faithfull friend and Executor of whose Care and Justice I make no more doubt then of Gods blessing on that which I have conscienciously collected for them and this I declare as my unalterable resolution The reply to this was onely a promise to observe his request Within a few dayes his distempers abated and as his strength increased so did his thankfulnesse to Almighty God testified in his book of Devotions which he published at his recovery In which the reader may see the most secret thoughts that then possest his soul Paraphrased and make publick a book that may not unfitly be called a Sacred picture of spirituall extasies occasioned and applyable to the emergencies of that sicknesse which being a composition of Meditations disquisitions and prayers he writ on his sick-bed herein imitating the holy Patriarchs who were wont to build their Altars in that place where they had received their blessings This sicknesse brought him so neer to the gates of death and he saw the grave so ready to devour him that he would often say his recovery was supernaturall But God that restor'd 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. Harvie at Abury hatch in Essex he there fell into a fever which with the help of his constant infirmity vapors from the spleene 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 Iob my welfare passeth away as a cloud the dayes of my affliction have taken hold of me and weary nights are appointed for me Reader this sicknesse continued long not onely weakening but wearying him so much that my desire is he may now take some rest and that before I speake of his death thou wilt not think it an impertinent digression to look back with me upon some observations of his life which whilst a gentle slumber gives rest to his spirits may I hope not unfitly exercise thy consideration His marriage was the remarkable errour of his life an errour which though he had a wit able very apt to maintain Paradoxes yet he was very farre from justifying though his wives Competent yeares and other reasons might be justly urged to moderate severe Censures yet he would occasionally condemn himself for it and doubtlesse it had been attended with an heavy Repentance if God had not blest them with so mutuall and Cordiall affections as in the midst of their sufferings made their bread of sorrow taste more pleasantly then 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 onely to exercise his sharpe wit and high fancy and in those pieces which were facetiously Composed and carelesly 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 joyn'd to assist him with their utmost skill It is a truth that in his penitentiall yeares viewing some of those pieces loosely scattered in his youth he wish't they had been abortive or so short liv'd that his own eyes had witnessed their funeralls But though he was no friend to them he was not so fallen out with heavenly Poetry as to forsake that no not in that in his declining age witnessed then by many Divine Sonnets and other high holy and harmonious Composures Yea even on his former sick-bed he wrote this heavenly Hymne expressing the great joy that then possest his soul in the Assurance of Gods favour to him An Hymne to God the Father Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun Which was my sin though it were done before Wilt thou forgive that sin through which I run And do run still though still I do deplore When thou hast done thou hast not done For I have more Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have wonne Others to sin and made my sin their doone Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun A year or two but wallowed 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 thred I shall perish on the shore But swear by thy self that at my death thy Son Shall shine as he shines now and heretofore And having done that thou hast done I fear no more I have the rather mentioned this Hymne for that he caus'd it to be set to a most grave and solemn tune and to be often sung to the Organ by the Choristers of that Church in his own hearing especially at the Evening Service and at his return from his Customary Devotions in that place did occasionally say to a friend The words of this Hymne have restored to me the same thoughts of joy that possest my soul in my sicknesse when I composed it And Oh the power of Church-musick that Harmony added to it has raised the affections of my heart and quickned my graces of zeal and gratitude and I observe that I alwaies return from paying this publick duty of Prayer and Praise to God with an unexpressible tranquillity of mind and a willingnesse to leave the world After this manner did the Disciples of our Saviour and the best of Christians in those Ages of the Church nearest to his time offer their praises to Almighty God And the reader of St. Augustines life may there find that towards his dissolution he wept abundantly that the enemies of Christianity had broke in upon them and prophaned and ruin'd their Sanctuaries and because their Publick Hymns and Lauds were lost out of their Churches And after this manner have many devout soules lifted up their hands and offered acceptable Sacrifices unto Almighty God in that place where Dr. Donne offered his But now oh Lord Before I proceed further I think fit to informe 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 Crosse his varying no otherwise then to affixe him to an Anchor the Embleme of hope this he caused to be drawn in little and then many of these figures thus drawn to be ingraven very small in Hâ—litropian Stones and set in gold and of these he sent to many of his dearest friends to be used as Seales or Rings and kept as memorialls of him and his affection His dear friends Sir Henry Goodier and Sir Robert Drewry could not be of that number for they had put off mortality and taken possession of the grave before him But Sir Henry Wootton and Dr. Hall the late deceased Bishop of Norwich were and so were Dr. Duppa Bishop of Salisbury and Dr. Henry King Bishop of Chicester both now living-men in whom there was and is such a Commixture
