A second mainstay of Puritan thinking about Christian formation can be summed up by the notion of the balanced Christian life. For example, spiritual nurture was at its heart personal and individual, but it occurred only within broader contexts of family, church, and school. It included a blend of head and heart: a major thrust of the Puritans was to insist on preachers who were “godly and learned,” but at the same time the Puritans spoke at length about cultivating godly “affections,” by which they