While some of the minister\u2019s cautions may now sound strange to readers, some ring familiar. For instance, while Willard claimed that \u201cCivil Rulers are God\u2019s viceregents here on earth,\u201d he also insisted that \u201cpeople are not made for rulers, but rulers for a people.\u201d\u00a0 And while New England had a few families whose names recurred among the elected, Willard argued that<\/p>\n
Civil government is seated in no particular persons or families by a natural right, neither has the light of nature, nor the Word of GOD determined in particular, what form of government shall be established among men, whether monarchical, aristocratical, or democratical\u2013much less, who are individually to be acknowledged in authority, and accordingly submitted to.\u00a0 Nevertheless the holy providence of GOD presides in this matter\u2013sometimes, by a more immediate, and extraordinary pointing to the persons and families, when by revelation He declares His pleasure in it.\u00a0 Thus was Saul set up over the Kingdom of Israel, and afterwards David was thus chosen of God, and an entail made of the Crown on his posterity, but this way has long since ceased.\u00a0 Sometimes it is more mediate and ordinary, and that is, either forcible\u2026.Or voluntary, which is by the free consent of a people, orderly, and without compulsion establishing the fundamentals of government among themselves, and the methods of introducing persons into authority\u2013which methods are not prescribed in Scripture, but remain points of prudence, and may lawfully be divers here and there.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Much of the sermon provides what its title promises, describing the kind of person who ought to be chosen for office. That that person should be good, that voters only should want to elect someone good, was beyond dispute.\u00a0 But Willard also turned attention to the voters themselves.\u00a0 Bad consequences followed voters\u2019 bad choices: \u201cAnd as it is a thing very grateful to men to have some hand and consent in the appointment of their own rulers, so they do either make or mar themselves by the using or abusing of such a liberty.\u201d<\/p>\n
With our votes, we make or mar ourselves.\u00a0 Willard\u2019s warning is powerful, and timely.<\/p>\n
When this power is immediately devolved upon some persons, they have great advantage to procure either the happiness or misery of their people.\u00a0 Such electors therefore are under the obligation to be very wary in the application or themselves to the nomination of the persons for such a trust\u2026.Here then you are told what qualities are to be eyed in those whom you fix your choice upon.\u00a0 Whatsoever other rules discretion may point to be observed in this affair, yet these must always be of the quorum.\u00a0 It is true, there are none without their failings, nor can we expect that the best of men will never do amiss, but yet the best are to be preferred, as they that will do it seldomest, and never of [from] design.\u00a0 They that fear God will be afraid willfully to hurt men; they that are just will do justice, and that can wrong none\u2026.There is no misery greater, or less pitied, than what men foolishly bring on themselves, and none will be equally blamed for it, as they who were the guilty occasions of it, or more deserve it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Willard\u2019s counsel was fitted for a pious, industrious population in colonial Massachusetts but applies aptly to nearly any environment where people elect those who govern: \u201cChoose such men, and then you may expect to be so governed,\u201d so that if you choose badly, \u201cif you have a mind that prophaneness and debauchery should take place, and bear all down, here is the readiest way for it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Samuel Willard (1640-1707), minister at Boston\u2019s Third Church\u2014\u201cOld South\u201d\u2013offered a heady dose of Puritan political thought in his classic election sermon, \u201cThe Character of a Good Ruler.\u201d\u00a0 A conventional part of Massachusetts government from the colonial period into the late nineteenth century, election sermons aimed to remind elected and electorate alike of the\u00a0gravity of political […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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