The house of representatives of Massachusetts saw the value of the clergy in shaping public opinion and passed a resolution asking them to make the question of the rights of the colonies a topic of their discussions on week days. The pulpit, too, had its place in the election campaign. There was preached before the governor and house of representatives of Massachusetts what was called the "election sermon". It was a sermon preached by the best ministers of the colony, not exactly as a mere compliment to religion, but with the object in view of instruction. The ministers did not only deliver dissertations on the doctrinal truths, but they discussed the rights of men, the nature of government and theories of liberty and equality. The sermons delivered on such occasions do not seem to be impracticable theological discourses, but rather on the other hand very practicable. The questions of the day being subjects discussed; for it was through the medium of the church that the people received the foundation for their beliefs in political affairs. On Monday the 29th of May, 1771, John Tucker of Newbury preached the election sermon on the text "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of men for the Lord's sake whether it be the king as Supreme". From that as a text he went into a discussion of the sort of submission which was due to the rulers. In 1773 Charles Turner preached from Romans and tried to show why it was the right and duty of the clergy to enter into politics. The next year when excitement was reaching its height it is interesting to note the sort of text Rev. Hitchcock of Pembroke took for the basis of his sermon. It was from Proverbs XXII, 2, "When the righteous are in authority the people rejoice but when the wicked bear rule the people mourn".[150] It is not hard to believe that just such sermons and many others like them had some thing to do with the Revolution as well as Navigation Acts and Correspondence Committees. Of course it must be said that since the people did not rise as one man there was another view to take on the question, but the people were guided in the opposite view also by the clergy.[151]