subject to the discipline of the church. Traditional Puritan that he was, Stoddard firmly believed that Christian communities in modern times stood in the same relationship to God as did Old Testament Israel. If the community kept God’s laws, it would be blessed. If it blatantly defied God’s laws, it would be punished by God’s judgments. Hence, the more authority the pastor had in overseeing the morals of the town, the better off everyone would be. In addition to this authoritarian dimension of Stoddard’s