Nathaniel Ward

Nathaniel Ward (born c. 1578, Haverhill, Suffolk, Eng.—died October 1652, Shenfield, Essex) was a Puritan minister and writer.

Forced to leave his native England at a time of Puritan persecution, Ward settled in the colony of Massachusetts, where he wrote The Body of Liberties (1641), a code of law for use in Massachusetts that combined parts of English common law with the Mosaic law, and The Simple Cobler of Aggawam in America (1647), a vigorously written pamphlet defending the status quo and attacking, among other things, tolerance.