Thomas Browne

Religio Medici (1642) Thomas Browne

The RELIGIO MEDICI is the apologia of a learned physician who was proud to be a Christian and a member of the Church of England as established by Elizabeth I. He recognized that under Henry VIII the Church in England had been the catholic Church in schism, whereas the Elizabethan Establishment was regarded as heretical by Rome. Yet hew rote courteously about the Pope. Unlike many seventeenth-century Protestants he never described St Peter's successor as 'Balschazar', 'the Man of Sin,' or 'the Whore of Babylon.' He foresaw endless divisions in the Churches separated from Rome and to-day there are atleast 140 separate Christian churches. He found no contradiction between religion and science. Religion reveals man's relation to God. Science is our partial knowledge of the Laws of Nature whereby the Divine purpose is carried out in creation. Being a modest man Sir Thomas Browne never thought his writings would survive his own time. As it is they have survived the centuries."