Christians, when New England witchcraft occurred, generally believed that
it originated with, emanated from, and was controlled by _one_ vast
malignant personality, possessing frightful powers, aspects, and
efficiency. A fair comprehension of what that being was then conceived to
be is needful to anything like accurate knowledge of the origin, growth,
sway, exit, and genuine character of occurrences which outwrought as dire
strifes, horrors, bloodshed, and heart-wrenchings, as any courageous,
intelligent, and conscientious people ever sided forward or suffered
under.
Christendom, in the day of our Puritan forefathers, believed in a devil
peculiar to a few centuries--in one who was of more modern birth than the
Bible or other ancient histories--who was very different from any being
characterized in either Jewish or heathen records of antiquity, and has no
parallel, we trust, in any creed to-day.
Probably many malicious, as well as benevolent, unseen personages exist,
who may often act upon men and their affairs. There may be powerful _evil
ones_, in realms unseen, who there rule over hosts of like dispositions
with themselves. Neither the existence of many devils, nor intermeddling
by them with man's peace and welfare, is called in question.
Authors of the Bible, when using the terms devil, Satan, and others of
similar import, generally designated, as our own age extensively does,
beings very unlike _such_ a devil as was conceived of and dreaded by
Christendom from two to five hundred years ago. Prior to and during the
days of Jesus and his apostles, such terms were often applied to whatever,
in either the visible or the unseen world, tempted or forced men to
wrong-doing, or hindered their progress in goodness. Jesus said to a
disciple, "Get thee behind me, _Satan_;" and this, simply because Peter
was giving him advice more carnal than spiritual, and which was designed
to dissuade Jesus from following the course which his conscience was
prompting him to pursue. The mere giving of unwise advice made Peter _a
Satan_. Turning to 2 Sam. xxiv. 1, you may read that the LORD, being
angry, moved David to number the people. Turning again to 1 Chron. xxi. 1,
you will find a description of the same transaction, in which it is said
that "_Satan_ ... provoked David to number Israel." Therefore, in biblical
language, even the LORD, when angry, was equivalent to Satan. Any accuser,
in a court of justice or equity, might properly have been called a Satan,
in the days of the prophets, for then that term was applicable to any
adversary or opponent, of whatever grade or nature.
Very much later than David's day the word _devil_ frequently had a much
softer meaning than it usually bears now. Jesus said (John vi. 70), "Have
not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is _a devil_?" Having previously
called Peter "Satan," Jesus here called Judas a _devil_. Thus highest
Christian authority spoke of unwise and treacherous men as being Satans
and devils, and thereby showed that those words anciently were sometimes
applied, by the pure and wise, to other beings than one special great
malignant spirit. The devil of modern _witchcraft_ was unknown by Jesus
and by all biblical authors.
Whence, then, since not from the Bible,--whence did Christians of the
seventeenth and some earlier centuries obtain those peculiar conceptions
of him, which made the devil almost counterbalance, in malignity and
monstrosity, the benignity and beauty of the Infinite God? Where did they
find him? So far as we perceive and believe, his like was never
recognized, either outside of Christendom, or prior to the dark ages. No
being verily like him was ever dreaded as an enemy by any other people
than Christians, and not by them till within the last thousand years.
About all that we know is, that he had become huge and frightful at the
time of the Reformation; and our belief is, that morbid fancy, in the
cloisters and monasteries of Europe, through several centuries plied her
limnistic verbal skill, and thereby outlined and blackened piecemeal her
most _outre_ conceptions possible of the lineaments and expressions of a
being as monstrous in shape, as powerful, wily, and malicious, as
imagination could fabricate, and thus gave the Christian world a monk-made
devil--a hideous personification of evil. Lapsing time eventually caused
this cloister-born scarecrow to be looked upon as vitalized malignity
incarnate--as an immortal, ubiquitous personality--as a living fiend of
awful sway and force, who should be watched, feared, and fought by every
God-serving man. We look upon him as a production of human fancy. But not
so did our predecessors. They assigned to their devil of horrid form and
huge dimensions a very different origin and nature.
Where born, and what his nature, according to the belief of those who
imported him to New England shores, are important questions the
appropriate answers to which must be comprehended before one can obtain
just appreciation of the position in which their creed placed our
forefathers, and the direction and force it gave to their action whenever
seeming diabolism not only fearfully disturbed private firesides and
social relations, but threatened tenure of lands, and continued existence
of church and state throughout the colonies.
