Sir Thomas Browne

Continuing a short series on topics of Christian apologetics: I desire to exercise my faith in the most difficult read more

Continuing a short series on topics of Christian apologetics: I desire to exercise my faith in the most difficult point, for to credit ordinary and visible objects is not faith, but persuasion. Some believe the better for seeing Christ's Sepulchre, and when they have seen the Red Sea, doubt not the miracle. Now contrarily I bless myself, and am thankful that I lived not in the days of miracles, that I never saw Christ nor His Disciples; I would not have been one of those Israelites that passed the Red Sea, nor one of Christ's patients, on whom He wrought His wonders; then had my faith been thrust upon me, nor should I enjoy that greater blessing pronounced to all that believe and saw not.

Now nature is not at variance with art, nor art with nature; they
being both the servants of his read more

Now nature is not at variance with art, nor art with nature; they
being both the servants of his providence. Art is the perfection
of nature. Were the world now as it was the sixth day, there
were yet a chaos. Nature hath made one world, and art another.
In brief, all things are artificial; for nature is the art of
God.

Think not thy time short in this world, since the world itself is
not long. The created world is read more

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.

The severe schools shall never laugh me out of the philosophy of
Hermes, that this visible world is but read more

The severe schools shall never laugh me out of the philosophy of
Hermes, that this visible world is but a picture of the
invisible, wherein as in a portrait, things are not truly, but in
equivocal shapes, and as they counterfeit some real substance in
that invisible fabric.

A wise man is out of the reach of fortune.

A wise man is out of the reach of fortune.