Devotions vpon emergent occasions and seuerall steps in my sicknes digested into I. Meditations vpon our humane condition, 2. Expostulations, and debatements with God, 3. Prayers, vpon the seuerall occasions, to Him / by Iohn Donne ...

1. Insultus Morbi primus; The first alteration, The first grudging of the sicknesse.

1. MEDITATION.

VAriable, and therfore mi∣serable con∣dition of Man; this minute I was well, and am ill, this minute. I am surpriz'd with a sodaine change,

& alteration to worse, and can impute it to no cause, nor call it by any name. We study Health, and we deliberate vp∣on our meats, and drink, and Ayre, and exercises, and we hew, and wee polish euery stone, that goes to that building; and so our Health is a long & a regular work; But in a minute a Ca∣non batters all, ouer∣throwes all, demolishes all; a Sicknes vnpreuen∣ted for all our diligence, vnsuspected for all our

curiosi••ie; nay, vndeser∣ued, if we consider on∣ly disorder, summons vs, seizes vs, possesses vs, de∣stroyes vs in an instant. O miserable condition of Man, which was not imprinted by God; who as hee is immortall him∣selfe, had put a coale, a beame of Immortalitie in∣to vs, which we might haue blowen into a flame, but blew it ou••, by our first sinne; wee beggard our selues by hearkning after false ri∣ches, and infatuated our

selues by hearkning af∣ter false knowledge. So that now, we doe not onely die, but die vpon the Rack, die by the tor∣ment of sicknesse; nor that onely, but are pre-afflicted, super-afflicted with these ielousies and suspitions, and appre∣hensions of Sicknes, be∣fore we can cal it a sick∣nes; we are not sure we are ill; one hand askes the other by the pulse, and our eye askes our own vrine, how we do. O multiplied misery

we die, and cannot en∣ioy death, because wee die in this torment of sicknes; we are tormen∣ted with sicknes, & can∣not stay till the torment come, but pre-apprehē∣sions and presages, pro∣phecy those torments, which induce that death before either come•• and our dissolution is concei∣ued in these first changes, quickned in the sicknes it selfe, and borne in death, which be••res date from these first changes. Is this the honour which

Man hath by being a litle world, That he hath these earthquakes in him selfe, sodaine shakings; these lightnings, sodaine flashes; these thunders, sodaine noises; these E••clypses, sodain offuscati∣ons, & darknings of his senses; these blazing stars sodaine fiery exhalati∣ons; these riuers of blood, sodaine red waters? Is he a world to himselfe onely therefore, that he ha••h inough in himself, not only to destroy, and execute himselfe, but to

presage that execution vpon himselfe; to as••ist the sicknes, to antidate the sicknes, to make the sicknes the more irre∣mediable, by sad appre∣hensions, and as if hee would make a fire the more vehement, by sprinkling water vpon the coales, so to wrap a hote feuer in cold Me∣lancholy, least the feuer alone shold not destroy fast enough, without this contribution, nor perfit the work (which is destruction) except we

ioynd an artificiall sick∣nes, of our owne melan∣choly, to our natural, our vnnaturall feuer. O per∣plex'd discomposition, O ridling distemper, O miserable condition of Man.

1. EXPOSTVLATION.

IF I were but meere dust & ashes, I might speak vnto the Lord, for the Lordes hand made me of this dust, and the Lords hand shall recol∣lect

these ashes; the Lords hand was the wheele, vpon which this vessell of ••lay was framed, and the Lordes hand is the Vrne, in which these a∣shes shall be preseru'd. I am the dust, & the ashes of the Temple of the H. Ghost; and what Marble is so precious? But I am more then dust & ashes; I am my best part, I am my soule. And being so, the breath of God, I may breath back these pious expostulations to my God. My God, my God, why is

not my soule, as fensible as my body? Why hath not my soule these ap∣prehensions, these presa∣ges, these changes, those antidates, those iealou∣sies, those suspitions of a sinne•• as well as my body of a sicknes? why is there not alwayes a pulse in my Soule, to beat at the approch of a tentation to sinne? why are there not alwayes waters in mine eyes, to testifie my spiritual sicknes? I stand in the way of tentati∣ons, (naturally, necessa∣rily,

