Sunday, September 30, 2018

"Religion is not a melancholy"

God and the Church:
John Donne (1572-1631)
Our first step then in this first part, is, the sociablenesse, the cornmunicablenesse of God; He loves holy meetings, he loves the communion of Saints, the household of the faithfull: Deliciae ejus, says Solomon, his delight is to be with the Sons of men, and that the Sons of men should be with him: Religion is not a melancholy, the spirit of God is not a dampe; the Church is not a grave: it is a fold, it is an Arke, it is a net, it is a city, it is a kingdome, not only a house, but a house that hath many mansions in it: still it is a plurall thing, consisting of many: and very good grammarians amongst the Hebrews, have thought, and said that that name, by which God notifies himself to the world, in the very beginning of Genesis, which is Elohim, as it is a plurall word there, so it hath no singular: they say we cannot name God, but plurally: so sociable, so communicable, so extensive, so derivative of himself, is God, and so manifold are the beames, and the emanations that flow out from him.
John Donne: Sermons
As quoted in Affirmations of God and Man, Association Press, 1967.

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