The far deeper problem, Stoddard declared, was moral and spiritual. God was punishing New England because its people violated his commandments. The evidence was clear. "God has had a great controversy with the country for many years," Stoddard warned in familiar terms. Stoddard, who could have been a businessman himself, had calculated the economic consequences of God's judgments: "I do judge that a third part of that income, that the country had or might with an ordinary blessing have had, has been taken away by the judgements of God." The only solution was "the work of reformation." "We live
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