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 Cromwell'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, but that was later changed by the humanistic influence (especially of Melanchthon) and the urgent need of ammunition for apologetic purposes. That everything necessary for salvation was contained in the Scriptures plainly enough for even the untutored was, of course, taught by the Westminster Confession (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 movement, 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 discussion 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 worthless, 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 Christendom. In the history of religion it goes back to the verse about the servant of God in Isaiah and the 22nd Psalm.
