the Bible, especially the particular norms of the Old Testament, was taken. The decalogue remained, as a codification of the most im- portant ideas of the natural moral law, the essential norm of human action. But there was no firm link connecting its legal validity with the more and more strongly emphasized importance of faith for justification, because this faith (see above) had a fundamentally different psychological character from the Calvinistic.
The true Lutheran standpoint of the early period had to be abandoned by a Church which looked upon itself as an institution for salvation. But another had not been found. Especially was it impossible, for fear of losing their dogmatic foundation (sola fide!), to accept the ascetic rationalization of conduct as the moral task of the individual. For there was no motive to give the idea of proof such a significance as it attained in Calvinism through the doctrine of predestination. Moreover, the magical interpretation of the sacra- ments, combined with the lack of this doctrine, especially the asso- ciation of the regeneratio, or at least its beginning with baptism, necessarily, assuming as it did the universality of grace, hindered the development of methodical morality. For it weakened the contrast between the state of nature and the state of grace, especially when combined with the strong Lutheran emphasis on original sin. No less important was the entirely forensic interpretation of the act of justi- fication which assumed that God's decrees might be changed through the influence of particular acts of repentance of the converted sinner. And that was just the element to which Melanchthon gave increasing emphasis. The whole development of his doctrine, which gave increasing weight to repentance, was intimately connected with his 239 The ProteMant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism profession of the freedom of the will. That was what primarily determined the- uwrnethodical character of Lutheran conduct.
Particular ac ts of grace for particular sins, not the development of an aristoci'ac"./ of saints creating the certainty of their own salvation, was the nece^ssary form salvation took for the average Lutheran, as the retention c^f the confession proves. Thus it could develop neither a morality free from the law nor a rational asceticism in terms of the law. Rather the law remained in an unorganic proximity to faith as an ideal, and, moreover, since the strict dependence on the Bible was avoided as sui?gesting salvation by works, it remained uncertain, vague, and, above all, unsystematic in its content. Their conduct remained, as Troelitsch has said of their ethical theory, a "sum of mere beginnings wh,*^ch never quite materialized"; which, "taught in particular, uncertain, and unrelated maxims", did not succeed in "working out an articulate system of conduct", but formed essentially, following the development through which Luther himself (see above) had gone, a resignation to things as they were in matters both small and great. The resignation of the Germans to foreign cultures, their rapid change of nationality, of which there is so much complaint, is clearly to be attributed, along with certain political circumstances in the history of the nation, in part to the results of this influence, which still affects all aspects of our life. The subjective assimilation of culture remained weak because it took place primarily by means of a passive absorption of what was authoritatively presented.
105. On these points, see the gossipy book of Tholuck, Vorgeschichte des Rationalismus.
106. On the quite different results of the Mohammedan doctrine of predestination (or rather predetermination) and the reasons for it, see the theological disyertation (Heidelberg) of F. Ullrich, Die Vor herb estimmungslehre im Islam u. Ch., 19 12. On that of the Jan- senists, see P. Honigsheim, op. cit.
107. See the following essay in this collection (not translated here).
108. Ritschl, Geschichte des Pietismus, I, p. 152, attempts to dis- tinguish them for the time before Labadie (only on the basis of examples from the Netherlands) (i) in that the Pietists formed conventicles; (2) they held the doctrine of the "worthlessness of existence in the flesh" in a "manner contrary to the Protestant interests in salvation"; (3) "the assurance of grace in the tender relationship with the Lord Jesus" was sought in an un-Calvinistic manner. The last criterion applies for this early period only to one of the cases with which he deals. The idea of worthlessness of the flesh was in itself a true child of the Calvinistic spirit, and only where it led to practical renunciation of the world was it antagonistic to normal Protestantism. The conventicles, finally, had been estab- lished to a certain extent (especially for catechistic purposes) by the Synod of Dordrecht itself. Of the criteria of Pietism analysed 240 Notes 240 Notes in Ritschl's previous discussion, those worth considering are (i) the greater precision with which the letter of the Bible was followed in all external affairs of life, as Gisbert Voet for a time urged; (2) the treatment of justification and reconciliation with God, not as ends in themselves, but simply as means toward a holy ascetic life as can be seen perhaps in Lodensteyn,but as is also suggested by Melanch- thon [see above, note 104]; (3) the high value placed on repentance as a sign of true regeneration, as was first taught by W. Teellinck; (4) abstention from communion when unregenerate persons partake of it (of which we shall speak in another connection). Connected with that was the formation of conventicles with a revival of prophecy, i.e. interpretation of the Scriptures by laymen, even women. That went beyond the limits set by the canons of Dordrecht.
