Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a FriendBrowne, Thomas, Sir
Religion
Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend
Browne, Thomas, Sir
Christian ethics; Christian life; Essays; Funeral rites and ceremonies; Medical ethics; Medicine -- History; Religion and medicine
_Sect._ 14.--Now, there is another part of charity, which is the basis
and pillar of this, and that is the love of God, for whom we love
our neighbour; for this I think charity, to love God for himself,
and our neighbour for God. And all that is truly amiable is God, or
as it were a divided piece of him, that retains a reflex or shadow
of himself. Nor is it strange that we should place affection on that
which is invisible: all that we truly love is thus. What we adore under
affection of our senses deserves not the honour of so pure a title.
Thus we adore virtue, though to the eyes of sense she be invisible.
Thus that part of our noble friends that we love is not that part that
we embrace, but that insensible part that our arms cannot embrace. God
being all goodness, can love nothing but himself; he loves us but for
that part which is as it were himself, and the traduction of his Holy
Spirit. Let us call to assize the loves of our parents, the affection
of our wives and children, and they are all dumb shows and dreams,
without reality, truth, or constancy. For first there is a strong bond
of affection between us and our parents; yet how easily dissolved!
We betake ourselves to a woman, forgetting our mother in a wife, and
the womb that bare us in that which shall bear our image. This woman
blessing us with children, our affection leaves the level it held
before, and sinks from our bed unto our issue and picture of posterity:
where affection holds no steady mansion; they growing up in years,
desire our ends; or, applying themselves to a woman, take a lawful way
to love another better than ourselves. Thus I perceive a man may be
buried alive, and behold his grave in his own issue.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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