Summary

In this essay, Cotton Mather speaks in sermons and writings excerpted from his collection, “Wonders of the Invisible World.” His first sermon lays the background of the present situation: the Puritans willingly leave their homes in England to come to the “squalid, horrid American Desert” because they want to live a pure life on their own terms. But now, half a century later, he says Americans are fallen from those high beginnings. The Devil has come into the midst of the New England plantations and Puritan communities. This land had once belonged to the Devil, and when he sees such God-fearing people settling here, it disturbs him. So the Devil causes a flood of evil-doing (witchcraft) to wash away the vine (the original Puritans) planted by God. Sending witchcraft is the last move of the Devil, and...