Those are all things forming departures, sometimes considerable, from both the doctrine and practice of the Reformers. But compared with the movements which Ritschl does not include in his treatment, especially the English Puritans, they form, except for No. 3, only a continuation of tendencies which lay in the whole line of development of this religion. The objectivity of Ritschl's treatment suffers from the fact that the great scholar allows his personal attitude towards the Church or, perhaps better, religious policy, to enter in, and, in his antipathy to all peculiarly ascetic forms of religion, interprets any development in that direction as a step back into Catholicism. But, like Catholicism, the older Protestantism included all sorts and conditions of men. But that did not prevent the Catholic Church from repudiating rigorous worldly asceticism in the form of Jansenism; just as Pietism repudiated the peculiar Catholic Quietism of the seventeenth century. From our special view-point Pietism differs not in degree, but in kind from Calvinism only when the increasing fear of the world leads to flight from ordinary economic life and the formation of monastic-communistic conventicles (Labadie). Or, which has been attributed to certain extreme Pietists by their contemporaries, they were led deliberately to neglect worldly duties in favour of contemplation. This naturally happened with particular frequency when contemplation began to assume the character which Ritschl calls Bemardism, because it suggests St. Bernard's interpre- tation of the Song of Songs: a mystical, emotional form of religion seeking the unio mystica with an esoteric sexual tinge. Even from the view-point of religious psychology alone this is undoubtedly some- thing quite different from Calvinism, including its ascetic form exemplified by men like Voet. Ritschl, however, everywhere attempts to connect this quietism with the Pietist asceticism and thus to bring the latter under the same indictment; in doing so he puts his finger on every quotation from Catholic mysticism or asceticism which he can find in Pietist literature. But English and Dutch moralists and theologians who are quite beyond suspicion cite Bernard, Bona- 241 The Protesia7jt Ethic and the - Spirit of Capitalism Ventura, and Thomas ä Kempis. The relationship of all the Refor- mation Churches to the Catholic past was very complex and, according to the point of view which is emphasized, one or another appears most closely related to Catholicism or certain sides of it.
109. The illuminating article on "Pietism" by Mirbt in the third edition of the Realenzyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche, treats the origin of Pietism, leaving its Protestant antecedents entirely on one side, as a purely personal religious experience of Spener, which is somewhat improbable. As an introduction to Pietism, Gustav Freytag's description in Bilder der deutschen Vergangenheit is still worth reading. For the beginnings of English Pietism in the contemporary literature, compare W. Whitaker, Prima Institutio disciplinaque pietatis (1570).
