is only he who
will truly enjoy the book, and who will gather the same gain out of it
that its author enjoyed and gained out of it himself. In short, the
properly prepared and absolutely ingenuous reader of the _Religio Medici_
must be a second Thomas Browne himself.

'I am a medical man,' says Sir Thomas, in introducing himself to us, 'and
this is my religion. I am a physician, and this is my faith, and my
morals, and my whole true and proper life. The scandal of my profession,
the natural course of my studies, and the indifference of my behaviour
and discourse in matters of religion, might persuade the world that I had
no religion at all. And yet, in despite of all that, I dare, without
usurpation, assume the honourable style of a Christian.' And if ever any
man was a truly catholic Christian, it was surely Sir Thomas Browne. He
does not unchurch or ostracise any other man. He does not stand at
diameter and sword's point with any other man; no, not even with his
enemy. He has never been able to alienate or exasperate himself from any
man whatsoever because of a difference of an opinion. He has never been
angry with any man because his judgment in matters of religion did not
agree with his. In short he has no genius for disputes about religion;
and he has often felt it to be his best wisdom to decline all such
disputes. When his head was greener than it now is, he had a tendency to
two or three errors in religion, of which he proceeds to set down the
spiritual history. But at no time did he ever maintain his own opinions
with pertinacity: far less to inveigle or entangle any other man's faith;
and thus they soon died out, since they were only bare errors and single
lapses of his understanding, without a joint depravity of his will. The
truth to Sir Thomas Browne about all revealed religion is this, which he
sets forth in a deservedly famous passage:--'Methinks there be not
impossibilities enough in revealed religion for an active faith. I love
to lose myself in a mystery, and to pursue my reason to an _O altitudo_!
'Tis my solitary recreation to pose my apprehension with those involved
enigmas and riddles of the Trinity, with incarnation and resurrection. I
can answer all the objections of Satan and my rebellious reason with that
odd resolution I learned of Tertullian, _Certum est quia impossibile
est_. I desire to exercise my faith in the difficultest point; for
anything else is not faith but persuasion