 And if your many merits shall have bred 
 An abler pen to write your life when dead, 
 
 I think an honester cannot be read. 
 
 Jan. 17, 1672. CHARLES COTTON. 
 
COPY OF A LETTER WRIT TO 
 
 Mk. IZAAK WALTON, 
 
 BY DR. HENRY KING, LORD BISHOP OF CHICHESTER. 
 HONEST IZAAK, 
 
 T hough a familiarity of more than forty years’ continu¬ 
 ance, and the constant experience of your love, even 
 in the worst of the late sad times, be sufficient to endear our 
 friendship; yet, I must confess my affection much improved, 
 not only by evidences of private respect to many that know 
 and love you, but by your new demonstration of a public 
 spirit, testified in a diligent, true, and useful collection of so 
 many material passages as you have now afforded me in the 
 life of venerable Mr. Hooker; of which, since desired by 
 such a friend as yourself, I shall not deny to give the testi¬ 
 mony of what I know concerning him and his learned 
 books; but shall first here take a fair occasion to tell you, 
 that you have been happy in choosing to write the lives of 
 three such persons, as posterity hath just cause to honour; 
 which they will do the more for the true relation of them 
 by your happy pen : of all which I shall give you my un¬ 
 feigned censure. 
 
 I shall begin with my most dear and incomparable friend 
 Dr. Donne, late dean of St. Paul's church, who not only 
 trusted me as his executor, but three days before his death, 
 delivered into my hands those excellentsermons of his, now 
 made public; professing before Dr. Winniff, Dr. Mount- 
 fort, and, I think, yourself, then present at his bed-side, that 
 it was by my restless importunity, that he had prepared 
 them for the press; together with which (as his best legacy) 
 he gave me all his sermon-notes, and his other papers, con- 
 
xcviii BISHOP OF CHICHESTER 
 
 taining an extract of near fifteen hundred authors. How 
 these were got out of my hands, you, who were the messen¬ 
 ger for them, and how lost both to me and yourself, is not 
 now seasonable to complain : but, since they did miscarry, 
 I am glad that the general demonstration of his worth was 
 so fairly preserved, and represented to the world by your 
 pen in the history of his life; indeed so well, that beside 
 others, the best critic of our later time (Mr. John Hales, 
 of Eton College) affirmed to me, he had not seen a life 
 written with more advantage to the subject, or more repu¬ 
 tation to the writer, than that of Dr. Donne’s. 
 
 After the performance of this task for Dr. Donne, you 
 undertook the like office for your friend Sir Henry Wotton ; 
 betwixt which two there was a friendship begun in Oxford, 
 continued in their various travels, and more confirmed in 
 the religious friendship of age: and doubtless this excellent 
 person had writ the life of Dr. Donne, if death had not 
 prevented him; by which means his and your pre-collec¬ 
 tions for that work fell to the happy manage of your pen; a 
 work which you would have declined, if imperious per¬ 
 suasions had not been stronger than your modest resolutions 
 against it. And I am thus far glad, that the first life was 
 so imposed upon you, because it gave an unavoidable cause 
 of writing the second: if not, it is too probable, we had 
 wanted both; which had been a prejudice to all lovers of 
 honour and ingenious learning. And let me not leave my 
 friend Sir Henry, without this testimony added to yours; 
 that he was a man of as florid a wit, and as elegant a pen, 
 as any former (or ours, which in that kind is a most excel¬ 
 lent) age hath ever produced. 
 
 And now having made this voluntary observation of our 
 two deceased friends, I proceed to satisfy your desire con¬ 
 cerning what I know and believe of the ever-memorable 
 Mr. Hooker, who was Schismaticorum Malleus, so great 
 a champion for the Church of England’s rights, against the 
 factious torrent of Separatists, that then ran high against 
 church-discipline; and in his unanswerable books continues 
 to be so against the unquiet disciples of their schism, which 
 now under other names still carry on their design, and who 
 (as the proper heirs of their irrational zeal) would again 
 
TO IZAAK WALTON xcix 
 
 rake into the scarce-closed wounds of a newly-bleeding 
 state and church. 
 
 And, first, though I dare not say that I knew Mr. Hooker, 
 yet, as our Ecclesiastical History reports to the honour of 
 St. Ignatius, “that he lived in the time of St. John, and had 
 seen him in his childhood,” so I also joy, that in my minority 
 I have often seen Mr. Hooker with my father, who was 
 after Bishop of London; from whom, and others at that 
 time, I have heard most of the material passages which 
 you relate in the History of his Life; and from my father 
 received such a character of his learning, humility, and 
 other virtues, that like jewels of invaluable price, they still 
 cast such a lustre, as envy or the rust of time shall never 
 darken. 
 
 From my father I have also heard all the circumstances 
 of the plot to defame him; and how Sir Edwin Sandys 
 outwitted his accusers, and gained their confession : and I 
 could give an account of each particular of that plot, but 
 that I judge it fitter to be forgotten, and rot in the same 
 grave with the malicious authors. 
 
 I may not omit to declare, that my father’s knowledge of 
 Mr. Hooker was occasioned by the learned Dr. John 
 Spencer; who, after the death of Mr. Hooker, was so care¬ 
 ful to preserve his invaluable sixth, seventh, and eighth 
 books of “ Ecclesiastical Polity,” and his other writings, 
 that he procured Henry Jackson, then of Corpus Christi 
 College, to transcribe for him all Mr. Hooker’s remaining 
 written papers, many of which were imperfect; for his study 
 had been rifled, or worse used, by Mr. Chark, and another 
 of principles too like his. But these papers were endea¬ 
 voured to be completed by his dear friend Dr. Spencer, 
 who bequeathed them as a precious legacy to my father, 
 after whose death they rested in my hand, till Dr. Abbot, 
 then archbishop of Canterbury, commanded them out of 
 my custody, by authorizing Dr. John Barkeham to require, 
 and bring them to him to his palace in Lambeth; at which 
 time, I have heard, they were put into the bishop’s library, 
 and that they remained there till the martyrdom of Arch¬ 
 bishop Laud; and were then, by the brethren of that fac¬ 
 tion, given, with all the library, to Hugh Peters, as a reward 
 
c BISHOP OF CHICHESTER 
 
 for his remarkable service in those sad times of the church’s 
 confusion. And though they could hardly fall into a fouler 
 hand, yet there wanted not other endeavours to corrupt and 
 make them speak that language for which the faction then 
 fought, which indeed was —to subject the sovereign power to 
 the people. 
 
 But I need not strive to vindicate Mr. Hooker in this 
 particular ; his known loyalty to his prince, whilst he lived, 
 the sorrow expressed by king James at his death, the value 
 our late sovereign (of ever-blessed memory) put upon his 
 works, and now the singular character of his worth by you, 
 given in the passages of his life, especially in your appendix 
 to it, do sufficiently clear him from that imputation. And I 
 am glad you mention how much value Thomas Stapleton, 
 Pope Clement the VIII. and other eminent men f the 
 Romish persuasion, have put upon his books: having been 
 told the same in my youth by persons of worth that have 
 travelled Italy. 
 
 Lastly, I must again congratulate this undertaking of 
 yours, as now more proper to you than any other person, by 
 reason of your long knowledge and alliance to the worthy 
 family of the Cranmers (my old friends also), who have been 
 men of noted wisdom, especially Mr. George Cranmer, 
 whose prudence, added to that of Sir Edwin Sandys, proved 
 very useful in the completing of Mr. Hooker’s matchless 
 books: one of their letters I herewith send you, to make use 
 of if you think fit. And let me say further, you merit much 
 from many of Mr. Hooker’s best friends then living; 
 namely, from the ever-renowned archbishop Whitgift, of 
 whose incomparable worth, with the character of the times, 
 you have given us a more short and significant account than 
 I have received from any other pen. You have done much 
 for the learned Sir Henry Savile, his contemporary and 
 familiar friend; amongst the surviving monuments of whose 
 learning (give me leave to tell you so) two are omitted : his 
 edition of Euclid, but especially his translation of “ King 
 James’s Apology for the Oath of Allegiance,” into elegant 
 Latin; which flying in that dress as far as Rome, was by 
 the Pope and Conclave sent to Salamanca unto Franciscus 
 
TO IZAAK WALTON ci 
 
 Suarez (then residing there as president of that college) with 
 a command to answer it. And it is worth noting, that when 
 he had perfected the work, which he calls “ Defensio Fidei 
 Catholicae,’' it was transmitted to Rome for a view of the 
 inquisitors; who, according to their custom, blotted out 
 what they pleased, and (as Mr. Hooker hath been used since 
 his death), added whatsoever might advance the pope’s 
 supremacy, or carry on their own interest; commonly 
 coupling together deponere et occidere, the deposing, and 
 then killing of princes. Which cruel and unchristian lan¬ 
 guage, Mr. John Saltkield, the amanuensis to Suarez, when 
 he wrote that answer (but since a convert, and living long 
 in my father’s house), often professed the good old man 
 (whose piety and charity Mr. Saltkield magnified much) 
 not only disavowed, but detested. Not to trouble you fur¬ 
 ther; your reader (if according to your desire, my appro¬ 
 bation of your work carries any weight) will here find many 
 just reasons to thank you for it; and possibly for this cir¬ 
 cumstance here mentioned (not known to many), may 
 happily apprehend one to thank him, who heartily wishes 
 your happiness, and is unfeignedly. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 Your ever faithful and affectionate old friend, 
 
 HENRY CHICHESTER. 
 
 Chichester, Nov. 17,1664. 
 
DR. DONNE’S LETTER TO THE DUKE OF 
 BUCKINGHAM. 
 
 MY HONOURED LORD, 
 
 O NCE I adventured to say to the Prince his Highness, 
 that I was sure he would receive a book from me, the 
 more graciously, because it was dedicated to your Grace. I 
 proceed justly upon the same confidence that your Grace 
 will accept this, because it is his by the same title. If I 
 had not overcome that reluctation, which I had in myself of 
 representing Devotions and mortifications to a young and 
 active prince, I should not have put them into your pre¬ 
 sence, who have done so much, and have so much to do in 
 this world, as that it might seem enough to think seriously 
 of that. No man in the body of story is a full precedent to 
 you, nor may any future man promise himself an adequation 
 to his precedent, if he make you his. Kings have discerned 
 the seeds of high virtues in many men, and upon that gold 
 they have put their stamp, their favours upon those persons. 
 But then those persons have laboured under the jealousy of 
 the future heir; and some few have had the love of prince 
 and king, but not of the kingdom, and some of that too, and 
 not of the church. God hath united your Grace so to them 
 all, that as you have received obligations from the king and 
 prince, so you have laid obligations upon the church and 
 state. They above love you out of their judgment, because 
 they have loved you; and we below love you out of our 
 thankfulness, because you have loved us. God’s privy seal 
 is the testimony of a good conscience, and his broad seal is 
 the outward blessings of this life. But since his pillar 
 of fire was seconded with a pillar of cloud, and that all his 
 temporal blessings have some partial eclipses, and the purest 
 consciences some remorses; so, though he have made your 
 way to glory, glory, and brought you in the arms and 
 bosom of his vicegerent, into his own arms and bosom, yet 
 there must come a minute of twilight in a natural death. 
 And as the reading of the actions of great men may assist 
 you for great actions, so for this one necessary descent of 
 
TO SIR ROBERT KARRE ciii 
 
 dying (which I hope shall be the only step of lowness that 
 ever you shall pass by, and by that late), you may receive 
 some remembrances from the Meditations and Devotions of 
 Your Grace’s devoutest servant, 
 
 J. DONNE. 
 
 {From Cabala, 1654, p. 315.) 
 
 DR. DONNE’S LETTER TO THE HONOURABLE 
 KNIGHT, SIR ROBERT KARRE. 
 
 SIR, 
 
 ^r'HOUGH I have left my bed, I have not left my bed- 
 side; I sit there still, and as a prisoner discharged sits 
 at the prison door to beg fees, so sit I here to gather crumbs. 
 I have used this leisure to put the meditations had in my 
 sickness into some such order as may minister some holy 
 delight. They arise to so many sheets (perchance twenty), 
 as that without staying for that furniture of an epistle, that 
 my friends importuned me to print them, I importune my 
 friends to receive them printed. That being in hand, 
 through this long trunk, that reaches from St. Paul’s to 
 St. James’s, I whisper into your ear this question, whether 
 there be any uncomeliness or unseasonableness in presenting 
 matter of devotion or mortification to that prince whom 
 I pray God nothing may ever mortify but holiness. If you 
 allow my purposes in general, I pray cast your eye upon 
 the title and the epistle, and rectify me in them. I submit 
 substance and circumstance to you; and the poor author 
 of both. 
 
 Your very humble and very thankful 
 Servant in Christ Jesus, 
 
 J. DONNE. 
 
 {From Donne's Letters, 1651,p. 249.) 
 
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 paxdaker), the happiness of a part of your 
 
 h 
 
CVl 
 
 EPISTLE DEDICATORY 
 
 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 accep¬ 
 tation, may so long preserve alive the memory of 
 
 Your Highness’s humblest and devotedest. 
 
 JOHN DONNE. 
 
STATIONES, SIVE PERIODI IN MORBO, 
 
 AD QUAS REFERUNTUR MEDITATIONES 
 SEQUENTES. 
 
 1. Insultus Morbi primus. Page 
 
 The Jirst alteration, the Jirst grudging of the sickness , 1 
 
 2. Post, Actio laesa. 
 
 The strength and the function of the senses, and other 
 faculties, change and fail .6 
 
 3. Decubitus sequitur tandem. 
 
 The patient takes his bed .10 . 
 
 4. Medicusque vocatur. 
 
 The physician is sent for . 16 
 
 5. Solus adest. 
 
 The physician comes . 23 
 
 6. Metuit. 
 
 The physician is afraid . 28 
 
 7. Socios sibi jungier instat. 
 
 The physician desires to have others joined with him . . 36 
 
 8. Et rex ipse suum mittit. 
 
 The kijig sends his own physician . 43 
 
 9. Medicamina scribunt. 
 
 Upon their consultation, they prescribe . 49 
 
 10. Lentb et Serpent! satagunt occurrere Morbo. 
 
 They find the disease to steal on insensibly, and endeavour 
 
 to meet with it so . 55 
 
 11. Nobilibusque trahunt, a cincto corde, venenum, 
 
 Succis, et Gemmis; et quae generosa, ministrant 
 Ars, et Natura, instillant. 
 
 They use cordials, to keep the venom and malignity of 
 the disease from the heart . 62 
 
 12. Spirante Columba, 
 
 Supposita pedibus, revocantur ad ima vapores. 
 
 They apply pigeons, to draw the vapours from the head . 69 
 
STATIONE S IN MORBO 
 
 cviii 
 
 13. Atque Malum Genium, numeroso stignate, fassus, 
 Pellilur ad pectus, Morbique Suburbia, Morbus. 
 The sickness declares the infection and malignity thereof 
 
 by spots . 75 
 
 14. Idque notant Criticis, Medici evenisse diebus. 
 
 The physicians observe these accidents to have fallen upon 
 
 the critical days . 80 
 
 15. Interea insoinnes Nodes ego duco, Diesque. 
 
 1 sleep not day nor night .88 
 
 16. Et properare meum, clamant e turre propinqua 
 Obstreperse Campanse, aliorum in funere, funus. 
 
 From the bells of the church adjoining, I am daily re¬ 
 membered of my burial in the funerals of others . . 94 
 
 17. Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, Morieris. 
 
 Now, this bell tolling softly for another, says to me. Thou, 
 must die . 99 
 
 18. At inde, 
 Mortuus es, sonitu celeri, pulsuque agitato. 
 
 The bell rings out, and tells me in him, that I am dead . 105 
 
 19. 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 . 113 
 
 20. Id agunt. 
 
 Upon these indications of digested matter, they proceed to 
 purge .,.. 122 
 
 21. Atque annuit Ille, 
 
 Qui per eos clamat, linquas jam Lazare lectum. 
 
 God prospers their practice, and he, by them, calls Laza¬ 
 rus out of his tomb, me out of my bed . 129 
 
 22. 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 . 136 
 
 23. Metusque Relabi. 
 
 They warn me of the fearful danger of relapsing . . . 142 
 
DEVOTIONS. 
 
 I. 
 
 Insultus morbi primus. 
 
 The first Alteration, the first Grudging of the 
 SicJcness. 
 
 I. MEDITATION, 
 
 V ARIABLE, 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, sum¬ 
 mons 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 him¬ 
 self, 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 heark¬ 
 ening after false riches, and infatuated ourselves by 
 
 B 
 
o 
 
 DE VOTIONS' 
 
 hearkening after false knowledge. So that now, we 
 do not only die, but die upon the rack, die by the tor¬ 
 ment of sickness ; nor that only, but are preafflicted, 
 superafflicted with these jealousies and suspicions and 
 apprehensions of sickness, before we can call it a sick¬ 
 ness ; 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 can¬ 
 not enjoy death, because we die in this torment of 
 sickness; we are tormented with sickness, and cannot 
 stay till the torment come, but preapprehensions and 
 presages prophesy those torments, which induce that 
 death before either come; and our dissolution is con¬ 
 ceived 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 darkenings 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 him¬ 
 self, 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 arti¬ 
 ficial sickness of our own melancholy, to our natural, 
 our unnatural fever. O perplexed discomposition, O 
 riddling distemper, O miserable condition of man ! 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 3 
 
 I. EXPOSTULATION. 
 
 I F 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 recollect 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 apprehen¬ 
 sions, these presages, these changes, those antidotes, 
 those jealousies, those 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 tempta¬ 
 tion 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 sick¬ 
 ness. 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 
 
4 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 not say, “ Thou mayest die,” no, nor “ Thou must die,” 
 but “ Thou art deadand 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; w'e 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 land¬ 
 lord, pays us rents; not yeaidy nor quarterly, but 
 hourly and quarterly; every minute he renews his 
 mercy, but we will not understand, lest that we 
 should he converted, and he should heal us k 
 
 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 begin¬ 
 ning, through all our w'ays, to our end, enable me by 
 * Matt. xiii. 16. 
 
5 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 prac¬ 
 tice 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 elec¬ 
 tion, 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 
 poE, and so refrain from that which I was so hun- 
 gerly, so greedily flying to. A faithful ambassador 
 is health^, says thy wise servant Solomon, Thy 
 voice received in the beginning of a sickness, of a 
 sin, is true health. If I cafl see that light betimes, 
 and hear that voice early, Theti shall my light break 
 forth as the morning, and my health shall spring 
 forth speedily*. 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 sus¬ 
 picious 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 infir¬ 
 mity I am fallen. Do this, O Lord, for his sake, who 
 knows our natural infirmities, for he had them, and 
 
 2 2 Kings, iv. 40. ^ Prov. xiii. 17. 
 
 Isaiah, Jviii. 8, 
 
G 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 knows the weight of our sins, for he paid a dear 
 price for them, thy Son, our Saviour, Christ Jesus. 
 Amen. 
 
 II. Actio l.esa. 
 
 The Strength and the Function of the Senses, and 
 other Faculties, change and fail. 
 
 II. MEDITATIOiSr. 
 
 T he heavens are not the less constant because 
 they move continually, because they move con¬ 
 tinually 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 who 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 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 / 
 
 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 punish¬ 
 ment, 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 man¬ 
 kind, where one half lacks meat, and the other 
 stomach! 
 
 11. EXPOSTULATION. 
 
 D avid professes himself a dead dog *, to his king 
 Saul, and so doth Mephibosheth to his king 
 David and-yet David speaks to Saul, and Mephi¬ 
 bosheth to David. No man is so little, in respect of 
 the greatest man, as the gi’eatest 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 propor¬ 
 tion 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 
 ' 1 Sara. xxiv. 15. * 2 Sara. ix. 8. 
 
8 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 wilder¬ 
 ness forty years; wilt thou stay no minute for me ? 
 Wilt thou make thy process and thy decree, thy cita¬ 
 tion 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, IIow 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 hand 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. 
 
9 
 
 DE VOTIONS 
 
 I am fallen into the hands of God^ with David, and 
 with David I see that his mercies are great. 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 des¬ 
 patch which my God shall use in recollecting and 
 reuniting this dust again at the resurrection. Then 
 I shall hear his angels proclaim the Siirgite 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. 
 
 MOST gracious God, who pursuest and per- 
 
 fectest 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 pro¬ 
 ceeding 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 wdth thyself, 
 by stripping me of myself; 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^. 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 w^eak therefore that I 
 ® 2 Sam. xxiv. 14. Psalm xxxiv. 8. 
 
10 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 should easily fall to, and fix myself long upon my 
 devotions to thee. A sound heart is the life of the 
 fesh^; and a heart visited by thee, and directed to 
 thee by that visitation, is a sound heart. There is no 
 soundness in my jiesh, because of thine anger^. 
 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 hones, because of 
 my sin"^; 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. 
 
 III. Decubitus sequitur tandem. 
 The Patient takes his Bed. 
 
 III. MEDITATION. 
 
 W E attribute but one privilege and advantage to 
 man’s body above other moving creatures, 
 that he is not, as others, groveling, 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, wLich 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 
 
 ® Prov. xiv. 30. 
 
 ^ Psalm xxxviii. 3. 
 
 ® Psalm xxxviii. 3. 
 
DEVO riONS 
 
 11 
 
 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 im¬ 
 mured 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 
 
u 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 awake at midnight, 
 and ask how I do to-morrow. Miserable, and (though 
 common to all) inhuman posture, where I must prac¬ 
 tise my lying in the grave by lying still, and not 
 practise my resurrection by rising any more. 
 
 III. EXPOSTULATION. 
 
 /TY God and my Jesus, my Lord and my Christ, 
 my strength and my salvation, I hear thee, 
 and I hearken to thee, when thou I’ebukest thy disci¬ 
 ples, for rebuking them who brought children to thee; 
 Su^er little children to come to sayest thou. 
 
