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Updated: May 29, 2025
Cotton Mather, but how clearly and consistent, either with himself or the truth, I meddle not now to say, but cannot but suppose his strenuous and zealous asserting his opinions has been one cause of the dismal convulsions, we have here lately fallen into." More Wonders of the Invisible World, by Robert Calef, Merchant of Boston, in New England. Edit. London, 1700, p. 33.
In his letter to "the Ministers in and near Boston," written in January, 1696, after considering briefly, and in forcible language, the fearful errors from which the Delusion of 1692 had risen, and solemnly reminding them of what they ought to have done to lead their people out of such errors, Calef brings their failure to do it home to them, in these pungent words: "If, instead of this, you have some by word and writing propagated, and others recommended, such doctrines, and abetted the false notions which are so prevalent in this apostate age, it is high time to consider it.
His book has, therefore, come down to us, bearing the ineffaceable stamp of truth. It was so regarded, at the time, in England, as shown in the manner in which it was referred to by Francis Hutchinson and Daniel Neal; and in America, in the way in which Thomas Hutchinson speaks of Calef, and alludes to matters as stated by him. I present, entire, the judgment of Dr.
Calef, 4. The following is from his Wonders of the Invisible World, 12: "If once a witch do ingeniously confess among us, no more spectres do, in their shapes, after this, trouble the vicinage; if any guilty creatures will accordingly, to so good purpose, confess their crime to any Minister of God, and get out of the snare of the Devil, as no Minister will discover such a conscientious confession, so, I believe, none in the authority will press him to discover it, but rejoice in a soul saved from death."
Indeed, his references to Calef are about ten to one oftener than to Mather. The attempt of Neal and Watts to smooth the matter down, by saying that the former had been led to his conclusions by "a comparison of several authors," could have given little satisfaction to Mather, as the authors whom he chiefly refers to, are Calef and Mather; and, comparing them with each other, he followed Calef.
Poor Burroughs had been suddenly torn from his family and home, more than a hundred miles away; there were no immediate connections, here, who would have been likely to recover his remains; and, it is therefore probable, they had been left where they were thrown, near the foot of the gallows. There is one point upon which the Reviewer is certain he has "demolished" Calef.
I knew my grandmother, and loved her. Her mother was daughter to the witch that Chief Justice Sewall hanged and Cotton Mather delivered over to the Devil. That was Salem, though, and not Boston. No, not Boston. Robert Calef, the Boston merchant, it was that blew them all to
She was commanded by "Robert Calef;" and, in the Boston Evening Post, of the second of May, 1774, "Dr. Calef of Ipswich" is mentioned among the passengers just arrived in her.
Robert Calef was a native of England, a young man, residing, first in Roxbury, and afterwards at Boston. He was reputed a person of good sense; and, from the manner in which Mather alludes to him, in one instance, of considerable means: he had, probably, been prosperous in his business, which was that of a merchant.
In my book, in connection with another piece of evidence in the papers, given, like that of the confessing witches just referred to, long after Burroughs's execution, I expressed surprise that the irregularity of putting such testimony among the documents belonging to the trial, escaped the notice of Hutchinson, eminent jurist as he was, and also of Calef.
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