This sermon was preached by John Donne at St Paul’s Cathedral on Easter Day, 25th March 1627
1
There is nothing that God hath established in a constant course of nature, and which therefore is done every day, but would seem a miracle and exercise our admiration if it were done but once. Nay, the ordinary things in nature would be greater miracles than the extraordinary which we would admire most, if they were done but once. The standing still of the sun, for Joshua’s use, was not in itself so wonderful a thing as that so vast and immense a body as the sun should run so many miles in a minute. The motion of the sun were a greater wonder than standing still, if all were to begin again. And only the daily doing takes off the admiration. But then God having, as it were, concluded himself in a course of nature and written down in the book of creatures. Thus and thus all things shall be carried though he glorified himself sometimes in doing a miracle, yet there is in every miracle a silent chiding of the world and a tacit reprehension of them, who require or need miracles.
2
Now what was this that they qualified and dignified by that addition, the better Resurrection? Is it called better in that it is better than this life and determined that comparison and degree of betterness, and no more? Is it better than those honours and preferments which that king offered them, and determined in that comparison, and no more? Or better than other men shall have at the last day (for all men shall have a resurrection), and determined in that? Or, as St. Chrysostom takes it, is it but a better resurrection than that in the former part of this text where dead children are restored to their mothers again? Is it but a better resurrection in some of these senses. Surely better in a higher sense than any of these. It is a supereminent degree of glory, a larger measure of glory than any man, who in a general happiness, is made partaker of the resurrection of the righteous is made partaker of.
Beloved, there is nothing so little in heaven as that we can express it. But if we could tell you the fullness of the soul there, what that fullness is, the infiniteness of that glory there, how far that infiniteness goes; the eternity of that happiness there, how long that happiness lasts. If we could make you know all this, yet this better resurrection is a heaping, even of that fullness, and an enlarging even of that infiniteness, and for an extension even of that eternity of happiness. For all these, the fullness, this infiniteness, this eternity are all in the resurrection of the righteous and this is a better resurrection. We may almost say it is something more than heaven, for all that have any resurrection to life, have all heaven. And something more than God, for all that have any resurrection to life, have all God, and yet these shall have a better resurrection. Amorous soul, ambitious soul, covetous soul, voluptuous soul, what wouldst thou have in heaven? Why doth thy holy amorousness, thy holy covetousness, thy holy ambition, and voluptuousness most carry thy desire on? Call it what thou wilt; think it what thou canst; think it something that thou canst not think; and all this thou shalt have, if thou have any resurrection unto life; and yet there is a better resurrection. When I consider what I was in my parents’ loins (a substance unworthy of a word, unworthy of a thought) when I consider what I am now, (a volume of diseases bound up together, a dry cinder, if I look for the natural: for radical moisture and yet a sponge, a bottle of rheumes; if I consider the accidental: an aged child, a grey-headed infant, and but the ghost of mine own youth). When I consider what I shall be at last by the hand of death in my grave (first but putrefaction and then not so much putrefaction, I should not be able to send forth so much as an ill air at all, not any air at all, but shall be insipid, tasteless, savourless dust; for a while, not so much as worms, sordid, senseless, nameless dust). When I consider the past and present, and future state of this body in this world, I am able to conceive, able to express the worst that can befall it in nature, and the worst that can be inflicted by man or fortune. But the least degree of glory that God hath prepared for that body in heaven, I am not able to express, no able to conceive.
Comments