Cotton Mather: Custodian of Creeds and Bible Law, Advocate of Separation of Church and State - Essay Sample

Introdduction

Cotton Mather was a clergyman a puritan as well as a historian known as a man of letters. He is famous for being associated with the trial of the witches at Salem. He claimed to be a custodian of the creeds and bible law and aimed at safeguarding the purity of Christianity and teaching of the saints until the return of Christ. He advocated the separation of the church from the state.This paper captures a significant historical event in which cotton Mather was involved in and captures his voice in a diary form.

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The Trial of Martha Carrier

1692 First Week of January

I am in Massachuset, Salem village, it is a new year.It would have been the best week and an extraordinary gift of God except for the terrible news that some girls from the village have been bewitched. It must be true because I am a senior servant in the church, and the devil is in constant war with God and the Christians and must have used the evil Witches to harm the girls.

A very young girl in the village has claimed to have been bewitched too. Her name is Elizabeth, another one named Abigail, the daughter of our minister here in Salem, had the same claims after falling sick days ago. William Griggs, our local doctor, has diagnosed bewitchment since the girls are having uncontrollable outbursts of screams contortions and fits. These symptoms are the same as those of the previous victims of bewitching.

May 28, 1692

Upon the complaints and accusations, the society has appointed a jury to hear and determine cases concerning this issue. I being a senior person In the religious docket, I am among the members of the society, much concerned with the turn of events.Since the convening of the jury, Salem has so far executed several witches to death for the evil and inhuman acts of bewitching. I believe that witches deserve to be punished just the way criminals would. They deserve death for inflicting pain in other people.

Today we are being presented a case of a woman accused on several incidences. It is hard to determine the allegations, but once the jury has received evidence from the accuser, it is always clear on the steps to follow. I have been checking through her historical file, and I have just discovered that She was had a child even before wedlock. This act immediately corrupts her as she committed fornication with Andrew Allen Snr, who later Maries her. In the examination, I have also discovered that they were forced to leave the town for having a family member portraying strange symptoms. They had been threatened to pay a daily 20 shillings daily fine if they remained in their home in Billerica. They were likely to cause a heavy burden on neighbours. The neighbours were scared of the deadly symptoms of smallpox.

According to my belief, the outbreak of this disease in Andover might have been caused by her and her activities because it was a beautiful, peaceful town until she arrived and got hosted by the husband's brother.

On this day. The judge has asked the victims to mention the names of the person responsible for the hurt they are receiving. It is not a surprise that they are all accusing her of this. It is scary to me why Martha cannot just confess that it is true that she is a real agent of the devil her master. Mary Walcott has gone an extra mile to say that she has been forced to sign a witch's book. The matter is made severe by the fact that she is continually harassing Susannah Sheldon for failing to do this. The girls have also accused Martha of the deaths of 13 more people in Andover. This story is getting scarier each day.

August 2, 1692

It has been long since I heard anybody complain about being bewitched. Martha was released the other time. I am being told again about the sick wife of the constable. And the arrest of Martha yet. Constable Ballard, in mid-July, went to find the girls to help him find Martha after the sickness of his wife. The two girls saw a strange sight, the spectre of an older woman in town named Ann Foster, harming the constable's wife. I believed that Foster was just a humble widow and too old for Satan activities.

I have recorded the initial accusations of Ann Foster that might help in the keeping of the rightful words of this Diary, for future references. Martha converted her into a witch and has been having meetings in Salem at night. Martha flies around in a broom an indication of a real pervert. I firmly believe that the jury must be by now convinced that she is indeed an agent of the devil and should not be spared this time. The witnesses present in the courtroom today are many. Most of them are the relatives of the affected members of society. I have also heard that Martha's children have testified against her. This confession however ,had to happen by force and pain. Salem has resolved to torture as a way of making these little hardened Witches speak out. We need to deliver Salem from the jaws of death. There are several witnesses of the evil forces at work; Rodgers explained about his missing pigs, the cows that stopped producing milk.

Friday, August 19, 1692

Today is the actual day of performing the last part of the execution. The week has been busy. More witnesses, including Martha's daughter, have appeared before the judge and made confessions of being introduced to the art of witchcraft by their mother. The conclusion of the matter was arrived at. The previous week. At mid-morning, Martha, among other offenders was brought by a cart. They were given a chance to speak out before death, and it scares me that they were not even repentant. The hanging done on this day by Judge Samuel Sewall is scribed in my Diary as a righteous death as I witnessed the entire judgment.

Why Cotton Mather's Voice

This Diary has chosen the voice of Mather for several reasons; Mather is a representation of American two-sided thinking. In the fields of religion, he was a clergyman with firm stands. He believed in miracles and the divine nature of God. He had to fight several odds before rising in ranks, to serve on the pulpit. He believed in notions many termed as unscientific and he played a significant role in the Salem witch trials in Massachusetts. As both a scientist and religious personnel and an advocate, he strongly suggested that science was a way of teaching about the existence of God; he had a troubled life. He contributed to the discovery of ancient medicine and vaccination against polio and other diseases. The Witchcraft trials happening at Salem is perhaps the most critical event he ever participated in (Humprey, 2017). According to a copy of his book, the wonders of an Invisible world published in the sixties, he confesses that he was for the procedure that aimed at getting rid of the devil's influence.An excerpt from his book named 'The Trial of Martha Carrier', tells a story of a typical case that came to the jury.Mather used harsh words on Marta, referring her to a Hag who had been promised to be a queen of heb by the devil. The execution claimed the lives of at least nineteen people who are believed to have been innocent. The modern day Toxicologists have confirmed that it was the pollen from the wheat and grains that might have had allergic effects on the girls who were experiencing fits.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Cotton Mather is an example of a man who won recognition for having a strong belief despite the era of social and religious change. He later changed his strict ideas of puritanism and favoured the changing times and ideologies, when he realized that the world. It was then that he concluded that the trial of the witches was wrong and unfair. He withdrew the previous statement that described carrier as a hag and apologized for the irrational judgments of his times.

Reference

Humphrey, Carol S. "The First American Evangelical: A Short Life of Cotton Mather." Christian Scholar's Review, vol. 46, no. 3, 2017, pp. 303-305. ProQuest, http://nclive.org/cgi-bin/nclsm?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1873851680?accountid=10189.