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

Angelo, Torquato Tasso, Ariosto, and others owed
the emancipation of their genius to their belief in
the Evangelical faith. The great poet, painter, and
sculptor, Michael Angelo, who reared the dome of
St. Peter's and painted the Sistine, thus sings:
"Ah! what does sculpture, what does painting
prove,
When we have seen the Cross, and fixed our
eye
On Him whose arms of love were there
outspread?"[4]
It is the same Evangelical faith--the bondage of
the will by sin, and salvation of God--which
Ariosto embodies in the following lines:
"How shall my cold and lifeless prayer ascend,
Father of mercies, to thy seat on high,
If, while my lips for thy deliverance cry,
My heart against that liberty contend?
To spare offenders, being penitent,
Is even ours; to drag them from the pip,
Themselves resisting, Lord, is thine alone." [5]
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