This, then, was Puritan piety. It put emphasis upon thoroughgoing repentance, a sincere religious commitment, the meticulous observance of God’s law as found in both the Old and the New Testaments, including a stringent observance of the sabbath, and the progressive cultivation of a godly character (santification). The Puritan sermon, instead of being “witty” (by which they meant that it was learnedly ostentatious), was direct, often ruthlessly honest, witheringly earnest, and calculated to bring