But Christianity, that most precious possession of the modern world, was never seriously imperiled by the classical enthusiasm of the Renaissance; nor, on the other hand, was the progressive emancipation of the reason materially retarded by the reaction it produced.
The transition at this point to the third branch in the discovery of man, the revelation to the consciousness of its own spiritual freedom, is natural.

Not only did scholarship restore the classics and encourage literary criticism; it also restored the text of the Bible, and encouraged theological criticism.

In the wake of theological freedom followed a free philosophy, no longer subject to the dogmas of the Church.

To purge the Christian faith from false conceptions, to liberate the conscience from the tyranny of priests, and to interpret religion to the reason has been the work of the last centuries; nor is this work as yet by any means accomplished.

On the one side Descartes and Bacon, Spinoza and Locke, are sons of the Renaissance, champions of new-found philosophical freedom; on the other side, Luther is a son of the Renaissance, the herald of new-found religious freedom.