Samuel Willard

Background

Samuel Willard was born on January 31, 1640 at Concord, Massachussets, the son of Simon Willard, one of the founders of Concord, and his first wife, Mary (Sharpe).

Education

He graduated from Harvard in 1659 and received the degree of M. A. in course.

Career

In June 1663 he was called to the pulpit of the frontier settlement of Groton, Massachussets Despite an unusual degree of resistance by a strong minority he was ordained July 13, 1664. His parish was early troubled by a case of "diabolical seizure" and in connection with it Willard made one of the best psychic investigations recorded in the witchcraft literature. Before the destruction of Groton by the Indians, Willard had become well known in Boston through his printed sermons, and on March 31, 1678, he was installed at the Old South Church as colleague pastor to Thomas Thacher. Left sole pastor by the death of Thacher, October 15, 1678, Willard acquired distinction as the result of a series of lectures in which he systematically surveyed the entire field of theology.

Willard was made a fellow of Harvard College in 1692, and on July 12, 1700, he was made vice-president. When President Increase Mather refused to comply with the requirement that the president reside at Cambridge, the administration of the College was turned over to Vice-President Willard (September 6, 1701), and for six years he headed the institution. His succession did not, as has been said, mark a revolution, for he was fully as orthodox as his predecessor, and in 1701 on friendly terms with him. Almost the equal of Mather in intellectual stature, and less prone to quarrels, he would have been the natural candidate of the Mather faction for the presidency, had Increase and Cotton not been in the field. In 1704 he supported the Mather project for a closer association of churches. He gave the college only a day or two a week, retaining his pulpit and his iron grip on Old South Church affairs. When George Keith, the Quaker recently converted to Anglicanism, challenged the theology expressed in a commencement thesis, Willard sank him with a broadside of ammunition from Church of England writers (A Brief Reply to George Keith , 1703). Failing health caused him to lay down the vice-presidency August 14, 1707, and on September 12 he died.

Achievements

• He was one of the most voluminous writers New England ever had; about twenty years after his death two of his students published his famous lectures under the title Compleat Body of Divinity (1726), the largest volume that had ever come from the colonial presses.

Religion

As a master of learning and logic, whose sermons were frequently beyond the comprehension of his simpler hearers, he scorned the "Enthusiasm" of the Baptist preachers and said that such rough things as they were "not to be handled over-tenderly. " He pointed out that the Puritans had not intended to establish toleration in New England, and suggested that the Baptists go and hew their own colonies out of the wilderness instead of troubling those established by others. Conservative in theology, he was liberal in the practice of religion, and early relaxed the requirement of a public confession at the time of admission to the church. Edward Randolph called him a moderate and reported to the Bishop of London that he was incurring hatred by baptizing people refused by other churches. When the King demanded the surrender of the colony's charter, Willard opposed Increase Mather and advocated submission, but after the experience of having his meeting-house seized by Sir Edmund Andros, he appeared on the popular side. In a later election sermon he held that "Civil Government is seated in no particular Person or Families by a Natural Right". Although three of the witchcraft judges were Willard's personal friends and parishioners, he was the most outspoken responsible opponent of the methods of the court. Holding that the evidence accepted was but the "Cheats and Delusions of Satan, " he advocated (as did the Mathers) a procedure far more enlightened than that provided by English law, and under which no one could have been sent to the gallows. He published an anonymous pamphlet on the subject and is supposed to have aided the accused prisoners. As a result he shared the unpopularity of the Mathers.

Connections

On August 8, he married Abigail, daughter of the Rev. John and Mary (Launce) Sherman of Watertown. On July 29, 1679, he married, as his second wife, Eunice, daughter of Edward and Mary Tyng; the date of his first wife's death is unknown. He had eighteen children.

Father:

Simon Willard

One of the founders of Concord

Mother:

Mary (Sharpe) Willard

Spouse:

Abigail

Spouse:

Eunice