"Dignatus fis, in quorumcunque "Manus devenerint, in tuam "Amen.” "In fine horum fex annorum manet "Quid habeo quod non accepi à Domino? But I return from my long digreffion. We left the author fick in Effex, where he was forced to spend much of that winter, by reafon of his difability to remove from that place; and having never for almost twenty years omitted his perfonal attendance on his Majefty 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 occafion to write the following letter to a dear friend: 66 ་ "SIR,-This advantage you and my other friends have by my frequent "fevers, that I am fo much the oftener at the gates of heaven; and this advantage by the folitude and close imprisonment that they reduce me to after, that I am so much the oftener at my prayers, in which I shall never "leave out your happiness, and I doubt not among his other bleffings, "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 fo much "forrow "forrow and fo much good teftimony from good men as I (God be "bleffed for it) did upon the report of my death; yet I perceive it went "not through all, for one writ to me that fome (and he faid of my friends) "conceived I was not fo ill as I pretended, but withdrew myfelf to live at eafe,'discharged of preaching. It is an unfriendly, and, God knows, an "ill-grounded interpretation; for I have always been forrier when I could not preach, than any could be they could not hear me. It hath "been my defire, 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 fooner by occafion of those labours. Sir, I hope to fee you presently after Candlemas, about which time will fall my Lent"fermon at court, except my Lord Chamberlain believe me to be dead, " and fo leave me out of the roll; but as long as I live, and am not speech"lefs, I would not willingly decline that fervice. I have better leisure to "write than you to read, yet I would not willingly opprefs you with too "much letter. God fo blefs you and your fon, as I wish to "Your poor friend, "And fervant in Chrift Jefus, "J. DONNE." Before that month ended he was appointed to preach upon his old conftant day, the first Friday in Lent: He had notice of it, and had in his fickness so prepared for that employment, that as he had long thirsted for it, fo he refolved his weakness should not hinder his journey; he came therefore to London fome few days before his appointed day of preaching. At his coming thither, many of his friends (who with forrow faw his fickness had left him but fo much flesh as did only cover his bones) doubted his ftrength to perform that task, and did therefore diffuade him from it, afsuring him, however, it was likely to fhorten his life; but he paffionately denied their requests, faying, " He would not doubt that that God, who "in fo many weakneffes had affifted him with an unexpected strength, "would now withdraw it in his laft employment, profeffing an holy am"bition to perform that facred work." And when, to the amazement of fome beholders, he appeared in the pulpit, many of them thought he pre fented fented himself not to preach mortification by a living voice, but mortality by a decayed body and a dying face. And doubtlefs many did fecretly afk that queftion in Ezekiel, (chap. xxxvii. 3.) "Do thefe bones live? or, can that foul organize that tongue to fpeak fo long time as the fand in "that glafs will move towards its centre, and measure out an hour of "this dying man's unfpent life? Doubtlefs it cannot :" And yet, after fome faint pauses in his zealous prayer, his ftrong defires enabled his weak body to discharge his memory of his preconceived meditations, which were of dying; the text being, "To God the Lord belong the iffues from death." Many that then faw his tears, and heard his faint and hollow voice, profeffing they thought the text prophetically chofen, and that Dr. Donne had preached his own funeral fermon". Being full of joy that God had enabled him to perform this defired duty, he haftened to his houfe, out of which he never moved, till, like St. Stephen, "he was carried by devout men to his grave." The a The reader will recollect the custom which then prevailed, of regulating the time of preaching by the hour-glafs, which was usually placed at the right-hand of the preacher. In allufion to this custom, a preacher at Cambridge calls himself "A watchman for an hour in "the towre of the univerfity." (Fuller's Univ. of Cambridge, p. 159.)—Dr. Donne thus begins his difcourfe on 1 Tim. iii. 16.-" This is no text for an hour-glafs: If God would af"ford me Hezekiah's fign, ut revertatur umbra, that the fhadow might go backward upon "the dial, or Joshua's fign, ut fiftat Sol, that the fun might stand still all the day, this were "text enough to employ all the day, and all the days of our life." Again, on Pf. xxxii. 6.— "You would not be weary of reading a long conveyance, in which the land were given to "yourselves; nor of a long will, in which the body of the State were bequeathed to you. "Be not weary, if at any time your patience be exercifed fome minutes beyond the threefcore, "fometime beyond the hour, in these exercises; for we exhibit conveyance, in which the land, "the land of promife is made yours, and the teftament, in which the teftator himself is "bequeathed to you."It appears from the accounts of modern travellers, that in fome of the Proteftant churches in Switzerland the hour-glafs is ftill retained to direct the length of the preacher's difcourfe. (Gray's Letters during the Courfe of a Tour through Germany, p. 131.) This difcourfe was printed at London in 1633, in 4to. under the quaint title of "Death's Duel, or a Confolation to the Soule against the Dying Life and Living Death of the Body." The text is from Pf. lxviii. 