sacrifice to an angry God.9 It must be stressed that Mather’s was not the only vision. Where he preached elimination, other Puritans pursued conversion, though by that they meant conversion not just to a creed or a church but to an entire way of life. On this view, the dominant view, to be a Christian was to live like an English person (i.e., to settle in one place, to work the land, to own personal property, to practice monogamy, to wear trousers, and to accept one’s providential station in life).
