Readings from the works of great preachers from 1500 to the present day
2-John Donne's Second Prebend Sermon, preached at St. Paul's Cathedral in January 1625
Read by Stephen Murray
John Donne , who was not ordained until he was over forty, was appointed Dean of St. Paul's in 1621. Izaak Walton described him as ' preaching the Word so, as shewed his own heart was possest with those very thoughts and joyes that he labored to distill into others: a Preacher in earnest weeping sometimes for his Auditory, sometimes with them: alwayes preaching to himself, like an Angel from a cloud, but in none; carrying some, as St. Paul was, to Heaven in holy raptures, and inticing others by a sacred Art and Courtship to amend their lives; here picturing a vice so as to make it ugly to those that practiced it; and a vertue so as to make it beloved even by those that lov'd it not; all this with a most particular grace and an unexpressible addition of comeliness'