There remains yet an objection against the writings of Browne, more formidable than the animadversions of criticism.  There are passages from which some have taken occasion to rank him among deists, and others among atheists.  It would be difficult to guess how any such conclusion should be formed, had not experience shown that there are two sorts of men willing to enlarge the catalogue of infidels.

It has been long observed, that an atheist has no just reason for endeavouring conversions; and yet none harass those minds which they can influence, with more importunity of solicitation to adopt their opinions.  In proportion as they doubt the truth of their own doctrines, they are desirous to gain the attestation of another understanding:  and industriously labour to win a proselyte, and eagerly catch at the slightest pretence to dignify their sect with a celebrated name [88].

The others become friends to infidelity only by unskilful hostility; men of rigid orthodoxy, cautious conversation, and religious asperity.  Among these, it is, too frequently, the practice to make in their heat concessions to atheism or deism, which their most confident advocates had never dared to claim, or to hope.  A sally of levity, an idle paradox, an indecent jest, an unreasonable objection, are sufficient, in the opinion of these men, to efface a name from the lists of christianity, to exclude a soul from everlasting life.  Such men are so watchful to censure, that they have seldom much care to look for favourable interpretations of ambiguities, to set the general tenour of life against single failures, or to know how soon any slip of inadvertency has been expiated by sorrow and retraction; but let fly their fulminations, without mercy or prudence, against slight offences or casual temerities, against crimes never committed, or immediately repented.

The infidel knows well what he is doing.  He is endeavouring to supply, by authority, the deficiency of his arguments, and to make his cause less invidious, by showing numbers on his side; he will, therefore, not change his conduct, till he reforms his principles.  But the zealot should recollect, that he is labouring by this frequency of excommunication, against his own cause, and voluntarily adding strength to the enemies of truth.  It must always be the condition of a great part of mankind, to reject and embrace tenets upon the authority of those whom they think wiser than themselves; and, therefore, the addition of every name to infidelity, in some degree, invalidates that argument upon which the religion of multitudes is necessarily founded.

Men may differ from each other in many religious opinions, and yet all may retain the essentials of christianity; men may sometimes eagerly dispute, and yet not differ much from one another:  the rigorous persecutors of errour should, therefore, enlighten their zeal with knowledge, and temper their orthodoxy with charity; that charity, without which orthodoxy is vain; charity that “thinketh no evil,” but “hopeth all things,” and “endureth all things.”