The Witchcraft in New England. Calef Robert
excellent Spirit; and as at first they went about the work for which they were Commission'd, with [13] a very great aversion, so they have still been under Heart-breaking Solicitudes, how they might therein best serve both God and Man? In fine, Have there been faults on any side fallen into? Surely, they have at worst been but the faults of a well-meaning Ignorance. On every side then, why should not we endeavour with amicable Correspondencies, to help one another out of the Snares wherein the Devil would involve us? To wrangle the Devil out of the Country, will be truly a New Experiment: Alas! we are not aware of the Devil, if we do not think, that he aims at inflaming us one against another; and shall we suffer our selves to be Devil-ridden? or by any unadvisableness contribute unto the Widening of our Breaches?
To say no more, there is a published and credible Relation; which affirms, That very lately in a part of England, where some of the Neighbourhood were quarrelling, a Raven from the Top of a Tree very articulately and unaccountably cry'd out, Read the Third of Collossians and the Fifteenth! Were I my self to chuse what sort of Bird I would be transformed into, I would say, O that I had wings like a Dove! Nevertheless, I will for once do the Office, which as it seems, Heaven sent that Raven upon; even to beg, That the Peace of God may Rule in our Hearts.
§ VI. 'Tis necessary that we unite in every thing: but there are especially two Things wherein our Union must carry us along together. We are to unite in our Endeavours to deliver our distressed Neighbours, from the horrible Annoyances and Molestations with which a dreadful Witchcraft is now persecuting of them. To have an hand in any thing, that may stifle or obstruct a Regular Detection of that Witchcraft, is what we may well with an holy fear avoid. Their Majesties good Subjects must not every day be torn to pieces by horrid Witches, and those bloody Felons, be left wholly unprosecuted. The Witchcraft is a business that will not be sham'd, without plunging us into sore Plagues, and of long continuance.[70] But then we are to unite in such Methods for this deliverance, as may be unquestionably safe, lest the latter end be worse than the beginning. And here, what shall I say? I will venture to say thus much, That we are safe, when we make just as much use of all Advice from the invisible World, as God sends it for. It is a safe Principle, That when God Almighty permits any Spirits from the unseen Regions, to visit us with surprizing Informations, there is then something to be enquired after; we are then to enquire of one another, What Cause there is for such things? The peculiar Government of God, over the unbodied Intelligences, is a sufficient Foundation for this Principle. When there has been a Murder committed, an Apparition of the slain Party accusing of any Man, altho' such Apparitions have oftner spoke true than false, is not enough to Convict the Man as guilty of that Murder; but yet it is a sufficient occasion for Magistrates to make a particular Enquiry, whether such a Man have afforded any ground for such an Accusation. Even so a Spectre exactly resembling such or such a Person, when the Neighbourhood are tormented by such Spectres, may reasonably make Magistrates inquisitive whether the Person so represented have done or said any thing that may argue their confederacy with Evil Spirits, altho' it may be defective enough in point of Conviction; especially at a time, when 'tis possible, some over-powerful Conjurer may have got the skill of thus exhibiting the Shapes of all sorts of Persons, on purpose to stop the Prosecution of the Wretches, whom due Enquiries thus provoked, might have made obnoxious unto Justice.
[14] Quœre, Whether if God would have us to proceed any further than bare Enquiry, upon what Reports there may come against any Man, from the World of Spirits, he will not by his Providence at the same time have brought into our hands, these more evident and sensible things, whereupon a man is to be esteemed a Criminal. But I will venture to say this further, that it will be safe to account the Names as well as the Lives of our Neighbors; two considerable things to be brought under a Judicial Process, until it be found by Humane Observations that the Peace of Mankind is thereby disturbed. We are Humane Creatures, and we are safe while we say, they must be Humane Witnesses, who also have in the particular Act of Seeing, or Hearing, which enables them to be Witnesses, had no more than Humane Assistances, that are to turn the Scale when Laws are to be executed. And upon this Head I will further add: A wise and a just Magistrate, may so far give way to a common Stream of Dissatisfaction, as to forbear acting up to the heighth of his own Perswasion, about what may be judged convictive of a Crime, whose Nature shall be so abstruse and obscure, as to raise much Disputation. Tho' he may not do what he should leave undone, yet he may leave undone something that else he could do, when the Publick Safety makes an Exigency.
§ VII. I was going to make one Venture more; that is, to offer some safe Rules, for the finding out of the Witches, which are at this day our accursed Troublers: but this were a Venture too Presumptuous and Icarian for me to make; I leave that unto those Excellent and Judicious Persons, with whom I am not worthy to be numbred: All that I shall do, shall be to lay before my Readers, a brief Synopsis of what has been written on that Subject, by a Triumvirate of as Eminent Persons as have ever handled it. I will begin with,
FOOTNOTES:
[44] Probably the same whose Name appears in sundry Publications as Symmonds. Walker, Sufferings of the Clergy, ii, 361, calls him Simmons, and speaks very dubiously of him, as though he was a great Sufferer both for, and for not being a Puritan. See also Ibid, Part i, 67, 68. Neale, Hist. Puritans, ii, 19–20. Brooks's Lives, iii, 110–11. Old Thomas Fuller was well acquainted with Mr. Symonds, and gives an Anecdote or two about him in his Worthies, and tells us he died about 1649, in London. He died in 1649, in London.
[45] As to the Loyalty professed, that required pretty strong Assurances on the Part of the prominent Men of New England, to gain it Credence among the Officials in Old England; for not long before an Agent of Massachusetts had asserted that "the Acts of that Colony were not subject to any reëxamination in England;" and a Writer of 1688 that "till the Reign of his present Majesty, James II, New England would never submit to any Governor sent from England, but lived like a Free State."
[46] The Work here referred to was published in 1689. Its Title abridged was—Memorable Providences relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions, with some Sermons annexed. Its being republished and commended by Baxter, only shows that that great Man was as much benighted as the Rest of the World, so far as the Matter in Hand is concerned.
[47] This Amalgamation of Creeds was often attempted by the more catholic Portion of the Community, and as often defeated by the more dogmatical Part, from the first Settlement of the Country to this Day. When there is but one Interest to serve, and when that one Interest is agreed upon, then will a millenial Amalgamation of Creeds take place.
[48] In the first Settlement of the Country, when all, or nearly all were within the Pale of the Church, or directly under the Eye of the Minister or a Magistrate, there was little Need of Courts, Constables and Lawyers; but in a growing Community those Days must necessarily be of limited Duration; and as there never was a Community of any considerable Numbers, in Times past, wherein there were no Monsters or Goblins, such a Community is hardly to be expected to be found in Time to come.
[49] It is human Nature for People to resent being taunted with Faults, whether they be real or imaginary. While a few will reform the many will cling to Error with more Tenacity. Thus the enormous Crime of Slavery—few Men were so depraved by Nature as to maintain that it was right, in reasoning with themselves; while, when it was harshly denounced as a vile Felony, Anger took the Place of Reason in the Slaveholder, and here Argument only served to rivet firmer the Fetters intended to be removed. So it was with other less heinous Offences.