A Church History of New England, Vol. 2

1. A first Principle of these Churches. 2. Of Witchcraft. 3. Unjust Attempts to turn it against the Baptists. 4. Oppressive Laws. 5. Effects thereof. 6. Plymouth Proclamation. 7. Their Church Order. 8. Evils of denying it. 9. First Ministers of Middleborough and Dartmouth. 10. Of Plymton.

1. THE fathers of New-England came much nearer to the apostolic order of the church, than most other reformers had done. Dr. Cotton Mather published a specimen thereof in the year 1690. Says he, "A church (as the Greek name p. 2for it allows us to think) is to consist of a people called out from the ways of sin, by the powerful and effectual work of God upon their souls. Regeneration is the thing without which a title unto sacraments is not to be pretended. Real regeneration is the thing which before God renders men capable of claiming sacraments; and visible and expressed regeneration is that which before men enables us to make such a claim [Companion for communicants, p. 29, 30, 37.] ." From the first planting of the country to 1662, none were allowed to come to the ordinance of the supper, nor to bring their infants to baptism, without such a profession. The synod of that year opened a door for the children of church members to bring their infants upon a lower profession; though in the Massachusetts a profession of regeneration was still held to be necessary, in order for coming to full communion, or having a vote in the government, either of church or state. This was essential to the nature of their plan, of a holy government, in imitation of the church of Israel. And for the church to govern the world, for good men to govern bad ones, seemed much more rational and scriptural, than for the world to govern the church about soul-guides, as they have done since: Previous to which the country was involved in most deplorable circumstances. Their charter lost; their sea-coasts infested with privateers and pirates, and their frontiers with savage enemies. An attempt to take Quebec in 1690 was defeated, which enraged the enemy the more against them, and also involved the country in a heavy debt; to discharge which paper money was first made here, the effects whereof were very pernicious. Officers and people were p. 3greatly divided in their minds about the causes of these calamities, and about what was the best way to remove them. And in this juncture they were alarmed with an apprehension that the powers of hell were let loose upon them, which amazed and confounded them inexpressibly. The scene was introduced in the following manner:

p. 3II. A VARIETY of books, concerning witchcraft, had been published in London and Boston, which were dispersed in New-England. And near the close of 1691, a young daughter and a neice of Mr. Samuel Parris, minister of Salem village (now Danvers) with two other girls in the neighbourhood, made such complaints of distress and injuries upon their bodies, that a physician pronounced them bewitched. Hereupon an Indian woman, from New-Spain, that lived at the minister's house, tried some experiments to find out the witch, which she pretended to have been used to in her own country. This coming to the knowledge of those children, they accused her of being the witch; of appearing to them, and pinching, pricking and tormenting of them. Teachers, rulers and people, were so much affected with this calamity, as to keep days of fasting and prayer for its removal; first at said minister's house, next in the village, and then through the Colony. Such notice being taken of and pity shown to those children, they increased their complaints; and others advanced like accusations, not only against the Indian woman, but also against two other old women in the place, so that all the three were committed to prison on March 1, 1692. And this noise increased, and such accusations spread, till about an hundred persons were imprisoned on that account. In the midst of which distress, on May 14, Sir William Phips, the Governor, p. 4arrived at Boston with their new charter, in company with Dr. Increase Mather, who procured it. The Governor and Council were so much concerned to purge this growing evil from the land, that they did not wait for the meeting of the legislature, to whom the constituting of Courts of Justice belonged, but constituted one themselves, whereof Lieutenant-Governor Stoughton was President, and by their sentence one woman was hanged on June 10; and by September 22, they executed seven men and thirteen women; after which that Court was dissolved. And by the time that a Court of Oyer and Terminer was constituted according to charter, rulers and ministers were so far convinced that they had acted upon wrong principles, and had also admitted the testimony of accusers without sufficient care and caution, that all the rest of the accused were either acquitted upon trial, or pardoned by authority. A first principle that they acted upon in those condemnations was, that God in his providence would not suffer the devil to appear to and afflict any in the shape of an innocent person. And they admitted one accuser to one instance, and another to another, of those spectoral appearances, to make up two witnesses. They also who would confess themselves to be witches, were admitted as witnesses against others. And, says a gentleman who was a careful observer of those transactions, "These confessors, by their plausible confessions and accusations of others, begetting credit, have been a great, if not the greatest engine of Satan to carry on the accusing and apprehending of others, until this matter came to such a height, that, if it had not been stopped, might have brought the best Christians in the country under the imputation of that abomination, and have involved all in confusion p. 5and blood [A modest enquiry into the nature of witchcraft, by John Hale, minister of Beverly, 1697. p. 78.] ." Deplorable indeed was the case of New-England at that time; though we are assured, by men who have searched fully into the matter, that a greater number of persons were executed for witchcraft in only one county in England, even in the loose reign of Charles the second, than all that were put to death here; and also that these executions were under the influence of laws and precedents from thence [Hale, p. 25; 2 • ▪ 69. Hutchinson, vol. 2, p. 16, 22, 69.] But this being a new country, it was more taken notice of, and was more severely felt than there.