 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 
 loath 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®, 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^^. 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 
 “ Matt. xix. 13. ® Amos, vi. 4. Psalm cxxxii. 3. 
 
13 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 comment upon that; thou callest the bed tribulation, 
 great tribulation". 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 cen¬ 
 turion’s servant lay sick at home'^ his master was 
 fain to come to Christ; the sick man could not. Their 
 friend lay sick of the palsyand the four charitable 
 men were fain to bring him to Christ; he could not 
 come. Peter’s wife’s mother lay sick of a fever 
 and Christ came to her; she could not come to him. 
 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 ivhere 
 thine honour dwelletlO^. I lie here, and say. Blessed 
 are they that dwell in thy house^^ ; but I cannot say, 
 I will come into thy house ; I may say. In thy fear 
 will I tvorship towards thy holy temple^’’, but I cannot 
 say in thy holy temple. And, Lord, the zeal of thy 
 house eats me up as fast as my fever; it is not a 
 recusancy, for I would come, but it is an excommuni¬ 
 cation, 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 
 j lips, that my mouth might show thee thy praise, but 
 I that my mouth might show foydh thy praise. But 
 I thine apostle’s fear takes hold of me, that when I 
 have preached to others, I myself should be a cast- 
 
 '• Rev. ii. 22. Matt. viii. 6. Matt. viii. 4. 
 
 ** Matt. viii. 14. Psalm xxvi. 8. Psalm Ixxxiv. 4. 
 
 " Psalm V. 7. Psalm Ixix. 9. 
 
14 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 away ; and therefore am I cast down, that I might 
 not be cast away. Thou couldst take me by the head, 
 as thou didst Abacuc, and carry me so; by a chariot, 
 as thou didst Elijahand carry me so; but thou 
 earnest 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 he 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-^. 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. PEAYER. 
 
 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 
 
 1 Cor. ix. 27. 2 Kings, ii. 11. 
 
 Exodus, xxi. 18. 
 
15 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 sur¬ 
 render 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 confi¬ 
 dence, and in the application of thy servant David’s 
 promise, that thou wilt make all my bed in my sick¬ 
 ness'^ : 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 ordi¬ 
 nances 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 
 stilT^. To provide a bed for all my former sins 
 Psalm xli. 3. Psalm iv. 4. 
 
16 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 assur¬ 
 ance, 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. 
 
 IV. Medicusq; vocatue. 
 
 Tlie Physician is sent for. 
 
 IV. MEDITATION. 
 
 I T 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 w^est, from earth to 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 17 
 
 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, over¬ 
 takes the sun, and overgoes the sun in one pace, one 
 step, every where. And then, as the other world pro¬ 
 duces 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 w'e lack of having 
 remedies for every disease, when as yet we have not 
 names for them ? But w'e 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 doar 
 that pursues it, though he be subject to sickness, even 
 proverbially, knows his grass that recovers him. And 
 it may be true, that the driigger is as near to man as 
 to other creatures; it may be that obvious and present 
 
 c 
 
18 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 simples, easy to be had, would cure him ; hut 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 me¬ 
 ditations again, and bring it down: what is become of 
 man’s great extent and proportion, when himself 
 shrinks himself, and consumes himself to a handful of 
 dust; what is 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 phy¬ 
 sician. 
 
 IV. EXPOSTULATION. 
 
 I HAVE not the righteousness of Job, but I have 
 the desire of Job; I would speak to the Almighty., 
 and I ivoidd reason with God^. My God, my God, 
 how soon wouldst thou have me go to the physician, 
 and how far wouldst thou have me go with the phy¬ 
 sician ? 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 
 
 ’ Job, xiii. 3. 
 
19 
 
 DE VOTIONS 
 
 shall he for meat, and their leaves for medicine‘s. 
 It is the voice of thy Son, Wilt thou he made tvhole^ ? 
 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^? 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 ahhor them^, 
 and for the art, and the person, the physician cutteth 
 off a long disease. In all these voices, thou sendest 
 us to those helps wdiich 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^ ; 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, hut to the 
 jjhysician'’. 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, I71 time of 
 thy sickness, he not negligent : wherein wilt thou 
 have my diligence expressed ? Pray unto the Lord, 
 and he will make thee whole^. O Lord, I do; I 
 
 ^ Ezek. xlvii. 12. ^ John, v. G. ■* Jer. viii.22. 
 
 ® Ecolus. xxxviii. 1. ® Ecclus. xxxviii. 15. 
 
 1 Cliron. xvi. 12. ® Ecclus. xxxviii. 9. 
 
20 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 pray, and pray thy servant David’s prayer, Have 
 mercy upon me, O Ijord,for I am weak ; heal me, 
 O Lord, for my bones are vexed^ : 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 praying 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 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 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^^. I send for the phy¬ 
 sician, but I w'ill hear him enter with those words of 
 Peter, Jesus Christ maketh thee tvhole^^ ; I long for 
 his presence, but I look that the power of the Lord 
 should be present to heal me'h 
 
 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 vehe¬ 
 mence of two diseases, and under the necessity of two 
 physicians, authorized by thee, the bodily, and the 
 
 ® Psalm vi. 2. 
 
 ” Ecclus. xxxviii. 11. 
 
 Acts, ix. 34. 
 
 Ecclns. xxxviii. 10. 
 Ecclus. xxxviii. 12. 
 *■* Luke, V. 17. 
 
DEVOTIONS 21 
 
 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^^. 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 woul4st have healed 
 Babylon, but she is not healed'^. Take from me, 
 O Lord, her perverseness, her wilfulness, her refrac¬ 
 toriness, 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''’’. 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'^, says the pi'ophet 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; but it is when the inha¬ 
 bitants of the earth pray that thou wouldst heal it. 
 Thou promisest to heal their waters, but their miry 
 
 Rev. xxii. 2. Jer. li. 9. ” Hosea, v. 13. 
 
 '* Isaiah, liii. 5. 2 Cliron. vii. 14. 
 
22 DEVOTIONS 
 
 places, and standing waters, thou sayest there, thou 
 wilt not heaD°. 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 eai'th, 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 ive7it about healmg all maimer of 
 sicknesses^K (No disease incurable, none difficult; 
 he healed them in passing). Virtue went out of him, 
 and he healed alD^, all the multitude (no person in¬ 
 curable), he healed them every whit'^ (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 ivill heal thee, and on the 
 third day thou shalt go up to the house of the 
 Lord-'^. 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 hut spit 
 in her face, should she not he ashamed seven days ? 
 Let her he shut up seven days, and then return’^; 
 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 tem¬ 
 poral 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. 
 
 Ezek. xlvii. 11. Matt. iv. 23. Luke, vi. 19. 
 
 John, vii. 23. 2 Kings, xx. 5. Num. xii. 14. 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 23 
 
 V . Solus adest. 
 
 The Physician comes. 
 
 V. MEDITATION. 
 
 A S sickness is the greatest misery, so the greatest 
 misery of sickness is solitude ; when the infec¬ 
 tiousness 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 ab¬ 
 sence, 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 pdl’sons 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 
 
24 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 
 inci’ease 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 phcenix; 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 woi'ld, 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 n^ of his, not in the body of his Testa¬ 
 ments, 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 infec¬ 
 tious 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, 
 
25 
 
 DE VOTION S 
 
 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 
 he so. 
 
 V. EXPOSTULATION.. 
 
 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 *, she expos¬ 
 tulated 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 tby 
 people, that they should dwell alone, and not be 
 reckoned among the nations^ (because they should 
 be above them), and that they should dwell in safety 
 alone^ (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'^ ; and so when he is 
 fallen, and laid in the bed of sickness too. Righteous¬ 
 ness is immortaT •, 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 rig-hteousness itself did die. I know that the Son 
 of Righteousness, thy Son, refused not, nay affected 
 solitariness, loneness®, many, many times; but at all 
 times he was able to command moy'e than twelve 
 legions of angeW 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^. 
 I cannot fear but that I shall always be with thee and 
 
 ' John, xi. 23. ^ Num. xxiii. 9. 
 
 * Eccles. iv. 10. * Wisd. i. 15. 
 
 y Matt. xxvi. 13. ® John, viii. 10. 
 
 ® Dent, xxxiii. 28. 
 ® Matt. xiv. 23. 
 
26 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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^, 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^^. 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 " ; and Martha murmured at that, 
 said to Christ, Lord, dost not thou care that my 
 sister hath left me to serve alone^‘^ ? Neither could 
 Jeremiah enter into his lamentations from a higher 
 ground than .to say. How doth the city sit solitary 
 that was full ofpeople^^. O my God, it is the leper 
 that thou hast condemned to live alone ; 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 ; that solitariness, and 
 dereliction, and abandoning of others, disposes us best 
 
 ® Psalm xxxviii. 11. Isaiah Ixiii. 3. 
 
 " 1 Kings, xiv. 14. Luke, x. 40. 
 
 Jer. i. 1. ‘‘‘ Lev. xiii. 46. Exod. xiv. 2. 
 
DEVOTIONS 27 
 
 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 ; 
 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'’’. Therefoi’e hath 
 the Lord afforded me both in one person, that physi¬ 
 cian 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 repeatest 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 
 
 '* Gen. xxxii. 24. 25. Ecclus. vi. 10. 
 
28 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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. 
 
 A’l. IMetuit. 
 
 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 
 
DEVOTIONS 29 
 
 practice. As the ill affections of the spleen compli¬ 
 cate 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 stupe¬ 
 faction ; so every fear is not a fearfulness, every de¬ 
 clination 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. 
 
30 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 VI. EXPOSTULATION. 
 
 God, my God, I find in thy book that fear is 
 X a stifling' spirit, a spirit of suffocation; that 
 Ishbosheth could not speak, nor reply in his own 
 defence to Abner, because he was afraid'. It was 
 thy servant Job’s case too, who, before he could say 
 any thing to thee, says of thee. Let him take his rod 
 away from me, and let not his fear terrify me, 
 then ivould I speak with him, and not fear him ; but 
 it is not so with web Shall a fear of thee takeaway 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* that did justice at last, because the 
 V 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^, 
 that if I press my friend, when he is in bed at mid¬ 
 night, 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 mid¬ 
 night, and God will not say, I will hear thee to- 
 
 ' 2 Sam. iii. 11 . « 34 ^ 
 
 * Luke, xviii.l. ■* Luke, xi. 5. 
 
DEVOTIONS 31 
 
 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? 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^: 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, hut they that seek 
 the Lord shall not want any good thing''. 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 eviD ? 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^, if thou fear God. Thou art, 
 O my God, so far from admitting us, that fear thee, 
 
 ® Psalm xxvii. 1. ® Num. xiv. 9. ^ Psalm xxxv. 70. 
 
 ® Psalm xlix. 5. ® Ecclas.xli. 3. 
 
32 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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^^. 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 this my fear ! Is not this that 
 which thou intendest, when thou sayest, The secret of 
 the Lord is with them that fear him ” ; 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^'^? 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^^; 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 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’^. And thou wilt make them fear 
 where no cause of fear is, as thou hast told them more 
 than once too'®. 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 .Tews'^. 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 
 
 Mark, vi. 20. '' Psalm xxv. 14. Prov. ii. 5, 
 
 Acts, ix. 31. *■* Gen. iii. 10. Prov. i. 26 ; x. 24. 
 
 '® Psalm xiv. 5 ; Hii. 5. John, vii. 13 ; xix. 38 ; xxix. 10. 
 
DEVOTIONS 33 
 
 thy fear; for the fear of the Lord is Ms treasure'^. 
 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? 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^®. 
 Such thou sendest farther than so ; thither from whence 
 they never return : The fearful, and the unbelieving, 
 into that burning lake which is a second death‘‘'. 
 There is a fear, and there is a hope, which are equal 
 abominations to thee; for they were confounded, 
 because they hopedsays 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 
 uwnien departed from the sepulchre‘s, 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 docth 
 not both; he omits neither, that does one. Therefore 
 
 Tsaiah, xxxiii. G. Matt. viii. 2G. Jucl;>es, vii. 
 
 Rev. xxi. 8. Job, vi. 20. Matt, xxviii. 8. 
 
 D 
 
34 DEVOTIONS 
 
 when thy servant David had said that the fear of the 
 Lord is the beginning of wisdoni'^^', and his son had 
 repeated it again he that collects both calls this 
 fear the root of wisdom; and, that it may embrace 
 all, he calls it wisdom itself^®. 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"', 
 not in heavy and calamitous, but in good and cheerful 
 days too; for Noah, who had assurance of his deliver¬ 
 ance, yet, moved with fear, prepared an arh,for the 
 saving of his house'^. A wise man will fear in every 
 thing^^. 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 inordi¬ 
 nate 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 AIOST 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 repent¬ 
 ance, 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 sick- 
 
 2 '* Psalm cxi. 10. Prov. i. 7. Ecclus. i, 20, 27. 
 
 Ueut. iv. 10. Heb. xi. 7. Ecclus. xviii. 27. 
 
35 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 ness, 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 Sou 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 w'as 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 sub¬ 
 mitting of all to thy will. And when thou shalt have 
 inflamed and thawed my former coldnesses and inde¬ 
 votions 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 w’ardrobe, 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. 
 
36 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 VII. Socios SIBI JUNGEEE INSTAT. 
 
 The Physician desires to have others joined with 
 
 him. 
 
 VII. MEDITATION. 
 
 HERE is more fear, therefore more cause. If 
 
 JL 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 began alone, with others. It dimi¬ 
 nishes 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, w'here 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 
 
37 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 young man’s back, and says nothing; age is a sick¬ 
 ness, 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 import¬ 
 ance, 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, w'as 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, 
 w'e 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 S3'^mptom of 
 death, but another and another assistant, and protector 
 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 
 
S8 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 phy¬ 
 sician 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 1, 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 (per¬ 
 chance) 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 julap enough, the 
 refuse of our servants bezoar enough, and the off- 
 scouring 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. 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 39 
 
 VII. EXPOSTULATION. 
 
 Y God, my God, thy blessed servant Augustine 
 
 begged of tbee, 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', and that the watchman told him that he saw a 
 man running alone, David concluded out of that cir¬ 
 cumstance, that if he came alone, he brought good 
 news^? 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 nie^, 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 ap¬ 
 plication 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^, but it was also thy immediate 
 Spirit, O my God, that moved Moses to present unto 
 
 * 2 Sam. xviii. 2.5. 
 
 2 So all but our translation takes it; even Buxdor and 
 Schindler. 
 
 ^ 2 Tim. iv. 11. 
 
 ■' Exod. xviii. 13. 
 
40 DEVOTIONS 
 
 thee seventy of the elders of Israel’, 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 
 ivorship hiin^; if that be in heaven, upon earth he 
 says, that he could command twelve legions of 
 angels''; 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 hinV. The angels that celebrated his birth to 
 the shepherds®, the angels that celebrated his second 
 birth, his resurrection, to the Maides were in the 
 plural, angels associated with angels. In Jacob’s 
 ladder “, they who ascended and descended, and 
 maintained the trade between heaven and earth, be¬ 
 tween thee and us, they who have the commission, 
 and charge to guide us in all our ways''^, they W'ho 
 hastened Lot'®, and in him, us, from places of danger 
 and temptation, they who are appointed to instruct 
 and govern us in the church here’h they who are 
 sent to punish the disobedient and refractory”, that 
 they are to be the mowers and harvestmen ” 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'’, they wLo attend at the several 
 gates of the new Jerusalem ”, 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 
 
 ® Num. xi. IG. 
 
 ® Matt. XXV. 31. 
 Gen. xxviii. 12. 
 Rev. i. 20. 
 Luke, xvi. 22. 
 
 ® Heb. 1. 6. ^ Matt. xxvi. 53. 
 
 ® Luke, ii. 13, 14. John, xx. 12. 
 
 Psalm xci. 11. Gen. xix. 15. 
 
 ” Rev. viii. 2. Matt. xiii. 39. 
 
 ‘8 Rev. xxi. 12. 
 
41 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 sei'vice, 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 Senna¬ 
 cherib’s army*®, 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 thy Spirit hath 
 anointed hhn to preach the Gospel-'^, yet he hath 
 given others for the perfecting of the saints in the 
 tcork of the ministry-^. Thou hast made him Bishop 
 of our souls^^, but there are others bishops too. He 
 gave the Holy Ghost®®, 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 corners, 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 im¬ 
 mortal establishing in the next. 
 
 2 Kings, six, 35. Luke, iv. 18. Eph. iv. 12. 
 
 1 Pet. ii. 25. John, xx. 22. 
 
42 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 correc¬ 
 tion, 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 wLich our souls are 
 made thine, imprint thy two qualities, those two ope¬ 
 rations, 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 
 
43 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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. 
 
 VIII. Et rex ipse suum mittit. 
 
 The King sends his own Physician. 
 
 VIII. MEDITATION. 
 
 S TILL 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 
 
44 
 
 DE VOTIONS 
 
 sicknesses, or the worst of sicknesses, continual fear of 
 it. Are they gods ? He that called them so cannot 
 flatter. They are gods, hut 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 Aesculapius ? 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 Ter- 
 tullian 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. 
 Hut their deity is better expressed in their humility 
 than in their height; when abounding and over¬ 
 flowing, as God, in means of doing good, they 
 descend, as God, to a communication of their abun¬ 
 dances 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 cheer¬ 
 fulness 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 hap¬ 
 piness of kings, to confer, to transfer, honour and 
 riches, and (as they can) health, upon those that 
 need them. 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 45 
 
 VIII. EXPOSTULATION. 
 
 Y God, my God, I have a warning from the 
 
 JLtJL wise man, that when a rich man speaheth, 
 every man holdeth his tongue, and, look, what he 
 saith, they extol it to the clouds ; hut if a poor man 
 spjeak, they say. What fellow is this? And if he 
 stumble, they will help to overthrow Am'. There¬ 
 fore 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 
 
 ' Ecclus. xiii. 23 
 
4G 
 
 DE VOTIONS 
 
 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 assist¬ 
 ances, and might do enough in sending relief, she 
 said, she would send in that capacity as empress, but 
 she would go too 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®; 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, he against me and against 
 .* 2 Sara. xix. 12. 
 
DEVOTIONS 47 
 
 viij fathers house^. 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^. 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, per¬ 
 chance, 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 or- 
 d.ain priests, as well as judges®: and not only to send 
 physicians for temporal, but to be the physician for 
 spiritual health. 
 
 ^ 2 Sam. xxiv. 17. '' 2 .Sam. xxiv. 22, 23. ^ 2 Chron. xix. 8. 
 
48 
 
 DE VOTIONS 
 
 A^II. PRAYER. 
 
 ETERNAL and most gracious God, who, 
 
 though thou have reserved thy treasure of per¬ 
 fect joy and perfect glory, to be given by thine own 
 hands then, when, by seeing thee as thou art in thy¬ 
 self, and knowing thee as we ai'e 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 pay¬ 
 ment, 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 
 ])leased 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 w'e 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 tbou 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 hear¬ 
 ing, but in the preaching of thy Gospel. Humbly 
 beseeching thee, that, as thou continuest thy wonted 
 
I 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 49 
 
 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 art the greatest in 
 heaven, as he hath been in soul and body to me, in 
 his proportion who is the greatest upon earth. 
 
 TX. Medicamina scribunt. 
 
 Upon their Consultation, they prescribe. 
 
 IX. MEDITATION. 
 
 HEY have seen me and heard me, arraigned me 
 
 I 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 sick¬ 
 ness : 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, 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 re¬ 
 duced 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 inso- 
 lenc)^ of those that are great put 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 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 31 
 
 purge his choler, or to break the blow ? But where 
 there is room for consultation, things are not despe¬ 
 rate. They consult, so there is nothing rashly, 
 inconsiderately done; and then they prescribe, they 
 write, so there is nothing covertly, disguisedly, una- 
 vowedly 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 govei'nment it is so too; they are sometimes sur¬ 
 prised 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 disor¬ 
 der, that had occasioned and induced, or that had 
 hastened and exalted this sickness, or if they should 
 begin to WTite now rules for my diet and exercise 
 when I were w'ell, 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 
 hide 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. 
 
52 
 
 DE VOTIONS 
 
 IX. EXPOSTULATION. 
 
 Y God, my God, allow me a just indignation, a 
 
 IVl 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 pro¬ 
 phet to reprehend him, but asked him in anger, Art 
 thou made of the king’s counseP ? When thy pro¬ 
 phet Esaias asks that question. Who hath directed 
 the spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor, hath 
 tauflit him^? it is after he had settled and deter- 
 mined 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^; and 
 after he had settled upon him the spirit of might and 
 of counsel'*. 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^. In the 
 preserving of man, O thou great Preserver of men^, 
 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 consulta- 
 
 * 2 Chron. xxv. 1C. - Isaiah, xlii. 13. ® Isaiah, ix. 0. 
 
 '* Isaiah, xi. 2. ® Gen. i. 26. ® Job, vii. 20. 
 
DEVOTIONS 53 
 
 tion 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’; 
 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, esta- 
 bhshed 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 
 book with seven seals, which only the Lamb which 
 was slain, was found worthy to open^; which, I 
 hope, it shall not disagree with the meaning of thy 
 ^ITira.iv, 1. Hos. iv. 12. Isaiah, xix. 14. ®Rev, vii. 1. 
 
54 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 con¬ 
 solation. 
 
 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 impure 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 our¬ 
 selves, 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. 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 consulta¬ 
 tion, O blessed and glorious Trinity; and though the 
 Father know that 1 have defaced his image received 
 in my creation; though the Son know I have neg¬ 
 lected 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. 
 