all men doe so: for there is a Snake in euery path, tentations in euery vocation) but I go, I run, I flie into the wayes of tētation, which I might shun; nay, I breake into houses, wher the plague is; I presse into places of tentation, and tempt the deuill himselfe, and soli∣cite & importune them, who had rather be left vnsolicited by me. I fall sick of Sin, and am bed∣ded and bedrid, buried and putrified in the pra∣ctise of Sin, and all this

while ha••e no presage, no pulse, no sense of my sicknesse; O heighth, O depth of misery, where the first Symptome of the sicknes is Hell, & where I neuer fee the feuer of lust, of enuy, of ambiti∣on, by any other light, then the darknesse and horror of Hell it selfe•• & where the first Mes∣senger that speaks to me doth not say•• Thou mayst die, no, nor Thou must die, but Thou art dead: and where the first notice, that my Soule hath of

her sicknes, is irrecoue∣rablenes, irremediablenes: but, O my God, Iob did not charge thee foolishly, in his temporall afflictions, nor may I in my spiritu∣all. Thou hast imprin∣ted a pulse in our Soule, but we do not examine it; a voice in our consci∣ence, but wee doe not hearken vnto it. We talk it out, we iest it out, we drinke it out, we sleepe it out; and when wee wake, we doe not say with Iacob,* 1.1 Surely the Lord is in this place, and I

knew it not: but though we might know it, we do not, we wil not. But will God pretend to make a Watch, and leaue out the springe? to make so many various wheels in the faculties of the Soule, and in the organs of the body, and leaue out Grace, that should moue them? or wil God make a springe, and not wind it vp? Infuse his first grace, & not second it with more, without which, we can no more vse his first grace, when

we haue it, then wee could dispose our selues by Nature, to haue it? But alas, that is not our case; we are all prodigall sonnes, and not disinheri∣ted; wee haue receiued our portion, and mis∣spent it, not bin denied it. We are Gods tenants heere, and yet here, he, our Land-lord payes vs Rents; not yearely, nor quarterly, but hourely, and quarterly; Euery mi∣nute he renewes his mercy, but wee will not vnder∣stand,* 1.2 least that we should

be conuerted, and he should heale vs.

1. PRAYER.

O Eternall, and most gracious God, who considered in thy selfe, art a Circle, first and last, and altogether; but con∣sidered in thy working vpon vs, art a direct line, and leadest vs from our beginning, through all our wayes, to our end, enable me by thy grace, to looke forward to

mine end, and to looke backward to, to the cō∣siderations of thy mer∣cies afforded mee from the beginning; that so by that practise of con∣sidering thy mercy, in my beginning in this world, when thou plā∣tedst me in the Christian Church, and thy mercy in the beginning in the other world, whē thou writest me in the Booke of life, in my Election, I may come to a holy consideration of thy mercy, in the beginning

of all my actions here•• That in all the begin••nings, in all the accesses and approches of spiri••tuall sicknesses of Sinn, may heare and hearke•• to that voice,* 1.3 O thou Ma•• of God, there is death in th•• pot, and so refraine from that, which I was so hungerly, so greedily flying to.* 1.4 A faithfull Am••bassador is health, says thy wise seruant Solomon•• Thy voice receiued, in the beginning of a sick∣nesse, of a sinne, is true health. If I can see that

light betimes, and heare that voyce early, Then shall my light breake forth as the morning,* 1.5 and my health shall spriug foorth speedily. Deliuer mee therefore, O my God, from these vaine imagi∣nations; that it is an o∣uercurious thing, a dan∣gerous thing, to come to that tendernesse, that rawnesse, that scrupu∣lousnesse, to feare euery concupiscence, euery offer of Sin, that this suspici∣ous, & iealous diligence will turne to an inordi∣nate

deiection of spirit, and a diffidence in thy care & prouidence; bu•• keep me still establish'd, both in a constant assu∣rance, that thou wil•• speake to me at the be∣ginning of euery such sicknes, at the approach of euery such Sinne; and that, if I take knowledg of that voice then, an•• flye to thee, thou wil•• preserue mee from fal∣ling, or raise me againe when by naturall infir∣mitie•• I am fallen: do•• this, O Lord, for his sake

who knowes our natu∣rall infirmities, for he had them; and knowes the weight of our sinns, for he paid a deare price for them, thy Sonne, our Sauiour, Chr: Iesus, Amen.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Gen. 28.16.
• * 1.2

  Mat. 13•• 16.
• * 1.3

  2 Reg. 4.40.
• * 1.4

  Prou. 13.17.
• * 1.5

  Esa. 58.8