 He saw the Puritan "errand" as a proto-capitalist venture that offered a singularly compelling rationale for a modern community expanding into a major modern nation.What made it compelling from the start was not just its religious emphasis; it was the rhetoric through which that persistent (because remarkably adaptable, flexible) religious influence shaped Puritans' "secular" concept of their New World mission.Whereas other colonists—in New France, New Spain, New Amsterdam—understood themselves to be emissaries of European empire, the New England Puritans repudiated the "Old World."