Note 5 — Chapter II · • The Mather Dynasty
Reading edition
His biographer has somewhat slurred his account of the “Proposals.” See p. 282. But his justification is worth noting: “If the original brand of Puritan piety was worth saving, and Mather believed it was, an oligarchic church government was the only means of securing it in an age when men were inclined to change their religious ideas as they changed their thought on other affairs.”