Author
Samuel Shepard
Samuel Shepard (1635–1677) was a prominent New England Calvinist minister and theologian whose election sermons articulated the covenantal theology central to Puritan Massachusetts Bay Colony. His theological writings, particularly his election sermon, exemplified the intellectual rigor and political engagement characteristic of first-generation American Puritan clergy, who sought to interpret divine providence through the lens of colonial governance and ecclesiastical authority. Shepard's work represents a crucial moment in early American religious thought when theological doctrine and civil authority remained deeply intertwined in the formation of colonial identity.
From Election Sermon
.6 God is to be seen in the production of all things animate and inanimate.' He is to be seen in every thing above and below us, within and around us, heard in the voice of every creature, felt in every motion, and r^ad, in short, on every pa^e in the great volume of the universe. No less evident is it, that he, who created, superintends all the works of his hand. He, who " spake and nature took its birth," does by the agency of his almighty arm continually uphoM^aH things in existence. Should that power» which first caused them to exist, be withdrawn one moment, they would sink into nothing. It is impossible in the nature of things that a creature should be so made as to ekist, erne moment, in any respect independently of the Creator. If it might thus exist now, it might have so ejfisted…
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