The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
thus felt himself to be an object of its care and dependent on it. The problem was first raised within Lutheranism characteristically enough through the Pietist movement. The question of certitudo salutis itself has, however, for every non-sacramental religion of salvation, whether Buddhism, Jainism, or anything else, been absolutely fundamental; that must not be forgotten. It has been the origin of all psychological drives of a purely religious character.
39. Thus expressly in the letter to Bucer, Corp. Ref. 29, p. 883 f. Compare with that again Scheibe, op. cit., p. 30.
40. The Westminster Confession (XVIII, p. 2) also assures the elect of indubitable certainty of grace, although with all our activity we remain useless servants and the struggle against evil lasts one's whole life long. But even the chosen one often has to struggle long and hard to attain the certitudo which the consciousness of having done his duty gives him and of which a true believer will never entirely be deprived.
41. The orthodox Calvinistic doctrine referred to faith and the consciousness of community with God in the sacraments, and mentioned the "other fruits of the Spirit" only incidentally. See the passages in Heppe, op. cit., p. 425. Calvin himself most emphatically denied that works were indications of favour before God, although he, like the Lutherans, considered them the fruits of belief (Instit. Christ, III, 2, 37, 38). The actual evolution to the proof of faith through works, which is characteristic of asceticism, is parallel to a gradual modification of the doctrines of Calvin. As with Luther, the true Church was first marked off primarily by purity of doctrine and sacraments, but later the disciplina came to be placed on an equal footing with the other two. This evolution may be followed in the passages given by Heppe, op. cit., pp. 194-5, as well as in the manner in which Church members were acquired in the Netherlands by the end of the sixteenth century (express subjection by agreement to Church discipline as the principal prerequisite).
42. For example, Olevian, De substantia fœderis gratuiti inter Deum et electos (1585), p. 257; Heidegger, Corpus Theologiæ, XXIV, p. 87; and other passages in Heppe, Dogmatik der ev. ref. Kirche (1861), p. 425.
43. On this point see the remarks of Schneckenburger, op. cit., p. 48.
44. Thus, for example, in Baxter the distinction between mortal and venial sin reappears in a truly Catholic sense. The former is a sign of the lack of grace which can only be attained by the conversion of one's whole life. The latter is not incompatible with grace.
45. As held in many different shades by Baxter, Bailey, Sedgwick, Hoornbeek. Further see examples given by Schneckenburger, op. cit., p. 262.
46. The conception of the state of grace as a sort of social estate (somewhat like that of the ascetics of the early Church) is very common.
