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 whole social structure of the mediæval crafts, as opposed to those of antiquity, rested upon free labour, and, above all, almost all the merchants were freemen, I do not clearly understand this thesis.

4. Compare with the following the instructive discussion in K. Eger, Die Anschauung Luthers vom Beruf (Giessen, 1900). Perhaps its only serious fault, which is shared by almost all other theological writers, is his insufficiently clear analysis of the concept of lex natura. On this see E. Troeltsch in his review of Seeberg's Dogmengeschichte, and now above all in the relevant parts of his Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen.

5. For when Thomas Aquinas represents the division of men into estates and occupational groups as the work of divine providence, by that he means the objective cosmos of society. But that the individual should take up a particular calling (as we should say; Thomas, however, says ministerium or officium) is due to ''causæ naturales. Quæst. quodlibetal'', VII, Art. 17c: "Hæc autem diversificatio hominum in diversis officiis contingit primo ex divina providentia, quæ ita hominum status distribuit secundo etiam ex causis naturalibus, ex quibus contingit, quod in diversis hominibus sunt diversæ inclinationes ad diversa officia. "

Quite similar is Pascal's view when he says that it is chance which determines the choice of a calling. See on Pascal, A. Koester, Die Ethik Pascals (1907). Of the organic systems of religious ethics, only the most complete of them, the Indian, is different in this respect. The difference between the Thomistic and the Protestant ideas of the calling is so evident that we may dismiss it for the present with the above quotation. This is true even as between the Thomistic and the later Lutheran ethics, which are very similar in many other respects, especially in their emphasis on Providence. We shall return later to a discussion of the Catholic view-point. On Thomas Aquinas, see Maurenbrecher, Thomas von Aquino's Stellung zum Wirtschaftsleben seiner Zeit, 1888. Otherwise, where Luther agrees with Thomas in details, he has probably been influenced rather by the general doctrines of Scholasticism than by Thomas in particular. For, according to Denifle's investigations, he seems really not to have known Thomas very well. See Denifle, Luther und Luthertum (1903), p. 501, and on it, Koehler, Ein Wort zu Denifles Luther (1904), p. 25.

6. In Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen, (1) the double nature of man is used for the justification of worldly duties in the sense of the lex natura (here the natural order of the world). From that it follows (Erlangen edition, 27, p. 188) that man is inevitably bound to his body and to the social community. (2) In this situation he will (p. 196: this is a second justification), if he is a believing Christian, decide to repay God's act of grace, which was done for pure love, by love of his neighbour. With this very loose connection between faith and love is conibined (3) (p. 190) the old ascetic justification