Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions; Together with Death's Duel
circumstances, and such asseveration, that--to say nothing of my own
thoughts--I verily believe he that told it me did himself believe it to
be true.
I return from my account of the vision, to tell the reader, that both
before Mr. Donne's going into France, at his being there, and after his
return, many of the nobility and others that were powerful at court,
were watchful and solicitous to the King for some secular employment for
him. The King had formerly both known and put a value upon his company,
and had also given him some hopes of a state-employment; being always
much pleased when Mr. Donne attended him, especially at his meals, where
there were usually many deep discourses of general learning, and very
often friendly disputes, or debates of religion, betwixt his Majesty and
those divines, whose places required their attendance on him at those
times: particularly the Dean of the Chapel, who then was Bishop
Montague--the publisher of the learned and eloquent Works of his
Majesty--and the most Reverend Doctor Andrews the late learned Bishop of
Winchester, who was then the King's Almoner.
About this time there grew many disputes, that concerned the Oath of
Supremacy and Allegiance, in which the King had appeared, and engaged
himself by his public writings now extant: and his Majesty discoursing
with Mr. Donne, concerning many of the reasons which are usually urged
against the taking of those Oaths, apprehended such a validity and
clearness in his stating the questions, and his answers to them, that
his Majesty commanded him to bestow some time in drawing the arguments
into a method, and then to write his answers to them; and, having done
that, not to send, but be his own messenger, and bring them to him. To
this he presently and diligently applied himself, and within six weeks
brought them to him under his own handwriting, as they be now printed;
the book bearing the name of "Pseudo-Martyr," printed anno 1610.
When the King had read and considered that book, he persuaded Mr. Donne
to enter into the Ministry; to which, at that time, he was, and
appeared, very unwilling, apprehending it--such was his mistaken
modesty--to be too weighty for his abilities.
Such strifes St. Austin had, when St. Ambrose endeavoured his conversion
to Christianity; with which he confesseth he acquainted his friend
Alipius. Our learned author--a man fit to write after no mean copy--did
the like. And declaring his intentions to his dear friend Dr. King, then
Bishop of London, a man famous in his generation, and no stranger to Mr.
Donne's abilities--for he had been Chaplain to the Lord Chancellor, at
the time of Mr. Donne's being his Lordship's Secretary--that reverend
man did receive the news with much gladness; and, after some expressions
of joy, and a persuasion to be constant in his pious purpose, he
proceeded with all convenient speed to ordain him first Deacon, and then
Priest not long after.
Presently after he entered into his holy profession, the King sent for
him, and made him his Chaplain in Ordinary, and promised to take a
particular care for his preferment.
And, though his long familiarity with scholars and persons of greatest
quality was such, as might have given some men boldness enough to have
preached to any eminent auditory; yet his modesty in this employment was
such, that he could not be persuaded to it, but went usually accompanied
with some one friend to preach privately in some village, not far from
London; his first sermon being preached at Paddington. This he did, till
his Majesty sent and appointed him a day to preach to him at Whitehall;
and, though much were expected from him, both by his Majesty and others,
yet he was so happy--which few are--as to satisfy and exceed their
expectations: preaching the Word so, as shewed his own heart was
possessed with those very thoughts and joys that he laboured to distil
into others: a preacher in earnest; weeping sometimes for his auditory,
sometimes with them; always preaching to himself like an angel from a
cloud, but in none; carrying some, as St. Paul was, to Heaven in holy
raptures, and enticing others by a sacred art and courtship to amend
their lives: here picturing a vice so as to make it ugly to those that
practised it; and a virtue so as to make it beloved, even by those that
loved it not; and all this with a most particular grace and an
unexpressible addition of comeliness.
That summer, in the very same month in which he entered into sacred
Orders, and was made the King's Chaplain, his Majesty then going his
progress, was entreated to receive an entertainment in the University of
Cambridge: and Mr. Donne attending his Majesty at that time, his Majesty
was pleased to recommend him to the University, to be made Doctor in
Divinity; Doctor Harsnett, after Archbishop of York, was then
Vice-Chancellor, who, knowing him to be the author of that learned book
the "Pseudo-Martyr," required no other proof of his abilities, but
proposed it to the University, who presently assented, and expressed a
gladness that they had such an occasion to entitle him to be theirs.
His abilities and industry in his profession were so eminent, and he so
known and so beloved by persons of quality, that within the first year
of his entering into sacred Orders, he had fourteen advowsons of several
benefices presented to him: but they were in the country, and he could
not leave his beloved London, to which place he had a natural
inclination, having received both his birth and education in it, and
there contracted a friendship with many, whose conversation multiplied
the joys of his life; but an employment that might affix him to that
place would be welcome, for he needed it.
