tion>
Cotton Mather, Increase Mather
The Wonders of the Invisible World
Being an Account of the Tryals of Several Witches Lately Executed in New-England, to which is added A Farther Account of the Tryals of the New-England Witches
Published by Good Press, 2019
[email protected]
EAN 4057664139368
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION.
THE CONTENTS.
The Wonders of the Invisible World: Being an Account of the TRYALS OF Several Witches , Lately Excuted in NEW-ENGLAND: And of several remarkable Curiosities therein Occurring.
THE AUTHOR'S DEFENCE.
ENCHANTMENTS ENCOUNTERED.
AN ABSTRACT OF MR. PERKINS'S WAY FOR THE DISCOVERY OF WITCHES.
A DISCOURSE ON THE WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD.
AN HORTATORY AND NECESSARY ADDRESS, TO A COUNTRY NOW EXTRAORDINARILY ALARUM'D BY THE WRATH OF THE DEVIL. TIS THIS,
A NARRATIVE OF AN APPARITION WHICH A GENTLEMAN IN BOSTON, HAD OF HIS BROTHER, JUST THEN MURTHERED IN LONDON.
A MODERN INSTANCE OF WITCHES, DISCOVERED AND CONDEMNED IN A TRYAL, BEFORE THAT CELEBRATED JUDGE, SIR MATTHEW HALE.
I. THE TRYAL OF G. B. AT A COURT OF OYER AND TERMINER, HELD IN SALEM, 1692.
II. THE TRYAL OF BRIDGET BISHOP, ALIAS OLIVER, AT THE COURT OF OYER AND TERMINER, HELD AT SALEM, JUNE 2. 1692.
III. THE TRYAL OF SUSANNA MARTIN, AT THE COURT OF OYER AND TERMINER, HELD BY ADJOURNMENT AT SALEM, JUNE 29. 1692.
IV. THE TRYAL OF ELIZABETH HOW, AT THE COURT OF OYER AND TERMINER, HELD BY ADJOURNMENT AT SALEM, JUNE 30. 1692.
V. THE TRIAL OF MARTHA CARRIER, AT THE COURT OF OYER AND TERMINER, HELD BY ADJOURNMENT AT SALEM, AUGUST 2. 1692.
Matter Omitted in the Trials.
THE DEVIL DISCOVERED.
Case.
A FURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE TRYALS OF THE New-England Witches .
Cases of Conscience Concerning Witchcrafts and Evil Spirits Personating Men.
A True Narrative of some Remarkable Passages relating to sundry Persons afflicted by Witchcraft at Salem Village in New-England , which happened from the 19th. of March to the 5th. of April , 1692.
Remarks of things more than ordinary about the Afflicted Persons.
Remarks concerning the Accused.
A FURTHER ACCOUNT OF THE TRYALS OF THE NEW-ENGLAND WITCHES, SENT IN A LETTER FROM THENCE, TO A GENTLEMAN IN LONDON.
CASES of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits Personating MEN; WITCHCRAFTS, Infallible Proofs of Guilt in such as are Accused with that CRIME.
CHRISTIAN READER.
CASES OF CONSCIENCE CONCERNING WITCHCRAFTS.
POSTSCRIPT.
INTRODUCTION.
Table of Contents
The two very rare works reprinted in the present volume, written by two of the most celebrated of the early American divines, relate to one of the most extraordinary cases of popular delusion that modern times have witnessed. It was a delusion, moreover, to which men of learning and piety lent themselves, and thus became the means of increasing it. The scene of this affair was the puritanical colony of New England, since better known as Massachusetts, the colonists of which appear to have carried with them, in an exaggerated form, the superstitious feelings with regard to witchcraft which then prevailed in the mother country. In the spring of 1692 an alarm of witchcraft was raised in the family of the minister of Salem, and some black servants were charged with the supposed crime. Once started, the alarm spread rapidly, and in a very short time a great number of people fell under suspicion, and many were thrown into prison on very frivolous grounds, supported, as such charges usually were, by very unworthy witnesses. The new governor of the colony, Sir William Phipps, arrived from England in the middle of May, and he seems to have been carried away by the excitement, and authorized judicial prosecutions. The trials began at the commencement of June; and the first victim, a woman named Bridget Bishop, was hanged. Governor Phipps, embarrassed by this extraordinary state of things, called in the assistance of the clergy of Boston.
There was at this time in Boston a distinguished family of puritanical ministers of the name of Mather. Richard Mather, an English non-conformist divine, had emigrated to America in 1636, and settled at Dorchester, where, in 1639, he had a son born, who was named, in accordance with the peculiar nomenclature of the puritans, Increase Mather. This son distinguished himself much by his acquirements as a scholar and a theologian, became established as a minister in Boston, and in 1685 was elected president of Harvard College. His son, born at Boston in 1663, and called from the name of his mother's family, Cotton Mather, became more remarkable than his father for his scholarship, gained also a distinguished position in Harvard
