Puritanism: A Legacy Disdained by Historians and Sullied with the Devil’s Victory in Salem
Cotton Mather, the leading cleric of the area wrote to Judge John Richards, one of the judges of the trials that spectral evidence was deceitful and treacherous, and admissible evidence must be from other sources, as in the physical evidence of witch paraphernalia or especially confessions.
And yet I most humbly beg you that in the management of the affair in your worthy hands, you do not lay more stress upon pure specter testimony than it will bear. When you are satisfied or have good plain legal evidence that the Demons which molest our poor neighbors do indeed represent such and such people to the sufferers. Though this be a presumption, yet I suppose you will not reckon it is conviction that people so represented are witches to be immediately exterminated. It is very certain that the Devils have sometimes represented the shapes of persons not only innocent but very virtuous…35
Unfortunately, in the course of the trials, and in the very court room, the young victims were constantly attacked, forced into contortions, and other phenomena—the authorities panicked. The victims’ piteous cries seemed too hideous to disregard, and several persons were convicted by spectral evidence alone.36
Is there a Biblical response to witchcraft?
Even if all of the wisdom of Catholic and Protestant anti-witch procedures had been followed, the Salem trials would have all fallen short of New Testament standards. Specifically, there was no congregation in Massachusetts, or anywhere else in Christendom for that matter, that could function as any of Paul’s Spirit-empowered congregations as described in 1 Cor. 12-14. Such a congregation would include persons gifted in exorcism and healing, and with the gift of discernment of spirits. That latter gift, exercised by tested and reliable persons, would have at the very least avoided the errors of false spectral evidence. Other members of the congregation would have used tongues to wage spiritual warfare, etc. This was impossible at the time as the Protestant doctrine of cessationism, central to its theology, had declared the gifts of the Spirit as non-existent in the post-Apostolic church, and the practice of the gifts of the Spirit as heretical or vain “enthusiasm.”37 It would take the rise of Pentecostalism at the dawn of the 20th Century before cessationism was seriously challenged in the Protestant world. Only at that time would congregations began forming in which all of the gifts of the Spirit were present on a regular basis. Even today, a century after the birthing of Pentecostalism, such congregations are rare. That is, the majority of Pentecostal and charismatic churches in the “First World” often have substantial healing and deliverance ministries, but do not systematically teach or cultivate discernment of spirits.38
In any case, the limitations of contemporary theology are not the main issue of this article. Rather I wanted to clarify why the so called Puritan “failure” or “scandal” at Salem was not what many Christian imagine. Certainly it should not hamper their appropriation of the great and valuable works of Puritan theologians and writers.
Recommended reading:
For a good introduction to the Puritans, read J. I Packer, Quest for Godliness: The Puritan Vision of the Christian Life (Wheaton: Crossway, 1990), and Leland Ryken’s Worldly Saints: The Puritans as They Really Were (Grand Rapids; Zondervan; 1986). See also the following issues of Church History: Issue 41: “The American Puritans,” Issue 77: “Jonathan Edwards: Puritan pastor and theologian,” and Issue 89: “Richard Baxter and the English Puritans.”
Category: Church History, Pneuma Review, Summer 2013
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