Just an interesting excerpt from a book I'm reading:

[The Puritans] believed that knowledge is one, that life is unified, that science, economics, political theory, aesthetic standards, rhetoric and art, were all organized in a hierarchical scale of values that tended upward to the end-all and be-all of creation, the glory of God. They insisted that all human activity be regulated by that purpose.

The theorists of New England thought of society as a unit, bound together by inviolable ties; they thought of it not as an aggregation of individuals but as an organism, functioning for a definite purpose, with all parts subordinate to the whole, all members contributing a share, every person occupying a particular status.