The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity

by Eugene McCarraher

Thomas Chalmers maintained that economic laws were beautiful as well as utilitarian. Celebrating the “thriving interchange of commodities” in The Application of Christianity to the Commercial and Ordinary Affairs of Life (1820), Chalmers marveled at the “beauteous order” of the market, wrought by the “presiding Divinity” who “compasses all his goings.” God’s grace could enrapture and fructify the apparently sordid dealings of business, “impregnating our minutest transactions with the spirit of the gospel.” Chalmers envisioned the plenitude of grace available to all who asked, a “great stream of supply, which comes direct from Heaven to earth.” This grace-filled abundance ensured success in the market, the sign and seal of “a beauteous character.”