20. It is the laft difcourfe in the third volume of Dr. Donne's Sermons. The next day after his fermon, his ftrength being much wafted, and his fpirits fo fpent as indifpofed him to bufinefs or to talk, a friend that had often been a witnefs of his free and facetious difcourfe, afked him, "Why "are you fad ?" To whom he replied, with a countenance fo full of cheerful gravity, as gave teftimony of an inward tranquillity of mind, and of a foul willing to take a farewel of this world; and said—— "I am not fad, but most of the night past I have entertained myself with many thoughts of feveral 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 fhall go bence and be no more feen. And my preparation for this change "is become my nightly meditation upon my bed, which my infirmities. "have now made reftlefs 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 leaft of his mercies; and looking back upon my life past, "I now plainly fee it was his hand that prevented me from all temporal employment, and that it was his will I fhould never fettle or thrive till "I entered into the miniftry; in which I have now lived almost twenty years (I hope to his glory), and by which I moft humbly thank him, I "have been enabled to requite moft of thofe friends which fhewed me "kindness when my fortune was very low, as God knows it was, and "(as it hath occafioned the expreffion of my gratitude) I thank God most "of them have ftood in need of my requital. I have lived to be useful "and comfortable to my good father-in-law, Sir George Moore, whose patience God hath been pleased to exercise with many temporal croffes; "I have maintained my own mother, whom it hath pleafed God, after a plen"tiful fortune in her younger days, to bring to a great decay in her very old age. I have quieted the confciences of many that have groaned under "the burthen of a wounded fpirit, whofe prayers I hope are available for me. I cannot plead innocency of life, especially of my youth; but I am to be judged by a merciful God, who is not willing to fee what I have "done amifs: And though of myfelf I have nothing to prefent to him but "fins and mifery, yet I know he looks not upon me now as I am of myfelf, but as I am in my Saviour, and hath given me even at this prefent "time "time some teftimonies by his Holy Spirit, that I am of the number of his "elect: I am therefore full of inexpreffible joy, and shall die in peace." I muft here look fo far back, as to tell the reader, that at his first return out of Effex, to preach his laft fermon, his old friend and physician, Dr. Fox, a man of great worth, came to him to confult his health, and that after a fight of him, and fome queries concerning his diftempers, he told him, "That by cordials, and drinking milk twenty days together, "there was a probability of his restoration to health, but he paffionately "denied to drink it." Nevertheless, Dr. Fox, who loved him most entirely, wearied him with folicitations, 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 fatisfy him, than to recover his health; and that he would not drink it ten days longer upon the beft moral affurance of having twenty years "added to his life, for he loved it not, and was fo far from fearing death, "which to others is the King of Terrors, that he longed for the day of his "diffolution.' It is obferved, that a defire of glory or commendation is rooted in the very nature of man; and that thofe of the feverest and most mortified lives, though they may become fo humble as to banish felf-flattery, and fuch weeds as naturally grow there; yet they have not been able to kill this defire of glory, but that, like our radical heat, it will both live and die Dr. Donne feems to have entertained an indifference to and an alienation from every fecular pursuit. In the various fcenes of his maturer life, he has his attention principally, fixed upon another and a better state. His defires and affections being mortified and entirely fubdued, he familiarizes to his thoughts the idea of death. Hence he expreffes not merely an acquiefcence in the difpenfations of God calling him away from this world, but even an unwillingness to live; and by that very extraordinary mode of representation, which his biographer has recorded, he reconciles and endears to himself the approaching moment of his diffolution. But fuch a conduct will not be pursued by the generality of mankind. We are indeed influenced by every religious and moral principle to aspire after length of days and an honourable old age; when we languifh on the bed of fickness, to bear the agonies of pain with the confoling hopes of being restored to health, not to reject the probable remedies which medicinal skill proposes for extinguishing disease and protracting life. This difpofition, joined with a cheerful and ready confignment of our state to the will of God, and a just sense of the small value of all earthly enjoyments, is furely not unworthy of the Christian character. |