 X. Lente et serpenti satagunt occurrere morbo. 
 
 Thejj find the Disease to steal on insensibly, and 
 endeavour to meet with it so. 
 
 X. MEDITATION. 
 
 HIS is nature’s nest of boxes: the heavens 
 
 X contain the earth; the earth, cities ; cities, men. 
 And all these are concentric ; the common centre to 
 them all is decay, t uin; only that is eccentric which 
 
56 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 houses from whence it 
 fell, it did not put out those lights, it did not quench 
 those heats; but the fever, the tire, 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 signi¬ 
 fications 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 astro¬ 
 loger tells us when the effects will be accomplished, 
 for that is a secret of a higher sphere than the other; 
 
DEVOTIONS 37 
 
 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 sick¬ 
 ness. My forces are not enfeebled, I find no decay in 
 my strength; my provisions are not cut off, I find no 
 abhoi'ring in mine appetite; my counsels are not cor¬ 
 rupted 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, physi¬ 
 cians have their examiners; and those these employ 
 now. 
 
 X. EXPOSTULATION. 
 
 M y 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 
 
58 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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*, 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 creep¬ 
 ing 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^; into our eyes and ears, the 
 entrances and inlets of our soul. He works upon ns 
 in secret, and we do not discern him; and one great 
 w'ork 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®; 
 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*; 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^? Can 
 any sin be secret? for a great part of our sins, though, 
 
 ' Josephus. * Jer. ix. 21. ^ John, viii.44. 
 
 * John, vi. 70. * Psalm xix. 12. 
 
DEVOTIONS 59 
 
 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 shame¬ 
 facedness 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 thij tvickedness, and thou hast 
 said, None shall see me^), 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’; 
 the heavens themselves 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^; thou wilt trouble no informer, 
 thou thyself revealedst Adam’s sin to thyself®; 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^^ ; and there is 
 nothing covered that shall not be revealed^^. 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 ivill confess my 
 
 Isaiah xlvii. 10. ^ Gen. iv. 10. ® Eccles. x. 20. 
 
 ® Gen. iii. 8. Eccles. xii. 14. 
 
 ** Matt. x. 26. Psalm xxxii. 3—5. 
 
60 
 
 DE VOTIONS 
 
 transgressions unto the Lord, thou forgavest the 
 iniquity o f my sin. 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 donethey were done in our incli¬ 
 nation 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 w’ere 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 multiphed against thee. 
 
 X. PRAYER. 
 
 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 know'est 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 
 
DEVOTIONS 61 
 
 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 re¬ 
 lapsed 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 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. 
 
62 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 XI. Nobilibusque tbahunt, a cincto corde, venenu.m, 
 
 Succis ET GEMMIS, ET QU.E GENEROSA, MINISTRANT 
 Ars, ET NATURA, INSTCLLAXT. 
 
 They use Cordials, to keep the Venom and Malig 
 nity of the Disease from the Heart. 
 
 XL MEDITATION. 
 
 HENCE can we take a better argument, a 
 
 V V 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 
 
DEVOTIONS 63 
 
 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 over 
 all; 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 physi¬ 
 cian 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 our¬ 
 selves, and we ourselves are principally in our contem¬ 
 plation ; 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 voluntarilv, 
 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 
 appliable to the kings of this w'orld, great men, that 
 the venom and poison of every pestilential disease 
 
64 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 directs itself to the heart, affects that (pernicious affec¬ 
 tion), 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 opera¬ 
 tion, so the greatest cordial of the heart, patience, if 
 it be much exercised, exalts the venom and the ma¬ 
 lignity 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 conti¬ 
 nually 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. 
 
 Y God, my God, all that thou askest of me is 
 
 1 Y 1 my \\Qaxi, My Son, give me thy heart^. Ami 
 thy Son as long as I have but my heart ? Wilt thou 
 give me an inheritance, a filiation, any thing for my 
 
 ' Pror. xxiii. 2G. 
 
DEVOTIONS 65 
 
 heart ? O thou, who saidst to Satan, Hast thou co7i- 
 sidered ony servant Job, that there is no7ie like him 
 upon the eartU, 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 iE ? 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*. 
 Dost thou remember this, and wouldst thou have my 
 heart ? O God of all light, I know thou knowest all, 
 and it is thou® 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®; that thou 
 couldst and wouldst give thy people pastors according 
 to thine own heartand 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 and 
 
 ® Job, i. 8. ® Jer. xvii. 9. '* Gen. vi. 5. 
 
 ® Amos, iv. 14. ® 1 Sam. xiii. 14. Jer. iii. 15. 
 
 ® Ezek. xi. 19. 
 
 F 
 
66 DEVOTIONS 
 
 I have made mine such: I have found hearts that are 
 snares®; and I have conversed with such; hearts that 
 burn like ovens'®; 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 fooV^ ; 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. 1 have found these hearts, and a 
 worse than these, a heart into the which the devil 
 himself is entered, Judas’s heart"*. 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'®, 
 and I have not that; to those of the other kind thou 
 givest faintness of heartand 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'®, 
 and a troubled heart; and a wounded heart, and a 
 broken heart, and a contrite heart; and by the power¬ 
 ful 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^^. 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 wound¬ 
 ing, this breaking, this contrition, which I have now, is 
 thy way to thy end ;*and those discomforts are, for all 
 
 ® Eccles. vii. 2G. Hos. vii. 6. " Prov. xxviii. 2G. 
 
 John, xiii. 2. Ecclus. 1. 23. Lev. xxvi. ;5G. 
 
 Josh. ii. 11. 1 Sam. vii. 3. 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 67 
 
 that, the earnest of thy Spirit in my heart ; and 
 where thou givest earnest, thou wilt perform the bar¬ 
 gain. Nabal was confident upon his wine, but m the 
 morning his heart died within him^^. 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 ; and 
 his heart smote him when he had numbered his 
 people*^®: 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^^, thou wilt preserve that heart from all 
 mortal force of that infection; and the peace of God, 
 which passeth all understanding, shall keep my 
 heart and mind through Christ Jesus 
 
 XI. PRAYER. 
 
 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 
 
 2 Cor. i. 22. 1 Sain.xxv, 37. 
 
 *3 1 Sara. xxiv. 5. 2 Sam. xxiv. 10. 
 
 1 Kings, viii. 38. Phil. iv. 7. 
 
68 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 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, hypo¬ 
 crites and idolaters 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 he 
 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 power¬ 
 ful cordial. When thy blessed Son cried out to thee. 
 My God, my God, why hast thou forsahen 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 hid it meet thee this day in paradise, 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 69 
 
 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. 
 
 XII. -Spirante columba 
 
 SuPPOSITA PEDIBUS, REVOCANTUR AD lAlA VAPORES. 
 
 They apply Pigeons, to draw the Vapours from the 
 
 Head. 
 
 XII. MEDITATION. 
 
 HAT 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 oveiday 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 com¬ 
 missioner, 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 infec¬ 
 tious vapour were sought for, or travelled to, as Pliny 
 
70 DEVOTIONS 
 
 hunted after the vapour of ^tna, 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 circum¬ 
 stance, 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 mis¬ 
 placing 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 
 
DEVOTIONS 71 
 
 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 *; 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, irr a 
 state, infectious rumours, detracting and dishonoui’able 
 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 dii'ected 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 
 home-bred vapours ? What fugitive, what almsman of 
 any foreign state, can do so much harm as a detractor, 
 ’ Coma. Latro, in Val. Max. 
 
72 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 
 viperbecause the flea, though he kill none, he does 
 all the harm he can; so even these libellous and licen¬ 
 tious jesters utter the venom they have, though some¬ 
 times virtue, and always power, be a good pigeon to 
 draw this vapour from the head, and from doing any 
 deadly harm there. 
 
 XII. EXPOSTULATION. 
 
 Y God, my God, as thy servant James, when 
 
 i^VJL he asks that question, Wliat is your life? 
 provides me my answer. It is even a vapour, that 
 appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth 
 away^; 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'^. And that by which thou hast im¬ 
 puted a goodness to us, and wherein thou hast 
 accepted our service to thee, sacrifices; for sacrifices 
 were vapours®; and in them it is said, that a thick 
 cloud of incense went up to thee^. 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 
 
 ^ Ardionus. ^ James, iv. 14. * Gen. ii. G. 
 
 ® Lev. xvi. 13. ® Ezek.viii.il. 
 
DE VOTIONS 
 
 73 
 
 person of Wisdom, is called so too ; She is (that is, he 
 is) the vapour of the power of God, and the pure 
 infuence from the glory of the Almighty’’. 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 dis¬ 
 pleased 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^. Therefore that 
 commination of thine, by thy prophet, I will show 
 wonders in the heaven, and in the earth, blood and 
 fire, and jjillars of smoke^; thine apostle, who knew 
 thy meaning best, calls vapours of smoke^’’. One 
 prophet presents thee in thy terribleness so. There 
 went out a smoke at his nostrils”, and another the 
 effect of thine anger so. The house was filled with 
 smoke^’^; 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 scor¬ 
 pions”. 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 
 
 Wlsd. vii. 25. ® Wisd. xi. 18. ® Joel, ii. 30. 
 
 *° Acts, ii. 19. Psaliu Ixxviii. 8, Isaiah, vi. 4. 
 
 Rev. ix. 2. 
 
74 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 descend¬ 
 ing 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 alford 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 our¬ 
 selves, 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 crea¬ 
 ture, 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 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 75 
 
 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 dragonthat 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^^. 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 hones live^^ ? 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 hut 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. 
 
 XIII. Ingeniumque malum, numeroso stigmate, fassus 
 Pellitur ad pectus, morbtque suburbia, morbus. 
 
 The Sickness declares the Infection and Malignity 
 thereof hy Spots. 
 
 XIII, MEDITATION. 
 
 W E 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 
 
 '* Psalm xci. 13. Ezek. vii. IG. Ezek. xxxvii. 3. 
 
7G DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 ai*e misery and happiness, as though he had an 
 equal proportion of both, and the days of man vicissi- 
 tudinary, 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 pesti¬ 
 lential 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 
 outwai'd declarations, which she is able to put forth of 
 herself, they minister cdmfort; 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 con¬ 
 fession ; 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 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 77 
 
 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 pro¬ 
 phetically 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 exei'cise the virtue of patience. How deep do we 
 dig, and for how coarse gold! And what other touch¬ 
 stone 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. 
 
 M y 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 ’ ? 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 
 
 ' Cant. iv. 7. 
 
78 DEVOTIONS 
 
 bidst us hate the garment that is spotted with the 
 flesh"^. The flesh itself is the garment, and it spotteth 
 itself with itself. And if I wash myself ivith snow 
 water., mine own clothes shall make me abominable^; 
 and yet no man yet ever hated his ownfesh*. 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^. 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®, says the wise man; when we hide our spots, 
 we become idolaters 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’, thou didst 
 prosper his rods ; and thou dost prosper thine own 
 rods, when corrections procure the discovery of our 
 spots, the humble manifestation of onr sins to thee ; 
 till then thou mayst justly say. The whole need not 
 
 2 Jude, 23. * Job, ix. 30. Eph. v. 29. 
 
 * Josh. xxii. 17. ® Wisd. xiii. 14. Gen. xxx. 33. 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 79 
 
 the physician^; 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^ f 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, 
 
 ETERNAL and most gracious God, who, as 
 
 KJ 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. 1 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 patientbut 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 
 
 8 Matt. ix. 12. 
 
 ® Job, xi. 15 
 
80 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 rever¬ 
 sion, by glorifying thyself in my stay here, I limit not, 
 I condition not, 1 choose not, I wish not, no more 
 than the house or land that passeth by any civil con¬ 
 veyance. 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. 
 
 XIV. Idque notant ceiticis medici evemisse 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 happi¬ 
 nesses which he hath in this world, have their times, 
 and their seasons, and their critical days; and the}' 
 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 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 81 
 
 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 w'e consider, not eternity, but per¬ 
 petuity ; 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 crea¬ 
 ture 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 appre¬ 
 hend and lay hold of I How busy and perplexed a 
 cobweb is the happiness of man here, that must be 
 made up with a watchfulness to lay hold upon occa¬ 
 sion, which is but a little piece of that which is 
 nothing, time ! and yet the best things are nothing 
 without that. Honours, pleasures, possessions, pre¬ 
 sented 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 
 
 G 
 
82 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 olf. 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. 
 
 M y God, my God, wouldst thou call thyself the 
 ancient of days', if we were not to call our¬ 
 selves to an account for our days ? Wouldst thou 
 chide us for standing idle here all the day‘^, if we 
 were sure to have more days to make up our harvest? 
 When thou bidst us take no thought for to-morroiv, 
 for sufficient unto the day (to every day) is the evil 
 thereof^, 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*, 
 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^, dost thou take away all 
 consideration, all distinction of days ? Though thou 
 
 * Dan. vii. 9. Matt. 6. ® Matt. vi. 34. 
 
 * Gal. iv. 10. ® Col. ii. 10. 
 
83 
 
 DE VOTIONS 
 
 remove them from being of the essence, of our salva¬ 
 tion, 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 reco¬ 
 very and convalescence. For there is to every man a 
 day of salvation. Now is the accepted time, now is 
 the day of salvation^, and there is a great day of thy 
 wrath’’, 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 he able to stand in the evil 
 day^. So far then our days must be critical to us, as 
 that by consideration of them, we may make a judg¬ 
 ment of our spiritual health, for that is the crisis of 
 our bodily health. Thy beloved sei'vant, St. John, 
 wishes to Gains, that he may prosper in his health, 
 so as his soul prospers^; 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 ob¬ 
 serving 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 
 
 6 2 Cor. vi. 2. 
 ® EpI). vi. 1. 
 
 Rev, vi. 17. 
 ® 3 John, 2. 
 
84 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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'®? We are 
 the children of the day", 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 super¬ 
 induced 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^'^; 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 alforded us ? Those opposed adversaries of thy 
 Son, the Pharisees, with the Herodians, watched a 
 critical day ; then when the state was incensed against 
 him, they came to tempt him in the dangerous ques¬ 
 tion of tribute'®. 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'"', 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'®, 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 
 
 Heb. i. 2. " 2 Thes. v. 8. Matt, xxiii. 30. 
 
 Matt. xxii. 17. *■* Matt. xxii. 23. Matt. xxii. 30. 
 
85 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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^^. 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 ; 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 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 there¬ 
 fore, 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 visita¬ 
 tion 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 
 '* Matt. xxii. 46. *7 Gen. xxxii. 26. 2 Pet. iii. 8. 
 
86 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 con¬ 
 science, 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 them¬ 
 selves 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 commu¬ 
 nicated 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 pre¬ 
 paring 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, hoiv 
 hitter is the y'ertiemhrance 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 meaE^! 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 resur¬ 
 rection. Then we shall all be invested, reapparelled 
 
 Ecclus. xli. 1. 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 87 
 
 in our own bodies; but they w'ho have made just use 
 of their former days be superinvested 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 ever¬ 
 lasting 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. 
 
88 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 there could be no shadow. Let thy merciful provi¬ 
 dence so govern all in this sickness, that I never fall 
 into utter darkness, ignorance of thee, or inconsidera¬ 
 tion 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 sha¬ 
 dows have done their office upon me, to let me see, 
 that of myself I should fall into irrecoverable dark¬ 
 ness, 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^^. 
 
 XV. Interea insomnes noctes, ego duco, diesque. 
 
 I sleep not Day nor Night. 
 
 XV. MEDITATION. 
 
 ATURAL men have conceived a twofold use 
 
 _L^ 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 per¬ 
 chance, 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 
 
 Matt, xxviii. 20. 
 
DEVOTIONS 89 
 
 representation of death, God, who wrought and per¬ 
 fected his work before nature began (for nature w'as 
 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 other¬ 
 wise 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 ail'd 
 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 molli¬ 
 fied 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 
 
90 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 
 eyelids, 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. 
 
 M y God, my God, I know (for thou hast said it) 
 that he that heepeth Israel shall neither slumber 
 nor sleep ’; but shall not that Israel, over whom thou 
 watchest, sleep ? I know (for thou hast said it) that 
 there ai'e men w'hose damnation sleepeth not*; 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 ^.- shall I 
 lack that seal of thy love? You shall lie down, and 
 none shall make you afraid*; shall I be outlawed 
 from that protection ? Jonah slept in one dangerous 
 storm*, and thy blessed Son in another®: shall I have 
 no use, no benefit, no application of those great 
 examples? Lord, if he sleep, he shall do weW, 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 
 
 * Psalm cxxi. 4. ® 2 Pet. ii. 3. ® Psalm cxxvii. 2. 
 
 ■* Lev. xxvi. 6. ® Jonah, i. 5. ® Matt. viii. 14. 
 
 7 John, xi. 12. 
 
91 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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^^ 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: w'e can tell that there are men that 
 cannot sleep till they have done mischief®, and then 
 they can; and we can tell that the rich man cannot 
 sleep, because his abundance will not let himThe 
 tares were sowm when the husbandmen were asleep * ‘; 
 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 aw'ay 
 w'hen they were asleep 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 **; and when he did 
 sleep longer with Delilahhe 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 itselfas well as for 
 the punishment of sin, death Much comfort is not 
 in much sleep, when the most fearful and most irre¬ 
 vocable 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^^. 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 
 
 ® Eccles. viii. 16. ® Prov. iv. 16. Eccles. v. 12. 
 
 " M:itt. xiii. 25 j xxviii. 13. Matt. xxvi. 40. 
 
 Judges, xvi. 3. Judges, xvi. 19. Eph. v. 11. 
 
 1 Thes. T. 6. Jer. li. 57. 
 
92 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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, hut my heart waketh ; I say, I 
 wake, but my heart sleepeth : my body is in a sick 
 w^eariness, 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 '®, lest we should be too much dis¬ 
 comforted if we did, he says again. Whether we wake 
 or sleep, let us live together with Christ’^^. 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 
 tby 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 consider- 
 Cant. V. 2. 1 Thes. v. 6. j xi,es. v. 10. 
 
DEVOTIONS 93 
 
 ation 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 inde¬ 
 lible 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 1 have 
 sinned before thy face, in my hypocrisies in prayer, 
 in my ostentation, and the mingling a respect of my¬ 
 self 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 exami¬ 
 nation, 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. 
 
94 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 XVI. Et properare mfum clamant, e turre propinqua, 
 ObSTREPER^ CAMPAN/E aeiorum in FL'NERE, funus. 
 
 From the Fells of the Church adjoining, I am 
 daily remembered of my Furial in the Funerals 
 
 of others. 
 
 XVI. MEDITATION. 
 
 E have a convenient author*, who writ a dis- 
 
 V Y course of bells when he was prisoner in 
 Turkey. How would he have enlarged himself if he 
 had been iny 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 wdth those as with 
 these bells. I have lain near a steeple* 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®, yet never so 
 affected as here. Here the bells can scarce solemnize 
 the funeral of any person, but that 1 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 “* which, when any of the house was 
 sick to death, rung always voluntarily, and they knew 
 ' Magius. * Antwerp. ^ Roan. ■* Ro<xha. 
 
95 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 the inevitableness of the danger by that. It rung 
 once when no man was sick, but the laext 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 heq.r of any man pi'eferred, 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 further¬ 
 ance of a vehement fever, and whomsoever these bells 
 bring to the ground to-day, if he and I had been com¬ 
 pared 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 w'ould 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 pre¬ 
 sents, if not a desire that it may, yet a comfort when¬ 
 soever mine shall come. 
 
96 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 XVI. EXPOSTULATION. 
 
 M y 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 amonff the Gentiles ? so were funerals too. Is it 
 
 O 
 
 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®; and 
 when they were in, then thou gavest them the sound 
 of bells in the garment of thy priest®. In the trium¬ 
 phant 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 consum¬ 
 mation, 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 advance¬ 
 ment 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 tri¬ 
 umphant church. But he, for whose funeral these 
 bells ring now, was at home, at his journey’s end 
 ® Numb. X. 1. ® Exod. xviii. 
 
DEVOTIONS 97 
 
 yesterday; why i-ing’ 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 w’-ere before, natural men, so, in the exalting 
 of our religious devotions now we are Christians, thou 
 
 II 
 
98 
 
 DE VOTIONS 
 
 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. 
 
 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 w'ords : Elessed are the dead which die 
 in the Lord f rom hencefo7'th'^. 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 
 
 Rev. xiv. 13. 
 
99 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 righteous, die to sin; which death is a resurrection to 
 a new life. Thou killest and thou givest life : w'hich- 
 soever comes, it comes from thee; w'hich way soever 
 it comes, let me come to thee. 
 
 XVII. Nunc lento sonitu dicunt, morieris. 
 
 Now, this Sell tolling softly for another, says to 
 me. Thou must die. 
 
 XVII. MEDITATION. 
 
 ERCHANCE he for whom this hell tolls may be 
 
 JT 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 head 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 w'ar, 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 
 
100 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 hends 
 not his ear to any bell which upon any occasion rings? 
 but who can remove it from that hell 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 bell 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 covetous¬ 
 ness if we did, for atfliction 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 
 
10 ] 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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, 
 w'ho is our only security. 
 
 XVII. EXPOSTULATION. 
 
 M y 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 toge¬ 
 ther, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the 
 last days': 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 where¬ 
 with I bless you before my death'^ ; this, that before 
 your death, you would consider your own in mine. 
 I hear thy prophet saying to Hezekiah, Set thy house 
 
 * Gen. xlix. 1. ^ Deut. xxxiii. 1, 
 
102 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 in order, for thou shall die, and not live^: 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*: 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^ ; only I hear this change, that whereas thy 
 Son says there, I go to prepare a place for you, iNn 
 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 own 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 
 ^ 2 Kings, XX. 1. * ‘2 Pet. i. 13. * Jolin, xiv. 1. 
 
