This sermon has a calligraphic title page, dated 1625 and signed by Knightly Chetwood (f. 32v). In addition, a slip of paper has been pasted into the left margin of f. 33r: "This sermon I could not finde, in either of the two volumes".
This sermon is the fourth in John Donne, XXVI Sermons (London, 1661). Evelyn M. Simpson notes that the text of the St. Paul's manuscript adheres closely to the version found in XXVI Sermons (London, 1661). See Simpson 1942, p. 238. Another print witness is George R. Potter and Evelyn M. Simpson, eds., The Sermons of John Donne, Volume III (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1957), pp. 206-224. In addition, it will be published as the sixth sermon in Hugh Adlington, ed., The Oxford Edition of the Sermons of John Donne, Volume II: Sermons Preached at the Jacobean Courts, 1619-1625 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
Versions of this sermon are found in the "Merton" (Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. th. c. 71), "Dowden" (Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. th. e. 102), and "Lothian" (National Library of Scotland, MS 5767) manuscripts. See George R. Potter and Evelyn M. Simpson, eds., The Sermons of John Donne, Volume I (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1953), p. 42. Full diplomatic transcriptions of these manuscripts can be found at the 'Sermons in Manuscript' page on the OESJD website (see link below).
Written in a large, clear hand; a mix of late secretary and round hand features. Chetwood uses both black and brown ink. There are catchwords at the bottom of every page. Marginal annotations include biblical citations, the parts of the sermon, citations of the Church Fathers, Bellarmine, etc. There are some supralinear corrections.
Evelyn M. Simpson, ‘A Donne Manuscript in St. Paul’s Cathedral Library’, Philological Quarterly, 21.2 (April 1942), pp. 237-239; Hannah Yip
For an analysis of this sermon, see George R. Potter and Evelyn M. Simpson, eds., The Sermons of John Donne, Volume III (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1957), pp. 17-19.