no. It is well known that this attitude made it possible for Pietism to be one of the main forces behind the idea of toleration. At this point we may insert a few remarks on that subject. In the West its historical origin, if we omit the humanistic indifference of the En- lightenment, which in itself has never had great practical influence, is to be found in the following principal sources: (i) Purely political expediency (type: William of Orange). (2) Mercantilism (especially clear for the City of Amsterdam, but also typical of numerous cities, landlords, and rulers who received the members of sects as valuable for economic progress). (3) The radical wing of Calvinism. Pre- destination made it fundamentally impossible for the State really to promote religion by intolerance. It could not thereby save a single soul. Only the idea of the glory of God gave the Church occasion to claim its help in the suppression of heresy. Now the greater the emphasis on the membership of the preacher, and all those that partook of the communion, in the elect, the more intolerable became the interference of the State in the appointment of the clergy. For clerical positions were often granted as benefices to men from the universities only because of their theological training, though they might be personally unregener^te. In general, any interference in the affairs of the religious community by those in political power, whose conduct might often be unsatisfactory, was resented. Reformed Pietism strengthened this tendency by weakening the emphasis on doctrinal orthodoxy and by gradually undermining the principle of extra ecclesiam nulla salus.
Calvin had regarded the subjection of the damned to the divine supervision of the Church as alone consistent with the glory of God; in New England the attempt was made to constitute the Church as an aristocracy of proved saints. Even the radical Independents, however, repudiated every interference of temporal or any sort of hierarchical powers with the proof of salvation which was only possible within the individual community. The idea that the glory of God requii'es the subjection of the damned to the discipline of 242 Notes 242 Notes the Church was gradually superseded by the other idea, which was present from, the beginning apd became gradually more prominent, that it was an insult to His glory to partake of the Communion with one rejected by God. That necessarily led to voluntarism, for it led to the believers' Church the religious community which included only the twice-born. Calvinistic Baptism, to which, for instance, the leader of the Parliament of Saints Praisegod Barebones belonged, drew the consequences of this line of thought with great emphasis. Cromwell's army upheld the liberty of conscience and the parliament of saints even advocated the separation of Church and State, because its members were good Pietists, thus on positive religious grounds. (4) The Baptist sects, which we shall discuss later, have from the beginning of their history most strongly and consistently maintained the principle that only those personally regenerated could be admitted to the Church. Hence they repudiated every conception of the Church as an institution {Anstalt) and every interference of the temporal power. Here also it was for positive religious reasons that uncondi- tional toleration was advocated.
The first man who stood out for absolute toleration and the separa- tion of Church and State, almost a generation before the Baptists and two before Roger Williams, was probably John Browne. The first declaration of a Church group in this sense appears to be the resolution of the English Baptists in Amsterdam of 1612 or 1613: "The magistrate is not to middle with religion or matters,of con- science...because Christ is the King and Law-giver of the Church and conscience." The first official document of a Church which claimed the positive protection of liberty of conscience by the State as a right was probably Article 44 of the Confession of the Particular Baptists of 1644.
Let it be emphatically stated again that the idea sometimes brought forward, that toleration as such was favourable to capitalism, is naturally quite wrong. Religious toleration is neither peculiar to modern times nor to the West. It has ruled in China, in India, in the great empires of the Near East in Hellenistic times, in the Roman Empire and the Mohammedan Empires for long periods to a degree only limited by reasons of political expediency (which form its limits to-day also!) which was attained nowhere in the world in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Moreover, it was least strong in those areas which were dominated by Puritanism, as, for instance, Holland and Zeeland in their period of political and economic expansion or in Puritan old or New England. Both before and after the Reformation, religious intolerance was peculiarly characteristic of the Occident as of the Sassanian Empire. Similarly, it has prevailed in China, Japan, and India at certain particular times, though mostly for political reasons. Thus toleration as such certainly has nothing whatever to do with capitalism. The real question is, Who benefited by it? Of the The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism consequences of the believers' Church we shall speak further in the following article.
111. This idea is illustrated in its practical application by Crom- well's tryers, the examiners of candidates for the position of preacher. They attempted to ascertain not only the knowledge of theology, but also the subjective state of grace of the candidate. See also the following article.
