I think it's a good question. I don't see how we can know the answer. As the poets have said, "Everybody talkin' 'bout heaven ain't goin' there," and it is possible that the vast majority of hearts touched and held by the Lord passed in quiet anonymity.
That's one reason for our Holy Day of all hallows. Through the year we praise God for holy notables. We set aside one day to praise him formally for the ones we never heard of, the multitude whom no man can number. (Which is a line from the second Scripture reading for the Mass of that day. When I was an Episcopalian at a very high church that was the reading in which I learned how to sing a question in the chant tone we used. When I am in my final coma if you listen closely you will probably hear me trying to sing, "Who are these and from whence have they come?")
Catholics like to say, "It takes a lot of manure to produce roses." We claim our share of roses, and there's no question that we're good at providing the manure.
I'd venture that those who wrote wrote more of spiritual things before, say, 1700' than after.
Is the reformation influenced by the age of reason? or vise versa?
Yes. :-)
Some intellectual movement was certainly afoot. Galileo and Bacon flourished after the Reformation was well established, but Copernicus was already in his forties when Luther took a hammer and nail to the Wittenburg chapel door.
Of course, It was ALL the to the Dominicans credit, naturally! (nods intently.)
Though Albert the Great, who died in 1280 -- almost a quarter millennium before Wittenburg -- thought there was something in alchemy, he was a firm proponent of the empirical method.
I do not know but, Thank God, God knows.
So in our own quest, let us always take refuge in that truth.
Thank You for answering my questions! I enjoy reading your perspective. Not much there for me to argue with BTW.
“When the time comes,
you will fully understand”
Jeremiah 30:24