Digital Donne: the Online Variorum

click image to return to main page
Previous image Next image The 1654 Prose Letters  Letter 52 (p.160)




To his honourable friend Sr H. G.

SIR,
To you that are not easily scandalized,
and in whom, I hope, neither my
Religion nor Morality can suffer, I dare
write my opinion of that Booke in whose
bowels you left me. It hath refreshed, and
given new justice to my ordinary com-
plaint, That the Divines of these times, are
become meer Advocates, as though Religi-
on were a temporall inheritance; they
plead for it with all sophistications, and il-
lusions, and forgeries: And herein are
they likest Advocates, that though they be
feed by the way, with Dignities, and other
recompenses, yet that for which they plead
is none of theirs. They write for Religion,
without it. In the main point in question,
I think truly there is a perplexity (as farre as
I see yet) and both sides may be in justice,
and innocence; and the wounds which
they inflict upon the adverse part, are all se
defendendo: for, clearly, our State cannot be
[CW: safe]
p.160

Comments and questions about this page to mclawhornt@ecu.edu