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, CA: 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).
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.
Hannah Yip
Written in a small, upright and clear secretary hand with some italic forms. Manuscript witnesses of this sermon are discoverable in the 'Merton' Manuscript (Bodleian Library, MS. Eng. th. c. 71), 'Ellesmere' Manuscript (Cambridge University Library, MS Add. 8469), and St. Paul's Cathedral Library, MS 52.D.14 (a.k.a. 'Chetwode' MS).