The passive and contemplative form of Christianity, with its
constant reference to a higher world beyond the grave, could no longer
control these men. Machiavelli ventured still further, and maintained
that it could not be serviceable to the State and to the maintenance of
public freedom.
The form assumed by the strong religious instinct which,
notwithstanding all, survived in many natures, was Theism or Deism, as
we may please to call it. The latter name may be applied to that mode
of thought which simply wiped away the Christian element out of
religion, without either seeking or finding any other substitute for
the feelings to rest upon. Theism may be considered that definite
heightened devotion to the one Supreme Being which the Middle Ages were
not acquainted with. This mode of faith does not exclude Christianity,
and can either ally itself with the Christian doctrines of sin,
redemption, and immortality, or else exist and flour;sh without them.
Sometimes this belief presents itself with childish_naivete and even
with a half-pagan air, God appearing as the almighty fulfiller of human
wishes. Agnolo Pandolfini tells us how, after his wedding, he shut
himself in with his wife, and knelt down before the family altar with
the picture of the Madonna, and prayed, not to her, but to God, that He
would vouchsafe to them the right use of their property, a long life in
joy and unity with one another, and many male descendants: 'For myself
I prayed for wealth, honour, and friends; for her blamelessness,
honesty, and that she might be a good housekeeper.
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