Quemadmodum nec officiis hujus mundi Nec loci in quo me posuit dignitati nec Servis nec egenis in toto hujus anni Curriculo mihi conscius sum me defuissi Ita liberi quibus quae supersunt Supersunt grato animo eâ— accipiant Et beneficum authorem 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 thence And having never for almost twenty yeares omitted his personall Attendance on his Majesty in that moneth 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 Ianuary 1630. a report brought to London or raised there that Dr. Donne was dead That report gave him occasion to write this following letter to a friend Sir This advantage you and my other friends have by my frequent fevers that I am so much the oftner at the Gates of Heaven and this advantage by the solitude close imprisonment that they reduce me to after that I am so much the oftner at my prayers in which I shall never leave out your happinesse and I doubt not but among his other blessings God will adde some one to you for my prayers A man would almost be content to dye 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 my self to live at ease discharged of preaching It is an unfriendly and God knowes an ill-grounded interpretation for I have alwaies been sorrier when I could not preach then any could be they could not hear me It hath been my desire and God may be pleased to grant it that I might dye in the Pulpit if not that yet that I might take my death in the Pulpit that is dye 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 speechlesse I would not willingly decline that service I have better leisure to write then you to read yet I would not willingly oppresse you with too much Letter God blesse you and your Son as I wish Your poor friend and servant in Christ Iesus J. Donne Before that moneth ended he was designed to preach upon his old constant day the first Friday in Lent he had notice of it and had in his sicknesse so prepared for that imployment that as he had long thirsted for it so he resolved his weaknesse should not hinder his journey he came therefore to London some few dayes before his day appointed At his being there many of his friends who with sorrow saw his sicknesse had left him onely so much flesh as did cover his bones doubted his strength to performe that task and therefore disswaded him from undertaking it assuring him however it was like to shorten his daies but he passionately denyed their requests saying he would not doubt that God who in many weaknesses had assisted him with an unexpected strength would not now withdraw it in his last employment professing an holy ambition to performe that sacred work And when to the amazement of some beholders he appeared in the Pulpit many thought he presented himself not to preach mortification by a living voice but mortality by a decayed body and dying face And doubtlesse many did secretly ask that question in Ezekiel Do these bones live or can that soul Organize that tongue to speak so long time as the sand in that glasse will move towards its Centre and measure out an hour of this dying mans unspent life Doubtlesse it cannot yet after some faint pauses in his zealous prayer his strong desires enabled his weake body to discharge his memory of his preconceived meditations which were of dying the Text being To God the Lord belong the issues from Death Many that then saw his teares and heard his hollow voice professing they thought the Text prophetically chosen and that Dr. Donne had preach't his own funerall Sermon Being full of joy that God had enabled him to performe this desired duty he hastened to his house out of which he never moved till like St. Stephen he was carryed by devout men to his Grave The next day after his Sermon his strength being much wasted and his spirits so spent as indisposed him to businesse or to talk A friend that had often been a witnesse of his free and facetious discourse asked him Why are you sad To whom he replyed with a countenance so full of cheerfull 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 my self with many thoughts of severall friends that have left me here and are gone to that place from which they shall not returne And that within a few dayes I also shall go hence and be no more seen And my preparation for this change is become my nightly meditation upon my bed which my infirmities have now made restlesse to me But at this present time I was in a serious Contemplation of the goodnesse of God to me who am lesse then 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 temporall imployment and it was his will that I should never settle nor thrive till I entred into the Ministry in which I have now liv'd almost twenty yeares I hope to his glory and by which I most humbly thank him I have been inabled to requite most of those friends which shewed me kindnesse when my fortune was very low and as it hath occasioned the expression of my gratitude I thank God most of them have stood in need of my requitall I have liv'd to be usefull and comfortable to my good father in Law Sir George Moore whose patience God hath been pleased to exercise with many temporall crosses I have maintained my own mother whom it hath pleased God after a plentifull fortune in her younger dayes 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 I hope are available for me I cannot plead innocency of life especially of my youth But I am to be judged by a mercifull God who is not willing to see what I have done amisse And though of my self I
