The sermon has a calligraphic pen-and-ink title page, dated 1626 and signed by Knightly Chetwood.
This sermon was published as the third sermon in John Donne, Six Sermons (Cambridge, 1634) and again in John Donne, Fifty Sermons (London, 1649), where it is also no. 3. In the 1634 edition, there is no reference to its original context. Another print witness is George R. Potter and Evelyn M. Simpson, eds., The Sermons of John Donne, Volume III (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1957), pp. 241-255. In addition, it will be published as the second sermon in Erica Longfellow, ed., The Oxford Edition of the Sermons of John Donne, Volume VII: Sermons Preached at Marriages, Christenings, and Churchings (Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
A version of this sermon can also be found in the "Merton" manuscript (Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. th. c. 71). See George R. Potter and Evelyn M. Simpson, The Sermons of John Donne, Volume I (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1953), p. 42. Other manuscript witnesses are the "Ellesmere" manuscript (Cambridge University Library, MS Add. 8469) and British Library, Harley MS 6946. See the "Sermons in Manuscript" page on the OESJD website for diplomatic transcriptions of these manuscripts (link below).
Written in a large, clear hand, a mixture of late secretary and round hand. Chetwood uses both black and brown ink. On the verso of the title page, the following has been written: "Preached at St: Clements at Mr: Washingtons Mariage" (f. 79v). There are catchwords at the bottom of each page and very few marginal annotations. According to Erica Longfellow, Donne was most likely invited to preach at the marriage of Margaret Washington by her mistress Lady Doncaster, who had negotiated the match. 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. 19-26.
Evelyn M. Simpson, "A Donne Manuscript in St. Paul’s Cathedral Library," Philological Quarterly, 21.2 (April 1942), pp. 237-239; Hannah Yip