Works : religio medici; Hydriotaphia; the Garden of Cyrs; Christian morals / of Sir Thomas Browne; with a glossary by William Swan Sonnenschein.

  • Thomas Browne
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Works : religio medici; Hydriotaphia; the Garden of Cyrs; Christian morals / of Sir Thomas Browne; with a glossary by William Swan Sonnenschein. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    times and throughout all generations. If Lucifer could be freed from his dismal place, he would httle care though the rest were left behind. Too many there may be of Nero’s mind who, if their own turn were served, would not regard what became of others, and, when they die themselves, care not if all perish. But good men’s wishes extend beyond their lives, for the happiness of times to come and never to be known unto them. And therefore, while so many question prayers for the dead, they charitably pray for those who are not yet alive : they are not so en^dously ambitious to go to Heaven by themselves ; they cannot but humbly wish that the little flock might be greater^, the Narrow Gate wider, and that, as many are called, so not a few might be chosen^. That a greater number of Angels remained in Heaven thap fell from it the Schoolmen vuU tell us ; that the number of blessed souls will not come short of that vast number of fallen spirits we have the favourable calcula- tion of others. What age or century hath sent most souls unto Heaven He can tell who vouchsafeth that honour unto them. Though the number of the blessed must be complete before the world can pass away, vet, since the world itself seems in the wane and we have no such comfortable prognostics of latter times, since a greater part of time is spun than is to come and the blessed roll already much replenished, happy are those pieties which solicitously look about, and hasten to make one of that already much filled and abbreviated list to come. Think not thy time short in this world since the world itself is not long. The created world is but a small parenthesis in eternity and a short interposition for a time between such a state of duration as was before it and may be after it. And, if we should allow of the old tradition that the world should last six thousand years^, it could scarce have the name of old, since the first man lived near a sixth part thereof^, and seven Methuselahs would exceed its whole duration. ^ Luke, xii, 32. ^ [See p, 52,1. 28]. ^ Matt., xxii, 14 ^ Gen., V, 5, 27.