103 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 comparison of the joylessness and the ingloriousness 
 of this world? 1 know, my God, it is far, far other¬ 
 wise. 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 joy in their sorrows, glory in their 
 dejections in this world, are in a fearful danger of 
 missing both in the next. 
 
 XVII. PRAYER. 
 
 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 in me 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 
 
104 
 
 DE VOTIONS 
 
 live or die; for thy servant David made it when he 
 put himself into thy protection for his life ; and thy 
 blessed Son made it, when he delivered np 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 con¬ 
 formed 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 for¬ 
 giveness ; 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 deidve 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, Mij God, my God, 
 tohy 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 
 ^ Psalm xxxi. 5. 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 105 
 
 name, hear thy Son crying to thee, My God, my 
 God, vjhy 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. 
 
 XVIIT.-At inde 
 
 Mortuus es, sonitu celeri, pulsuque agitato. 
 
 The Sell rings out, and tells me in him, that I am 
 
 dead. 
 
 XVIII. MEDITATION. 
 
 HE bell rings out, the pulse thereof is changed; 
 
 1 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 
 
106 
 
 DE VOTIONS 
 
 mere philosophers, but mixed men, philosophical di¬ 
 vines, 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 guilti¬ 
 ness 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 mes¬ 
 senger to St. Hierome, to consult of some things 
 concerning the soul; but he satisfies himself with this : 
 “ Let the depailure 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, 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 107 
 
 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 instruc¬ 
 tion 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 represen¬ 
 tation 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 
 
108 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 this soul departs, it carries all with it; no more vege¬ 
 tation, 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. 
 
 Y God, my God, if expostulation be too bold a 
 
 1 V I 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*, nor assist at their funeral? Thou hadst no 
 counsellor, thou needest none; thou hast no con¬ 
 troller, thou admittest 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 devo¬ 
 tion, 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 workD, 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^. And 
 some have assigned a certain time, when a picture 
 ‘ Levit. xxi. 1. * Wisd. xiv. 14. ® Wisd. xiii. 10. 
 
109 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 repre¬ 
 hends the idolater, for health he prays to that 
 which is weak, and for life he prays to that which 
 is dead*. Should we do so ? says thy prophet^; 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 intima¬ 
 tion 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, Reuben 
 live, and not die, and let not his men he few^; let 
 him propagate many. And it is a malediction. That 
 that dieth, let it die^, let it do no good in dying; for 
 trees ivithout fruit, thou, by thy apostle, callest twice 
 dead^. 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^; for thereupon the Egyptians said, 
 
 Wisd. xiii. 18, * Isaiab, viii. 19, ® Dent, xxxiii. 6. 
 
 7 Zech. xj. 9. ® Jude 12. Exod. xii. 30. 
 
110 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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^^; 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, 
 V thou save riot thy life to-night, to-morroiv thou 
 shalt be slain^^. 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 re¬ 
 main, and that are ready to die^^, that in this weak¬ 
 ness 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^^; or whe¬ 
 ther thou say, as unto Aaron, Thou shalt die there^*; 
 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 for his sins, his many sins, and then in his 
 sin, his particular sin. For my sins I shall die when¬ 
 soever 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 
 
 Rev. i. 5 . 
 
 Rev. iii. 2. 
 
 *■* Numb. XX. 20. 
 
 '* 1 Sam. xix. 11. 
 Ju»1g. vi. 23. 
 
 1 Kings, xvi, 18, 19, 
 
Ill 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 they refused the light offered), You shall die in your 
 sin .• and then when they proceeded to farther dis¬ 
 putations, and vexations, and temptations, he adds. 
 You shall die in your sins^^; he multiplies the 
 fonner 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, as 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 
 
 XVIII. PRAYER. 
 
 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 pre- 
 sentest 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, )’et 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 
 John, Tiii.2I. John, viii. 24. Isaiah, Ixvi. 21. 
 
112 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 inexpres¬ 
 sible 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 there¬ 
 fore 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 sal¬ 
 vation 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. 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 113 
 
 XIX. OcEANO TANDEM EMEKSO, ASPICIANDA ni-SUIlGIT TERRA ; 
 VIDENT, JUSTIS, MEDICI, JAM COCTA MEDERI SE POSSE, INDICUS. 
 
 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. 
 
 LL 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 he 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 w'ere 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 aw'ake 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 
 
 I 
 
114 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 durable and vigorous effects) will not admit preven¬ 
 tions, 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, great¬ 
 ness, 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 media¬ 
 tion : 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 solici¬ 
 tation 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 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 115 
 
 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 miser¬ 
 able 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. 
 
 Y God, my God, thou art a direct God, may I 
 
 i.yX 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 misin- 
 terpreter 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 hyper¬ 
 boles, 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 
 
116 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 
 
117 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 : there¬ 
 fore 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 Medi¬ 
 terranean 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^; 
 secular mountains, men strong in power; spiritual 
 mountains, men strong in grace, are shaken with 
 afflictions; but thou layest up thy sea in store¬ 
 houses-; even thy corrections are of thy treasure, 
 and thou wilt not waste thy corrections; when they 
 ’ Psalm xlvi. 3. - Psalm xxxiii. 7. 
 
118 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 command¬ 
 ment^. All our waters shall run into Jordan, and 
 thy servants passed Jordan dry foof*; 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^. 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 alT. 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 seas, 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 dan¬ 
 gers, yea, though a man went to sea without arf: 
 yet, where I find all that, I find this added ; neverthe¬ 
 less thou wouldst not, that the work of thy wisdom 
 shoidd he idle^. Thou canst save without means, but 
 thou hast told no man that thou wilt; thou hast told 
 every man that thou wilt not®. 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: 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"; if they 
 
 ^ Prov. viii. 29. '' Josh. iii. 17. * Ecclus. xliii. 24. 
 
 6 Ecclus. xliii. 27. ’ Wisd. xiv. 3, 4. ® Wisd. xiv. 5. 
 
 9 Acts, xvii. 11, Luke, V. 3. “ Acts, xxvii. 24. 
 
119 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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^^. 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 ; 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^*'; 
 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 pey'ished^'^: 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 1 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 teas at the land 
 whither they wenO^. Why have not they and 1 this 
 dispatch ? Every thing is immediately done, which is 
 
 '* Mark, V. 2, 3. Acts, xxvii. 31. James, iii. 4. 
 
 Rev. viii. y. John, vi. 21. 
 
120 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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^^. 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'®, and the glory of God not only was, but 
 appeared in a cloud'®. Let me return, O my God, to 
 the consideration of thy servant Elijah’s proceeding in 
 a time of desperate drought®®; 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. 
 
 Lara. iii. 2G. Exod. xiii. 21. Exod. xvi. 10. 
 
 1 Kings, xix. 43. 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 121 
 
 IV. PRAYER. 
 
 O ETERNAL and most gracious God, who though 
 thou passedst over infinite millions of genera¬ 
 tions, before thou earnest 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; 
 w'e find no stair by which thou thyself earnest 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, 
 
122 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 acci¬ 
 dent, and nature begins to discharge herself, and she 
 w'ill 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. 
 
 XX. Id agunt. 
 
 Upon these Indications of digested Matter, they 
 proceed to purge. 
 
 XX. MEDITATION, 
 
 HOUGH counsel seem rather to consist of spiri 
 
 tual 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 
 
123 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 con¬ 
 sideration 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', 
 so counsels are not counsels, but illusions, where there 
 is from the beginning no purpose to execute the deter¬ 
 minations 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 Flosts than 
 by all other names, that may be referred to the other 
 signification, tiereby therefore we take into our medi¬ 
 tation the slippery condition of man, whose happiness 
 in any kind, the defect of any one thing conducing to 
 
 ' August. 
 
124 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 neces¬ 
 sary 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. 
 
 M y 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 he 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 
 
125 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 (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 ohserveth the ivind shall not 
 sow, and he that regardeth the clouds shall not 
 reajo’^'; 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 dealethwith a slack hand, hut the hand of 
 the diligent maketh rich^; 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‘d thus, He that hath clean hands and a pure 
 heart* ? Dost thou not (at least) send us first to the 
 hand? And is not the work of their hands that decla¬ 
 ration of their holy zeal, in the present execution of 
 manifest idolaters, called a consecration of themselves^, 
 by thy Holy Spirit ? Their hands are called all them¬ 
 selves ; for even counsel itself goes under that name 
 in thy word, who knowest best how to give right names : 
 
 * Eccles. xi. 4. ^ Prov. x. 4. 
 
 Psalm xxiv. 3. * Exod. xxxii. 29. 
 
126 DEVOTIONS 
 
 because the counsel of the priests assisted David®, 
 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', 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, be¬ 
 lieving; and there is something after it, suffering; hut 
 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 hy thy physic, hy 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 con¬ 
 trary to a natural man. To take physic, and not 
 according to the right method, is dangerous®. 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 he made so pleasant as that it 
 ® 1 Sam. xxi. 9. Lev. viii. 36. ® Galen. 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 127 
 
 may easily be taken ; but not so pleasant as the virtue 
 and nature of the medicine be extinguished**.” 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 
 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'®. 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 ivill 
 therefoT'e take the cup of salvation, and call upon 
 thy name^K I will find this cup of compunction as full 
 as I have formerly filled the cups of worldly confec¬ 
 tions, 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'*', 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, 
 
 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 
 
 ® Galen. 
 
 " P.salin cvi. 12. 
 
 Galen. 
 
 ‘2 Mark, xv. 23. 
 
128 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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, obser¬ 
 vation, 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. 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 129 
 
 XXI. -Atque annuit iile, 
 
 Qin, PER EOS, CLAMAT, LiNQUAS JAM, LaZAIIE, LECTUM. 
 
 God prospers their Practice, and he, hi/ them, calls 
 Lazarus out of his Tomb, me out of my Ped. 
 
 XXI. MEDITATION. 
 
 I F man had been left alone in this world at first, 
 shall I think that he would not have fallen ? If 
 there had been no wmraan, 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, lie cannot give himself 
 that miserable addition of more misery. A man that 
 is pressed to death, and might he eased by more 
 weights, cannot lay those more weights upon himself: 
 he can sin alone, and sutfer alone, but not repent, not 
 be absolved, without another. Another tells me, I 
 may rise ; and I do so. But is every raising a prefer- 
 
 K 
 
130 DEVOTIONS 
 
 ment ? 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 imagina¬ 
 tion 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 iu 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 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 131 
 
 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. 
 
 XXL EXPOSTULATION. 
 
 Y God, my God, how large a glass of the next 
 
 EYJL 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 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 resurrec¬ 
 tion 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', since 
 
 John, xi. 43. 
 
132 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 con¬ 
 curred 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^, and they that heard it took it for 
 thunder ; and thy Son himself cried with a loud voice 
 upon the cross twice 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*, 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^, it might be heard; but 
 this voice, thy voice, is also a mighty voice^; 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'' 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^; 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^: sometimes we 
 
 2 John, xii. 28. ^ Matt, xxvii. 46, 50. 
 
 Dent. V.22. ^ 2 Sam. xxii. 14. '' Psalm Ixviii. 33. 
 
 Psalm xxix. ® John, v. 25. ® Rev. i. 12. 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 133 
 
 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 *®. I hearken after 
 thy voice in thine ordinances, and I seek not a whis¬ 
 pering 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 jloods 
 have lifted up their voice (and waters are afflictions), 
 hut thou, O Lord, art mightier than the voice of 
 many waters'^'^; 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 
 ivhereto serveth he ? What is his good and ivhat is 
 his eviW9 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 heginneth^^; 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^"', 
 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 : thou hast uot 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 
 
 '® Job, iv. 16. " Psalm xciii. 3,4. Ecclus. xviii. 8. 
 
 Ecclus. V. 7. 1 Sam. xix. 15. 2 Chron. xxiv. 25. 
 
134 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 away^^ ; that 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*’, 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^^? As my bed is my atfections, 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 mei, and may speak 
 and hear in such a voice, as that still I may be 
 acceptable to thee, and satisfied from thee. 
 
 XXI. PRAYER. 
 
 ETERNAL and most gracious God, who hast 
 
 KJ 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 aftbrded me the ability to rise out 
 of this bed of weariness and discomfort, but hast also 
 Amos, iii. 12. ’’ Acts, v. 15. Mark, ix. 6. 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 135 
 
 made this bodily rising, by tby grace, an earnest of a 
 second resurrection from sin, and of a third, to ever¬ 
 lasting 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 com¬ 
 panions than these? but stayed thy leisure, and then 
 had man delivered over to them, not much infeidor in 
 nature to themselves. No more do 1, O God, now 
 that by thy first mercy I am able to rise, importune 
 thee for present confirmation of health ; nor now, that 
 
136 
 
 DE VOTIONS 
 
 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 putf 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. 
 
 XXII. Sit morbi fomes tibi curji. 
 
 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. 
 
 H OW 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; 
 
DEVOTIONS 137 
 
 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 inclina¬ 
 tions, 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 
 
138 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 any physic, any 
 medicine from another body, one man from the flesh 
 of another man (as by mummy, or any such composi¬ 
 tion), it must be from a man that is dead, and not as 
 in other soils, which are never the worse for contri¬ 
 buting 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, undertoo^k 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 wmrk reserved for the great physician, 
 w'hich he doth never any other way but by glorifying 
 these bodies in the next world. 
 
 XXII. EXPOSTULATION. 
 
 Y God, my God, what am I put to when I am 
 
 1 V I 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 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 139 
 
 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, hut in both together. It is in 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 waterTath 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 w'hich we are laid, and (as though 
 there w'ere no other) w'e are the bellows. Ignorance 
 blows the fire. He that touched any unclean thing, 
 though he knew it not, became unclean', and a sacri¬ 
 fice was required (therefore a sin imputed), though it 
 were done in ignorance^. Ignorance blows this coal; 
 but then knowledge much more; for there are that 
 know thy judgments, and yet not only do, hut have 
 pleasure in others that do against them^. Nature 
 blows this coal; by nature we are the children o f 
 wratlD ; and the law blows it; thy apostle Saint Paul 
 found that sin took occasion by the law, that there¬ 
 fore, because it is forbidden, we do some things. If w'e 
 break the law, we sin; sin is the transgression of 
 the law^ ; and sin itself becomes a law in our 
 members®. Our fathers have imprinted the seed, 
 infused a spring of sin in us. As a fountain casteth 
 out her icaters, we cast out our wickedness, but tee 
 
 ’ Lev. V. 2. 
 
 ^ Rom. i. 32. 
 
 ^ 1 John, iii. 4 
 
 2 Nuiu. XV. 22. 
 
 Epli. ii. 3. 
 
 ® Rom. vii. 23. 
 
140 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 Jiave done ivorse than our fathers^. We are open to 
 infinite temptations, and yet, as though we lacked, we 
 are tempted of our own lusts 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®, 
 and Solomon to gratify his wives'®, it was an uxorious 
 sin ; when the judges sinned for Jezebel’s sake", and 
 Joab to obey Davidit was an ambitious sin; when 
 Pilate sinned to humour the people and Herod to 
 give farther contentment to the Jews", 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 
 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^^, 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 
 
 ’’ Jer. vi. 7 ; vii. 26. ® James, i. 14. ® Gen. iii. 6. 
 
 1 Kings, xi. 3. 1 Kings, xxi. 
 
 2 Sain. xi. 16—21. Luke, xxiii. 23. 
 
 *■* Acts, xii. 3. ‘5 Epli. iv.22. 
 
 ‘6 1 Cor. V. 7. 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 141 
 
 yet a man may have such a knowledge of his own con¬ 
 stitution 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. 
 
 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 w’hich 
 we know not; but thou didst never so put out any of 
 these fires as that thou didst not rake up the embers, 
 and w'rap 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 
 
142 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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. 
 
 XXIII. Metusque, relabi. 
 
 They warn me of the fearf ul Danger of relapsing. 
 XXIII. MEDITATION. 
 
 I T 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 vvithout 
 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 affiictions. 
 A covetous person, who hath preoccupated all his 
 senses, filled all his capacities with the delight of gather¬ 
 ing, wonders how any man can have any taste of 
 any pleasure in any openness or liberality; so also in 
 
143 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 our¬ 
 selves, 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 phy¬ 
 sicians 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 
 
144 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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 improvi¬ 
 dent, 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 meand 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 w’e know not what to fear; 
 but as fear is the busiest and irksomest alfection, so is 
 a relapse (which is still ready to come) into that which 
 is but newly gone, the nearest object, the most imme¬ 
 diate exercise of that afiection of fear. 
 
 XXIII. EXPOSTULATION. 
 
 "ly T Y God, my God, my God, thou mighty Father, 
 JL 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 ? Flow 
 easily thou passedst over many other sins in them. 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 145 
 
 and how vehemently thou insistedst in those into 
 which they so often relapsed; those were their mur- 
 murings against thee, in thine instruments and minis¬ 
 ters, 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 mur¬ 
 muring; 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 ti’ansmigration 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. 
 
146 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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^, 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‘d, infinitely; 
 upon that thou threatenest with that vehemency. If 
 you do in anywise go hack, know for a certainty 
 God will no more drive out any of these nations 
 from before you ; hut they shall be snares and traps 
 unto you, and scourges in your sides, and thorns in 
 your eyes, till ye perish 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)"*, 
 but where there is but a suspicion, a rumour, of such 
 a relapse to idolatry, thine anger is awakened, and 
 
 * Psalm Ixxviii. 41. ® Numb. xiv. 22, 23. 
 
 * Josli. xxiii. 12, 13. ■* Deut. xiii. 12—16. 
 
DEVOTIONS 
 
 147 
 
 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 
 Israel doth not send one to inquire, but the whole 
 congregation gathered to go up to war against them®, 
 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 ? 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 w'ere 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 ®; 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 
 
 ® Josh. xxii. 11. ^ Josh. xxii. 12. 
 
 ’ Numb. XXV. 4. * Tertullian. 
 
148 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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; Theij mount up to heaven, 
 and they go down again to the depth ® / My sick¬ 
 ness brought me to thee in repentance, and my relapse 
 hath cast me farther from thee. The end of that 
 man shall he worse than the heginning^^, says thy 
 Word, thy Son; my beginning was sickness, punish¬ 
 ment for sin: but a worse thing may foliow^^, 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'^, 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 read¬ 
 mitted them to thy sight ? They never relapsed; if I 
 do, must not my case be as desperate ? Not so despe¬ 
 rate ; for as thy majesty, so is thy mercy 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 
 
 9 Psalm cvii. 26. Matt. xii. 4.5. John, viii. 14. 
 
 '9 3Iaik, xiv. 70. Ecclus. ii. 18. 
 
149 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 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, instru¬ 
 ments 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 pre¬ 
 sume to add this petition too, that if my infirmity 
 overtake me, thou forsake me not. Say to my soul, 
 son, thou hast sinned, do so no more'^; but say 
 also, that though I do, thy spirit of remorse and com- 
 
 Eeclus. i. 21. 
 
150 
 
 DEVOTIONS 
 
 punction shall never depart from me. Thy holy 
 apostle, St. Paul, w'as shipwrecked thrice'^, 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 Hymeneus, nor make 
 shipwreck of faith and a good consciences^, 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. 
 
 2 Cor. xi. 25. '« 1 Tim. i. 19. 
 
A 
 
 SERMON OF COMMEMORATION 
 
 OF THE LADY DANVERS, LATE WIFE 
 OF SIR JOHN DANVERS, AND MOTHER OF GEORGE 
 HERBERT, PREACHED AT CHELSEA, WHERE 
 SHE WAS LATELY BURIED. 
 
 JULY 1, 1627. 
 
 BY JOHN DONNE, 
 
 DEAN OF ST. Paul’s. 
 
4 
 
 
 ,v ' • .V- \ •■' 
 
 fi •/'?•'■ u j . '. < I 
 
 • . . J > ; ti.:A . 
 
 . J . 
 
 S' i- ■• 
 
 
 >/ j, 
 
 i '* ••• 
 
 
 
 
 m 
 
 '■ <■'.'i'lj' 
 
 
 JW'ikA^c 
 
THE PRAYER BEFORE THE SERMON. 
 
 O ETERNAL and most glorious God, who some¬ 
 times in thy justice dost give the dead bodies of 
 the saints to he meat unto the fowls of the heaven, 
 and the flesh of thi saints unto the beasts of the 
 earth, so that their blood is shed like water, and 
 there is none to bury themf who sometimes sellest 
 thy people for nought, and dost not increase thy 
 wealth by their price^; and yet never leavest us 
 without that knowledge, that precious in thy sight is 
 the death of thy saints f enable us, in life and death, 
 seriously to consider the value, the price ol a soul. 
 It is precious, O Lord, because thine image is stamped 
 and imprinted upon it; precious, because the blood of 
 thy Son was paid for it; precious, because thy blessed 
 Spirit, the Holy Ghost, works upon it, and tries it by 
 his divers fires; and precious, because it is entered 
 into thy revenue, and made a part of thy treasure. 
 Suffer us not, therefore, O Lord, so to undervalue 
 ourselves, nay, so to impoverish thee, as to give away 
 those souls, thy souls, thy dear and precious souls, for 
 nothing; and all the world is nothing if the soul must 
 be given for it. We know,0 Lord, that our rent due 
 to thee is our soul, and the day of our death is the 
 day, and our death-bed the place, where this rent is to 
 be paid. And we know too, that he that hath sold his 
 
 * Psalm Ixxix. 2. 2 pgalm xliv. 12. ^ Psalm cxvi. l.j. 
 
