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Heavenly Merchandize offers a critical reexamination of religion's role in the creation of a market economy in early America. Focusing on the economic culture of New England, it views commerce through the eyes of four generations of Boston merchants, drawing upon their personal letters, diaries, business records, and sermon notes to reveal how merchants built a modern form of exchange out of profound transitions in the puritan understanding of discipline, providence, and the meaning of New England. Mark Valeri traces the careers of men like Robert Keayne, a London immigrant punished by his church for aggressive business practices; John Hull, a silversmith-turned-trader who helped to establish commercial networks in the West Indies; and Hugh Hall, one of New England's first slave traders. He explores how Boston ministers reconstituted their moral languages over the course of a century, from a scriptural discourse against many market practices to a providential worldview that justified England's commercial hegemony and legitimated the market as a divine construct. Valeri moves beyond simplistic readings that reduce commercial activity to secular mind-sets, and refutes the popular notion of an inherent affinity between puritanism and capitalism. He shows how changing ideas about what it meant to be pious and puritan informed the business practices of Boston's merchants, who filled their private notebooks with meditations on scripture and the natural order, founded and led churches, and inscribed spiritual reflections in their letters and diaries. Unprecedented in scope and rich with insights, Heavenly Merchandize illuminates the history behind the continuing American dilemma over morality and the marketplace.

Economic order --- United States --- Precisians --- Business --- Puritans --- Church polity --- Congregationalism --- Puritan movements --- Calvinism --- Religious aspects --- Christianity. --- Influence. --- Doctrines --- History --- Religion --- Influence --- Religious aspects&delete& --- Christianity --- E-books --- 17th century --- 18th century --- To 1800 --- History of doctrines --- Trade --- Economics --- Management --- Commerce --- Industrial management --- Truth --- Sermons, American --- Congregational churches --- Bible. --- Christian sects --- Conviction --- Belief and doubt --- Philosophy --- Skepticism --- Certainty --- Necessity (Philosophy) --- Pragmatism --- A Model of Christian Charity. --- American Antiquarian Society. --- American Enlightenment. --- Anne Hutchinson. --- Antinomian Controversy. --- Antinomianism. --- Apologetics. --- Atlantic World. --- Bill of credit. --- Boyle Lectures. --- Brattle Street (Cambridge, Massachusetts). --- Calvinism. --- Censure. --- Charles Chauncy. --- Christian Identity. --- Christian fundamentalism. --- Christian socialism. --- Commodity. --- Cotton Mather. --- Creditor. --- Currency Act. --- Currency. --- Customer. --- Daniel Defoe. --- Debtor. --- Deism. --- Divine right of kings. --- Economics. --- Economy and Society. --- Edward Hutchinson (captain). --- England. --- Excommunication. --- Fraud. --- Geneva Bible. --- God. --- Heinrich Bullinger. --- Heresy. --- Increase Mather. --- Jeremiad. --- John Calvin. --- John Coggeshall. --- John Colet. --- John Wheelwright. --- John Winthrop. --- Joseph Addison. --- Joseph Dudley. --- Joshua Scottow. --- King Philip's War. --- Lecture. --- Loyalty. --- Massachusetts Historical Society. --- Max Weber. --- Mercantilism. --- Merchant. --- Moral economy. --- Nathaniel Ward. --- Navigation Acts. --- New England. --- Nicholas Barbon. --- Old South Church. --- Old South. --- On Religion. --- Peter Bulkley. --- Peter Pelham. --- Piety. --- Political economy. --- Poor relief. --- Popular sovereignty. --- Protestant work ethic. --- Protestantism. --- Public expenditure. --- Puritans. --- Religion. --- Robert Cushman. --- Samuel Sewall. --- Samuel Willard. --- Secularism. --- Secularization. --- Sensibility. --- Simon Bradstreet. --- Slavery. --- Society of Jesus. --- South Sea Company. --- Tax. --- The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. --- The Wealth and Poverty of Nations. --- Theology. --- Thomas Hooker. --- Thomas Mun. --- Thomas Sprat. --- Treatise. --- Usury. --- Warfare. --- Wealth. --- William Ames. --- William Petty. --- William Phips. --- William Pynchon. --- William Whiston. --- Workhouse. --- United States of America