In the Kirchenpostille it runs (Erlangen edition, X, pp. 233, 235–6): “Everyone is called to some calling.” He should wait for this call (on p. 236 it even becomes command) and serve God in it. God takes pleasure not in man’s achievements but in his obedience in this respect. ↩
This explains why, in contrast to what has been said above about the effects of Pietism on women workers, modern business men sometimes maintain that strict Lutheran domestic workers today often, for instance in Westphalia, think very largely in traditional terms. Even without going over to the factory system, and in spite of the temptation of higher earnings, they resist changes in methods of work, and in explanation maintain that in the next world such trifles won’t matter anyway. It is evident that the mere fact of Church membership and belief is not in itself of essential significance for conduct as a whole. It has been much more concrete religious values and ideals which have influenced the development of capitalism in its early stages and, to a lesser extent, still do. ↩
Compare Tauler, Basle edition, Bl., pp. 161 ff. ↩
Compare the peculiarly emotional sermon of Tauler referred to above, and the following one, 17, 18, verse 20. ↩
Since this is the sole purpose of these present remarks on Luther, I have limited them to a brief preliminary sketch, which would, of course, be wholly inadequate as an appraisal of Luther’s influence as a whole. ↩
One who shared the philosophy of history of the Levellers would be in the fortunate position of being able to attribute this in turn to racial differences. They believed themselves to be the defenders of the Anglo-Saxon birthright, against the descendants of William the Conqueror and the Normans. It is astonishing enough that it has not yet occurred to anyone to maintain that the plebeian Roundheads were round-headed in the anthropometric sense! ↩
Especially the English national pride, a result of Magna Charta and the great wars. The saying, so typical today, “She looks like an English girl” on seeing any pretty foreign girl, is reported as early as the fifteenth century. ↩
These differences have, of course, persisted in England as well. Especially the Squirearchy has remained the centre of “merrie old England” down to the present day, and the whole period since the Reformation may be looked upon as a struggle of the two elements in English society. In this point I agree with M. J. Bonn’s remarks (in the Frankfurter Zeitung) on the excellent study of von Schulze-Gaevernitz on British Imperialism. Compare H. Levy in the Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, 46, 3. ↩
In spite of this and the following remarks, which in my opinion are clear enough, and have never been changed, I have again and again been accused of this. ↩
Zwinglianism we do not discuss separately, since after a short lease of power it rapidly lost in importance. Arminianism, the dogmatic peculiarity of which consisted in the repudiation of the doctrine of predestination in its strict form, and which also repudiated worldly asceticism, was organized as a sect only in Holland (and the United States). In this chapter it is without interest to us, or has only the negative interest of having been the religion of the merchant patricians in Holland (see below). In dogma it resembled the Anglican Church and most of the Methodist denominations. Its Erastian position (i.e. upholding the sovereignty of the State even in Church matters) was, however, common to all the authorities with purely political interests: the Long Parliament in England, Elizabeth, the Dutch States-General, and, above all, Oldenbarnereldt. ↩
On the development of the concept of Puritanism see, above all, Sanford, Studies and Reflections of the Great Rebellion, p. 65 f. When we use the expression it is always in the sense which it took on in the popular speech of the seventeenth century, to mean the ascetically inclined religious movements in Holland and England without distinction of Church organization or dogma, thus including Independents, Congregationalists, Baptists, Mennonites, and Quakers. ↩
This has been badly misunderstood in the discussion of these questions. Especially Sombart, but also Brentano, continually cite the ethical writers (mostly those of whom they have heard through me) as codifications of rules of conduct without ever asking which of them were supported by psychologically effective religious sanctions. ↩
I hardly need to emphasize that this sketch, so far as it is concerned solely with the field of dogma, falls back everywhere on the formulations of the literature of the history of the Church and of doctrine. It makes no claim whatever to originality. Naturally I have attempted, so far as possible, to acquaint myself with the sources for the history of the Reformation. But to ignore in the process the intensive and acute theological research of many decades, instead of, as is quite indispensable, allowing oneself to be led from it to the sources, would have been presumption indeed. I must hope that the necessary brevity of the sketch has not led to incorrect formulations, and that I
