Friday, September 25, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
John Donne favourites - prose
"He brought light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light; he can bring thy Summer out of Winter, though thou have no Spring; though in the ways of fortune, or understanding, of conscience, thou have been benighted till now, wintered and frozen, clouded and eclipsed, damped and benumbed, smothered and stupefied till now, now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the Sun at noon to illustrate all shadows, as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penury's, all occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons."
"What a death is this life! what a resurrection in this death! For though this world be a sea, yet (which is most strange) our Harbor is larger than the sea; Heaven infinitely larger than this world."
"God hath not made a week without a Sabbath; no temptation, without an issue; God inflicts no calamity, no cloud, no eclipse, without light, to see ease in it, if the patient will look upon that which God hath done to him, in other cases, or to that which God hath done to others, at other times...God brings us to humiliation, but not to desperation."
"The whole frame of the world is the Theatre, and every creature the stage, the medium, the glass in which we may see God."
"The whole frame of nature is the Theatre, the whole Volume of creatures is the glass, and the light of nature, reason, is our light, which is another Circumstance."
"Humiliation is the beginning of sanctification; and as without this, without holiness, no man shall see God, though he pore whole nights upon the Bible; so without that, without humility, no man shall hear God speak to his soul, though he hear three two hours' Sermons every day."
"As I live saith the Lord, I would have no sinner die."
"That soul, that is accustomed to direct herself to God, upon every occasion, that, as a flower at Sun-rising, conceives a sense of God, in every beam of his, and spreads and dilates itself towards him, in a thankfulness, in every small blessing that he sheds upon her; that soul, that as a flower at the Suns declining, contracts and gathers in, and shuts up her self, as though she had received a blow, when soever she hears her Savior wounded by an oath, or blasphemy, or execration; that soul, who, whatsoever string be strucken in her, base or treble, her high or her low estate, is ever tun'd toward God, that soul prays sometimes when it does not know what it prays."
"What a death is this life! what a resurrection in this death! For though this world be a sea, yet (which is most strange) our Harbor is larger than the sea; Heaven infinitely larger than this world."
"God hath not made a week without a Sabbath; no temptation, without an issue; God inflicts no calamity, no cloud, no eclipse, without light, to see ease in it, if the patient will look upon that which God hath done to him, in other cases, or to that which God hath done to others, at other times...God brings us to humiliation, but not to desperation."
"The whole frame of the world is the Theatre, and every creature the stage, the medium, the glass in which we may see God."
"The whole frame of nature is the Theatre, the whole Volume of creatures is the glass, and the light of nature, reason, is our light, which is another Circumstance."
"Humiliation is the beginning of sanctification; and as without this, without holiness, no man shall see God, though he pore whole nights upon the Bible; so without that, without humility, no man shall hear God speak to his soul, though he hear three two hours' Sermons every day."
"As I live saith the Lord, I would have no sinner die."
"That soul, that is accustomed to direct herself to God, upon every occasion, that, as a flower at Sun-rising, conceives a sense of God, in every beam of his, and spreads and dilates itself towards him, in a thankfulness, in every small blessing that he sheds upon her; that soul, that as a flower at the Suns declining, contracts and gathers in, and shuts up her self, as though she had received a blow, when soever she hears her Savior wounded by an oath, or blasphemy, or execration; that soul, who, whatsoever string be strucken in her, base or treble, her high or her low estate, is ever tun'd toward God, that soul prays sometimes when it does not know what it prays."
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