  Recently, a number of new Ward identities for large gauge transformations and
large diffeomorphisms have been discovered. Some of the identities are
reinterpretations of previously known statements, while some appear to be
genuinely new. We use Noether's second theorem with the path integral as a
powerful way of generating these kinds of Ward identities. We reintroduce
Noether's second theorem and discuss how to work with the physical remnant of
gauge symmetry in gauge fixed systems. We illustrate our mechanism in Maxwell
theory, Yang-Mills theory, p-form field theory, and Einstein-Hilbert gravity.
We comment on multiple connections between Noether's second theorem and known
results in the recent literature. Our approach suggests a novel point of view
with important physical consequences.
