The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, Volume 1Browne, Thomas, Sir
Religion
The Works of Sir Thomas Browne, Volume 1
Browne, Thomas, Sir
Christianity; Ethics; Religion and medicine
weaker merits he imparts a larger portion, and pieces out the defect of
one, by the access of the other. Thus have we no just quarrel with
Nature, for leaving us naked; or to envy the Horns, Hoofs, Skins, and
Furs of other Creatures, being provided with Reason, that can supply
them all. We need not labour with so many Arguments to confute Judicial
Astrology; for if there be a truth therein, it doth not injure Divinity:
if to be born under _Mercury_ disposeth us to be witty, under _Jupiter_
to be wealthy; I do not owe a Knee unto those, but unto that merciful
Hand that hath ordered my indifferent and uncertain nativity unto such
benevolous Aspects. Those that hold that all things are governed by
Fortune, had not erred, had they not persisted there: The _Romans_ that
erected a temple to Fortune, acknowledged therein, though in a blinder
way, somewhat of Divinity; for in a wise supputation all things begin
and end in the Almighty. There is a nearer way to Heaven than _Homer's_
Chain; an easy Logick may conjoin heaven and Earth, in one Argument, and
with less than a _Sorites_ resolve all things into God. For though we
christen effects by their most sensible and nearest Causes, yet is God
the true and infallible Cause of all, whose concourse though it be
general, yet doth it subdivide it self into the particular Actions of
every thing, and is that Spirit, by which each singular Essence not only
subsists, but performs its operation.
SECT. 19
The bad construction, and perverse comment on these pair of second
Causes, or visible hands of God, have perverted the Devotion of many
unto Atheism; who, forgetting the honest Advisoes of Faith, have
listened unto the conspiracy of Passion and Reason. I have therefore
always endeavoured to compose those Feuds and angry Dissensions between
Affection, Faith and Reason: For there is in our Soul a kind of
Triumvirate, or triple Government of three Competitors, which distracts
the Peace of this our Common-wealth, not less than did that other the
State of _Rome_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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