Protestantism in England From the Times of Henry VIII - James Aitken Wylie

which she leaned, nor prevent it lifting up her
people into freedom. Protestantism had brought the
individual Englishman to the Bible; it taught him
that it was at once his duty and his right to examine
it, to judge for himself as to what it contained, and
to act upon his independent judgment; and the
moment he did so he felt that he was a new man.
He had passed from bondage into freedom, as
respects that master-faculty that gives motion and
rigor to all the rest, namely, conscience. As the
immediate consequence, the human mind, which
had slept through the Middle Ages, awoke in a
strength and grandeur of faculty, a richness and
beauty of development, which it had exhibited in
no former age. England underwent a sudden and
marvelous transformation.
In returning to the right road as respects
religion, England found that she had returned to the
right road as respects government, as respects
science, and letters--in short, that she had
discovered the one true path to national greatness.
The same method--the Inductive--which had put
her in possession of a Scriptural faith, would, she
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