among Protestants.  Again, the Renaissance itself had been not so much an era of discovery of a new intellectual and spiritual world.  It had been, rather, the rediscovery of valid principles of life in an ancient culture and civilisation.  That thorough-going review of the principles at the basis of all relations of the life of man, which once seemed possible to Renaissance and Reformation, was postponed to a much later date.  When it did take place, it was under far different auspices.

There is a remarkable unity in the history of Protestant thought in the period from the Reformation to the end of the eighteenth century.  There is a still more surprising unity of Protestant thought in this period with the thought of the mediaeval and ancient Church.  The basis and methods are the same.  Upon many points the conclusions are identical.  There was nothing of which the Protestant scholastics were more proud than of their agreement with the Fathers of the early Church.  They did not perceive in how large degree they were at one with Christian thinkers of the Roman communion as well.  Few seem to have realised how largely Catholic in principle Protestant thought has been.  The fundamental principles at the basis of the reasoning have been the same.  The notions of revelation and inspiration were identical.  The idea of authority was common to both, only the instance in which that authority is lodged was different.  The thoughts of God and man, of the world, of creation, of providence and prayer, of the nature and means of salvation, are similar.  Newman was right in discovering that from the first he had thought, only and always, in what he called Catholic terms.  It was veiled from him that many of those who ardently opposed him thought in those same terms.

It is impossible to write upon the theme which this book sets itself without using the terms Catholic and Protestant in the conventional sense.  The words stand for certain historic magnitudes.  It is equally impossible to conceal from ourselves how misleading the language often is.  The line between that which has been happily called the religion of authority and the religion of the spirit does not run between Catholic and Protestant.  It runs through the middle of many Protestant bodies, through the border only of some, and who will say that the Roman Church knows nothing of this contrast?  The sole use of recurrence here to the historic distinction is to emphasise the fact that this distinction stands for less than has commonly been supposed.  In a large way the history of Christian thought, from earliest times to the end of the eighteenth century, presents a very striking unity.