THE WITCHCRAFT DELUSION IN COLONIAL CONNECTICUT; 1647-1697
BY JOHN M. TAYLOR; 1908
Rules of Evidence and Cotton Mather
What were those rules of evidence and of procedure attributed to Mather? Through the Special Court
appointed to hold the witch trials, and early in its sittings, the opinions of twelve ministers of Boston and
vicinity were asked as to witchcraft. Cotton Mather wrote and his associates signed an answer June 15, 1692,
entitled, The Return of Several Ministers Consulted by his Excellency and the Honorable Council upon the
Present Witchcrafts in Salem Village. This was the opinion of the ministers, and it is most important to note
what is said in it of spectral evidence, as it was upon such evidence that many convictions were had:
1. The afflicted state of our poor neighbors that are now suffering by molestations from the Invisible
World we apprehend so deplorable, that we think their condition calls for the utmost help of all persons in
their several capacities.
2. We cannot but with all thankfulness acknowledge the success which the merciful God has given unto
the sedulous and assiduous endeavors of our honorable rulers to detect the abominable witchcrafts which have
been committed in the country; humbly praying that the discovery of these mysterious and mischievous
wickednesses may be perfected.
3. We judge that, in the prosecution of these and all such witchcrafts there is need of a very critical and
exquisite caution, lest by too much credulity for things received only upon the devil's authority, there be a
door opened for a long train of miserable consequences, and Satan get an advantage over us; for we should not
be ignorant of his devices.
4. As in complaints upon witchcraft there may be matters of inquiry which do not amount unto matters of
presumption, and there may be matters of presumption which yet may not be matters of conviction, so it is
necessary that all proceedings thereabout be managed with an exceeding tenderness toward those that may be
complained of, especially if they have been persons formerly of an unblemished reputation.
5. When the first inquiry is made into the circumstances of such as may lie under the just suspicion of
witchcrafts, we could wish that there may be admitted as little as possible of such noise, company and
openness as may too hastily expose them that are examined, and that there may be nothing used as a test for
the trial of the suspected, the lawfulness whereof may be doubted by the people of God, but that the directions
given by such judicious writers as Perkins and Barnard may be observed.
6. Presumptions whereupon persons may be committed, and much more, convictions whereupon persons
may be condemned as guilty of witchcrafts, ought certainly to be more considerable than barely the accused
persons being represented by a spectre unto the afflicted, inasmuch as it is an undoubted and notorious thing
that a demon may by God's permission appear even to ill purposes, in the shape of an innocent, yea, and a
virtuous man. Nor can we esteem alterations made in the sufferers, by a look or touch of the accused, to be an
infallible evidence of guilt, but frequently liable to be abused by the devil's legerdemains.
7. We know not whether some remarkable affronts given the devils, by our disbelieving these testimonies
whose whole force and strength is from them alone, may not put a period unto the progress of the dreadful
calamity begun upon us, in the accusation of so many persons whereof some, we hope, are yet clear from the
great transgression laid to their charge.v
8. Nevertheless, we cannot but humbly recommend unto the government, the speedy and vigorous
prosecutions of such as have rendered themselves obnoxious, according to the directions given in the laws of
God and the wholesome statutes of the English nation for the detection of witchcrafts.Whatever Mather's caution to the court may have been, or his leadership in learning, or his ambition and
his clerical zeal, there is thus far no evidence, in all his personal participation in the tragedies, that he lifted his
hand to stay the storm of terrorism once begun, or cried halt to the magistrates in their relentless work. On the
contrary, after six victims had been executed, August 4, 1692, in A Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible
World, Mather wrote this in deliberate, cool afterthought:
They—the judges—have used as judges have heretofore done, the spectral evidences, to introduce their
farther inquiries into the lives of the persons accused; and they have thereupon, by the wonderful Providence
of God, been so strengthened with other evidences that some of the witch-gang have been fairly executed.
And a year later, in the light of all his personal experience and investigation, Mather solemnly declared:
If in the midst of the many dissatisfactions among us, the publication of these trials may promote such a
pious thankfulness unto God for justice being so far executed among us, I shall rejoice that God is glorified.
Wherever the responsibility at Salem may have rested, the truth is that in the general fear and panic there
was potent in the minds, both of the clergy and the laity, the spirit of fanaticism and malevolence in some
instances, such as misled the pastor of the First Church to point to the corpses of Giles Corey's devoted and
saintly wife and others swinging to and fro, and say What a sad thing it is to see eight firebrands of hell
hanging there.
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