In Hudibras (1st Song, 18, 19) the Puritans are compared with the barefoot Franciscans. A report of the Genoese Ambassador, Fieschi, calls Cromwell’s army an assembly of monks. ↩
In view of the close relationship between otherworldly monastic asceticism and active worldly asceticism, which I here expressly maintain, I am surprised to find Brentano (Die Anfänge des modernen Kapitalismus, p. 134 and elsewhere) citing the ascetic labour of the monks and its recommendation against me. His whole “Exkurs” against me culminates in that. But that continuity is, as anyone can see, a fundamental postulate of my whole thesis: the Reformation took rational Christian asceticism and its methodical habits out of the monasteries and placed them in the service of active life in the world. Compare the following discussion, which has not been altered. ↩
So in the many reports of the trials of Puritan heretics cited in Neal’s History of the Puritans and Crosby’s English Baptists. ↩
Sanford, Studies and Reflections of the Great Rebellion (and both before and after him many others), has found the origin of the ideal of reserve in Puritanism. Compare on that ideal also the remarks of James Bryce on the American college in Vol. II of his American Commonwealth. The ascetic principle of self-control also made Puritanism one of the fathers of modern military discipline. (On Maurice of Orange as a founder of modern army organization, see Roloff, Preussische Jahrbücher, 1903, LXI, p. 255.) Cromwell’s Ironsides, with cocked pistols in their hands, and approaching the enemy at a brisk trot without shooting, were not the superiors of the Cavaliers by virtue of their fierce passion, but, on the contrary, through their cool self-control, which enabled their leaders always to keep them well in hand. The knightly storm-attack of the Cavaliers, on the other hand, always resulted in dissolving their troops into atoms. See Firth, Cromwell’s Army. ↩
See especially Windelband, Ueber Willensfreiheit, pp. 77 ff. ↩
Only not so unmixed. Contemplation, sometimes combined with emotionalism, is often combined with these rational elements. But again contemplation itself is methodically regulated. ↩
According to Richard Baxter everything is sinful which is contrary to the reason given by God as a norm of action. Not only passions which have a sinful content, but all feelings which are senseless and intemperate as such. They destroy the countenance and, as things of the flesh, prevent us from rationally directing all action and feeling to God, and thus insult Him. Compare what is said of the sinfulness of anger (Christian Directory, second edition, 1698, p. 285. Tauler is cited on p. 287). On the sinfulness of anxiety, op. cit., I, p. 287. That it is idolatry if our appetite is made the “rule or measure of eating” is maintained very emphatically (op. cit., I, pp. 310, 316, and elsewhere). In such discussions reference is made everywhere to the Proverbs and also to Plutarch’s De tranquilitate Animi, and not seldom to ascetic writings of the Middle Ages: St. Bernard, Bonaventura, and others. The contrast to “who does not love wine, women, and song …” could hardly be more sharply drawn than by the extension of the idea of idolatry to all sensuous pleasures, so far as they are not justified by hygienic considerations, in which case they (like sport within these limits, but also other recreations) are permissible. See below (Chapter V) for further discussion. Please note that the sources referred to here and elsewhere are neither dogmatic nor edifying works, but grew out of practical ministry, ministry, and thus give a good picture of the direction which its influence took. ↩
I should regret it if any evaluation of one or the other form of religion should be read into this discussion. We are not concerned with that here. It is only a question of the influence of certain things which, from a purely religious point of view, are perhaps incidental, but important for practical conduct. ↩
On this, see especially the article “Moralisten, englische,” by E. Troeltsch, in the Realenzyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, third edition. ↩
How much influence quite definite religious ideas and situations, which seem to be historical accidents, have had is shown unusually clearly by the fact that in the circles of Pietism of a Reformed origin the lack of monasteries was occasionally directly regretted, and that the communistic experiments of Labadie and others were simply a substitute for monastic life. ↩
As early even as several confessions of the time of the Reformation. Even Ritschl (Pietismus, I, p. 258 f.) does not deny, although he looks upon the later development as a deterioration of the ideas of the Reformation, that, for instance, in “Confessio Gallicana” 25, 26, “Confessio Belgica” 29, “Confessio Helvetica” post, 17, the true Reformed Church was defined by definitely empirical attributes, and that to this true Church believers were not accounted without the attribute of moral activity. (See above, note 147.) ↩
“Bless God that we are not of the many” (Thomas Adams, Works of the Puritan Divines, p. 138). ↩
The idea of the birthright, so important in history, thus received an important confirmation in England. “The firstborn which are written in heaven. … As the firstborn is not to be defeated in his inheritance, and the enrolled names are never to be obliterated, so certainly they shall
