Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T22:42:25.493Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Anti-Puritan Work Ethic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

C. John Sommerville
C. John Sommerville*
Affiliation:
University of Florida
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

For years those who have looked for the contribution of religion to the “spirit of capitalism” have concentrated on the English Puritans and their Calvinist counterparts elsewhere. Those scholars have relied on literary evidence to make their points, and to establish the relationship between Calvinist doctrines or assumptions and an ascetic and compulsive devotion to work. It came as a surprise, therefore, when a rigorously quantitative content analysis of the most popular religious books of Restoration England showed just the opposite—that the most self-consciously “Anglican” authors were those who placed the most emphasis upon work and worldly enterprise as a religious duty. They were also able to integrate this duty with the rest of their theology in a more straightforward, logical manner than the Puritans, for whom the connection is thought to have been psychological, mediated by religious anxiety. Work was, for the most popular Anglican authors, part of a moralistic religion of works. We can even say that such an emphasis was adopted at just the time when Anglicans were facing up to a change in the status of their church and adopting attitudes more characteristic of members of a movement or denomination, which helps to explain why work and effort were coming to seem more important to them.

There have been numerous lines of criticism of Max Weber's thesis connecting the doctrine of evangelical conversion and the spirit of economic enterprise. But since the following approach and alternative suggestions do not build on them, we must go back again to Weber's own classic formulation.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , Spring 1981 , pp. 70 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Weber, Max, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Parsons, Talcott (New York, 1958), pp. 110–112Google Scholar.

2 On the popularity of secular works and the relative popularity of best-sellers then and now, see Sommerville, C. John, “On the Distribution of Religious and Occult Literature in Seventeenth-Century England,” The Library, 29 (1974), pp. 221–225CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Klotz, Edith L., “A Subject Analysis of English Imprints for Every Tenth Year from 1480 to 1640,” Huntington Library Quarterly, 1 (1938), pp. 417–419CrossRefGoogle Scholar, shows that by 1640 there were already 200 religious titles being printed each year in England. Wing's Short-Title Catalogue and the Stationers' Register list about a thousand religious titles which required reprinting at least once from 1660 to 1711. The general study was published as Popular Religion in Restoration England (Gainesville, Fla., 1977)Google Scholar.

3 This typology differs in construction from the one described in my thesis, “Popular Religious Literature in England, 1660-1711: A Content Analysis” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Iowa, 1970), pp. 151–153Google Scholar, and therefore differs in its correlations.

4 For the others, see Popular Religion, passim.

5 Allison, C.F., The Rise of Moralism (London, 1966)Google Scholar. Weber used Baxter in spite of the fact that he recognized that Baxter was hesitant on the doctrine of predestination (Protestant Ethic, pp. 109 n. 36, 114 n. 52, 156 n.1). In Baxter's most popular work, A Call to the Unconverted, he struggles against the doctrine, telling readers that they should not worry about the decrees of election or speculate on the subject (see Popular Religion, pp. 47-48, and The Practical Works of Richard Baxter, 4 vols. (London, 1854), 2: 506-507, 533)Google Scholar.

6 The conversionist/moralist typology used categories on the fall of man (D2), predestination (D4), repentance and conversion (D5), Christ as atoning sacrifice (CD, the importance of belief (F3), as against categories emphasizing natural prudence (D3), improvement in virtues (G3), Christ as example (C2), the attraction of virtue (E3), and the duty of obedience (F2).

7 Elliott, Charles M., “The Ideology of Economic Growth: A Case Study,” in Land, Labour and Population in the Industrial Revolution, Jones, E.L. and Mingay, G.E., eds., (London, 1967)Google Scholar.

8 Walzer, Michael, The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics (New York, 1969)Google Scholar.

9 The anxious/confident typology used categories on the fall of man (D2), the misery of the ungodly (D7), resistance to grace (D8), the fear of God (F7), the danger of disobedience to God (F9), control of thoughts (Gl) and actions (G2), persecution (G4), the practice of repentance (G5), rebuking others (H4), the social problems of faction (115), ignorance (117), heterodoxy (118), indifference (119), vice (120), and irreverence (116), the vanity of this life (Jl), death (J2), judgment on the nation (114) and the individual (J5), hell and the reward of the wicked (J7, E4), as against the virtue of self-interest (D3), the happiness or assurance of the godly (D6), the beauty of duty (E3), the motives of material advantage (E5), happiness (E6), social well-being (E7), and reputation (E8), the love of God (Fl), dependence on God (F4), the duty of glorifying God (F6) and seeking union with Him (F8), the possibility of improving in virtue (G3), the love of others (H2), generosity (H3), tolerance in religion (112), spontaneity in religion (113), the resurrection (J3) and the millenium (J4), and heaven (J6).

10 See Sommerville, C. John, “Religious Typologies and Popular Religion in Restoration England,” Church History, 45 (1976), pp. 1–10CrossRefGoogle Scholar, types F (emphasis on self) and G (emphasis on society).

11 McGee, J. Sears, The Godly Man in Stuart England; Anglicans, Puritans, and the Two Tables, 1620-1670 (New Haven, 1976), p. 240Google Scholar.

12 Bunyan, John, The Pilgrim's Progress from This World to That Which is to Come (New York, 1964), pp. 106–110Google Scholar, see also pp. 79-80.

