THE WORKS OF JOHN DONNE, D.D., DEAN OF SAINT PAUL'S, 1621-1631. WITH A MEMOIR OF HIS LIFE. BY HENRY ALFORD, M.A., VICAR OF WYMESWOLD, LEICESTERSHIRE, AND LATE fellow OF SERMONS PREACHED ON WHITSUNDAY. SERMON XXX. 1 CORINTHIANS Xii. 3. Also no man can say, that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. We read that in the tribe of Benjamin, which is, by interpretation, Filius dextræ, The Son of the right hand, there were seven hundred left-handed men, that could sling stones at a hair's breadth, and not fail. St. Paul was of that tribe; and though he were from the beginning, in the purpose of God, Filius dextræ, A man ordained to be a dexterous instrument of his glory, yet he was for a time a left-handed man, and took sinister ways, and in those ways, a good markman, a laborious and exquisite persecutor of God's church; and therefore it is, that Tertullian says of him, Paulum mihi etiam Genesis olim repromisit, I had a promise of Paul in Moses; then, when Moses said, Jacob blessed Benjamin thus, Benjamin shall ravin as a wolf, in the morning he shall devour the prey, and at night he shall divide the spoil*, that is, at the beginning Paul shall scatter the flock of Christ, but at last he shall gather, and re-unite the nations to his service; as he had breathed threatenings, and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord3, so he became Os orbi sufficiens*, A mouth loud enough for all the world to hear: and as he had drawn and sucked the blood of Christ's mystical body, the church, so, in that proportion that God enabled him to, he recompensed that damage, by effusion of 1 Judges xx. 16. 3 Acts ix. 1. 2 Gen. XLIX. 4 Chrysostom. VOL. II. B |