THE LIFE OF IOHN DONNE Dr. in DIVINTY AND Late DEAN of Saint PAULS Church LONDON The second impression corrected and enlarged Ecclus. 48.14 He did wonders in his life and at his death his works were marvelous LONDON Printed by I. G. for R. Marriot and are to be sold at his shop under S. Dunstans Church in Fleet-street 1658. TO MY Noble honoured Friend Sir ROBET HOLT of Aston in the County of Warwick Baronet SIR WHen this relation of the life of Doctor Donne was first made publick it had besides the approbation of our late learned eloquent King a conjunction with the Authors most excellent Sermons to support it and thus it lay some time fortified against prejudice and those passions that are by busie and malicious men too freely vented against the dead And yet now after almost twenty yeares 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 my self 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 will again expose it and me to publick exceptions and without those supports which we first had and needed and in an Age too in which Truth Innocence have not beene able to defend themselves from worse then severe censures This I foresaw and Nature teaching me selfe-preservation 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 protection and I make it with so much humble boldnesse as to say 't were 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 marriage of souls betwixt him and your * reverend Grandfather 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 Heire your beloved Uncle the Bishop of * Chichester that lives in this froward generation to be an ornament to his Calling And this affection to him was by Dr. D. so testified in his life that he then trusted him with the very secrets of his soul at his death with what was dearest to him even his fame estate children And you have yet a further title to what was Dr. Donne's by that dear affection friendship that was betwixt him and your parents by which he entailed a love upon your self even in your infancy which was encreased by the early testimonies of your growing merits and by them continued till D. Donne put on immortality and so this mortall was turned into a love that cannot die And Sir 't was pity he was lost to you in your minority before you had attained a judgement to put a true value upon the living beauties and elegancies of his conversation and pitty too that so much of them as were capable of such an expression were not drawn by the pensil of a Tytian or a Tentoret by a pen equall and more lasting then their art for his life ought to be the example of more then that age in which he died And yet this copy though very much indeed too much short of the Originall will present you with some features not unlike your dead friend and with fewer blemishes and more ornaments than when 't was first made publique which creates a contentment to my selfe because it is the more worthy of him and because I may with more civility intitle you to it And in this designe 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 whose hands soever this shall fall it may to them be a testimony of my gratitude to your self and Family who descended to such a degree of humility as to admit me into their friendship in the dayes 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 yeares have still increased and multiplied their favours This Sir is the intent of this Dedication and having made the declaration of it thus publick I shall conclude it with commending them and you to Gods deare love I remain Sir what your many merits have made me to be The humblest of your Servants Isaac VValton TO THE READER MY desire is to inform and assure you that shall become my Reader that in that part of this following discourse which is onely narration I either speak my own knowledge or from the testimony of such as dare do any thing rather that speak an untruth And for that part of it which is my own observation or opinion if I had a power I would not use it to force any mans assent but leave him a liberty to dis-believe what his own reason inclines him to Next I am to inform you that whereas Dr. Donne's life was formerly printed with his Sermons and then had the same Preface or Introduction to it I have not omitted it now because I have no such confidence in what I have done as to appear without an apology for my undertaking it I have said all when I have wished happinesse to my Reader I. VV. THE Life of Dr. DONNE Late DEANE of Saint PAULS Church Lond. IF the late deceased Provost of Eaton Colledge Sir Henry Wotton that great Master of Language and Art had lived to see the publication of these Sermons he had presented the world with the Authors life exactly written which was a work worthy his undertaking and he fit to undertake it Betwixt whom and the Author there was such a friendship contracted in their youth as nothing but death should force a separation And though their bodies were divided yet their affections were not for that Learned Knights love followed his friends fame beyond death and the forgetfull grave And this he testifyed by intreating me whom he acquainted with his intentions 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 usefull I did prepare them in a readiness to be augmented and rectifyed by his powerfull pen but then death prevented his intentions When I heard that sad news heard also that these Sermons were to be printed want the Authors Life wch I thought worthy to be recorded indignation or grief truly I know not wch transported me so far that I reviewed my forsaken collections resolved the world should see the best narration of it that my artlesse pen guided by the hand of truth could present to it I shall