In the last chapter, it was suggested that down-to-earth Pietism, in the form of Bengel's theology of the divine economy, bore intimate relations to the satisfaction of several nonreligious needs in the culture of Old-Württemberg in the eighteenth century. As was noted, praxis pietatis and religious collectivization attracted Württembergers because they helped them mobilize for the purpose of social regeneration after the Thirty Years' War. In addition, we saw how these religious emphases could also serve the cause of political resistance. In those senses, Pietism provided Württembergers with incentives for developing new Protestant conceptions not only of homo religiosus but of his relation to the collective religious life as well.

In raising the question of the affinity between Pietism and the politics of Württembergers of the eighteenth century this study is in keeping with recent work that has identified pietists in general and Bengel and Moser in particular with reformist political impulses within the Württemberg Estates. The argument of the last two chapters, I think, offers much support for this view; for it has shown how the Württembergers' preoccupation with the related religious ideas of Lebens Reformation and a Second Reformation enabled them to continue to use Christian values as a measure for contemporary political problems.

The purpose of what follows is to detail some of the ways in which these religious concerns found expression in the Estates' opposition to princely absolutism during the years 1733–1793.