Their Author of witchcraft was conceived of, believed in, and set forth in
language, as having been heaven-born--a glorious angel once, but apostate
and banished from his native skies;--as one mighty, malignant personality,
almost ubiquitous, almost omniscient, second in power to Almighty God
alone, and nearly His equal. As quoted by Upham, vol. i. p. 390, Wierius,
a learned German physician, described the devil as being one who
"possesses great courage, incredible cunning, superhuman wisdom, the most
acute penetration, consummate prudence, an incomparable skill in vailing
the most pernicious artifices under a specious disguise, and a malicious
and infinite hatred toward the human race, implacable and incurable."--"He
was," says Appleton's N. A. Cyc., "often represented on the stage, with
black complexion, flaming eyes, sulphuric odor, horns, tail, hooked nails,
and cloven hoof." Many of us now living have seen him pictured nearly thus
in some old illustrated editions of the Bible.
But the gifted Milton's comprehensive fancy and lofty diction, exempted,
under poetic license, from adherence to fact or creed, or other enfeebling
restraint, put forth, in masterly and acceptable manner, lineaments and
features appropriate to an embodiment of his highest possible conceptions
of combined majesty, might, and malignity, and thus allured his own and
future ages to bow in awe before a devil who in grandeur far surpassed any
which monkish powers had been able to fabricate and describe. He imputed
to Satan "eyes that sparkling blaz'd; his other parts, besides prone on
the flood, extended long and large lay floating many a rood," ...
"unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and courage
never to submit or yield," ... "resolve to wage by force or guile eternal
war, irreconcilable to our grand foe, ... ever to do ill our sole delight,
as being the contrary to his high will whom we resist; If then his
providence out of our evil seek to bring forth good, our labor must be to
prevent that end, and out of good still to find means of evil." Such was
the great poet's "Archangel ruined;" nearly such was the prevalent
perception of him by the general mind of Christendom. He was one mighty
Evil Spirit--monarch of all fiends, and an untiring operator for harm to
both the body and soul of man.
Such conceptions were general alike in Europe and America. But still
another view, quite as appalling as any of the foregoing, and appealing
more directly to the temporal interests of men, operated in _America_, and
made it specially needful for all property holders here to contest the
devil's advances. Cotton Mather called the arch mischief-worker "a great
landholder;" and he was spoken of as though conceived to be temporal as
well as spiritual ruler over all Indian tribes and their lands, and also
as being a contester against God and Christ for empire over each and every
part of the American continent where Christians encroached upon his sable
majesty's domains. God and devil--each was a vast and powerful spirit,
exercising sway and dominion widely, as the other would let him; and these
two mighty spiritual Rulers were often struggling in sharp conflict of
doubtful issue for empire over particular portions of the earth. The
Devil--and such a devil too--occupied much space not only in the theology
and philosophy of the learned, but also in the daily and worldly thoughts
of the common colonists.
Upham has forcefully and truthfully said (vol. i. p. 393), that our
fathers "were under an impression that the devil, having failed to prevent
progress of knowledge in Europe, had abandoned his efforts to obstruct it
effectually there; had withdrawn into the American wilderness, intending
here to make a final stand; and had resolved to retain an undiminished
empire over the whole continent and his pagan allies, the native
inhabitants. Our fathers accounted for the extraordinary descent, and
incursions of the Evil One among them, in 1692, on the supposition "that
it was a desperate effort to prevent them from bringing civilization and
Christianity within his favorite retreat; and their souls were fired with
the glorious thought, that, by carrying on the war with vigor against him
and his confederates, the witches, they would become chosen and honored
instruments in the hands of God for breaking down and abolishing the last
stronghold on the earth of the kingdom of darkness."
This mighty Devil, commander-in-chief of the countless hosts of all the
devils, demons, satans, Indians, heathen, sinners in, above, upon, or
around earth,--this mighty contester for dominion with God and Christ and
all good Christians, was conceived to be author of all works called
witchcrafts, producing them through human beings who had voluntarily made
a covenant to serve him, and who resided in the midst of the people whom
he molested; for we shall soon see that the philosophy of those times
permitted him no other possible access to man than through persons who
were in covenant with himself.
Any covenanter with such a devil, that is, any wizard or witch, could be
regarded by the public as nothing less formidable than a voracious wolf
burrowing within the Christian sheepfold, who, if not at once unearthed
and slain, would either actually devour, or frighten away from their
pasturing grounds, all those with their descendants who had crossed the
ocean to feed on the hills and vales of America. Our fathers felt that the
possession and value of their homes and lands, as well as the temporal
peace and prosperity of the community, its religious privileges, and the
salvation of human souls, were at stake in a witchcraft conflict. Their
faith, their interests temporal and spiritual, their manhood, and all that
was brave, strong, and good in them, called upon them to face boldly even
such a devil as has been described above, and to fight him by any
processes which had been tried and approved in Europe; the chief of which
was, to seize his covenanted servants--his guns--and silence them promptly
and permanently. Witches must die!