154 PRAYER BEFORE 
 
 soul before for unjust gain, or given away his soul 
 before in the society and fellowship of sin, or lent 
 away his soul for a time by a lukewarmness and tem¬ 
 porizing, to the dishonour of thy name, to the weak¬ 
 ening of thy cause, to the discouraging of thy servants, 
 he comes to that day and to that place, his death and 
 death-bed, without any rent in his hand, without any 
 soul, to this purpose, to surrender it unto thee. Let 
 therefore, O Lord, the same hand which is to receive 
 them then, preserve these souls till then; let that 
 mouth that breathed them into us at first, breathe 
 always upon them whilst they are in us, and suck 
 them into itself when they depart from us. Preserve 
 our souls, O Lord, because they belong to thee, and 
 preserve our bodies because they belong to those souls. 
 Thou alone dost steer our boat through all our voyage, 
 but hast a more especial care of it, a more watchful 
 eye upon it, w'hen it comes to a narrow current or to 
 a dangerous fall of waters. Thou hast a care of the 
 preservation of these bodies, in all the ways of our 
 life; but in the straits of death open thine eyes wider, 
 and enlarge thy providence towards us so far, that no 
 fever in the body may shake the soul, no apoplexy in 
 the body damp or benumb the soul, nor any pain or 
 agony of the body presage future torments to the soul. 
 But so make thou our bed in all our sickness, that 
 being used to thy hand, we may be content with any 
 bed of thy making; whether thou be pleased to change 
 our feathers into flocks, by withdrawing the conve¬ 
 niences of this life, or to change our flocks into dust, 
 even the dust of the grave, by withdrawing us out of 
 this life. And though thou divide man and wife, 
 mother and child, friend and friend, by the hr.nd of 
 death, yet stay them that stay, and send them away 
 that go, with this consolation, that though we part at 
 divers days, and by divers ways here, yet we shall all 
 
155 
 
 THE SERMON 
 
 meet at one place and at one day, a day that no night 
 shall determine, the day of the glorious resurrection. 
 Hasten that day, O Lord, for their sakes that beg it 
 at thy hands from under the altar in heaven; hasten 
 it for our sakes, that groan under the manifold incum¬ 
 brances of these mortal bodies; hasten it for her sake 
 whom we have latply laid down in this thy holy ground; 
 and hasten it for thy Son Christ Jesus’ sake, to whom 
 then, and not till then, all things shall be absolutely 
 subdued. Seal to our souls now an assurance of thy 
 gracious purpose towards us in that day, by accepting 
 this day’s service at our hands. Accept our humble 
 thanks for all thy benefits, spiritual and temporal, 
 already bestowed upon us, and accept our humble 
 prayers for the continuance and enlargement 
 of them. Continue and enlarge them, 
 
 O God, upon thine universal 
 church, dispersed, 
 
 &c. 
 
A SERMON OF COMMEMORATION 
 
 OF THE LADY DANVERS, LATE WIFE 
 OF SIR JOHN DANVERS. 
 
 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens 
 and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. 
 
 2 Pet. iii. 13. 
 
 I PROPOSE to myself, and to this congregation, 
 two works for this day; that we may walk toge¬ 
 ther two miles in this sabbath day’s' journey; first, to 
 instruct the living, and then to commemorate the 
 dead; which office, as I ought, so I should have per¬ 
 formed sooner, but that this sad occasion surprised 
 me under other preobligations and precontracts in the 
 services of mine own profession, which could not be 
 excused nor avoided. And being come now to this 
 double work, whether I look up to the throne of 
 heaven and that firmament for my first work, the 
 instruction of the living, or down to the stones of the 
 grave and that pavement for my second work, 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 resurrection of your souls I say, and 
 to assure the resurrection of your bodies she says. 
 Nevertheless ive, according to his promise, look for 
 new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness. But first let us do our first work, and 
 pursue the literal purpose of the apostle in tliese 
 
158 SERMON ON 
 
 words; which words, out of their connection and co¬ 
 herence, be pleased to receive thus spread and dilated 
 into this paraphrase: Nevertheless., that is, though 
 there be scoffers and jesters that deride and laugh at 
 the second coming of Christ (as the apostle had said 
 verse 3); and nevertheless again, though this day of 
 the Lord will certainly come, and come as a thief, and 
 as a thief in the night, and when it comes the heavens 
 shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements 
 shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and all 
 the works that are therein, shall he burnt up (as he 
 had also said verse 10); though there be such a 
 scorn put upon it by scoffers and jesters, and though 
 there be such a horror in the truth of the thing itself; 
 yet nevertheless, for all that, for all that scorn, and for 
 all that horror, we, we, says the text, we that are fixed 
 in God, we that are not ignorant of this one thing 
 (as he says verse 8), that one day is with the Lord 
 as a thousand years, and a thousand years as 
 one day; we that know that the Lord is not slack 
 in his promise, though he be long-suffering to us- 
 ward (as he also says verse 9) ; we, according to 
 his promises, that is, building upon that foundation 
 his Scriptures, presuming upon nothing that is not in 
 that evidence, and doubting of nothing that is there, 
 we expect, we look for something, says our text, which 
 we have not yet; we determine not ourselves, nor our 
 contentment, in those things which God gives us here ; 
 not in his temporal, not in his spiritual blessings in 
 this life; but we expect future things, greater than we 
 are capable of here, for we look for new heavens and 
 new earth, in which that which is not at all to be had 
 here, or is but an obscure inmate, a short sojourner, a 
 transitory passenger in this world, that is righteous¬ 
 ness, shall not only be, but dwell forever ; nevertheless 
 we, according to his promise, look for new heavens 
 
159 
 
 LADY DANVERS 
 
 and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. So 
 then in this our voyage through this sea, which is truly 
 a Mediterranean sea, a sea betwixt two lands, the land 
 of possession which we have, and the land of promise 
 which we expect, this old and that new earth, that our 
 days may be the better in this land which the Lord 
 our God hath given us, and the surer in that land 
 which the Lord our God will give us; in this sea 
 voyage be these our landmarks by which we shall 
 steer our whole course: first, the day of judgment is 
 subject to scorn, some laugh at it; and then (in a 
 second consideration) it induces horror, the best man, 
 that is but man, trembles at it; but we (which is a 
 third branch), those that have laid hold upon God; 
 and (in a fourth place) have laid hold upon God by 
 the right handle, according to his promises ; we (which 
 will constitute a fifth point), we expect, we bless God 
 for our possession, but we look for a greater reversion, 
 which reversion (in the next room) is new heavens 
 and new earth; and (lastly) such heavens and such 
 earth as may be an everlasting dwelling for righteous¬ 
 ness. And through all these particulars we shall pass 
 with as much clearness and shortness as the weight 
 
 O 
 
 and number thereof will admit. 
 
 First then, to shake the constancy of a Christian 
 there will always be scorners, jesters, scoffers, and 
 mockers at religion. The period and consummation of 
 the Christian religion, the judgment day, the second 
 coming of Christ, will always be subject to scorns; 
 and many times a scorn cuts deeper than a sword. 
 Lucian wounded religion more by making jests at it, 
 than Arius, or Pelagius, or Nestorius, with making 
 arguments against it; for against those professed here¬ 
 tics, and against their studied arguments which might 
 seem to have some weight, it well beseemed those 
 .grave and reverend fathers of the church to call their 
 
SERMON ON 
 
 160 
 
 councils, and to take into their serious consideration 
 those arguments, and solemnly to conclude and deter¬ 
 mine and decree in the point. But it would ill have 
 become those reverend persons to have called their 
 councils, or taken into their so serious considerations, 
 epigrams, and satires, and libels, and scurril and 
 scornful jests, against any point of religion. Scorns 
 and jests are easilier apprehended and understood by 
 vulgar and ordinary capacities than arguments are; 
 and then learned men are not so earnest nor so dili¬ 
 gent to overthrow and confute a jest or scorn as they 
 are an argument, and so they pass more uncontrolled, 
 and prevail further, and live longer, than arguments 
 do. It is the height of Job’s complaint, that con¬ 
 temptible persons made jests upon him; and it is the 
 depth of Samson’s calamity, that when the Philistines’ 
 hearts were merry, then they called for Samson to 
 make them sport*. So to the Israelites in Babylon, 
 when they were in that heaviness that every breath 
 they breathed was a sigh, their enemies called to sing 
 them a song®. And so they proceeded with him who 
 fulfilled in himself alone all types and images and 
 prophecies of sorrows, who was (as the prophet calls 
 him) Vir doloi'um^, a man composed and elemented 
 of sorrows, our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus, for 
 they platted a crown of thorns upon his head, and 
 they put a reed into his hand, and they bowed the 
 knee before him and mocked him^. Truly the con¬ 
 niving at several religions (as dangerous as it is) is not 
 so dishonourable to God, as the suffering of jesters at 
 religion ; that may induce heresy, but this does esta¬ 
 blish atheism: and as that is the public mischief, so 
 for the private there lies much danger in this, that he 
 
 ' Juclg. xvi. 24. 
 ^ Isaiah, liii. 3, 
 
 ® Psalm cxxxvii. 3. 
 Matt, xxvii. 29. 
 
161 
 
 LADY DANVERS 
 
 that gives himself the liberty of jesting at religion, 
 shall find it hard to take up at last; as when Julian 
 the Apostate had received his death’s wound, and could 
 not choose but confess that that wound came from the 
 hand and power of Christ, yet he confessed it in a 
 phrase of scorn, Vicisti Galilcee, “ The day is thine, 
 O Galilean,” and no more. It is not. Thou hast 
 accomplished thy purpose, O my God, nor O my 
 Maker, nor O my Redeemer, but, in a style of con¬ 
 tempt, Vicisti Galilcee, and no more. And therefore, 
 as David begins his psalms with blessedness, so he 
 begins blessedness with that. Blessed is he which 
 sitteth not in the seat of the scornful. David speaks 
 there of walking with the ungodly, but walking is a 
 laborious motion; and he speaks there of standing 
 with the sinner, but standing is a painful posture. In 
 these two, walking and standing, there is some intima¬ 
 tion of a possibility of weariness, and so of desisting at 
 last. But in sitting in the seat of the scornful, there 
 is denoted a sinning at ease, and in the Vulgate 
 edition, at more than ease, with authority and glory; 
 for it is In cathedra, in the chair of the scornful, 
 which implies a magisterial, a doctoral kind of sinning, 
 that is, to sin, and to provoke others by example to sin 
 too, and promises no return from that position. For 
 as we have had divers examples, that men who have 
 used and accustomed their mouths to oaths and blas¬ 
 phemies all their lives, have made it their last syllable 
 and their last gasp, to swear they shall die; so they 
 that enlarge and ungirt their wits in this jesting at 
 religion, shall pass away at last in a negligence of all 
 spiritual assistances, and not find half a minute between 
 their last jest and their everlasting earnest. Vce vobis 
 qui ridetis, “ Woe be unto you that laugh so,” for you 
 shall weep, and weep eternally. 
 
 St. Paul preached of the resurrection of the dead, 
 
 M 
 
162 
 
 SERMON ON 
 
 and they mocked him®. And here St. Peter says. 
 There will be (that is, there will be always) scoffers 
 that will say, where is the promise of Christ’s 
 coming 9 For since the fathers fell asleep, all 
 things continue as they were, from the beginning of 
 the creation^. But do they so, says this apostle? 
 Was not the world that then was, overfowed with 
 water, and perished’’ ? If that were done in earnest, 
 why do ye make a jest of this, says he. That the 
 heavens and the earth ivhich are now, are reserved 
 unto fire against the day of judgment^. The 
 apostle says, that in the last days perilous times shall 
 come^; and he reckons there divers kinds of perilous 
 men, but yet these jesters are not among them. And 
 then the apostle names more perilous men, seducing 
 spirits, and seducing by the doctrine of devils, for¬ 
 bidding meats and marriage’®; and we know who these 
 men are. Our Saviour tells us they shall proceed a 
 great way, they shall show great signs and wonders, 
 they shall pretend miracles, and they shall exhibit 
 false Christs, Christs kneaded into pieces of bread; 
 and we know who these are, and can beware of these 
 proceedings. But St. Jude remembers us of the greatest 
 danger of all. Remember the words which were 
 spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, that there should be mockers in the last 
 time^^; for against all the rest the church of God is 
 better armed; but Perniciosissimum humano generi, 
 says St. Augustine, this is the ruin and overthrow of 
 mankind (that is of religion, whigh is the life and soul 
 of mankind). Cum vera et salubris sententia imperi- 
 torum populorum irrisione sordescit; when true and 
 sincere religion shall be cried down and laughed out 
 of countenance by the scorns and jests of ignorant 
 
 ^ Acts xvii. 32. ® 2 Pet. iii. 4. ^2 Pet. iii. 6. 
 
 8 2Pet. iii. 7. ® 2 Tim. iii. 1. 1 Tim. iv. 1. 
 
 " Jude,17. 
 
LADY DANVERS 163 
 
 people. When to all our sober preaching and serious 
 writing, a scornful ignorant shall think it enough to 
 oppose that one question of contempt, Where was 
 your church before Luther? whereas, if we had had 
 any thing from Luther which we had not had before, 
 yet even that were elder than those articles which 
 they had from the Council of Trent, and had not (as 
 articles) before, for Luther’s declarations were before 
 the constitutions of that council; so that we could 
 play with them at their own game, and retort their 
 own scorns upon themselves, but that matters of 
 religion should move in a higher sphere, and not be 
 depressed and submitted to jests. But though our 
 apostle’s prophecy must be fulfilled. There will be, and 
 will always be, some scoffers, some jesters; never¬ 
 theless, says the text, there is a religious constancy 
 upheld and maintained by others; and farther we 
 extend not this first consideration of our danger. 
 
 But, though I can stand out these scorns and jests, 
 there is a temptation that is real; there are true 
 terrors, sad apprehensions, substantial circumstances, 
 that accompany the consideration of Christ’s second 
 coming and the day of judgment. It is a fearful 
 thing to fall into the handsi of the living God, if I 
 do but fall into his hands in a fever in my bed, or in a 
 tempest at sea, or in a discontent at home; but to fall 
 into the hands of the living God, so as that that 
 living God enters into judgment with me, and passes 
 a final and irrevocable judgment upon me, this is a 
 consternation of all my spirits, an extermination of all 
 my succours. I consider what God did with one 
 word, with one fat he made all; and I know he can 
 do as much with another w'ord, with one pereat he can 
 destroy all; as he spake and it teas done, he com¬ 
 manded a7id all stood fast^"^ ; so he can speak and all 
 ** Psalm xxxiii. 9. 
 
SERMON ON 
 
 164 
 
 shall be undone, command and all shall fall in pieces. 
 I consider that I may be surprised by that day, the 
 day of judgment. Here St. Peter says, The day of 
 the Lord will come as a thief And St. Paul says, 
 we cannot be ignorant of it, Yourselves know per¬ 
 fectly^ that the day of the Lord so cometh as a 
 thief'*. And as the judgment itself, so the judge 
 himself sa 3 fs of himself, I will come upon thee as a 
 thief He says he will, and he does it; for it is 
 not Ecce veniam, but Ecce venio. Behold L do come 
 upon thee as a thief There the future, which 
 might imply a dilatoriness, is reduced to an infallible 
 present; it is so sure that he will do it, that he is said 
 to have done it already. 1 consider he will come as a 
 thief, and then as a thief in the night; and I do not 
 only not know when that night shall be (for himself, 
 as he is the Son of man, knows not that), but I do not 
 only not know what night, that is which night, but not 
 what night, that is, what kind of night he means. It 
 is said so often, so often repeated, that he will come as 
 a thief in the night, as that he may mean all kind of 
 nights. In my night of ignorance he may come, and 
 he may come in my night of wantonness ; in my night 
 of inordinate and sinful melancholy and suspicion of 
 his mercy he may come, and he may come in the 
 night of so stupid or so raging a sickness, as that he 
 shall not come by coming; not come so as that I 
 shall receive him in the absolution of his minister, or 
 receive him in the participation of his body and his 
 blood in the sacrament. So he may come upon me 
 as such a thief in such a night; nay, when all these 
 nights of ignorance, of wantonness, of desperation, of 
 sickness, of stupidity, of rage, may be upon me all at 
 once. I consider that the Holy Ghost meant to make 
 
 2 Pet. iii. 10. *■* 1 Tbes. v. 2. 
 
 Rev. iii. 3. Rev. xvi. 15. 
 
165 
 
 LADY DANVERS 
 
 a deep impression of a great terror in me, when he 
 came to that expression, that the heavens should pass 
 away, cum stridore, with a great noise, and the ele¬ 
 ments melt with fervent heat, and the earth, and the 
 works that are therein, shall be burnt up^~; and 
 when he adds in Isaiah, The Lord will come ivith 
 fire, and with his chariots, like a whirlwind, to 
 render his anger ivith fury ; for by fire and by his 
 sword will the Lord plead with all flesh So when 
 he proceeds in Joel, A day of darkn ess and gloomi¬ 
 ness, and yet a fire devoureth befoi'e them, and a 
 fiame burnetii behind thenA^. And so in Daniel 
 also. His thi'one a fiery fiame, and his wheels a 
 burning fire, and a fiery stream issuing from him^^. 
 I consider too, that, with this stream of fire from him, 
 there shall be a stream, a deluge, a flood of tears from 
 us; and all that flood and deluge of tears shall not 
 put out one coal, nor quench one spark of that fire. 
 Hehold he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall 
 see him; and, plangent omnes, all the kindreds of 
 the earth shall wail and lament, and weep and howl 
 because of him^'. I consider that I shall look upon 
 him then, and see all my sins, substance, and circum¬ 
 stance of sin, weight and measure of sin, heinousness 
 and continuance of sin, all my sins imprinted in his 
 w ounds ; and how shall I be affected then, confounded 
 then, to see him so mangled with my sins? But then 
 I consider again, that I shall look upon him again, and 
 not see all my sins in his wounds; my forgotten sins, 
 mine unconsidered, unconfessed, unrepented sins, I 
 shall not see there; and how shall I be affected then, 
 when I shall stand in judgment under the guiltiness 
 of some sins not buried in the wounds, not drowned 
 m the blood of my Saviour? Many and many, and 
 
 ’’ 2 Pet. iii. 10. Isaiah, Ixvi. 15. Joel.ii. 2, 3. 
 
 Dan. vii. 9. Rev. i. 7. 
 
166 
 
 SERMON ON 
 
 very many, infinite and infinitely infinite, are the terrors 
 of that day; nevertheless, my soul, why art thou so 
 sad, why art thou disquieted within me ? Thou hast a 
 Goshen to rest in for all this Egypt, a Zoar to fly to 
 for all this Sodom, a sanctuary and horns of the altar 
 to hold by for all this storm. Nevertheless, says our 
 text, though there be these scornful jests, though 
 there be these real terrors, nevertheless there are a 
 we, certain privileged persons, and the consideration 
 of those persons is our third and next circumstance. 
 
 To those who pretended an interest in Christ, and 
 had none; to those who would exorcise possessed per¬ 
 sons, and cast out devils in the name of Jesus, without 
 any commission from Jesus; to those sons of Sceva 
 the devil himself could say, Qui vos 9 Jesus I know, 
 and Paul I know, hut who are you^^? To those 
 who live in an outward conformity to Christ, but yet 
 seek their salvation in the light of nature, and their 
 power of resisting temptations in their moral con- 
 stanay, the devil may boldly say, Qui vos ? Jesus I 
 know, and the church I know, but who are you? I 
 would I had no worse enemies than you. Neverthe¬ 
 less we, for all his scorns, for all these terrors, shall 
 have an answer to his q^d vos, and be able to tell him, 
 that we are that gens sancta, and that regale sacer- 
 dotium that this apostle speaks of, that holy people 
 made holy by his covenant and ordinances; and that 
 royal priesthood, which, as priests, have an interest in 
 his sacrifice, his Son ; and as kings, have an interest 
 in that crown which, for his Son’s sake, he hath 
 ordained for us. We are they who have seen the 
 marks of his election in their first edition, in the 
 Scriptures; and seen them again in their second 
 edition, as they are imprinted in our consciences, in 
 our faith, in our manners ; and so we cannot mistake 
 Acts, xix. 15, 2 Pet. i. 2—9. 
 
167 
 
 LADY DANVERS 
 
 nor be deceived in them. We are that semen Dei 
 that Malachi speaks of, the seed of God*^ which he 
 hath sowed in his church; and by that extraction we 
 are consortes divince natural, partakers of the divine 
 nature itself^®, and so grow to be Jilii Dei, the sons 
 of God; and by that title, coliairedes Christi, joint 
 heirs with Christ^®; and so to be Christi ipsi, Christs 
 ourselves, as God calls all his faithful, his anointed, 
 his Christs ; and from thence we grow to that 
 height, to be of the quorum in that commission, DU 
 estis, I have said you are gods, and not only gods by 
 representation, but idem spiritus cum Domino, so 
 become the same spirit with the Lord, that as a spirit 
 cannot be divided in itself, so ive are persuaded, that 
 neither death nor life, nor any creafure, shall he 
 able to separate us from God^^. If any man be 
 ignorant, let him be ignorant still‘d. If he will not 
 study his own case, let him be subject to these scorns 
 and these terrors still; but Christianas idiota per- 
 stiasissimtim habet^^, the unlearnedest Christian that 
 is (be he a true Christian), hath leaiming enough 
 to establish himself so, that neither scorns nor terrors 
 can shake his foundations. So then you see what 
 fellowship of the faithful, what household of the 
 righteous, what communion of saints it is, that falls 
 under this denomination, w'e, we that have laid our 
 foundations in faith and made our superedifications in 
 sanctimony and holiness of life ; we that have learned, 
 and learned by the right rule, the rule of Christianity, 
 how to put a right value upon this w'orld, and those 
 things which can but concern our body in this world ; 
 for multis serviet qui corpori servit, says the oracle of 
 moral men®'. That man is a common slave to every- 
 
 « Mai. ii. 15. 2 Pet. i. 4. * Rom. viii. 17. 
 
