The non-existent controversy: Puritan and anglican attitudes on work and wealth, 1600-1640
George Herbert was a devotional poet in the early part of the seventeenth century; he was also an Anglican minister. Like his friends, John Donne and Lancelot Andrewes, he loved the Church of England, and his faith was a source of creativity. In the later part of his life Herbert had a hobby; he liked to collect simple proverbs. Herbert's sayings, which he published as Outlandish Proverbs , had little to do with religion. Compared with the themes of his poetry, in fact, they were surprisingly secular.