and justify such as were truly sins? Then thou spentest that hour in conformity to him. Pilate found no evidence against him; and therefore to ease himself, and to pass a compliment upon Herod, tetrarch of Galilee, who was at that time at Jerusalem, (because Christ being a Galilean, was of Herod's jurisdiction) Pilate sent him to Herod; and rather as a madman than a malefactor, Herod remanded him with scorns to Pilate to proceed against him; and this was about eight of the clock. Hast thou been content to come to this inquisition, this examination, this agitation, this cribration, this pursuit of thy conscience, to sift it, to follow it from the sins of thy youth to thy present sins, from the sins of thy bed to the sins of thy board, and from the substance to the circumstance of thy sins? That is time spent like thy Saviour's. Pilate would have saved Christ by using the privilege of the day in his behalf, because that day one prisoner was to be delivered; but they chose Barabbas. He would have saved him from death, by satisfying their fury, with inflicting other torments upon him, scourging, and crowning with thorns, and loading him with many scornful and ignominious contumelies; but this redeemed him not; they pressed a crucifying. Hast thou gone about to redeem thy sin, by fasting, by alms, by disciplines, and mortifications, in the way of satisfaction to the justice of God? That will not serve, that is not the right way. We press an utter crucifying of that sin that governs thee, and that conforms thee to Christ. Towards noon Pilate gave judgment; and they made such haste to execution, as that by noon he was upon the cross. There now hangs that sacred body upon the cross, re-baptized in his own tears and sweat, and embalmed in his own blood alive. There are those bowels of compassion, which are so conspicuous, so manifested, as that you may see them through his wounds. There those glorious eyes grew faint in their light, so as the sun, ashamed to survive them, departed with his light too. And there that Son of God, who was never from us, and yet had now come a new way unto us, in assuming our nature, delivers that soul which was never out of his Father's hands, into his Father's hands, by a new way, a voluntary emission thereof; for though to this God our Lord belong these issues of death, so that, considered in his own contract, he must necessarily die; yet at no breach, nor battery which they had made upon his sacred body, issues his soul, but emisit, he gave up the ghost: and as God breathed a soul into the first Adam, so this second Adam breathed his soul into God, into the hands of God. There we leave you, in that blessed dependency, to hang upon him, that hangs upon the cross. There bathe in his tears, there suck at his wounds, and lie down in peace in his grave, till he vouchsafe you a resurrection, and an ascension into that kingdom which he hath purchased for you, with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood. Amen. END OF THE SERMONS. A COLLECTION OF LETTERS, WRITTEN TO SEVERAL PERSONS OF HONOUR. LETTER I. To my good Friend G. H*. Sir, THE little business which you left in my hands is now dispatched; if it have hung longer than you thought, it might serve for just excuse, that these small things make as many steps to their end, and need as many motions for the warrant, as much writing of the clerks, as long expectation of a seal, as greater. It comes now to you sealed, and with it as strong and assured seals of my service and love to you, if it be good enough for you. I owe you a continual tribute of letters. But, sir, even in princes and parents, and all states that have in them a natural sovereignty, there is a sort of reciprocation, and a descent to do some offices due to them that serve them: which makes me look for letters from you, because I have another as valuable a pawn therefor, as your friendship, which is your promise; lest by the gaoler's fault this letter stick long, I must tell you, that I wrote and sent it 12th December, 1600. Your friend and servant and lover, 12th December, 1600. LETTER II. J. DONNE. Sir, To the Honourable Knight, Sir H. Gooderet. Though you escape my lifting up of my latch by removing, you cannot my letters; yet of this letter I do not much ac George Herbert: written during his imprisonment after his marriage.-ED. + Probably from Micham; this son may have been George, who was baptized at Camberwell, May 9, 1605.-ED. cuse myself, for I serve your commandment in it, for it is only to convey to you this paper opposed to those, with which you trusted me. It is, I cannot say the weightiest, but truly the saddest lucubration and night's passage that ever I had. For it exercised those hours, which, with extreme danger of her, whom I should hardly have abstained from recompensing for her company in this world, with accompanying her out of it, increased my poor family with a son. Though her anguish, and my fears, and hopes, seem divers and wild distractions from this small business of your papers, yet because they all narrowed themselves, and met in via regia, which is the consideration of ourselves, and God, I thought it time not unfit for this dispatch. Thus much more than needed I have told you, whilst my fire was lighting at Tricombs, 10 o'clock. Yours ever entirely, J. DONNE. Sir, LETTER III. To Sir Henry Goodyere*. Though my friendship be good for nothing else, it may give you the profit of a tentation, or of an affliction: it may excuse your patience; and though it cannot allure, it shall importune you. Though I know you have many worthy friends of all ranks, yet I add something, since I which am of none, would fain be your friend too. There is some of the honour and some of the degrees of a creation, to make a friendship of nothing. Yet, not to annihilate myself utterly (for though it seem humbleness, yet it is a work of as much almightiness, to bring a thing to nothing, as from nothing), though I be not of the best stuff for friendship, which men of warm and durable fortunes only are, I cannot say, that I am not of the best fashion, if truth and honesty be that; which I must ever exercise, towards you, because I learned it of you: for the conversation with worthy men, and of good example, though it sow not virtue in us, yet produceth and ripeneth it. Your man's haste, and mine to Micham, cuts off this letter here, yet, as in little patterns torn from a whole piece, this may tell ⚫ Of Polesworth, Gentleman of his Majesty's Privy Chamber.-ED. you what all I am. Though by taking me before my day (which I accounted Tuesday) I make short payment of this duty of letters, yet I have a little comfort in this, that you see me hereby, willing to pay those debts which I can, before my time. Your affectionate friend, First Saturday in March, 1607. J. DONNE. You forgot to send me the apology; and many times, I think it an injury to remember one of a promise, lest it confess a disBut of the book, by occasion of reading the Dean's answer to it, I have sometimes some want. trust. Sir, LETTER IV. To Sir Henry Goodyere. It should be no interruption to your pleasures, to hear me often say that I love you, and that you are as much my medita- tions as myself. I often compare not you and me, but the sphere in which your resolutions are, and my wheel; both I hope concentric to God: for methinks the new astronomy is thus appliable well, that we which are a little earth, should rather move towards God, than that he which is fulfilness and can come no whither, should move towards us. To your life full of variety, nothing is old, nor new to mine; and as to that life, all stickings and hesitations seem stupid and stony, so to this, all fluid slipperinesses, and transitory migrations seem giddy and feathery. In that life one is ever in the porch or postern, going in or out, never within his house himself: it is a garment made of remnants, a life ravelled out into ends, a line discontinued, and a number of small wretched points, useless, because they concur not: a life built of past and future, not proposing any constant present; they have more pleasures than we, but not more pleasure; they joy oftener, we longer; and no man but of so much understanding as may deliver him from being a fool, would change with a madman, which had a better proportion of wit in his often lucidis. You know, they which dwell farthest from the sun, if in any convenient distance, have longer days, better appetites, better digestion, better growth, and longer life; and all these ad |