 Psalm cv. 15. Rom. viii. 38. 1 Cor. xiv. 38. 
 
 Origen. ®* Seneca. 
 
168 
 
 SERMON ON 
 
 body, that is a slave to his own body ; that man dares 
 displease no man, that dares not displease himself; 
 that man will grovel, and prostrate, and prostitute 
 himself at every great man’s threshold, that is afraid 
 to lose a dish from his table, or a pillow from his bed, 
 at home. Multis serviet, qui corpori serviti et qui, 
 pro illo, nimium timet. He is the true coward that is 
 afraid of every inconvenience which another may cast 
 upon his person or fortune. Honestum ei vile est, cui 
 corpus nimis charum est, He that hath set too high a 
 price upon his body will sell his soul cheap. But if 
 we can say of the tires of tribulation as Origen says 
 (whether he speak of the fires of conflagration at the 
 last day, or these fires of purification in our way to it), 
 Indigemus sdcramento ignis, haptismo ignis, that all 
 our fiery tribulations fall under the nature and defini¬ 
 tion of sacraments, that they are so many visible signs 
 of invisible grace, that every correction from God’s 
 hand is a rebaptization to me, and that I can see that 
 I should not have been so sure of salvation without 
 this sacrament, without this baptism, without this fire 
 of tribulation. If I can bring this fire to that temper 
 which Lactantius speaks of, that it be ignis qui ohtem- 
 perabit justis, a fire that shall conform itself to me, 
 and do as I would have it, that is, concoct, and purge, 
 and purify, and prepare me for God; if my Chris¬ 
 tianity make that impression in me which Socrates’s 
 philosophy did in him, who (as Gregory Nazianzen 
 testifies of him) in carcere damnatus, egit cum dis- 
 cipulis, de corpore, sicut de alio ergastulo, who, 
 when he lay a condemned man in prison, then in that 
 prison taught his disciples, that the body of man was 
 a worse prison than that he lay condemned in. If I 
 can bring these fires to this compass and to this tem¬ 
 per, I shall find, that as the ark was in the midst of 
 the waters, and yet safe from the waters, and the bush 
 
LADY DANVERS 
 
 169 
 
 in the midst of the fire, and yet safe from'the fire; so, 
 though St. Jerome say (and upon good grounds), 
 Grandis audacice est, purceque conscientio!) It is an 
 act of greater boldness than any man, as man, can 
 avow, and a testimony of a clearer conscience than any 
 man, as man, can pretend to have, regnum Dei pos- 
 tulare, et judicium non tirnere, to press God for the 
 day of judgment, and not to fear that day (for upon 
 all men, considered but as men, falls that severe ex¬ 
 postulation of the prophet Amos, Woe unto you that 
 desire the day of the Lord; to what end is it for 
 you ? The day of the Lord is darkness, and not 
 light) ; yet I shall find that such a family, such a 
 
 society, such a communion there is, and that I am of 
 that quorum that can say. Come what scorns can come, 
 come what terrors can come, in Christo omnia pos- 
 sumus, thongh we can do nothing of ourselves, yet as 
 we are in Christ we can do all things, because we are 
 fixed in him, secundum promissa ; which is our fourth 
 and next branch. According to his promises. 
 
 I have nothing to plead with God but only his own 
 promises. I cannot plead birthright; the Jews were 
 elder brothers, and yet were disinherited. I cannot 
 plead descent; my mother was an Hittite®* (as the 
 prophet Ezekiel speaks), I am but of the half blood at 
 best, more of the first than of the second Adam, more 
 corporal than spiritual. I cannot plead purchase; if I 
 have given any thing for God’s sake, if I have done 
 any thing, suffered any thing for God’s sake, all that is 
 so far from merit, as that it is not the interest of my 
 principal debt. Nay, I cannot plead mercy, for / am 
 by nature the child of wrath too^. All my plea is, 
 that to which he carries me so often in his word. Quia 
 f delis Dominus, Because the Lord is a faithful .God. 
 So this apostle calls him fidelem Creatorem, a faithful 
 Amos, V. 18. Ezek. xvi. 3. Epli.il. 3. 
 
170 
 
 SERMON ON 
 
 Creator^®: God had gracious purposes upon me when 
 he created me, and will be faithful to those purposes. 
 So St. Paul calls Christ jidelem pontijicem, a faithful 
 high priest^®; graciously he meant to sacrifice himself 
 for the world, and faithfully he did it. So St. John 
 calls him Jidelem testem, a faithful witness^^; of his 
 mercy he did die for me, and his Spirit bears witness 
 wdth my spirit that he did so. And in the same book, 
 xix. 11, his very denomination, his very name, is 
 Faithful: for this faithfulness in God, which is so often 
 recommended to me, must necessarily imply a former 
 promise. If God be faithful, he is faithful to some 
 contract, to some promise that he hath made, and 
 that promise is my evidence. But then to any promise 
 that is pretended, and not deduced from his Scriptures, 
 he may justly plead non est factum, he made no such 
 promise. For, as in cases of diffidence and distrust in 
 his mercy, God puts us upon that issue, Uhi libellus. 
 Produce your evidence; why are you jealous of me ? 
 Where is the hill of your mother s divorce whom I 
 have put away, or which of my creditors is it to 
 whom I have sold you ? So in cases of presumption 
 in ourselves, or pressing God with his promises (and 
 so also in cases of innovation of matter of doctrine in 
 his church), God puts us to the same issue, Uhi 
 lihellus, Produce your evidence; where in my Scriptures 
 have I made any such contract, any such covenant, 
 any such promise to you ? My witness is in heaven"^, 
 says Job, but yet my evidence is upon earth ; God is 
 that witness, but that witness hath been pleased to be 
 examined ad perpetuam rei memoriam, and his testi¬ 
 mony remains of record in the church; and there, 
 from his Scriptures, exemplified to me by his public 
 notary, the church, I may lawfully charge him with 
 
 1 Pet. iv. 19. Heb. ii. 17. ^ Rev.i. 5. 
 
 I.saial), 1. 1. ^ Job, xvi. 19. 
 
171 
 
 LADY DANVERS 
 
 his promise, his contract, his covenant, and else not. 
 There is a general and a useful observation made by 
 St. Augustine, Omnium hcereticomm qiutsi regulay'is 
 est ista temeritas, This is a regular irregularity, this is 
 a fixed and constant levity amongst all heretics, au- 
 thoritatem stahilissimam fundatissimcn ecclesim quasi 
 rationis nomine et pollicitatione superare, to over¬ 
 throw the foundations of the church upon the appear¬ 
 ance, and pretence, and colour of reason ; God cannot 
 have proceeded thus or thus, because there is this and 
 this reason against it. Now the foundations of the 
 church are the Scriptures; and when men present 
 reasons of probability, of verisimilitude, of pious cre¬ 
 dulity, not deduced out of the Scriptures, they fall 
 into that regular irregularity, and into that constant 
 levity, which St. Augustine justly makes the character 
 and specification of a heretic, to seem to proceed upon 
 reasons, and not deduce those reasons from the Scrip¬ 
 tures. When therefore they reason thus (as Bellar- 
 mine does). Non discretus Dominus, that God had 
 not dealt discreetly, if he had not established a church, 
 a certain, a visible, and infallible church, a church 
 endowed with these and these, with those and those, 
 and such and such, and more and more immunities 
 and privileges, by which that particular church must 
 be super-catholic and super-universal above all the 
 churches in the world, we join not with them in that 
 boldness to call God’s discretion in question, but we 
 join with them in that issue, Ubi libellus, Where is your 
 evidence, which is your Scripture, which you will rely 
 upon for that, for such a church? For we content not 
 ourselves with such places of Scripture as may serve 
 to illustrate that doctrine to them that believe it afore- 
 band without Scripture, but we ask such places of 
 Scripture as may prove it to them who, till they see 
 such Scriptures, believe, and believe truly, that they 
 
172 SERMON ON 
 
 are not bound to believe it: if I may plead it, it is a 
 promise, and if it be an issuable promise, it is in the 
 Scriptures. If any distresses in my fortune and 
 estate, in my body and in my health, oppress me, 
 I may find some receipts, some medicines, some words 
 of consolation, in a Seneca, in a Plutarch, in a Pe¬ 
 trarch ; but I proceed in a safer way, and deal upon 
 better cordials, if I make David and the other pro¬ 
 phets of God my physicians, and see what they 
 prescribe me in the Scriptures, and look how my 
 fellow-patient Job applied that physic by his patience. 
 And if any thing- heavier than that which fell upon 
 Job fall upon me, yet I may propose one to myself 
 upon whom there fell more than can fall upon any 
 man; for all mankind fell upon him, and all the sins 
 of all mankind, and God’s justice, God’s anger, for 
 all the sins of all mankind fell upon him, and yet he 
 had a glorious eluctation, a victory, a triumph over all 
 that. And he is not only my rule and my example, 
 but my surety and my promise. That where he is I 
 shall he also*^; not only where he is, in glory now, 
 but in every step that he made in this world; if I be 
 with him in his afflictions, I shall be with him in his 
 eluctation, in his victory, in his triumph. St. Chry¬ 
 sostom, falling upon such a meditation as this, is loath 
 to depart from it; he insists upon it thus : Illine, qui 
 a dextris Dei sedet, conforme Jiet hoc corpus ? 
 Will God make this body of mine like that that sits 
 now at his right hand? Yes, he will. Illi, quern 
 adorant angeli? Like him, whom all the angels 
 worship ? Yes, like him. Illi, cui adstant incor- 
 porales virtutes ? Like him to whom the thrones, 
 and powers, and dominations, and cherubim, and 
 seraphim minister ? Yes, he will do all that, says 
 that father. But allow me the boldness to add thus 
 
 Job, xiv. 3. 
 
173 
 
 LADY DANVERS 
 
 much: Cum illo, I shall be with him before, with him 
 wheresoever he was in this world. I shall be with 
 him in his agonies and sadness of soul; but in those 
 agonies and sadnesses, I shall be with him still, in his 
 veruntamen, in his surrender of himself. Not my will, 
 but thine, O Father, he done. 1 shall be with him 
 upon his cross, but in all my crosses, and in all my 
 jealousies and suspicions of that dereliquisti, that God, 
 my God hath forsaken me, I shall be with him still, 
 in his in mantes, in a confidence and assurance that I 
 may commit my spirit into his hands. For all this I 
 do according to his promise, that where he is I shall be 
 also. Si totus mundus lachrymis sumptis defesset 
 (says the same father). If men were made of tears, as 
 they are made of the elements of tears, of the occasions 
 of tears, of miseries, and if all men were resolved to 
 tears, as they must resolve to dust, all were not enough 
 to lament their miserable condition, who lay hold upon 
 the miserable comforters of this world upon their owm 
 merits, or upon the supererogations of other men, of 
 which there are no promises, and cannot find that true 
 promise which is implied in those examples of Job and 
 Christ appliable to themselves. Nevertheless we, we 
 that can do so, we that can read that promise, that 
 where they are we shall be, that what he hath done 
 for them he will also do for us, we, according to his 
 promise, declared in his Scriptures, in the midst of 
 scoffers and in the midst of terrors, expect and look 
 for more than w'e have yet; which is another and our 
 fifth consideration. 
 
 As God hath provided us an endlessness in the 
 world to come, so to give us an inchoation, a repre¬ 
 sentation of the next world in this, God hath instituted 
 an endlessness in this world too; God hath imprinted 
 in every natural man, and doth exalt in the super¬ 
 natural and regenerate man, an endless and undeter- 
 
174 
 
 SERMON ON 
 
 minable desire of more than this life can minister unto 
 him. Still God leaves man in expectation : and truly 
 that man can scarce prove the immortality of the soul 
 to himself, that feels not a desire in his soul of some¬ 
 thing heyond this life. Creatures of an inferior 
 nature are possessed with the present, man is a future 
 creature. In a holy and useful sense we may say. 
 that God is a future God, to man especially he is so; 
 man’s consideration of God is specially for the future. 
 It is plain, it is evident, that that name which God 
 hath taken in Exodus'" signifies essence, being. Verum 
 nomen Dei, Semper esse*^, God’s proper name is Always 
 being. That can be said of no creature that it always 
 was, that which the Arians said blasphemously of 
 Christ, Erat, (juando non ei’at, is true of all creatures. 
 There was a time when that thing was nothing. But 
 of God more than this may be said; so much more as 
 that when v.'e have said all that we can, more than so 
 much more remains unsaid : for Totuni Deum, nemo 
 uno nomine, exprimit, sicutnec totum aeremJuniriE^, 
 A man may as well draw in all the air at one breath, 
 as express all God, God entirely, in one name. But 
 the name that reaches farthest towards him is that 
 name which he hath taken in Exodus. Deo si con- 
 jungimur sumus*^. In being derived from God we have 
 a being, we are something; In him we live and move 
 and have our being: hut Deo si comparemur, nec 
 sumus. If we be compared with God, our being with 
 his being, we have no being at all, we are nothing; 
 for being is the peculiar and proper name of God. 
 But though it be so clear that that name of God in 
 Exodus is being, yet it is not so clear whether it be a 
 present or a future being: for though most of the 
 fathers expressed, and our translators rendered in the 
 
 Exod. iii. 14 
 Nazianzen, 
 
 Ambrosius. 
 
 Gregory. 
 
175 
 
 LADY DANVERS 
 
 present, Sum (jui sum, I am that I am, and, Go and 
 tell Pharaoh, that he whose name is I am, hath sent 
 thee, yet in the original it is plain, and plain in the 
 Chaldean paraphrase, that that name is delivered in 
 the future, Ero qui ero, I shall he that I shall he, 
 and. Go and tell Pharaoh, that he whose name is I 
 shall he, hath sent thee. God calls upon man, even 
 in the consideration of the name of God, to consider 
 his future state : for if we consider God in the present, 
 to-day, now, God hath had as long a forenoon as he 
 shall have an afternoon ; God hath been God as many 
 millions of millions of generations already, as he shall 
 be hereafter; but if we consider man in the present, 
 to-day, now, how short a forenoon hath any man had; 
 if sixty, if eighty years, yet few and evil have his days 
 been. Nay, if we take man collectively, entirely, 
 altogether, all mankind, how short a forenoon hath 
 man had! It is not yet six thousand years since 
 man had his first being. But if we consider him in 
 his afternoon, in his future state, in his life after death, 
 if every minute of his six thousand years were multi¬ 
 plied by so many millions of ages, all would amount to 
 nothing, merely nothing, in respect of that eternity 
 which he is to dwell in. We can express man’s 
 afternoon, his future perpetuity, his everlastingness, 
 but one way, but it is a fair way, a noble way, this: 
 that how late a beginning soever God gave man, man 
 shall no more see an end, no more die, than God 
 himself that gave him life. Therefore says the apostle 
 here. We, we that consider God according to his promise, 
 expect future things, look for more at God’s hand 
 hereafter than we have received heretofore; for his 
 mercies are new every morning, and his later mercies 
 are his largest mercies. How many, how great 
 nations perish, without ever hearing the name of 
 Christ; but God wrapped me up in his covenant, and 
 
176 
 
 SERMON ON 
 
 derived me from Christian parents ; I sucked Christian 
 blood in my mother’s womb, and Christian milk at my 
 nurse’s breast. The first sound that I heard in the 
 world was the voice of Christians, and the first cha¬ 
 racter that I was taught to know was the cross of 
 Christ Jesus. How many children that are born so, 
 born within the covenant, bom of Christian parents, 
 do yet die before they be baptized, though they were 
 born heirs to baptism ! But God hath afforded me the 
 seal of that sacrament. And then, how many that 
 are baptized, and so eased in original sin, do yet pro¬ 
 ceed to actual sins, and are surprised by death before 
 they receive the seal of their reconciliation to Christ 
 in the sacrament of his body and his blood; but God 
 hath afforded me the seal of that sacrament too. What 
 sins soever God forgave me this morning, yet since 
 the best (and I am none of them) fall seven times a 
 day, God forgives me seven more sins to-morrow than 
 he did to-day, and seven in this arithmetic is infinite. 
 God’s temporal, God’s spiritual blessings, are in¬ 
 exhaustible. What have we that we have not 
 received? But what have w^e received in respect of 
 that which is laid up for us ? and therefore ewpecta- 
 mus, we determine ourselves in God so, as that we 
 look for nothing but from him; but not so as that we 
 hope for no more from him than we have had, for that 
 were to determine God, to circumscribe God, to make 
 God finite : therefore we bless God for our possession, 
 but yet we expect a larger reversion. And the day 
 intended in this text shall make that reversion our 
 possession, which is the day of judgment. 
 
 Therefore in the verse immediately before the text, 
 the apostle accompanies this expectantes with another 
 word; it is expectantes et propterantes., looking for, 
 and hasting to, the coming of the day of God. W’e 
 must have such an expectation of that day as may 
 
LADY DANVERS 177 
 
 imply and testify a love to it, a desire of it, a longing 
 for it. When these things begin to come to pass 
 (says Christ, speaking of the signs preceding the last 
 day), then look up and lift your heads, for your 
 redemption draweth near^^. All our dejections of 
 spirit should receive an exaltation in that one consola¬ 
 tion, that that day draweth near. Seu velimus, seu 
 nolimus*'^, whether we will or no, that day will come: 
 but, says that father in that short prayer of his, the 
 Lord hath given thee an entire petition for accelerating 
 and hasting that day of the Lord. When he bids 
 thee say. Thy kingdom come, he means that thou 
 shouldst mean the kingdom of glory at the judgment, 
 as well as the kingdom of grace in the church. Christ 
 says. If I go and prepare a place for you, I ivill 
 come again and receive you unto myself, that ichere 
 I am you may be also Now, beloved, hath Christ 
 done one half of this for us, and would not we have 
 him do the other half too ? Is he gone to prepare the 
 place, and wmuld we not have him come to fetch us to 
 it? Certainly Christ speaks that in favour, he intends 
 it for a favour, when he says. Behold I come (juickly^'^. 
 It is one favour that he will come, and seconded with 
 another, that he will make speed to save us, that he 
 will make haste to help us. And, to establish us in 
 that assurance, he adds in that place. Behold I come 
 quickly, and my reward is with me ; if the coming 
 do not, if the speed do not, yet let the reward work 
 in you a desire of that day. The last words that 
 Christ speaks in the Bible (and amongst us last words 
 make deepest impressions) are. Surely I come 
 quickly*^; and the last answer that is made in our 
 behalfs, there is. Amen, even so come. Lord Jesus. 
 There is scarce any amongst us but does expect this 
 
 Luke, xxi. 28. Augustine. John, xiv. 3. 
 
 Rev. xxii. 12. Rev. xxii. 20. 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 SERMON ON 
 
 coming; they that fear it expect it, but that crown 
 that the apostle speaks of is laid up for them that love 
 the appearing of the Lord^°; not only expect it but 
 love it; and no man can do so that hath not a confi¬ 
 dence in his cause. Adventum judicis non diligit^^, 
 No prisoner longs for the sessions, no client longs for 
 the day of hearing, nisi qui in causa sua se sciat 
 habere Justifies meritum, except he know his cause to 
 be good, and assure himself that he shall stand 
 upright in judgment. But can we have that assur¬ 
 ance ? Assuredly we may. He that hath seen the 
 marks of election in both editions, in the Scripture 
 first, and then in his conscience; he that does not 
 flatter and abuse his own soul, nor tempt and presume 
 upon God ; he that in a sober and rectified conscience 
 finds himself truly incorporated in Christ, truly inter¬ 
 ested in his merits, may be sure, that if the day of 
 judgment came now, now he should be able to stand 
 upright in judgment. And therefore let schoolboys 
 look after holidays, and worldly men after rent days, 
 and travellers after fair days, and chapmen after 
 market days: nevertheless we, we that have laid hold 
 upon God, and laid hold upon him by the right 
 handle, according to his promises, expectamus, we 
 look for this day of the Lord; and properamus, we 
 are glad it is so near, and we desire the further 
 hasting of it. 
 
 But then, beloved, the day of our death is the eve 
 of this day of the Lord; the day of our death is the 
 Saturday of this Sunday; the next day after my death 
 is the day of judgment; for, between these, these eyes 
 shall see no more days. And then are we bound, 
 nay, may we lawfully wish and desire the day of our 
 death, as we have said, we are bound to do the day of 
 judgment? The souls of the martyrs under the altar 
 2 Tim. iv. 8. Gregory. 
 
179 
 
 LADY DANVERS 
 
 in heaven cry unto God there, Usque quo, Domine, 
 How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not 
 judge and avenge our hlood^"^ ? That which those 
 martyrs solicit there is the day of judgment; and 
 though that which they ask was not presently granted, 
 but the day of judgment put off for a time, yet God 
 was not displeased with their solicitation; for, for all 
 that, he gave them then their white robes, testimony 
 enough of their innocency. If we could wish our 
 own death as innocently, as harmlessly, as they did 
 the day of judgment; if no ill circumstances in us did 
 vitiate our desire of death; if there were no dead flies 
 in this ointment (as Solomon speaks) ; if we had not, 
 at least, a collateral respect (if not a direct and prin¬ 
 cipal) to our own ease, from the incumbrances, and 
 grievances, and annoyances of this world, certainly we 
 might safely desire, piously wish, religiously pray, for 
 our own death. But it is hard, very hard, to divest 
 those circumstances that infect it; for if I pretend to 
 desire death merely for the fruition of the glory of the 
 sight of God, I must remember that my Saviour 
 desired that glory, and yet stayed his time for it. If 
 I pretend to desire death, that I might see no more 
 sin, hear no more blasphemies from others, it may be 
 I may do more good to others, than I shall take harm 
 by others, if I live. If I would die that I might be at 
 an end of temptations in myself, yet I might lose some 
 of that glory which I shall have in heaven, by 
 resisting another year’s temptation, if I died now. To 
 end this consideration, as this looking for the day of 
 the Lord (which is the word of our text) implies a 
 joy and a gladness of it when it shall come (whether 
 we consider that as the day itself, the day of judg¬ 
 ment, or the eve of the day, the day of our death), so 
 doth this looking for it imply a patient attending of 
 Rev. vi. 10. Eccles. x. 1. 
 
