The freedom of the conscience was established.
Thus the principles involved in what we call the Reformation were momentous.

Connected on the one side with scholarship and the study of texts, it opened the path for modern biblical criticism.

Connected on the other side with the intolerance of mere authority it led to what has since been named rationalism--the attempt to reconcile the religious tradition with the reason, and to define the logical ideas that underlie the conceptions of the popular religious consciousness.

Again, by promulgating the doctrine of personal freedom, and by connecting itself with national politics, the reformation was linked historically to the revolution.

It was the Puritan Church in England stimulated by the patriotism of the Dutch Protestants, which established our constitutional liberty, and introduced in America the general principle of the equality of men.