Death's Duell by John Donne
"Death's Duell" is a sermon by John Donne, delivered shortly before his death in 1630. It reflects on themes of mortality, the nature of death, and the Christian understanding of eternal life. Drawing from Psalm 68:20, Donne employs imaginative and vivid imagery to explore the relationship between body and soul, life and death. He organizes the sermon into three main parts, likely inspired by the Trinity, discussing the role of God the Father, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus Christ in the human experience of death.
Donne delves into the concept of "living death," suggesting that throughout life, individuals experience a series of metaphorical deaths as they transition through different stages. He emphasizes that humans cannot judge the spiritual state of others at the moment of death, highlighting God's exclusive authority in this matter. The sermon culminates in a meditation on Christ's incarnation and crucifixion, framing Jesus's death as a necessary act of love and redemption for humanity. Overall, "Death's Duell" serves as a poignant reflection on the complexities of life, the inevitability of death, and the hope of resurrection, inviting listeners to contemplate their reliance on divine mercy and grace.
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Death's Duell by John Donne
First published: 1632
Type of work: Sermon
Critical Evaluation:
About a year prior to his death John Donne preached his last sermon before the king at Whitehall on February 12, 1630. His publisher, Richard Redmer, who printed the first edition in 1632 of “Death’s Duell, or, A Consolation to the Soule, Against the Dying Life, and Living Death of the Body,” said that it was called “The Doctors Owne Funerall Sermon.” The text is from Psalm 68, the twentieth verse: And unto God the Lord belong the issues from death.
The language of the sermon is as imaginative, musical, and perverse as that of Donne’s poetry in which he suggests, “Go and catch a falling star,” or observes with interest that in the body of a flea his blood mingles with that of his beloved. Like the poetry, the sermon stretches the mind that would follow its eloquent, shocking, and neatly ordered expression. The Trinity probably inspires the division into three parts. Donne begins with the image of a building with a firm foundation, buttresses, and an unarchitectural “knitting” of the materials. These three particulars he compares to the actions of the Persons of the Trinity. God the Father lays the foundation for man’s life: he leads us from death into life. The Holy Ghost, like the buttresses which hold up the building, supports us at the hour of death when we shall enter eternal life. The God of Mercy, the Son, like the knitting together of the building, took upon himself flesh, knitting the divine and the human natures into one and delivering us by his death. The images are startling: the winding sheet which we bring with us into the world, the dust with which our mouths are filled after death, the worm that incestuously unites son, mother, and sister in its body. The figure of Christ on the cross “rebaptized in his owne teares and sweat, and enbalmed in his own blood alive” is almost as uncomfortably vivid as the last sentence of the sermon. In the concluding portion of “Death’s Duell,” Donne, with revival preacher fervor, calls his hearers to repentance, prayer, and dependence upon Christ.
The significance of the title seems to lie in the double aspect in the subtitle, the dying life and the living death. For Donne, the phrase “the issues of death” has three interpretations: deliverance from death by God; the manner and disposition of death by the Holy Ghost; and the deliverance from this life by death which Jesus Christ experienced because he had taken on human flesh and could have no other exit. The sermon is built around these three points.
In the first section, Donne says that throughout life we pass from one death to another. These transitions are deliverances from death. In the womb, we are in a kind of death from which we are delivered into life, the manifold deaths of the world. We come in a winding sheet to seek a grave. Birth dies in infancy, infancy in youth, youth and the rest in age. Age also dies and “determines all.” We progress in evil. Youth is worse than infancy; age laments that it cannot pursue the sins of youth. So many calamities accompany each age that death itself would be “an ease” in comparison. After death, the body progresses to corruption, putrefaction, and dispersion. Christ, however, did not suffer the corruption of the grave; and those who are alive at His second coming shall not see it. All else shall suffer dispersion; but at the resurrection God will recompact bodies and souls.
In the second section of the sermon, Donne says that “it belongs to God, and not to man to passe a judgement upon us at our death.” Man is incapable of judging the state of the soul at its passing. When men think that a man dies peacefully like a lamb, God only knows if he is really stupified and unaware of dying or actually dying without reluctance. Even Christ suffered agony at the prospect of death; so reluctance to accept death is not to be condemned. The mercies of God are instantaneous and imperceptible to bystanders. Men should not judge in the violent deaths of criminals, for Christ died a shameful death and many honestly felt that he was a malefactor. God governs not by examples but by rules. Therefore, no man can judge another by his attitude at death. God judges his whole life; so if a man dies without faith apparently, none should make evil conclusions about him. God does not promise a quiet death, but “live well here and thou shalt live well for ever.”
The third section of the sermon deals with Christ’s incarnation and resultant death. In this “issue of death” men are delivered by the death of another, by the death of Christ. “That God, this Lord, the Lord of life could die, is a strange contemplation.” That God would die is “an exaltation” of this. That God “should die, must die,” and had no issue but by death is a “superexaltation” of this aspect of God and death. Since God is the God of revenges, he would not pass over the sin of man unpunished. Christ, therefore, was bound to suffer. God would not spare himself. “There was nothing more free, more voluntary, more spontaneous than the death of Christ.” The decree that Christ was to suffer was eternal; so is Infinite love, eternal love. His Father calls this death only a bruising of his heel. Christ calls it a baptism. He accepts the cup without detestation. The cup is now salvation, a health to all the world. “As God breathed a soule into the first Adam, so this second Adam breathed his soule into God, in the hands of God. There wee leave you in that blessed dependancy, to hang upon him that hangs on the Crosse, there bath[e] in his teares, there suck at his woundes, and lie downe in peace in his grave, till hee vouchsafe you a resurrection, and an ascension into that Kingdome, which hee hath purchas’d for you with the inestimable price of his incorruptible blood.”
Commonly in Donne’s time sermons were first delivered and then written from notes and memory. The words as Donne records them may not be exactly the ones which he spoke.