112. The characteristic Pietistic distrust of Aristotle and classical philosophy in general is suggested in Calvin himself (compare Instit. Christ, II, chap, ii, p. 4; III, chap, xxiii, p. 5; IV, chap, xvii, p. 24). Luther in his early days distrusted it no less, l?ut that was later changed by the humanistic influence (especially of Melanchthon) and the urgent need of ammunition for apologetic purposes. That everything neces- sary for salvation was contained in the Scriptures plainly enough for even the untutored was, of course, taught by the Westminster Confes- sion (chap.i, No. 7.), in conformity with the whole Protestant tradition.
113. The official Churches protested against this, as, for example, in the shorter catechism of the Scotch Presbyterian Church of 1648, sec. vii. Participation of those not members of the same family in family devotions was forbidden as interference with the prerogatives of the office. Pietism, like every ascetic community-forming move- ment, tended to loosen the ties of the individual with domestic patriarchalism, with its interest in the prestige of office.
114. We are here for good reasons intentionally neglecting dis- cussion of the psychological, in the technical sense of the word, aspect of these religious phenomena, and even its terminology has been as far as possible avoided. The firmly established results of psychology, including psychiatry, do not as present go far enough to make them of use for the purposes of the historical investigation of our problems without prejudicing historical judgments. The use of its terminology would only form a temptation to hide phenomena which were immediately understandable, or even sometimes trivial, behind a veil of foreign words, and thus give a false impression of scientific exactitude, such as is unfortunately typical of Lamprecht. For a more serious attempt to make use of psychological concepts in the interpretation of certain historical mass phenomena, see W. Hellpach, Grundlinien zu einer Psychologie der Hysterie, chap, xii, as well as his Nervosität und Kultur. I cannot here attempt to explain that in my opinion even this many-sided writer has been harmfully influenced by certain of Lamprecht's theories. How completely worth- less, as compared with the older literature, Lamprecht's schematic treatment of Pietism is (in Vol. VII of the Deutsche Geschichte) everyone knows who has the slightest acquaintance with the literature.
115. Thus with the adherents of Schortinghuis's Innige Christen- dorn. In the history of religion it goes back to the verse about the servant of God in Isaiah and the 22nd Psalm.
244 Notes ii6. This appeared occasionally in Dutch Pietism and then under the influence of Spinoza.
117. Labadie, Teersteegen, etc.
118. Perhaps this appears most clearly when he (Spener!) disputes the authority of the Government to control the conventicles except in cases of disorder and abuses, because it concerns a fundamental right of Christians guaranteed by apostolic authority {Theologische Bedenken, II, pp. 81 f.). That is, in principle, exactly the Puritan stand- point regarding the relations of the individual to authority and the extent to which individual rights, which follow ex jure divino and are therefore inalienable, are valid. Neither this heresy, nor the one mentioned farther on in the text, has escaped Ritschl (Pietismus, II, pp. 115, 157). However unhistorical the positivistic (not to say philistine) criticism to which he has subjected the idea of natural rights to which we are nevertheless indebted for not much less than everything which even the most extreme reactionary prizes as his sphere of individual freedom, we naturally agree entirely with him that in both cases an organic relationship to Spener's Lutheran standpoint is lacking.
The conventicles (collegia pietitatis) themselves, to which Spener's famous pia desideria gave the theoretical basis, and which he founded in practice, corresponded closely in essentials to the English pro- phesyings which were first practised in John of Lasco's London Bible Classes (1547), and after that were a regular feature of all forms of Puritanism which revolted against the authority ' of the Church. Finally, he bases his well-known repudiation of the Church discipline of Geneva on the fact that its natural executors, the third estate (status oeconomicus: the Christian laity), were not even a part of the organization of the Lutheran Church. On the other hand, in the discussion of excommunication the lay members' recognition of the Consistorium appointed by the prince as representatives of the third estate is weakly Lutheran.
119. The name Pietism in itself, which first occurs in Lutheran territory, indicates that in the opinion of contemporaries it was characteristic of it that a methodical business was made out of pietas.
