John Donne's Sermons
In this week's issue of The Tablet, there's review of a book about John Donne - A restless heart keeps its secrets - Donne: the reformed soul by John Stubbs (reviewed by Christopher Howse).
Here's a bit of the review below ...
The reputation of John Donne (1572-1631) as poet is as high now as ever. There is none above his summit in the genre he chose. Yet, on the publication of his Poems two years after his death, it was as a preacher that Donne was most highly praised. Of his sermons, 160 survive ...
... the great crux is Donne’s turning from a recusant Catholic to an establishment Protestant. Some find the erotic power of the youthful poems hard to reconcile with his Devotions (1624) and sermons ...
... Donne made a long study in his twenties of the claims of Catholics and Protestants in his day, reading Bellarmine. There is evidence too, that Donne, while not an indifferentist, came to believe privately that Christians, reformed or not, could find a way to God. Yet a change of religion suited only too well Donne’s first chosen profession as a technocrat among courtiers. Stubbs comes into his own at this point, introducing the dashing sonneteer’s new friends with miniature biographical sketches, weighing accounts of his movements, and plausibly linking life and literary endeavour (no easy matter, with Donne’s intentionally artificial approach). He is particularly good on his women friends. This biographer has done a vast amount of work, but always serves the fruit appetisingly. Stubbs brings to life the enveloping horror of the Elizabethan court ...
... As for his sermons, it is a fault in modern readers to presume them dull. They were easier listening than the incremental chipping away of his contemporary Lancelot Andrewes. King James lapped up both. Donne’s glorious connected paragraphs penetrate mysteries beyond anything the reader thinks to expect. But Donne’s own inner life must remain mysterious, for all the careful narrative and vivid background of this biography.
I have to admit, I do like Donne's poems mote than his sermons,. Here's a part of a longer poem - La Corona ...
CRUCIFYING.
By miracles exceeding power of man,
He faith in some, envy in some begat,
For, what weak spirits admire, ambitious hate :
In both affections many to Him ran.
But O ! the worst are most, they will and can,
Alas ! and do, unto th' Immaculate,
Whose creature Fate is, now prescribe a fate,
Measuring self-life's infinity to span,
Nay to an inch. Lo ! where condemned He
Bears His own cross, with pain, yet by and by
When it bears him, He must bear more and die.
Now Thou art lifted up, draw me to Thee,
And at Thy death giving such liberal dole,
Moist with one drop of Thy blood my dry soul.
But here below is the first page of one of the sermons ...
******************
Preached at St. Dunstan's upon Trinity Sunday, 1624
Matthew 3:17
AND LO A VOYCE CAME FROM HEAVEN SAYING THIS IS MY BELOVED SONNE IN WHOM I1 AM WELL PLEASED
IT HATH been the custome custode of the christian church to appropriate certaine scriptures to certaine dayes for the celebrating of certaine mysteries of god or the commemorating of certaine benefits from god they who consider the age of the christian church too high or too low too soone or too late either in the cradle as it is exhibited in the acts of the apostles or bedrid bed rid in the corruptions corrupt ions of rome either before it was come to any growth when persecutions nipped it or when it was so over growne as that prosperity and outward splendor swelled it they that consider the church so will never finde a good measure to direct our religious worship of god by for the outward liturgies liturgics and ceremonies of the church but as soon as the christian church had a constant establishment under christian emperours Emperours and before the church had her tympany of worldly prosperity under usurping bishops in this outward service of god there were particular scriptures appropriated to particular
dayes particular men have not liked this that it should be so and yet that church which they use to take for their patterne 1 I meane geneva as soone as it came to have any convenient establishment by the labours laboure of that reverend man who did so much in the rectify ing thereof admitted this custome custode of celebrating certaine times by the reading of certaine scriptures so that in the pure times of the church without any question and in the corrupter times of the church without any infection and in the reformed times of the church without any suspition suspicion of back sliding this custome custode hath beene retained which ...
*******************
To see all his sermons, go here - John Donne Sermons
To read browse all John Donne's writing, go here - The Works of John Donne
Here's a bit of the review below ...
The reputation of John Donne (1572-1631) as poet is as high now as ever. There is none above his summit in the genre he chose. Yet, on the publication of his Poems two years after his death, it was as a preacher that Donne was most highly praised. Of his sermons, 160 survive ...
... the great crux is Donne’s turning from a recusant Catholic to an establishment Protestant. Some find the erotic power of the youthful poems hard to reconcile with his Devotions (1624) and sermons ...
