History of Protestantism in the Netherlands - James Aitken Wylie

The Synod of Dort was the first great attempt to
arrest the begun decline in the theology of the
Reformation, and to restore it to its pristine purity
and splendor. It did this, but not with a perfect
success. The theology of Protestantism, as seen in
the canons of Dort, and as seen in the writings of
the first Reformers, does not appear' quite the same
theology: it is the same in dogma, but it lacks, as
seen in the canons of Dort, the warm hues, the
freshness, the freedom and breadth, and the stirring
spiritual vitalities it possessed as it flowed from the
pens, or was thundered from the pulpits, of the
Reformers. The second generation of Protestant
divines was much inferior, both fix intellectual
endowments and in spiritual gifts, to the first. In
the early days it was the sun of genius that
irradiated the heavens of the Church: now it was
the moon of culture that was seen in her waning
skies. And in proportion to the more restricted
faculties of the men, so the theology was narrow,
stinted, and cold. It was formal and critical.
Turning away somewhat from the grander,
objective, soul-inspiring truths of Christianity, it
dealt much with the abstruser questions, it searched
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