120. It is, of course, granted that though this type of motivation was primarily Calvinistic it is not exclusively such. It is also found with special frequency in some of the oldest Lutheran Church constitutions.
121. In the sense of Heb. v. 13, 14. Compare Spener, Theologische Bedenken, I, p. 306.
122. Besides Bailey and Baxter (see Consilia theologtca, III, 6, i; I, 47; 3, 6), Spener was especially fond of Thomas ä Kempis, and even more of Tauler — whom he did not entirely understand (op. cit., III, 61, I, No. i). For detailed discussion of the latter, see op. cit., I, I, I No. 7. For him Luther is derived directly from Tauler.
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism 123. See in Ritschl, op. cit., II, p. 113. He did not accept the repentance of the later Pietists (and of Luther) as the sole trust- worthy indication of true conversion (Theologische Bedenken, III, p. 476). On sanctification as the fruit of thankfulness in the belief of forgiveness, a typically Lutheran idea, see passages cited by Ritschl, op. cit., p. 115, note 2. On the certitudo salutis see, on the one hand, Theologische Bedenken, I, p. 324: "true belief is not so much felt emotionally as known by its fruits" (love and obedience to God); on the other. Theologische Bedenken, I, p. 335 f.: "As far as anxiety that they should be assured of salvation and grace is concerned, it is better to trust to our books, the Lutheran, than to the English writings." But on the nature of sanctification he was at one with the English view-point.
124. Of this the religious account books which A. H. Francke recommended were external symptoms. The methodical practice and habit of virtue was supposed to cause its growth and the separation of good from evil. This is the principal theme of Francke 's book. Von des Christen Vollkommenheit.
125. The difference between this rational Pietist belief in Pro- vidence and its orthodox interpretation is shown characteristically in the famous controversy between the Pietists of Halle and the orthodox Lutheran Löscher. Löscher in his Timotheus Verinus goes so far as to contrast everything that is attained by human action with the decrees of Providence. On the other hand, Francke 's con- sistent view was that the sudden flash of clarity over what is to happen, which comes as a result of quiet waiting for decision, is to be con- sidered as "God's hint", quite analogous to the Quaker psychology, and corresponding to the general ascetic idea that rational methods are the way to approach nearer to God. It is true that Zinzendorf, who in one most vital decision entrusted the fate of his community to lot, was far from Francke 's form of the belief in Providence. Spener, Theologische Bedenken, I, p. 314, referred to Tauler for a description of the Christian resignation in which one should bow to the divine will, and not cross it by hasty action on one's own respon- sibility, essentially the position of Francke. Its effectiveness as com- pared to Puritanism is essentially weakened by the tendency of Pietism to seek peace in this world, as can everywhere be clearly seen. "First righteousness, then peace", as was said in opposition to it in 1904 by a leading Baptist (G. White in an address to be referred to later) in formulating the ethical programme of his denomination (Baptist Handbook, 1904, p. 107).
126. Lect. paraenet., IV, p. 271.
127. Ritschl's criticism is directed especially against this continually recurrent idea. See the work of Francke containing the doctrine which has already been referred to. (See note 124 above.)
128. It occurs also among English Pietists who were not adherents of predestination, for instance Goodwin. On him and others compare 246 Notes Heppe, Geschichte des Pietistniis in der reformierten Kirche (Leiden, 1879), a book which even with Ritschl's standard work cannot yet be dispensed with for England, and here and there also for the Netherlands. Even in the nineteenth century in the Netherlands Köhler, Die Niederl. ref. Kirche, was asked about the exact time of his rebirth.
129. They attempted thus to counteract the lax results of the Lutheran doctrine of the recoverability of grace (especially the very frequent conversion in extremis).
130. Against the corresponding necessity of knowing the day and hour of conversion as an indispensable sign of its genuineness. See Spener, Theologische Bedenken, II, 6, i, p. 197. Repentance was as little known to him as Luther's terror es conscientice to Melanchthon.