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 ...

9. EXPOSTVLATION.

My God, my God, al∣low me a iust in∣dignation, a holy detes∣tation of the insolēcy of that Man, who because he was of that high rāke, of whō thou hast said,

They are gods, thought himselfe more then e∣quall to thee; That king of Aragon Alfonsus, so perfit in the motions of the heauenly bodies, as that hee aduentured to say, That if he had bin of councell with thee, in the making of the heauens, the the heauens should haue bin disposed in a better order, then they are. The king A∣masiah would not in∣dure thy prophet to re∣prehend him, but asked him in anger, Art thou made of the kings councell••

When thy Prophet E∣saias askes that questiō who hath directed the spirit of the Lord, or being his councellor hath tought him. It is after hee had setled and determined that of∣fice, vpon thy sonne, and him onely, whē he ioyns with those great Titles, The mighty God, and the prince of peace, this also, the Councellor; and after he had setled vpon him, the spirit of might, and of councell. So that thē, thou O God, thogh thou haue no councell from Man,

yet doest nothing vpon man, without councell; In the making of Man there was a consultation; let vs make man. In the preseruing of Man, O thou great preseruer 〈◊〉〈◊〉 men, thou proceededst by councell; for all thy ex∣ternall workes, are the workes of the whole Trinity, and their hand is to euery action. How much more must I ap∣prehend, that al you bles••sed, & glorious persons of the Trinitie are in Con∣sultation now, what you

wil do with this in firm body, with this leprous Soule, that attends, guilti∣ly, but yet comfortably, your determination vpō it. I offer not to counsell them, who meet in con∣sultatiō for my body now, but I open my in••••rmi∣ties, I anatomise my body to them. So I do my soule to thee, O my God, in an hūble confession, That there is no veine in mee, that is not full of the bloud of thy Son, whō I haue crucified, & Cruci∣fied againe, by multiply∣ing

many, and often re∣peating the same sinnes that there is no Artery in me, that hath not the spi∣rit of error, the spirit of lust, the spirit of giddines in it•• no bone in me that is not hardned with the cu∣sto••e of sin, and nouri∣shed, and soupled with the marrow of sinn; no si∣news, no ligamēts, that do not tie, & chain sin and sin together. Yet, O bles∣sed and glorious Trinity, O holy, & whole Colledge, and yet but one Phisician, if you take this confession

into a consult••••••on, my case is not desp••rate my destructiō is not decreed; If your consultation deter∣min in writing, if you re∣fer mee to that which is written, you intend my recouery: for al the way, O my God, (euer constant to thine owne wayes) thou hast proceeded opē∣ly, intellig••bly, manifestly, by the book. From thy first book, the book of life, ne∣ue•• shut to thee, but neuer throughly open to vs; frō thy second book, the booke of Nature, wher though

subobscurely, and in sha∣dows, thou hast expres∣sed thine own Image; frō thy third booke; the Scrip∣tures, where thou hadst writtē all in the Old, and then lightedst vs a cādle to read it by, in the New Testament; To these thou hadst added the booke of iust, and vsefull Lawes, e∣stablished by them, to whom thou hast com∣mitted thy people; To those, the Manualls, the pocket, the bosome books of our own Consciences, To ••hose thy partcular books

of all our particular sins; and to those, the Booke with seuen seales, which only the Lamb which was slaine, was found worthy to opē; which, I hope, it shall not disagree with the meaning of thy blessed Spirit, to interpre••e, the promulgation of their par∣don, and righteousnes, who are washed in the blood of that Lambe; And if thou refer me to these Bookes, to a new reading, a new triall by these bookes•• this feuer may be but a bur∣ning in the hand, and I

may be saued, thogh not by my book, mine own conscience, nor by thy o∣ther books, yet by thy first, the book of life, thy de∣cree for my election, and by thy last, the book of the Lamb, and the shedding of his blood vpon me; If I be stil vnder cōsultation, I am not cōdemned yet; if I be sent to these books I shall not be condem'd at all: for, though there be somthing written in some of those books (par∣ticularly in the Scriptur••) which some men turne to poyson, yet vpon these

consultations (these confes∣sions, these takings of our particular cases, into thy consideration) thou in∣tendest all for phisick, & euen from those Senten∣ces, from which a too••late Repenter will sucke desperation, he that seeks thee early, shall receiue thy morning dew, thy sea∣sonable mercy, thy for∣ward consolation.

Notes

• 2. Chro. 25.16.
• 42.13.
• 9.6.
• 11.2.
• Gen. 1.26.
• Iob.
• 1. Tim. 4.1.
• Ose. 4.12
• Esa. 19.14.
• Apoc. 7.1.