... Donne made a long study in his twenties of the claims of Catholics and Protestants in his day, reading Bellarmine. There is evidence too, that Donne, while not an indifferentist, came to believe privately that Christians, reformed or not, could find a way to God. Yet a change of religion suited only too well Donne’s first chosen profession as a technocrat among courtiers. Stubbs comes into his own at this point, introducing the dashing sonneteer’s new friends with miniature biographical sketches, weighing accounts of his movements, and plausibly linking life and literary endeavour (no easy matter, with Donne’s intentionally artificial approach). He is particularly good on his women friends. This biographer has done a vast amount of work, but always serves the fruit appetisingly. Stubbs brings to life the enveloping horror of the Elizabethan court ...
... As for his sermons, it is a fault in modern readers to presume them dull. They were easier listening than the incremental chipping away of his contemporary Lancelot Andrewes. King James lapped up both. Donne’s glorious connected paragraphs penetrate mysteries beyond anything the reader thinks to expect. But Donne’s own inner life must remain mysterious, for all the careful narrative and vivid background of this biography.
I have to admit, I do like Donne's poems mote than his sermons,. Here's a part of a longer poem - La Corona ...
CRUCIFYING.
By miracles exceeding power of man,
He faith in some, envy in some begat,
For, what weak spirits admire, ambitious hate :
In both affections many to Him ran.
But O ! the worst are most, they will and can,
Alas ! and do, unto th' Immaculate,
Whose creature Fate is, now prescribe a fate,
Measuring self-life's infinity to span,
Nay to an inch. Lo ! where condemned He
Bears His own cross, with pain, yet by and by
When it bears him, He must bear more and die.
Now Thou art lifted up, draw me to Thee,
And at Thy death giving such liberal dole,
Moist with one drop of Thy blood my dry soul.
But here below is the first page of one of the sermons ...
******************
Preached at St. Dunstan's upon Trinity Sunday, 1624
Matthew 3:17
AND LO A VOYCE CAME FROM HEAVEN SAYING THIS IS MY BELOVED SONNE IN WHOM I1 AM WELL PLEASED
IT HATH been the custome custode of the christian church to appropriate certaine scriptures to certaine dayes for the celebrating of certaine mysteries of god or the commemorating of certaine benefits from god they who consider the age of the christian church too high or too low too soone or too late either in the cradle as it is exhibited in the acts of the apostles or bedrid bed rid in the corruptions corrupt ions of rome either before it was come to any growth when persecutions nipped it or when it was so over growne as that prosperity and outward splendor swelled it they that consider the church so will never finde a good measure to direct our religious worship of god by for the outward liturgies liturgics and ceremonies of the church but as soon as the christian church had a constant establishment under christian emperours Emperours and before the church had her tympany of worldly prosperity under usurping bishops in this outward service of god there were particular scriptures appropriated to particular
dayes particular men have not liked this that it should be so and yet that church which they use to take for their patterne 1 I meane geneva as soone as it came to have any convenient establishment by the labours laboure of that reverend man who did so much in the rectify ing thereof admitted this custome custode of celebrating certaine times by the reading of certaine scriptures so that in the pure times of the church without any question and in the corrupter times of the church without any infection and in the reformed times of the church without any suspition suspicion of back sliding this custome custode hath beene retained which ...
*******************
To see all his sermons, go here - John Donne Sermons
To read browse all John Donne's writing, go here - The Works of John Donne
posted by crystal | 3:04 PM
4 Comments:
Crystal,
Very interesting post. I remember reading Owen Chadwick's book about the history of the Reformation a few years ago, and Chadwick said that Donne was probably the best sermon-writer in all of Protestantism. He also pointed out like you did in the quotes here that although he was not an indifferentist, he did think that members of different churches could be saved. I'd like to know more about his story. It's too bad he left Catholicism. We would have been very proud to have claimed him as one of ours. Great poet.
Jeff,
in the rest of the book review, the writer mentions how Donne's brother was jailed for helping a catholic priest and the priest was hung, drwn and quartered ... he said it had a profound effect on Donne and maybe helped him decide to convert. It must have been very hard to be a catholic then.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Crystal,
Yes, you would think that the jailing of his brother and the martyrdom of the priest would have had the opposite effect on him, but you never know how people react to things.
Chadwick quotes Donne as having said, "I never fettered nor imprisoned the word Religion, not immuring it in a Rome, or a Wittenberg, or a Geneva; they are all virtual beams of one sun... They are not so contrary as the North and South Poles."
Post a Comment
<< Home