Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather: A Reply by Charles Wentworth Upham

Author:Charles Wentworth Upham [Upham, Charles Wentworth]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781418119515
Google: Yt6WPAAACAAJ
Publisher: MPublishing
Published: 2004-01-15T04:18:48+00:00

XII.

Table of Contents

"WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD," CONTINUED. PASSAGES FROM IT. "CASES OF CONSCIENCE." INCREASE MATHER.

Table of Contents

In addition to the reports of the trials of the five "Malefactors," as Mather calls them, the Wonders of the Invisible World contains much matter that helps us to ascertain the real opinions, at the time, of its author, to which justice to him, and to all, requires me to risk attention. The passages, to be quoted, will occupy some room; but they will repay the reading, in the light they shed upon the manner in which such subjects were treated in the most accredited literature, and infused into the public mind, at that day. The style of Cotton Mather, while open to the criticisms generally made, is lively and attractive; and, for its ingenuity of expression and frequent felicity of illustration, often quite refreshing.

The work was written under a sense of the necessity of maintaining the position into which the Government of the Province had been led, by so suddenly and rashly organizing the Special Court and putting it upon its bloody work, at Salem; and this could only be done by renewing and fortifying the popular conviction, that such proceedings were necessary, and ought to be vigorously prosecuted, and all Sadduceeism, or opposition to them, put down. It was especially necessary to reconcile, or obscure into indistinctness, certain conflicting theories that had more or less currency. "I do not believe," says Mather, "that the progress of Witchcraft among us, is all the plot which the Devil is managing in the Witchcraft now upon us. It is judged that the Devil raised the storm, whereof we read in the eighth Chapter of Matthew, on purpose to overset the little vessel wherein the disciples of our Lord were embarked with him. And it may be feared that, in the Horrible Tempest which is now upon ourselves, the design of the Devil is to sink that happy Settlement of Government, wherewith Almighty God has graciously inclined their Majesties to favor us."—Wonders, p. 10.

He then proceeds to compliment Sir William Phips, alluding to his "continually venturing his all," that is, in looking after affairs and fighting Indians in the eastern parts; to applaud Stoughton as "admirably accomplished" for his place; and continues as follows: "Our Councellours are some of our most eminent persons, and as loyal to the Crown, as hearty lovers of their country. Our Constitution also is attended with singular privileges. All which things are by the Devil exceedingly envied unto us. And the Devil will doubtless take this occasion for the raising of such complaints and clamors, as may be of pernicious consequence unto some part of our present Settlement, if he can so far impose. But that, which most of all threatens us, in our present circumstances, is the misunderstandings, and so, the animosities, whereinto the Witchcraft, now raging, has enchanted us. The embroiling, first, of our Spirits, and then, of our affairs." "I am sure, we shall be worse than brutes, if we fly upon one another, at a time when the floods of Belial are upon us.

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