Immediately after his return from Cambridge his wife died, leaving him a
man of a narrow, unsettled estate, and--having buried five--the careful
father of seven children then living, to whom he gave a voluntary
assurance never to bring them under the subjection of a step-mother;
which promise he kept most faithfully, burying with his tears all his
earthly joys in his most dear and deserving wife's grave, and betook
himself to a most retired and solitary life.
In this retiredness, which was often from the sight of his dearest
friends, he became crucified to the world, and all those vanities, those
imaginary pleasures, that are daily acted on that restless stage, and
they were as perfectly crucified to him.
His first motion from his house was to preach where his beloved wife lay
buried--in St. Clement's Church, near Temple Bar, London; and his text
was a part of the Prophet Jeremy's Lamentation: "Lo, I am the man that
have seen affliction."
In this time of sadness he was importuned by the grave Benchers of
Lincoln's Inn--who were once the companions and friends of his youth--to
accept of their Lecture, which, by reason of Dr. Gataker's removal from
thence, was then void; of which he accepted, being most glad to renew
his intermitted friendship with those whom he so much loved, and where
he had been a Saul,--though not to persecute Christianity, or to deride
it, yet in his irregular youth to neglect the visible practice of
it,--there to become a Paul, and preach salvation to his beloved
brethren.
About which time the Emperor of Germany died, and the Palsgrave, who had
lately married the Lady Elizabeth, the King's only daughter, was elected
and crowned King of Bohemia, the unhappy beginning of many miseries in
that nation.
King James, whose motto--_Beati pacifici_--did truly speak the very
thoughts of his heart, endeavoured first to prevent, and after to
compose, the discords of that discomposed State; and, amongst other his
endeavours, did then send the Lord Hay, Earl of Doncaster, his
Ambassador to those unsettled Princes; and, by a special command from
his Majesty, Dr. Donne was appointed to assist and attend that
employment to the Princes of the Union, for which the Earl was most
glad, who had always put a great value on him, and taken a great
pleasure in his conversation and discourse: and his friends at Lincoln's
Inn were as glad; for they feared that his immoderate study, and sadness
for his wife's death, would, as Jacob said, "make his days few," and,
respecting his bodily health, "evil" too: and of this there were many
visible signs.
About fourteen months after his departure out of England, he returned to
his friends of Lincoln's Inn, with his sorrows moderated, and his health
improved; and there betook himself to his constant course of preaching.
About a year after his return out of Germany, Dr. Carey was made Bishop
of Exeter, and by his removal, the Deanery of St. Paul's being vacant,
the King sent to Dr. Donne, and appointed him to attend him at dinner
the next day. When his Majesty was sat down, before he had eat any meat,
he said after his pleasant manner, "Dr. Donne, I have invited you to
dinner; and, though you sit not down with me, yet I will carve to you of
a dish that I know you love well; for, knowing you love London, I do
therefore make you Dean of St. Paul's; and, when I have dined, then do
you take your beloved dish home to your study, say grace there to
yourself, and much good may it do you."
Immediately after he came to his Deanery, he employed workmen to repair
and beautify the Chapel; suffering as holy David once vowed, "his eyes
and temples to take no rest till he had first beautified the house of
God."
The next quarter following when his father-in-law, Sir George
More,--whom time had made a lover and admirer of him--came to pay to him
the conditioned sum of twenty pounds, he refused to receive it; and
said--as good Jacob did, when he heard his beloved son Joseph was
alive--"'It is enough;' you have been kind to me and mine: I know your
present condition is such as not to abound, and I hope mine is, or will
be such as not to need it: I will therefore receive no more from you
upon that contract," and in testimony of it freely gave him up his bond.
Immediately after his admission into his Deanery the Vicarage of St.
Dunstan in the West, London, fell to him by the death of Dr. White, the
advowson of it having been given to him long before by his honourable
friend Richard Earl of Dorset, then the patron, and confirmed by his
brother the late deceased Edward, both of them men of much honour.
By these, and another ecclesiastical endowment which fell to him about
the same time, given to him formerly by the Earl of Kent, he was enabled
to become charitable to the poor, and kind to his friends, and to make
such provision for his children, that they were not left scandalous as
relating to their or his profession and quality.
The next Parliament, which was within that present year, he was chosen
Prolocutor to the Convocation, and about that time was appointed by his
Majesty, his most gracious master, to preach very many occasional
sermons, as at St. Paul's Cross, and other places. All which employments
he performed to the admiration of the representative body of the whole
Clergy of this nation.
He was once, and but once, clouded with the King's displeasure, and it
was about this time; which was occasioned by some malicious whisperer,
who had told his Majesty that Dr. Donne had put on the general humour of
the pulpits, and was become busy in insinuating a fear of the King's
inclining to popery, and a dislike of his government; and particularly
for the King's then turning the evening lectures into catechising, and
expounding the Prayer of our Lord, and of the Belief, and Commandments.
His Majesty was the more inclinable to believe this, for that a person
of nobility and great note, betwixt whom and Dr. Donne there had been a
great friendship, was at this very time discarded the court--I shall