Jonathan Edwards, in his famous sermon at Enfield in 1741, on "Sinners in the hands of an Angry God," was inspired to say to the impenitent: "The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you and is dreadfully provoked; His wrath toward you burns like fire; He looks upon you as worthy of nothing else but to be cast into the fire; He is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in His sight; you are 10,000 times so abominable in His eyes as the most hateful and venomous serpent is in ours.... Instead of one how many is it likely will remember this discourse in hell! And it would be a wonder if some that are now present should not be in hell in a very short time—before this year is out. And it would be no wonder if some persons, that now sit here in some seats of this meeting-house, in health and quiet, and secure, should be there before to-morrow morning." One hundred and sixty-three years later, Rev. Dr. Samuel T. Carter, a godly minister of the same faith, "a heretic who is no heretic," stood before the presbytery of Nassau, was invited to remain in the Presbyterian communion, and yet said this of the doctrine of Edwards, as written in the Westminster Confession: "In God's name and Christ's name it is not true. There is no such God as the God of the confession. There is no such world as the world of the confession. There is no such eternity as the eternity of the confession.... This world so full of flowers and sunshine and the laughter of children is not a cursed lost world, and the 'endless torment' of the confession is not God's, nor Christ's, nor the Bible's idea of future punishment."
What should constitute the true faith of a Christian, and set him apart from his fellowmen in duties and observances, was one of the crucial questions in the everyday life of the early New England colonists, and the hanging and discipline of witches was one of its necessary incidents.
It was the same spirit of intolerance and of religious animosity that was written in the treatment of the Quakers and Baptists at Boston; in the experience of Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson; and of "The Rogerenes" in Connecticut, for "profanation of the Sabbath," told in a chapter of forgotten history.
In the sunlight of the later revelation, is not the present judgment of the men and women of those far off times, "when the wheel of prayer was in perpetual motion," when fear and superstition and the wrath of an angry God ruled the strongest minds, truly interpreted in the solemn afterthoughts which the poet ascribes to the magistrate and minister at the grave of Giles Corey?
HATHORNE
"This is the Potter's Field. Behold the fate
Of those who deal in witchcrafts, and when questioned,
Refuse to plead their guilt or innocence,
And stubbornly drag death upon themselves.
MATHER