Volume 1

The works of Sir Thomas Browne : including his unpublished correspondence, and a memoir / edited by Simon Wilkin.

  • Thomas Browne
Date:
1846
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The works of Sir Thomas Browne : including his unpublished correspondence, and a memoir / edited by Simon Wilkin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    74/612
    he has no taint of heresy, schism, or error: to whom where the Scripture is silent, the church is a text; where that speaks, 't is but a comment; and who uses not the dictates of his own reason, but where there is a joint silence of both : who blesses himself, that he lived not in the days of miracles, when faith had been thrust upon him; but enjoys that greater blessing, pronounced to all that believe and saw not. He cannot surely be charged with a defect of faith, who believes that our Saviour was dead, and buried, and rose again, and desires to see him in his glory : and who affirms, that this is not much to believe; that as we have reason, we owe this faith unto history ; and that they only had the ad- vantage of a bold and noble faith, who lived before his coining; and, upon obscure prophecies and mysti- cal types, could raise a belief. Nor can contempt of the positive and ritual parts of religion be imputed to him, who doubts, whether a good man would re- fuse a poisoned eucharist; and who would violate his own arm, rather than a church.2 The opinions of every man must be learned from himself: concerning his practice, it is safest to trust the evidence of others. Where these testimonies concur, no higher degree of historical certainty can be obtained; and they apparently concur to prove, that Browne was a zealous adherent to the faith of Christ, that he lived in obedience to his laws, and died in confidence of his mercy. 2 rather than, c^-c] To the foregoing added his own resolutions for the guid- arguments in vindication of Browne's at- ance of his conduct, and the regulation of tachment to Christianity, may well be his heart.—See vol. IT, 420. I should be glad to know the authority of the following assertion attributed to Dr. Johnson :— I remember the remark of Sir Thomas Browne ;—' Do the Devils lie?' No; for then hell could not subsist.—Croker's Johnson, vol. iv, p. 152.