180 
 
 SERMON ON 
 
 God’s leisure. For our example the apostle says, 
 The earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for 
 the manifestation of the Son of God^^: it is an 
 earnest expectation, and yet it waits; and, for our 
 nearer example, We ourselves, which have the first 
 fruits of the Spirit, groan within ourselves^ ; but 
 yet, he adds, we wait for the adoption, the redemp¬ 
 tion of the body. Though we have some ears, we 
 wait for the whole sheaves ; and we may be content to 
 do so, for we shall not wait long. This is the last time 
 says St. John, speaking of the present time of the 
 gospel; in the time of nature they were a great way 
 off from the resurrection, for then the time of the law 
 was to come in : and in the time of the law they were 
 a great way off, for then the time of the gospel w'as to 
 come in. But this is the last time; there shall be no 
 more changes after the gospel; the present state of 
 the gospel shall land us upon the judgment: and 
 (as the Vulgate reads that place), Novissima hora est, 
 if God will have us stay a little longer, it is but for a 
 few minutes, for this is our last hour. We feel 
 scorns, we apprehend terrors, nevertheless we, we 
 rooted in his promises, do expect, we are not at an end 
 of our desires, and with a holy impatience that he 
 would give us, and yet with a holy patience till he be 
 pleased to give us, new heavens and neiv earth, 
 wherein dwelleth righteousness; which are the two 
 branches which remain yet to be considered. 
 
 As, in the first discoveries of the unknown parts of 
 the world, the maps and cards which were made 
 thereof were very uncertain, very imperfect, so, in the 
 discovery of these new heavens, the expositions of 
 those who have undertaken that work are very divers. 
 First, Origen, citing for his opinion Clement, whom 
 he calls the disciple of the apostles, takes those 
 Rom.viii. 19. Rom. viii. 23. 1 John, ii. 18, 
 
181 
 
 LADY DANVERS 
 
 heavens and that earth, which our antipodes (and 
 generally those that inhabit the other hemisphere) 
 inhabit, to be the new heavens and the new earth of 
 this text. He says, Oceaniis intransibilis ad reliquos 
 mundos, There are worlds beyond these worlds, be¬ 
 yond that ocean, which we cannot pass nor discover, 
 says Origen; but those worlds, and those heavens, 
 and that earth, shall be discovered before the last day, 
 and the gospel of Christ be preached in all those 
 places. And this is our expectation, that which we 
 look for, according to his promises, in the intention 
 and exposition of Origen. Those that were infected 
 with the heresy of the Chiliasts, or Millenarians (with 
 which heresy divers great and learned men, whom we 
 refuse not to call fathers in the primitive church, were 
 infected), upon the mistaking of those words in the 
 Apocalypse, of reigning with Christ a thousand 
 years^~‘ after the first resurrection, argued and con¬ 
 cluded a happy temporal state of God’s saints here 
 upon this earth, for so many years after that day. 
 So that, though there should not be truly a new earth 
 and new heavens, but the same heavens and the same 
 earth as was before for those future thousand years, 
 yet, because those saints of God, which in their whole 
 former life had been in misery upon this earth, should 
 now enjoy all earthly happiness upon the same earth 
 for a thousand years, before they ascended into hea¬ 
 ven, these heavens and this earth (because they are 
 so to them) are called a new earth and a new heavens 
 by those Millenarians. St. Jerome and St. Augustine, 
 and after them the whole stream, run in another 
 channel. They say, that these heavens and this earth 
 shall be so purified, so refined, by the last fires of 
 conflagration, as that all corruptible qualities shall be 
 burnt out of them, but they, in their substance, re- 
 
 Rev. XX. 4. 
 
182 
 
 SERMON ON 
 
 main still. To that those words of St. Paul help to 
 incline them, Perit Jigura, The fashion of this world 
 passeth away^^, the fashion, not the substance : for it 
 is Melioration non interitus. The world shall be made 
 better, hut it shall not be made nothing. But to what 
 end shall it be thus improved ? In that, St. Augus¬ 
 tine declares himself, Mundus in melius immutatus 
 apte acconimodabitur hominibus in melius immu- 
 tatis. When men are made better by the resurrec¬ 
 tion, this world, being made better by those fires, shall 
 be a fit habitation for those saints of God; and so 
 even this world, and whatsoever is not hell, shall be 
 heaven. And, truly, some very good divines of the 
 Reformation^® accompany those ancients in that ex¬ 
 position, that these heavens, purified with those fires, 
 and supei'invested with new endowments, shall be the 
 everlasting habitation of the blessed saints of God. 
 But still, in these discoveries of these new heavens 
 and this new earth, our maps will be imperfect. 
 But as it is said of old cosmographers, that when they 
 had said all that they knew of a country, and yet 
 much more was to be said, they said that the rest of 
 those countries were possessed with giants, or witches, 
 or spirits, or wild beasts, so that they could pierce no 
 farther into that country; so when we have travelled 
 as far as we can wdth safety, that is, as far as ancient 
 or modern expositors lead us, in the discovery of these 
 new heavens and new earth, yet we must say at last, 
 that it is a country inhabited with angels and arch¬ 
 angels, with cherubim and seraphim, and that we 
 can look no farther into it with these eyes. Where it 
 is locally, we inquire not; we rest in this, that it is the 
 habitation prepared for the blessed saints of God; 
 heavens, where the moon is more glorious than our 
 sun, and the sun as glorious as he that made it; for it 
 1 Cor. vii. 31. Poiauiis. 
 
183 
 
 LADY DANVERS 
 
 is he himself, the Son of God, the Sun of glory. A 
 new earth, where all their waters are milk, and all 
 their milk honey; where all their grass is corn, and 
 all their corn manna; where all their glebe, all their 
 clods of earth, are gold, and all their gold of innume¬ 
 rable 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 
 superexalted and infinitely multiplied by every minute’s 
 addition; every minute infinitely better than ever it 
 was before. Of these new heavens and this new 
 earth we must say at last, that we can say nothing; 
 for the eye of man hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
 nor heart conceived, the state of this place. We 
 limit and determine our consideration with that horizon 
 with which the Holy Ghost hath limited us, that it is 
 that new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth 
 righteousness. 
 
 Here then the Holy Ghost intends the same new 
 heavens and new earth, which he does in the Apoca¬ 
 lypse®”, and describes there, by another name, the new 
 Jerusalem. But here the Holy Ghost does 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 we have 
 not at all. There, and elsewhere, the Holy Ghost 
 applies himself to the natural affections of men. To 
 those that are affected with riches he says, that that 
 new city shall he all of gold, and in the foundations 
 all manner of precious stones^^; to those that are 
 affected with beauty he promises an everlasting asso¬ 
 ciation with that beautiful couple, that fair pair, which 
 spend their time in that contemplation and that pro¬ 
 testation, Ecce tu pulchra, dilecta mea; Ecce tu 
 pulcher. Behold thou art fair, my beloved^-, says he ; 
 
 Rev. xxi. 1. Rev. xxi. 18. Cant. i. 15—17. 
 
SERMON ON 
 
 184 
 
 and then she replies, Eehold thou art fair too, 
 noting the mutual complacency between Christ and 
 his church there. To those who delight in music he 
 promises continual singing, and every minute a new 
 song; to those whose thoughts are exercised upon 
 honour and titles, civil or ecclesiastical, he promises 
 priesthood, and if that be not honour enough, a royal 
 priesthood; and to those who look after military 
 honour, triumph after their victory in the militant 
 church; and to those that are carried with sumptu¬ 
 ous and magnific feasts, a marriage supper of the 
 Lamb, where not only all the rarities of the whole 
 world, but the whole world itself, shall be served in; 
 the whole world shall be brought to that fire, and 
 served at that table. But here the Holy Ghost pro¬ 
 ceeds not that way, by improvement of things which 
 we have and love here; riches, or beauty, or music, or 
 honour, or feasts; but by an eveidasting possession of 
 that which we hunger, and thirst, and pant after here, 
 and cannot compass, that is, justice, or righteousness; 
 for both those our present word denotes, and both 
 those we want here, and shall have both for ever, in 
 these new heavens and new earth. 
 
 What would a worn and macerated suitor, oppressed 
 by the bribery of the church, or by the might of a 
 potent adversary, give, or do, or suffer, that he might 
 have justice? What would a dejected spirit, a discon¬ 
 solate soul, oppressed with the weight of heavy and 
 habitual sin, that stands naked in a frosty winter of 
 desperation, and cannot compass one fig leaf, one 
 colour, one excuse for any circumstance of any sin, 
 give for the garment of righteousness f Here there 
 is none that does right, none that executes justice, or 
 not for justice sake. He that does justice does it not 
 at first; and Christ does not thank that judge that did 
 
LADY DANVERS 185 
 
 justice, upon the woman’s importunity®^ Justice is no 
 justice that is done for fear of an appeal or a commis¬ 
 sion. There may be found, that may do justice at 
 first: at their first entrance into a place to make good 
 impressions, to establish good opinions, they may do 
 some acts of justice ; but, after, either an uxoriousness 
 towards the wife, or a solicitude for children, or a 
 facility towards servants, or a vastness of expense, 
 quenches and overcomes the love of justice in them : 
 non habitat, in most it is not, but it dwells not in any. 
 In our new heavens and new earth dwelleth justice : 
 and that’s my comfort, that when I come thither 1 shall 
 have justice at God’s hands. It was an act of mercy 
 merely, that God decreed a means of salvation, but to 
 give salvation to them for whom Christ gave that full 
 satisfaction, is but an act of justice. It is a righteous 
 thing with God to recompense tribulation to them 
 that trouble you, and to you, who are troubled, rest 
 with us*^\ says the apostle. It is an act of the same 
 justice to save the true believer, as to damn him who 
 by unbelief hath made himself a reprobate. 
 
 Justice dwells there, and there dwells righteous¬ 
 ness, of which there is none in this world, none that 
 grows in this world, none that is mine own ; for, how¬ 
 soever we do dispute, or will conclude of inherent 
 righteousness, it is indeed rather adherent than inhe¬ 
 rent, rather extrinsical than intrinsical. Not that it is 
 not in myself, in my will, but it is not of myself nor of 
 my will; my will was never able to rectify, to justify 
 itself; but the power of God’s grace calls in a foreign 
 righteousness to my succour, the righteousness of my 
 Saviour, and calls his, and makes his, my righteous¬ 
 ness. But yet, no7i habitat, this righteousness dwells 
 not unremovable in me here. Though I have put on 
 
 Luke, xviii. 2. ®‘' 2 Thes. i. 6. 
 
186 
 
 SERMON ON 
 
 that garment in baptism, and girt it to me closer in 
 the other sacrament, and in some acts of holiness, yet 
 my sins of infirmity slacken this garment, and it falls 
 from me before I am aware, and in my sins of con¬ 
 tempt and rebellion I tear it otf and throw it away 
 myself. But in this new state, these new heavens and 
 new ea7'th, justitia habitat, this righteousness shall 
 dwell; I shall have an innocence, and a constant inno¬ 
 cence ; a present impeccancy, and an impeccability for 
 the future. But in this especially is righteousness 
 said to dwell there, because this righteousness is the 
 very Son of God, the Son of Righteousness himself; 
 and this day, the day of his second coming, is the last 
 day of his progress ; for ever after that day these new 
 heavens and new earth shall be his standing house, 
 where he shall dwell, and we with him; as himself hath 
 said. The righteous shall shine forth as the sun 
 itself as the Son of God himself, as the Son of 
 Glory, as the Son of Righteousness himself: for God 
 shall impart to us all a mysterious gavelkind, a mys¬ 
 terious equality of fulness of glory to us all. God 
 shall not whisper to his own Son, a Sede d dewtris, 
 Sit thou at my right hand; nor a Hodie gemii te, 
 This day have I begotten thee ; nor a Ponarn inimicos 
 tuos, I will make thine enemies thy footstool, and no 
 more; but, as it is said of the armies of Israel, that 
 they went forth as one man, so the whole host of 
 God’s saints, incorporated in Christ Jesus, shall be as 
 one man, and as that one man who was so the Son 
 of man, as that he was the Son of God too. And 
 God shall say to us all, Sedete d deu'tris. Sit ye all on 
 my right hand, for from the left hand there is no 
 prospect to the face of God; and to us all, Hodie 
 genui VOS, This day I have begotten you all, begotten 
 you in the confirmation of my first baptism, in the 
 
 Matt. xiv. 43. 
 
LADY DANVERS 
 
 187 
 
 ratification of my first election; and to us all, Ponam 
 inimicos vestros, I will make all your enemies your 
 footstool; for God shall establish us there, uhi non 
 intrat inimicus, nec amicus where no man 
 
 shall come in that troubles the company, nor any 
 whom any of the company loves go out; but we shall 
 all not only have, but be a part of that righteousness 
 which dwells in these new heavens and new earth, 
 which we, according to his promise, look for. 
 
 And be this the end of our first text, as it is a text 
 for instruction. Pass we now to our second, our text 
 for commemoration. Close we here this book of life, 
 from which we have had our first text, and Surge 
 quce dormis in pulvere, Arise thou book of death, 
 thou that sleepest in this consecrated dust, and hast 
 been going into dust now almost a month of days, 
 almost a lunary year, and dost deserve such anniver¬ 
 saries, such quick returns of periods, and a commemo¬ 
 ration in every such year, in every month; arise thou 
 and be another commentary to us, and tell us what 
 this new heaven and new earth is, in which now thou 
 dwellest with that righteousness. But we do not 
 invoke thee, as thou art a saint in heaven; appear to 
 us as thou didst appear to us a month ago ; at least 
 appear in thy history, appear in our memory, that 
 when every one of us have looked upon thee by his 
 owm glass, and seen thee in his own interest, such as 
 thou wast to him, that when one shall have seen thee 
 the best wife, and a larger number the best mother, 
 and more than they, a whole town, the best neigh¬ 
 bour, and more than a town, a large body of noble 
 friends, the best friend, and more than all they, all the 
 world, the best example, when thou hast received this 
 testimony from the militant church, as thou hast the 
 recompense of all this in thy blessed soul, in the tri- 
 
 Augustine. 
 
188 
 
 SERMON ON 
 
 umphant, yet, because thy body is still within these 
 walls, be still content to be one of this congregation, 
 and to hear some parts of this text reapplied unto 
 thee. 
 
 Our first word. Nevertheless, puts us first upon this 
 consideration, that she lived in a time wherein this 
 prophecy of St. Peter in this chapter was over-abun¬ 
 dantly performed ; that there should be scoffers, jesters 
 in divine things, and matters appertaining to God and 
 his religion : for now, in these our days, excellency of 
 wit lies in profaneness; he is the good spirit that dares 
 abuse God, and he good company that makes his 
 company the wmrse, or keeps them from goodness. 
 This being the air and the complexion of the wit of 
 her times, and her inclination and conversation natu¬ 
 rally cheerful and merry, and loving facetiousness 
 and sharpness of wit, nevertheless who ever saw her, 
 who ever heard her, countenance a profane speech, how 
 sharp soever, or take part with wit to the prejudice of 
 godliness ? From this I testify her holy cheerfulness 
 and religious alacrity (one of the best evidences of a 
 good conscience), that as she came to this place, 
 God’s house of prayer, duly, not only every Sabbath, 
 when it is the house of other exercises as well as of 
 prayer, but even in those week days when it was only 
 a house of prayer, as often as these doors were opened 
 for a holy convocation ; and as she ever hastened her 
 family and her company hither with that cheerful 
 provocation, “ For God’s sake let’s go, for God’s sake 
 let’s be there at the Confession so herself, with her 
 whole family (as a church in that elect lady’s house, 
 to whom John writ his second epistle), did, every 
 Sabbath, shut up the day at night with a general, 
 with a cheerful singing of psalms. This act of cheer¬ 
 fulness was still the last act of that family, united in 
 itself and with God. God loves n cheerful giver, 
 
189 
 
 LADY DANVERS 
 
 much more a cheerful giver of himself. Truly he that 
 can close his eyes in a holy cheerfulness every night, 
 shall meet no distempered, no inordinate, no irregular 
 sadness then, when God, by the hand of death, shall 
 close his eyes at last. 
 
 But, return we again to our Nevertheless. You 
 may remember, that this word in our former part put 
 us first upon the consideration of scolfers at the day of 
 judgment, and then upon the consideration of terrors 
 and sad apprehensions at that day. And for her, 
 some sicknesses, in the declination of her years, had 
 opened her to an overflowing of melancholy; 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 half damps 
 upon her natural cheerfulness and sociableness, and 
 sometimes induce dark and sad apprehensions, never¬ 
 theless who ever heard or saw in her any such effect 
 of melancholy as to murmur or repine, or dispute upon 
 any of God’s proceedings, or to lodge a jealousy or 
 suspicion of his mercy and goodness towards her and 
 all hers ? The wit of our time is profaneness ; never¬ 
 theless, she that loved that hated this. Occasional 
 melancholy had taken some hold in her, nevertheless 
 that never eclipsed, never interrupted, her cheerful 
 confidence and assurance in God. 
 
 Our second word denotes the person; we, neverthe¬ 
 less we; and here in this consideration, nevertheless 
 she. This may seem to promise some picture, some 
 character, of her person; but she was no stranger to 
 them that hear me now, nor scarce to any that may 
 hear of this hereafter which you hear now, and there¬ 
 fore much needs not to that purpose. Yet, to that 
 purpose, of her person, and personal circumstances, 
 thus much I may remember some and inform others, 
 that from that worthy family whence she had her 
 
190 
 
 SERMON ON 
 
 original extraction and birth®’, she sucked 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 father’s 
 family, she grew not many years : transplanted young 
 from thence by marriage into another family of honour 
 as a flower that doubles and multiplies by transplan¬ 
 tation, she multiplied into ten children. Job’s number, 
 and Job’s distribution (as she herself would very often 
 remember), seven sons and three daughters; and in 
 this ground she grew not many years more than were 
 necessary for the producing of so many plants. And 
 being then left to choose her own ground in her 
 widowhood, having at home established and increased 
 the estate, with a fair and noble addition, proposing to 
 herself, as her principal care, the education of her 
 children. To advance that she came with them, and 
 dwelt with them in the university, and recompensed 
 to them the loss of a father, in giving them two 
 mothers, her own personal care, and the advantage of 
 that place; where she contracted a friendship with 
 divers reverend persons of eminency and estimation 
 there, which continued to their ends. And as this 
 was her greatest business, so she made this state a 
 large period, for in this state of widowhood she con¬ 
 tinued twelve years: and then, returning to a second 
 marriage, that second marriage turns us to the con¬ 
 sideration of another personal circumstance, that is, 
 the natural endowments of her person, which were 
 
 Daughter of Sir Richard, sister of Sir Francis, aunt of Sir 
 Ricliard Neuport, of Arcol. 
 
 Richard Herbert, of Blachehall in Montgomery, F.sq., 
 lineally descended from that great Sir Richard Herbert in 
 Edward IV.’s time, and father of Edward Lord Herbert, Baron 
 of Castle Island, late ambassador in France, and now (IGilT) of 
 his majesty’s council of war. 
 
191 
 
 LADY DANVERS 
 
 such, as that though her virtues were his principal 
 object, yet even these, her personal and natural 
 endowments, 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 legal prox¬ 
 imity to great possessions in the world, might justly 
 have promised him acceptance in what family soever, 
 or upon what person soever, he had directed and 
 placed his affections. He placed 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 years 
 was thus reduced to an evenness, that she had a 
 cheerfulness agreeable to his youth, and he a sober 
 staidness conformable to her more years. So that I 
 would not consider her at so much more than forty, 
 nor him at so much less than thirty, at that time ; but 
 as their persons were made one, and their fortunes 
 made one, by marriage, so I would put their years 
 into one number, and, finding a sixty between them, 
 think them thirty apiece, for as twins of one hour 
 they lived. God, who joined them then, having also 
 separated them now, may make their years even this 
 other way too, by giving him as many years after her 
 going out of this world, as he had given her before his 
 coming 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 be, the elder person. 
 
 To this consideration of her person then belongs 
 this, that God gave her such a comeliness as, though 
 she were not proud of it, yet she was so content with 
 it, as not to go about to mend it by any art. And for 
 her attire (which is another personal circumstance), 
 it was never sumptuous, never sordid, but always 
 Sir John Danvers, onlji brother to the Earl of Danby. 
 
192 
 
 SERMON ON 
 
 agreeable to her quality and agreeable to her com¬ 
 pany ; such as she might, and such as others, such as 
 she was, did wear. For in such things of indifferency 
 in themselves, many times, a singularity may be a little 
 worse than a fellowship in that which is not altogether 
 so good: it may be worse, nay, it may be a worse 
 pride, to wear worse things than others do. Her rule 
 was mediocrity. 
 
