Samuel Willard, the son of Simon and Mary Sharpe Willard, was born and raised in Concord, Massachusetts. Upon his graduation from Harvard in 1659, he became minister at Groton, Massachusetts, serving until the destruction of Groton by Indian attacks in 1676. Willard was then called to preach at Third Church (commonly called Old South) in Boston, where he remained for the rest of his life.

Willard was an influential figure and a prolific writer, second only to the Mathers and Benjamin Colman in the number of works he had published. His writings display an orthodox view of the issues of his day, tempered by common sense. When, in 1671, Elizabeth Knap (or Knapp) put on an exhibition of apparent demonic possession attended by fits and convulsions which had many of the people of Groton suspecting that witchcraft had broken out in their midst, Willard was able to quell the furor and...