Every research project has an origin story.
Mine began with a Google search.
As I was preparing for worship on the weekend of the Fourth of July, I found myself wondering what ministers had actually been preaching during the American Revolution. Rather than preach another sermon about the Revolution, I wanted to hear one from the Revolution. I wanted to hear an eighteenth-century voice speak for itself. So, like millions of people every day, I opened my laptop and typed a simple phrase into Google: “Colonial Sermons 1776.”
Near the top of the search results was a sermon preached before the Massachusetts General Court on May 29, 1776, by the Rev. Samuel West of Dartmouth. I had never heard of him, and if I am being completely honest, I wasn’t looking for Samuel West at all. I was looking for confirmation. I hoped to find an eighteenth-century minister who would affirm what I already believed—that there comes a point when people have not only the right, but perhaps even the obligation, to stand against tyranny. I imagined borrowing a quotation or two for my own sermon and telling my congregation, “See? They were wrestling with the same questions we are.”
It didn’t take long before I found what I thought I was looking for. West argued that “the same principles that oblige us to submit to government, do equally oblige us to resist tyranny.” I remember stopping when I read those words. Here, I thought, was an eighteenth-century minister making precisely the argument I had hoped to find. I could almost hear those words finding their way into my own sermon.
But the sermon refused to let me stop there.
The more I read, the more I realized that I had approached the sermon backwards. I had begun with the problem I wanted Samuel West to solve. I wanted to know what he thought about tyranny. West, however, wasn’t interested in beginning with tyranny. He began somewhere entirely different. Before he ever reached the conclusion that had captured my attention, he patiently laid the foundation beneath it. As I continued reading, another sentence stopped me, although for a very different reason: “The happiness of mankind is the sole end of all civil government.”
Suddenly, I understood what I had missed.
West was not writing a sermon against King George III. He was asking a much more fundamental question: Why does government exist at all? Before he ever discussed resistance, he had already asked who God is, what God intends for human society, why civil government exists, and what moral obligations bind both rulers and citizens. Only after laying that foundation did he ask what happens when a government abandons the very purpose for which it was established.
That realization changed far more than my Fourth of July sermon.
I realized I had been reading history backwards. I had started with a contemporary problem and gone looking for an eighteenth-century solution. Samuel West taught me to begin somewhere else. He taught me to return to first principles. He taught me to begin with God.
Whether I ultimately agree with every conclusion Samuel West reached is, in many ways, beside the point. We are separated by nearly two hundred and fifty years, different ecclesiastical traditions, and very different historical experiences. What captivated me was not simply what he believed, but how he arrived there. His conclusions were not reactions to the political crisis of the moment; they were the result of a disciplined habit of reasoning from first principles. He refused to begin with the issue of the day. Instead, he began with God and allowed every other question to find its proper place.
Looking back now, I can see that this was the moment the project changed. I was no longer simply asking, Who was Samuel West? I found myself asking a much larger question: Was this how all the New England divines thought? If so, then Samuel West could not be understood in isolation. He belonged to a tradition that stretched back through generations of ministers who reasoned from theology to ethics, from first principles to public life.
That question has taken me far beyond a single sermon. It has led me into election sermons, fast day sermons, artillery sermons, forgotten pamphlets, handwritten manuscripts, legislative journals, diaries, and archives scattered across New England. Along the way, I discovered that I was no longer simply recovering the life of one forgotten minister. I was recovering a way of thinking—a way of approaching Scripture, society, government, and public life that shaped New England for generations.
What began with a Google search became a journey into the intellectual and spiritual world of the New England divines. It is a journey that continues to surprise me, challenge my assumptions, and remind me that the best historians do not force the past to answer our questions. They first learn to listen to the questions the past was asking.
And that, perhaps, is the greatest lesson Samuel West has taught me.
Next in the series: Recovering Samuel West, Part Three: Following the Paper Trail
A Google search introduced me to Samuel West. Recovering him would require following a trail that led through forgotten pamphlets, library catalogs, archives, and handwritten manuscripts across New England.
