Sermons of John Donne, Volume IV

The Sermons of John Donne, edited by George R. Potter and Evelyn M. Simpson, Volume IV, marks Donne’s establishment as Dean of St. Paul’s and his full entry into the central arena of London’s ecclesiastical and civic life. Preaching now in “Old St. Paul’s,” Donne found himself at the heart of England’s capital, addressing not only cathedral congregations but also civic gatherings, court audiences, and public assemblies at Paul’s Cross and the Spittle. The sermons of this volume vividly reflect both the ceremonial rhythm of the Church’s year—Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday, and Candlemas—and the political turbulence of the 1620s, when the Palatinate crisis, the Spanish marriage negotiations, and King James’s censorship of preaching weighed heavily on the national conscience. Donne’s texts range widely: meditations on Christ as Light and Resurrection, urgent admonitions against Roman “idolatry,” defenses of the Crown’s Directions to Preachers, and visionary reflections on England’s colonial project in Virginia. In all, Donne combined theological subtlety with a preacher’s responsiveness to the immediate anxieties of Londoners, who listened to him as both spiritual guide and national voice.

The volume also reveals Donne’s deepening imaginative grasp of London itself as symbol and stage. His sermons abound in images drawn from the city’s commerce, courts, and river: ships weathering storms, coins newly minted in Christ’s image, and the Thames as both highway and metaphor of spiritual passage. Donne’s appointment as Dean required him to preach at the great festivals, and his Christmas sermons on John’s Gospel and Easter discourses on resurrection are among his most exalted works, uniting scholastic argument with lyrical metaphor. Yet the same volume includes “sermons upon emergent occasions,” crafted to defend the Crown or to rally civic support for church repair or colonial enterprise. Such occasional pieces show Donne negotiating the perils of preaching under James I, balancing fidelity to doctrine with political caution. Together, these sermons embody Donne’s genius for transforming the contingencies of London and the crises of Europe into moments of spiritual encounter, and they establish his voice as the conscience of the city and the Church.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1959.