 And, as to the consideration of the house belongs 
 the consideration of the furniture too, so in these per¬ 
 sonal circumstances we consider her fortune, her 
 estate, which was in a fair and noble proportion, 
 derived from her first husband, and fairly and nobly 
 dispensed by herself, with the allowance of her second, 
 in which she was one of God’s true stewards and 
 almoners too. There are dispositions which had rather 
 give presents than pay debts, and rather do good to 
 strangers than to those that are nearer to them: but 
 she always thought the care of her family a debt, and 
 upon that for the provision, for the order, for the pro¬ 
 portions, in a good largeness, she placed her first 
 thoughts of that kind: for, for our families, we are 
 God’s stewards; for those without, we are his almoners. 
 In which office she gave not at some great days, or 
 some solemn goings abroad, but as God’s true almo¬ 
 ners, the sun and moon, that pass on in a continual 
 doing of good, as she received her daily bread from 
 God, so daily she distributed and imparted it to others. 
 In which office, though she never turned her face 
 from those who, in a strict inquisition, might be called 
 idle and vagrant beggars, yet she ever looked first 
 upon them who laboured, and whose labours could not 
 overcome the difficulties, nor bring in the necessities 
 of this life; and to the sweat of their brows sbe con¬ 
 tributed even her wine, and her oil, and any thing 
 that was, and any thing that might be, if it wei*e not. 
 
193 
 
 LADY DANVERS 
 
 prepared for her own table. And as her house was a 
 court in the conversation of the best, and an alms¬ 
 house in feeding’ the poor, so was it also an hospital in 
 ministering relief to the sick. And truly the love of 
 doing good in this kind, of ministering to the sick, was 
 the honey that was spread over all her bread; the air, 
 the perfume, that breathed 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 joint facility and 
 openness, and accessibleness to persons of the meanest 
 quality, concurred in this blessed act of charity, to minis¬ 
 ter relief to the sick : of which myself, who at that time 
 had the favour to be admitted into that family, can 
 and must testify this, that when the late heavy visita¬ 
 tion fell hotly upon this town, when every door 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 infection, divers 
 persons visited with that infection had their relief, 
 and relief appliable 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 w'here she was 
 born, and then where she was married, and then the 
 time of her widowhood, and lastly her last marriage; 
 and that the house itself was those fair bodily endow¬ 
 ments which God had bestowed 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 inhabi¬ 
 tants of this house (rather the servants, for they did 
 but wait upon religion in her) were those married 
 couples of moral virtues, conversation married with a 
 
 o 
 
194 
 
 SERMON ON 
 
 retiredness, facility married with a reservedness, 
 alacrity married with a thoughtfulness, and largeness 
 married with a providence, I may have leave to depart 
 from this consideration of her person and personal 
 circumstances, lest, by insisting longer upon them, I 
 should seem to pretend to say all the good that might 
 be said of her; but that is not in my purpose, yet only 
 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 appertain more expressly to me, 
 than these personal, or civil, or moral things do. 
 
 In those the next is, the secundum promissa, 
 That she governed herself according to his promises ; 
 his promises laid down in his Scriptures. For as the 
 rule of all her civil 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. She 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 sealed her to 
 himself in baptism, she brought up her children, she 
 assisted her family, she dedicated her soul to God in 
 her life, and surrendered it to him in her death; and 
 in that form of common prayer which is ordained by 
 that church, and to which she had accustomed herself 
 with her family twice every day, she joined 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 clear understanding, with a con¬ 
 stant memory, with a distinct voice, not two hours 
 before she died. 
 
 According to this promise, that is, the will of God 
 manifested in the Scriptures, she expected, she ex¬ 
 pected this that she has received, God’s physic and 
 

 195 
 
 LADY DAN VERS 
 
 God’s music, 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 spiritual death after the bodily, then we 
 died according to God’s threatening; now, when by 
 the Gospel that second death is taken off, though we 
 die still, yet we die according to his promise. That 
 is a part of his mercy and his promise which his 
 apostle gives us from him, that we shall all he 
 changed; for after that promise, that change, 
 follows that triumphant acclamation, O death, where 
 is thy sting ? O grave, where is thy victory^^ ? Con¬ 
 sider us fallen in Adam, and we are miserable that we 
 must die; but consider us restored and redintegrated 
 in Christ, we were more miserable if we might not 
 die: we lost the earthly paradise by death then, hut 
 we get not heaven but by death now. This she 
 expected till it came, and embraced it when it came. 
 How may we think she was joyed to see that face that 
 angels delight to look upon, the face of her Saviour, 
 that did not abhor the face of his fearfullest messenger, 
 death! She showed no fear of his face in any 
 change of her own, but died without any change of 
 countenance or posture, without any struggling, 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 
 she had aw'aited his leisure so many years as that 
 more would soon have grown to be vexation and 
 sorrow; as her last words here were, I submit my will 
 to the will of God, so we doubt not but the first word 
 which she heard there was that Euge from her 
 
 1 Cor. XV, 51. 
 
 1 Cor. XV. 55. 
 
196 
 
 SERMON ON 
 
 Saviour, Well done, good and faithful servant; enter 
 into thy Master s joy. 
 
 She expected that, dissolution of body and soul, 
 and rest in both from the incumbrances and tempta¬ 
 tions of this world. But yet she is in expectation 
 still, still a I’eversionary, and a reversionary upon a 
 long life ; the whole world must die before she come 
 to a possession of this reversion, which is a glorified 
 body in the resurrection : in which expectation she 
 returns to her former charity; she will not have that 
 till all we shall have it as well as she; she eat not her 
 morsels alone in her life’^ (as Job speaks), she looks 
 not for the glory of the resurrection alone after her 
 death. But when all we shall have been mellowed in 
 the earth many years, or changed in the air in the 
 twinkling of an eye (God know's which), that body 
 upon which you tread now, that body which now, 
 whilst I speak, is mouldering and crumbling into less 
 and less dust, and so hath some motion, though no 
 life; that body which was the tabernacle of a holy 
 soul, and a temple of the Holy Ghost; that body that 
 was eyes to the blind, and hands and feet to the lamie, 
 whilst it lived, and being dead is so still, by having 
 been so lively an example to teach others to be so, 
 that body at last shall have her last expectation satis¬ 
 fied, and dwell bodily with that righteousness in these 
 new heavens and new earth, for ever, and ever, and 
 ever, and infinite and super-infinite evers. We end 
 all with the valediction of the spouse to Christ: His 
 left hand is under my head, and his right embraces 
 me"^^, was the spouse's valediction, and good night 
 to Christ then, when she laid herself down to sleep in 
 the strength of his mandrakes, and in the power of his 
 spices, as it is expressed there; that is, in the influence 
 of his mercies. Beloved, every good soul is the 
 Job, xxxi. 17. Cant. viii. 3. 
 
LADY DANVERS 
 
 197 
 
 spouse of Christ: and this good soul, being thus laid 
 down to sleep 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 establishing her soul in present glory, 
 in his name, and in her behalf, I say that to all you, 
 which Christ says there in the behalf of that spouse, 
 Adjuro VOS, I adjure you, I charge you, O daugh¬ 
 ters of Jerusalem, that ye ivake 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 
 moral or religious actions, proceed from women them¬ 
 selves. Therefore, Adjuro vos, I charge you, O ye 
 daughters of Jerusalem, ivake her not. Wake her 
 not with any half calumnies, with any whisperings; 
 but if you will wake her, wake her, and keep her 
 awake, with an active imitation of her moral and her 
 holy virtues; that so her example working upon you, 
 and the number of God’s saints being the sooner by 
 this blessed example fulfilled, we may all meet, and 
 meet quickly, in that kingdom which hers and our 
 Saviour hath purchased for us all with the 
 inestimable price of his incorruptible 
 blood. To which glorious 
 Son of God, 
 
 &c. 
 
 Cant. viii. 4. 
 
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 HOUSE¬ 
 HOLD, THE DOCTOR’S OWN FUNERAL SERMON. 
 
'l 
 
 J 
 
 ' ^ . 
 
 •'f 
 
 * r . 
 
 
 •K 
 
 ■ Ui 
 
 A . ■ ■• ■ / 
 
 , , i .. lA" V 
 
 
 : .. . ':7i '* :■ t ■' < - 
 
 . t*:/ ; ■'. • 1 i 4 .. 
 
 .( 
 
 
 ♦ 
 
 s 
 
 I 
 
 
 I 
 
TO THE READER. 
 
 *S sermon teas, 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 
 mahe the deepest impression, as being spohen 
 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 goods. This enemy 
 we must all combat dying, whom he living did 
 
202 TO THE READER 
 
 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 pre¬ 
 paratives, 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/ne. 
 
 And unto God the Lord belong the issues of death, i. e. 
 from death. 
 
 B uildings stand by the benefit of their founda¬ 
 tions 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. Tt is this : 
 He that is our God is the God of salvation and 
 salutes; of salvation 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 
 
204 DEATH’S DUEL 
 
 death is Uheratio d morte, a deliverance from death, 
 and this is the most obvious and most ordinary accep¬ 
 tation of these words, and that upon which our trans¬ 
 lation 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 Uheratio 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 con¬ 
 texture 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 salva¬ 
 tions, 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 Uheratio per mortem, a 
 deliverance by death, by the death of this God our 
 Lord Christ Jesus. And this is Saint Augustine’s 
 
205 
 
 DEATH’S DUEL 
 
 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 introi- 
 tus in vitam, our issue in death shall be an entrance 
 into everlasting life. And these three considerations : 
 our deliverance d morte, m 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 d 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 
 d 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 
 
206 
 
 DEATH’S DUEL 
 
 dead. And if we be not dead so in the womb, so as 
 that being dead we kill her that gave ns 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^. 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 sitch knowledge is too excellent for me^, for even 
 that is the Lord's doing, and it is wonderful in our 
 eyes^: ipse fecit nos, it is he that made us, and not 
 we ourselves^, 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 the 
 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 
 
 It is the exaltation of misery to fall from a near 
 hope of happiness. And in that vehement impreca¬ 
 tion, the prophet expresses the highest of God’s anger. 
 Give them, O Lord, what wilt thou give them 9 give 
 them a miscarrying womb. Therefore as soon as we 
 are men (that is, inanimated, quickened in the womb), 
 
 * Psalm cxv. 6. * Psalm cxxxix. 6. ® Psalm cxviii. 23. 
 
 ■' Psalm c. 3. ® Isaiah, xxxvii. 
 
DEATH’S DUEL 
 
 207 
 
 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^? if there be 
 no deliverer. It must be he that said to Jeremiah, 
 Before I formed thee I knew thee, and before thou 
 earnest 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 That word which the Holy 
 Ghost, by Moses, useth for the ark, is common to 
 all kind of boats, theball, 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 a Domino, I have gotten a man from the 
 Lord^, 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 quick¬ 
 ened ; 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 d rnorte is but introi- 
 j tus in mortem ; this issue, this deliverance from that 
 death, the death of the womb, is an entrance, a de¬ 
 livering over to another death, the manifold deaths of 
 this world; we have a windingsheet 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 hestse, by such a string as that we cannot 
 go thence, nor stay there; we celebrate our own 
 
 ® Rom. vii. 24. ^ Exod. xxiii. ® Gen. iv. 1. 
 
208 
 
 DEATH’S DUEL 
 
 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 clomo Patris, says our 
 Saviour, speaking of heaven, multce mansiones, divers 
 and durable ; so that if a man cannot possess a martyr’s 
 house (he hath shed no blood for Cbrist), 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^; but here, upon 
 earth, the Son of man hath not where to lay his 
 headP, saith he himself. Nonne terram dedit fliis 
 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^^, nay, no cottage that 
 continues, nay, no persons, no bodies, that continue. 
 Whatsoever moved Saint Jerome to call the journe 3 S 
 of the Israelites in the wilderness 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 pilgrimaged^. And 
 though the apostle would not say morimur, that 
 whilst we are in the body we are dead, yet he say:s, 
 
 ® John xiv. 2. Matt. viii. 20. *' Heb. xiii. 14. 
 
 Exod. xvii. 1. Gen. xlvii. 9. 
 
209 
 
 DEATH’S DUEL 
 
 perigoHnamur, whilst we are in the body we are but 
 in a pilgrimage, and we are absent from the Lord'^: 
 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 hehdomada 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 calami¬ 
 ties 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 hast thou brought me 
 fo7dh out of the womb 9 Oh that I had given up the 
 ghost, and no eye seen me! I should have been 
 as though 1 had not been^^. 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 EgypU^), 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, 
 
 '■* 2 Cor. V. 6. Job, x. 18,, 19. Exod. xvi. 3. 
 
 P 
 
210 DEATH'S DUEL 
 
 and said, It is enough noiv, O Lord, take away my 
 life'’’. 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 ‘®. And when God asked him, Dost thou 
 well to be angry for this f 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, quotidie morior, that I die daily, that some¬ 
 thing heavier than death fall upon me every day; if 
 my case be David’s case, tota die mortficamur ; 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 irce, 
 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 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 a morte ; it is 
 introitus in mortem ; though it be an issue from mani- 
 
 1 Kings, xix. 4. Jonah, iv. 3. Rev. i. 18. 
 
DEATH'S DUEL 
 
 211 
 
 fold 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'^ (as the apostle speaks), no, 
 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 incinera¬ 
 tion? It is true that this was a most powerful embalm¬ 
 ing, 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 xmited to his dead body in the grave; 
 but yet for all this powerful embalming, his hypostati¬ 
 cal union of both natures, we see Christ did die; and 
 
 1 Cor. XV. 33. 
 
212 
 
 DEATirS DUEL 
 
 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 pro¬ 
 perly no man). And therefore as in him the dissolu¬ 
 tion 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 w'as 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 
 dahis, thou wilt not suffer thy Holy One to see cor¬ 
 ruption; 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, Neither, 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 Jeru¬ 
 salem, and so Paul in his at Antioch*'. They preached 
 Christ to have been risen without seeing corruption, 
 not only because God had decreed it, but because he 
 
 Acts, ii. 31; xiii. 35. 
 
213 
 
 DEATH’S DUEL 
 
 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^^; for when God declares his decree and pur¬ 
 pose 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 there¬ 
 fore, 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, say 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 hestae shall not see 
 
 « Ver. 10. 
 
214 
 
 DEATH'S DUEL 
 
 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), hut we shall all be 
 changed in an instant, we shall have a dissolution, 
 and in the same instant a redintegration, a recom¬ 
 pacting 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 in¬ 
 cineration, 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 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^*. In 
 Job and in Isaiahit covers them and is spread under 
 
 Job, xxiv. 20. Job, xxi. 23. 25, 26. 
 
 Isaiah, xiv. 11. 
 
DEATH’S DUEL 
 
 215 
 
 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 con¬ 
 sideration 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 hones live ? as though it had been 
 impossible, and yet they did; the Lord laid sinews 
 upon them, andflesh, and breath 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 
 
L>16 DEATtrS DUEL 
 
 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 irrecover¬ 
 able death of all; and yet Domini Domini sunt exitus 
 mortist unto God the Lord helong 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 helong 
 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 helong 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 
 ^rounds 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 testi- 
 
217 
 
 DEATH’S DUEL 
 
 fied that he went away like a lamb, that is, without 
 any reluctation. But God knows that may be accom¬ 
 panied 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 excla¬ 
 mations upon the cross. He was a devout man who 
 said upon his death-bed, or dead turf (for he was a 
 hermit), Septuaginta annos Domino servivisti, et 
 mori times 9 Hast thou served a good master three¬ 
 score and ten years, and now art thou loath to go 
 into his presence? Yet Hilarion was loath. Bartaam 
 was a devout man (a hermit too) that said that day 
 he died, Cogita te hodie ccepisse servire Domino, et 
 hodie Jiniturum: 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 Bartaam could have been 
 content to have stayed longer forth. Make no ill 
 conclusions upon any man’s loathness to die, for the 
 mercies of God work momentarily in minutes, and 
 many times insensibly to bystanders, or any other than 
 the pai-ty departing. And then upon violent deaths 
 inflicted as upon malefactors, Christ himself hath 
 forbidden us by his own death to make any ill conclu¬ 
 sion ; 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 to 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 
 
218 
 
 DEATH’S DUEL 
 
 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^®, 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 
 shall 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 w'ell 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 
 
 26 Ileb. xi. 
 
219 
 
 DEATH’S DUEL 
 
 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 vidistifnem jDomini, sdijs Saint James, (v. 11), You 
 have head'd 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^^), because to this God our Lord 
 belonged the issues of death. Quid apertius dice- 
 retur ? 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 oicr 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 becanse he was to save us. And to this Jesus, 
 says he, this Saviour^*, belong the issues of death ; 
 Nec oportuit eum de hac vita alios exitus habere 
 
 ^ De Civitate Dei, lib. xvii. 618. Matt. i. 21. 
 
220 
 
 DEATH'S DUEL 
 
 quam moy'tis: 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 facturuni, 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'^; he had no other way but by 
 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 olf 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, miracu¬ 
 lously sti'ange; but supermiraculous 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 
 
 Luke, xxiv. 20. 
 
221 
 
 DEATH’S DUEL 
 
 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; Detts 
 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 libre 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^^; stronger, it drew in 
 death, that naturally is not welcome. Si possihile, 
 says Christ, if it he 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^^. 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 o%ight to suffer. 
 And when shall we date this obligation, this oportuit, 
 this necessity ? When shall we say that began ? Cer¬ 
 tainly 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 
 
 ^ Cant. viii. 6. Vers. 7. 
 
222 
 
 DEATH'S DUEL 
 
 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 heeF* (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 he baptized with 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) 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) he speaks 
 not odiously, not with detestation of it. Indeed it 
 was a cup, salws mundo, a health to all the world. 
 And quid 7'etribuam, says David, What shall I render 
 to the Loy'd^"^? 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^ tells us, but 
 what they talked of, only Saint Luke; Dicebant exces- 
 sum ejus, says he. They talked of his decease, of his 
 death, which was to be accomplished at Jerusalem'^. 
 The word is of his exodus, the very word of our text, 
 exitus, his issue by death. Moses, who in his exodus 
 
 Gen. iii. 15. ^4 Luke, xii. 40. Heb. xii. 2. 
 
 Matt. xxii. 22. Psalm cxvi. 12. 
 
 Matt. xvii. 3 ; iMark, ix. 4. Luke, ix. 31. 
 
DEATH’S DUEL 223 
 
 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 hlood; 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 alfect 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 kumanitas contingat, nor if 
 or when I die, but when the course of nature is accom¬ 
 plished 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 nevei' 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 
 
224 
 
 DEATH’S DUEL 
 
 and immutability. But honum est nobis esse hie 
 (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 pro¬ 
 ceeded 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 conti¬ 
 nuation 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 pro- 
 lixious, he spent much time in prayer, how much ? 
 Because it is literally expressed, that he prayed there 
 three several times and that returning to his disciples 
 after his first prayer, and finding them asleep, said. 
 Could ye not watch with me one hour*^, 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 
 
 Luke, xxii. 24. "" Matt. xxvi. 40. 
 
DEATH'S DUEL 
 
 225 
 
 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 Jesusalem, 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 com¬ 
 pass 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 needeth 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 moiming, 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 
 
 Q 
 
226 
 
 DEATH'S DUEL 
 
 him, and therefore to ease himself, and to pass a com¬ 
 pliment 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 de¬ 
 livered, 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 igno¬ 
 minious contumelies ; but they regarded him not, they 
 pressed a crucifying. Hast thou gone about to re¬ 
 deem 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 
 
227 
 
 DEATH’S DUEL 
 
 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 dependancy, 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 prepar¬ 
 ed for you with the inestimable 
 price of his incorruptible 
 blood. Amen. 
 
 * =k 
 
 9 
 

 » . 
 
 
 
 
 • :■ /- -I .f"' > '' ' *' -v;. ]^^{■ r: Kf*;*'” ^ . 
 
 '■ •. ,': H ■ ' “ 
 
 '.’. . ;f * ; ■ ><,«), .iv. ' 
 
 iJl Hit 
 
 ^ ^ •; f'V'.T 
 
 .. , ■1 ( ,t> 
 
 ■ ■; 
 
 ', ')»uvi *, iQy ^'Ai ' , 
 
 <!:■] •,»&]:•: • >7 j- I. ■ ( ■ '•: 
 
 ■ ■ ■' • . 
 
 . i|f«c •'(in'.!- 
 
 ..;r . ).-,;;r : 
 
 ; ,; tii’i ay. ,.:i. ' 
 
 : n- .n; l Jf .it 
 
 .: - ... ■!'i' 
 
 V 'tiits-'* 
 
 i. •■' • 1 
 
 u '>1 »'}■;.• ■ . 
 
 •* / . 1 . 
 
 :r. ( r 
 
 
 ; -t.'i 
 
 J . 
 
 • ■;* - I ■••t. .I-*!.' 
 
 ' ' ■ S" - ■ ' 1 -N' • . 
 
 'iij :• t. , : ■ .-i ... ! 
 
 .. . • • ' * ■.. •! Mt ^ 
 
 '■ I.. ': ni j..r. i ■.: r .n V 
 
 .■ I 4kJ 
 
 ; • ■ I •,‘"tioy ■!.< . ■ ‘.i . .'.r . • 
 
 fI•.i.,vinii".''-»:i; r>' r"' 
 
 • ■ ■/ -■J-'-TlH iitHii.< ' .: , ■ 'tr ::;s *r‘-^ 
 
 ’ . i>'‘' 
 
 ; ■ . - : > j , ■./ 'ii;- hi ;. •-: 
 
 > ■ V.t'J ri.; 'v-n . 
 
 ■ .; \ A i- ^ 
 
 ■ .'Vv 
 
 * •) 
 
 
 
 •* . C'. ‘ • 
 
 V f V*"- •Ji*y-:T) i. » %*.,• 
 
 v‘"i' '*'• __ 
 
 - fr- 1 ■ ■■ ' ' • ■> nf/»n! K- ' '. ■* ' ’ 
 
 V ■< f, 
 
 - \ 1 T I J t ^ t H ^ \ 
 
 t • ■ *•»“'/ ■ <•;«,? 1*’‘> , •* .It 
 
 4^- I -■■:■ vA sX:-^ 4 
 
 •• *■'r. 
 
 
 

• t 
 
 i 
 
 j 
 
 j* 
 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 n - 
 
 i • 
 
 4