Background
Nathaniel Ward was born in Haverhill, England, the son of John and Susan Ward. His father was a Puritan minister.
(Massachusetts Body of Liberties Nathaniel Ward, Puritan c...)
Massachusetts Body of Liberties Nathaniel Ward, Puritan clergyman and pamphleteer in England and Massachusetts (1578-1652) This ebook presents «Massachusetts Body of Liberties», from Nathaniel Ward. A dynamic table of contents enables to jump directly to the chapter selected. Table of Contents - About This Book - Massachusetts Body Of Liberties
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Nathaniel Ward was born in Haverhill, England, the son of John and Susan Ward. His father was a Puritan minister.
In 1596 Nathaniel entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he received the degree of A. B. in 1599 and that of A. M. in 1603.
Educated to be a barrister, he practised law for sometime in England. A visit to Heidelberg in 1618 and a chance meeting with the great theologian David Pareus changed the course of his career. Pareus persuaded him to enter the ministry and helped him to obtain the post of chaplain to the British merchants at Elbing, Prussia. In 1624 he returned to England, where he was curate of St. James's, Picadilly, London, 1626-28. In the latter year he was presented by Sir Nathaniel Rich to the rectory of Stondon Massey, where he preached Puritan doctrine unhindered until 1631. Laud then called him to answer charges of non-conformity, but did not attempt to remove him. In 1633, however, he was dismissed summarily from office, and the following year emigrated to Massachusetts Bay. Going directly to Agawam (Ipswich), he was installed in the church there as a colleague of the Rev. Thomas Parker. Poor health interrupted his work in the pastorate. After his resignation, he was appointed in 1638 by the General Court to assist in the preparation of a legal code for Massachusetts, "the first code of laws to be established in New England. " According to John Winthrop these laws, which were enacted in 1641, were "composed by Mr. Nathaniel Ward". Known as the "Body of Liberties, " this code was in effect a bill of rights, setting one of the cornerstones in American constitutional history. That the laws were in advance of English common law is attested by the eightieth, which in contrast to the English provision that a man might punish his wife with a "reasonable instrument, " explicitly stated: "Everie married woeman shall be free from bodilie correction or stripes by her husbande, unlesse it be in his owne defence upon her assalt. " In 1645 Ward completed The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America, published in England in 1647 under the pseudonym of Theodore de la Guard. Professing to be the reflections of a self-exiled cobbler upon the political and religious dissensions that were racking both England and America, it is really a protest against toleration. The author is strongly opposed to "polypiety" in the church, and in the state he would restore the old order with king, lords, and commons. "My heart has naturally detested foure things, " he says; "The standing of the Apocrypha in the Bible; Forrainers dwelling in my Countrey, to crowd our native Subjects into the corners of the Earth; Alchymized Coines; Toleration of divers Religions, or of one Religion in Segregant Shapes. " The book is amusingly digressive: there are satirical thrusts at women's fashions and some neatly turned couplets. Throughout there is the prophecy of Presbyterianism. It remains a landmark in American letters, for its homely style, interwoven with apt and erudite metaphor, surpasses in vigor anything in Colonial literature written within the author's lifetime. It quickly went into several editions, each carefully edited and supplemented by Ward. The year of its publication found him again in England, preaching before the House of Commons on a recapitulation of the themes of the Simple Cobbler. In the same year appeared A Religious Retreat Sounded to a Religious Army, an appeal to the army to submit to the will of Parliament, which has been attributed to him, as have two other works - a sermon before Parliament published in 1648, and Discolliminium (1650). To save church and country from disaster, to observe tradition and eschew the new, was his purpose. From 1648 until his death in 1652, Ward was settled in the ministry at Shenfield, England. Although he belonged more to the old than to the new England, the making of New England's heritage belongs in part to him.
(Massachusetts Body of Liberties Nathaniel Ward, Puritan c...)
Quotes from others about the person
Thomas Fuller observed that Ward had "in a jesting way, in some of his books, delivered much smart truth of the present times", while Cotton Mather wrote that "He was the author of many composures full of wit and sense".