But the assertion of the right of individual judgment in matters religious and moral was bound sooner or later to lead to the recognition of the duty of inquiry, of investigation of the law and science of things as they really are, and of absolute loyalty to the truth when found. The final outcome within the Church of this new mental attitude has been the “Higher Criticism,” which is simply the continuation by modern scholars within the reformed denominations of the scientific criticism of the Bible begun by the distinguished humanist Erasmus. In this remoter issue of the Reformation the essential oneness of its spirit with that of the Renaissance is revealed, and the ground for the assertion that the ultimate moral results of the religious reform were a reënforcement of the deepest ethical tendencies of the intellectual revival is disclosed. [Sidenote: Substitution of an inerrant Book for an inerrant Church] Had all the implications of the principle of the right of individual judgment in matters of religion and morals been seen and frankly accepted by the reformers of the sixteenth century, the Protestant revolution would have effected at once the transfer of morality from a supernatural to a natural basis. But for an inerrant Church the reformers substituted an inerrant Book, which every one should accept as an infallible guide and rule of conduct. The ultimate sanctions of morality were still looked for in the historic past, in an outer revelation and an outer authority. Consequently the moral ideal of Protestantism retained the essentially theological, supernatural character of the ideal of Roman Catholicism. [Sidenote: New ranking of virtues in the moral type] But the changes effected by the reformers in the body of the teachings of the old Church resulted necessarily in a certain displacement and shifting of the virtues in the moral type, and in a new estimation of ethical values. Various virtues or duties hitherto regarded as essential to excellence of character were assigned a lower place in the rank of virtues or were excluded altogether from the ideal, while new moral qualities or attributes were added, the outcome being what we must regard as a new moral type. In the following pages we shall comment briefly upon the more important of the changes effected in several domains of the religious-ethical life. [Sidenote: Protestantism brings into disesteem the monastic ideal] We proceed now to notice some of the immediate and special moral effects of the Reformation. In the first place Protestantism discredited the monastic type of goodness. The meritoriousness of celibacy was denied. The austerities of the ascetic were declared to be not only useless but positively wrong. Instead of being an object of profound veneration and homage, the saint of medieval times became to the Protestant reformers an object of the deepest moral detestation.