As I remember the protestants were like wahabis today: purists (supporters of clean christianity), opponets of an idea to worship martyrs, icons and so on. In addition they were anti-clergy (e.g. wahabis have a claim to suffis that they -- suffis -- have an institution of holy sheikhs, and that's not a clean islamic way). The reasons -- i think -- should be seeking in philosophical tendencies at that time: nominalism, utilitarism and masonic ideas... The achievment of protestantism, as it seemed to me, is that it borned a philosophical and religious discussion. So in the protestant areas was some free-thinking; free-thinking borned nominalism and utilitarism (especially in anglo-sphere), nominalism and utilitarism give a base for capitalist view at the world -- it is so if we ignore metaphysical base (there roots go to very archaic times).

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