But the Church of England never made the appeal
to Donne's heart and imagination it did to George Herbert:
Beautie in thee takes up her place
And dates her letters from thy face
When she doth write.
to Donne's heart and imagination it did to George Herbert:
Beautie in thee takes up her place
And dates her letters from thy face
When she doth write.
John Donne
suae et sui Jesu
CI? . DC. XVII.
Aug. xv
XVIII. It is clear enough why this sonnet was not published. It would
have revealed Donne, already three years in orders, as still conscious
of all the difficulties involved in a choice between the three
divisions of Christianity--Rome, Geneva (made to include Germany), and
England. This is the theme of his earliest serious poem, the _Satyre
III_, and the subject recurs in the letters and sermons. Donne entered
the Church of England not from a conviction that it, and it alone, was
the true Church, but because he had first reached the position that
there is salvation in each: 'You know I never fettered nor imprisoned
the word Religion; not straitening it Frierly _ad Religiones
factitias_, (as the _Romans_ call well their orders of Religion) nor
immuring it in a Rome, or a _Wittenberg_, or a _Geneva_; they are all
virtuall beams of one Sun, and wheresoever they find clay hearts,
they harden them, and moulder them into dust; and they entender and
mollifie waxen. They are not so contrary as the North and South Poles;
and that they are connatural pieces of one circle. ' _Letters_, p. 29.
From this position it was easy to pass to the view that, this being
so, the Church of England may have special claims on _me_, as the
Church of my Country, and to a recognition of its character as
primitive, and as offering a _via media_. As such it attracted
Casaubon and Grotius.
But the Church of England never made the appeal
to Donne's heart and imagination it did to George Herbert:
Beautie in thee takes up her place
And dates her letters from thy face
When she doth write.
Herbert, _The British Church_.
Compare, however, the rest of Donne's poem with Herbert's description
of Rome and Geneva, and also: 'Trouble not thy selfe to know the
formes and fashions of forraine particular Churches; neither of a
Church in the Lake, nor a Church upon seven hils'. _Sermons_ 80. 76.
769.
PAGE =331=. THE CROSSE.
Donne has evidently in view the aversion of the Puritan to the sign of
the cross used in baptism.
With the latter part of the poem compare George Herbert's _The
Crosse_.
PAGE =332=, l. 27. _extracted chimique medicine. _ Compare:
Only in this one thing, be no Galenist; To make
Courts hot ambitions wholesome, do not take
A dramme of Countries dulnesse; do not adde
Correctives, but as chymiques, purge the bad.
_Letters to, &c. _, p.
CI? . DC. XVII.
Aug. xv
XVIII. It is clear enough why this sonnet was not published. It would
have revealed Donne, already three years in orders, as still conscious
of all the difficulties involved in a choice between the three
divisions of Christianity--Rome, Geneva (made to include Germany), and
England. This is the theme of his earliest serious poem, the _Satyre
III_, and the subject recurs in the letters and sermons. Donne entered
the Church of England not from a conviction that it, and it alone, was
the true Church, but because he had first reached the position that
there is salvation in each: 'You know I never fettered nor imprisoned
the word Religion; not straitening it Frierly _ad Religiones
factitias_, (as the _Romans_ call well their orders of Religion) nor
immuring it in a Rome, or a _Wittenberg_, or a _Geneva_; they are all
virtuall beams of one Sun, and wheresoever they find clay hearts,
they harden them, and moulder them into dust; and they entender and
mollifie waxen. They are not so contrary as the North and South Poles;
and that they are connatural pieces of one circle. ' _Letters_, p. 29.
From this position it was easy to pass to the view that, this being
so, the Church of England may have special claims on _me_, as the
Church of my Country, and to a recognition of its character as
primitive, and as offering a _via media_. As such it attracted
Casaubon and Grotius.
But the Church of England never made the appeal
to Donne's heart and imagination it did to George Herbert:
Beautie in thee takes up her place
And dates her letters from thy face
When she doth write.
Herbert, _The British Church_.
Compare, however, the rest of Donne's poem with Herbert's description
of Rome and Geneva, and also: 'Trouble not thy selfe to know the
formes and fashions of forraine particular Churches; neither of a
Church in the Lake, nor a Church upon seven hils'. _Sermons_ 80. 76.
769.
PAGE =331=. THE CROSSE.
Donne has evidently in view the aversion of the Puritan to the sign of
the cross used in baptism.
With the latter part of the poem compare George Herbert's _The
Crosse_.
PAGE =332=, l. 27. _extracted chimique medicine. _ Compare:
Only in this one thing, be no Galenist; To make
Courts hot ambitions wholesome, do not take
A dramme of Countries dulnesse; do not adde
Correctives, but as chymiques, purge the bad.
_Letters to, &c. _, p.
