No one, however, can
study the development of Protestantism and of Protestant churches
without feeling that into the Reforrmation, too,--Hebraizing child of
the Renascence and offspring of its fervor, rather than its
intelligence, as it undoubtedly was,--the subtle Hellenic leaven of the
Renascence found its way, and that the exact respective parts, in the
Reformation, of Hebraism and of Hellenism, are not easy to separate. But
what we may with truth say is, that all which Protestantism was to
itself clearly conscious of, all which it succeeded in clearly setting
forth in words, had the characters of Hebraism rather than of Hellenism.
The Reformation was strong, in that it was an earnest return to the
Bible and to doing from the heart the will of God as there written. It
was weak, in that it never consciously grasped or applied the central
idea of the Renascence,--the Hellenic idea of pursuing, in all lines of
activity, the law and science, to use Plato's words, of things as they
really are. Whatever direct superiority, therefore, Protestantism had
over Catholicism was a moral superiority, a superiority arising out of
its greater sincerity and earnestness,--at the moment of its apparition
at any rate,--in dealing with the heart and conscience.
Pages:
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478