Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 2.djvu/67

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61
DRYDEN.

verted one another[1]; and Chillingworth himself was a while so entangled in the wilds of controversy, as to retire for quiet to an infallible church. If men of argument and study can find such difficulties or such motives, as may either unite them to the church of Rome, or detain them in uncertainty, there can be no wonder that a man, who perhaps never enquired why he was a Protestant, should by an artful and experienced disputant be made a Papist, overborn by the sudden violence of new and unexpected arguments, or deceived by a representation which shews only the doubts on one part, and only the evidence on the other.

That conversation will always be suspected that apparently concurs with interest. He that never finds his error till it hinders his progress towards wealth or honour, will not be thought to love Truth only for herself. Yet it may easily happen that information may come at a commo-

  1. Dr. John Reynolds, who lived temp. Jac. I. was at first a zealous Papist, and his brother William as earnest a Protestant, but by mutual disputation each converted the other. Vide Fuller's Church History, p. 47, book X.H
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