13 Knappen, M.M., ed., Two Elizabethan Puritan Diaries (Chicago, 1933), p. 13Google Scholar.

14 Sommerville, Popular Religion, p. 101; Mead, Matthew, The Almost Christian Discovered, 16th ed. (Boston, 1742), pp. 88-91, 117–121Google Scholar.

15 Bayly, Lewis, The Practice of Piety, 38th ed. (London, 1637), pp. 402, 405, 437, 443–445Google Scholar; [Ball, John], A Short Treatise Contayning all the Principall Grounds of Christian Religion, 9th ed. (London, 1633), pp. 228Google Scholar, 125; Smith, Samuel, The Great Assize, or Day of Jubilee, 8th impression (London, 1638), pp. 109-120, 145Google Scholar.

16 Russell, Robert, Seven Sermons, 4th ed. (Boston, 1701), p. 102Google Scholar; Pearse, Edward, The Great Concern, 21st ed. (Boston, 1705), pp. 91–95Google Scholar.

17 Alleine, Joseph, An Alarm to Unconverted Sinners (Boston, 1727), pp. 22–37Google Scholar; Doolittle, Thomas, A Treatise Concerning the Lords Supper, 20th ed. (Boston, 1708), pp. 131, 63-65, 2, 39, 121Google Scholar; Calamy, Edmund, The Godly Mans Ark or, City of Refuge (London, 1657), sigs. B4-B4v, pp. 57, 228Google Scholar.

18 Baxter, , Call to the Unconverted, 514–515Google Scholar.

19 [Allestree, Richard], The Causes of the Decay of Christian Piety (London, 1704), pp. 52, 58–59Google Scholar; [Allestree, Richard], The Whole Duty of Man (London, 1677), p. 158Google Scholar.

20 Baxter, , Call to the Unconverted, p. 515Google Scholar.

21 Calamy, , Godly Mans Ark, p. 155Google Scholar.

22 Weber, , Protestant Ethic, pp. 110–111Google Scholar.

23 O'Connell, Laura Stevenson, “Anti-Entrepreneurial Attitudes in Elizabethan Sermons and Popular Literature," Journal of British Studies, 15 (1976), pp. 1–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 [Lake, Edward], Officium Eucharisticum, 8th ed. (Dublin, 1683), sig. A4Google Scholar.

25 Allestree, , Whole Duty, p. 31Google Scholar; Jeremy Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living, in The Whole Works of the Right Reverend Jeremy Taylor, eds. Heber, Reginald and Eden, Charles Page, 10 vols. (London, 1855–1856), 3:191Google Scholar.

26 Allestree, , Whole Duty, pp. 430–431Google Scholar.

27 Taylor, Jeremy, The Golden Grove, in The Whole Works of the Right Reverend Jeremy Taylor, 7:608Google Scholar.

28 Lake, , Officium Eucharisticum, p. 129Google Scholar.

29 Ibid., pp. 21, 146-148.

30 Sherlock, Richard, The Principles of Holy Christian Religion, 12th ed. (London, 1676), sig. A6, pp. 26–28Google Scholar; Rawlet, John, The Christian Monitor, 25th ed. (Boston, 1733), pp. 34–38Google Scholar.

31 Sherlock, William, A Practical Discourse Concerning Death, 2nd ed. (London, 1690), pp. 71–72Google Scholar.

32 Taylor, , Golden Grove, pp. 619–623Google Scholar.

33 Lake, , Officium Eucharisticum, p. 117Google Scholar.

34 Ken, Thomas, A Manual of Prayers For the Use of the Scholars of Winchester Colledge (London, 1675), pp. 21–24Google Scholar; Allestree, , Whole Duty, pp. 440–453Google Scholar; Taylor, , Golden Grove, p. 617Google Scholar.

35 Howell, William, The Common-Prayer-Book the Best Companion, 3rd ed. (Oxford, 1687), p. 99Google Scholar; Williams, John, A Brief Exposition of the Church-Catechism (London, 1689), pp. 40–43Google Scholar.

36 Patrick, Symon, A Book For Beginners, in The Works of Symon Patrick, ed. Taylor, Alexander, 9 vols. (Oxford, 1858), 1: 597Google Scholar; Taylor, , Holy Living, p. 209Google Scholar; Lake, , Officium Eucharisticum, pp. 6, 23, 52, 113–124Google Scholar.

37 Allestree, , Whole Duty, p. 117Google Scholar; Taylor, , Golden Grove, p. 617Google Scholar.

38 Allestree, , Causes of the Decay, p. 35Google Scholar.

39 Taylor, , Holy Living, pp. 9–16, 2-3Google Scholar.

40 Taylor, , Golden Grove, p. 611Google Scholar; [Allestree, Richard], The Gentleman's Calling (London, 1687), pp. 153, 1-2, 55Google Scholar; Allestree, , Causes of the Decay, pp. 9. 134, 137Google Scholar.

41 Stanley, William, The Faith and Practice of the Church of England-Man, 3rd ed. (London, 1688), p. 56Google Scholar.

42 Ibid., pp. 160, 147.

43 Rawlet, , Christian Monitor, pp. 53, 18, 20Google Scholar.