The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism
repudiation of all glorification of this world by the exclusiveness of the Puritan in majorem Dei gloriam.
How completely this idea, that all idolatry of the flesh is inconsistent with the glory of God and hence unconditionally bad, dominated ascetic Protestantism is clearly shown by the doubts and hesitation which it cost even Spener, who certainly was not infected with democracy, to maintain the use of titles as ἀδιάφορον against numerous objections. He finally comforted himself with the reflection that even in the Bible the Prætor Festus was given the title of κράτιστος by the Apostles. The political side of the question does not arise in this connection.
34. "The inconstant man is a stranger in his own house", says Thomas Adams (Works of the Puritan Divines, p. 77).
35. On this, see especially George Fox's remarks in the Friends' Library (ed. W. & T. Evans, Philadelphia, 1837), I, p. 130.
36. Above all, this sort of religious ethic cannot be regarded as a reflex of economic conditions. The specialization of occupations had, if anything, gone further in mediæval Italy than in the England of that period.
37. For, as is often pointed out in the Puritan literature, God never commanded "love thy neighbour more than thyself", but only as thyself. Hence self-regard is also a duty. For instance, a man who can make better use of his possessions, to the greater glory of God, than his neighbour, is not obliged by the duty of brotherly love to part with them.
38. Spener is also close to this view-point. But even in the case of transfer from commercial occupations (regarded as especially dangerous to virtue) to theology, he remains hesitalit and on the whole opposed to it (op. cit., III, pp. 435, 443; I, p. 524). The frequent occurrence of the reply to just this question (of the permissibility of changing a calling) in Spener's naturally biassed opinion shows, incidentally, how eminently practical the different ways of interpreting 1 Corinthians vii were.
39. Such ideas are not to be found, at least in the writings, of the leading Continental Pietists. Spener's attitude vacillates between the Lutheran (that of satisfaction of needs) and Mercantilist arguments for the usefulness of the prosperity of commerce, etc. (op. cit., III, pp. 330, 332; I, p. 418: "the cultivation of tobacco brings money into the country and is thus useful, hence not sinful". Compare also III, pp. 426–7, 429, 434). But he does not neglect to point out that, as the example of the Quakers and the Mennonites shows, one can make profit and yet remain pious; in fact, that even especially high profits, as we shall point out later, may be the direct result of pious uprightness (op. cit., p. 435).
40. These views of Baxter are not a reflection of the economic environment in which he lived. On the contrary, his autobiography
