n against God, to make
use of the Devil's help to know that which cannot be otherwise known;
and I testify against it, as a great transgression, which may justly
provoke the Holy One of Israel, to let loose Devils on the whole land.
_Luke_, iv., 38."

After referring to a couple of writers on the subject, the very next
sentence is this: "Although the Devil's accusations may be so far
regarded as to cause an enquiry into the truth of things, _Job_, i., 11,
12, and ii., 5, 6; yet not so as to be an evidence or ground of
conviction."

It appears therefore, that Increase Mather, while writing with much
force and apparent vehemence against spectral evidence, still in reality
countenanced its introduction, as a basis of "enquiry into the truth of
things," preliminary to other evidence. This was, after all, to use the
form of thought of these writers, letting the Devil into the case; and
that was enough, from the nature of things, in the then state of wild
superstition and the blind delusions of the popular mind, to give to
spectral evidence the controlling sway it had in the Salem trials, and
would necessarily have, every where, when introduced at all.

In a Postscript to _Cases of Conscience_, Increase Mather says that he
hears that "some have taken up a notion," that there was something
contradictory between his views and those of his son, set forth in the
_Wonders of the Invisible World_. "Tis strange that such imaginations
should enter into the minds of men." He goes on to say he had read and
approved of his son's book, before it was printed; and falls back, as
both of them always did, when pressed, upon the _Advice_ of the
Ministers, of the fifteenth of June, in which, he says, they concurred.

There can be no manner of doubt that the "strange" opinion did prevail,
at the time, and has ever since, that the father and son did entertain
very different sentiments about the Salem proceedings. The precise form
of that difference is not easily ascertained. The feelings, so natural
and proper, on both sides, belonging to the relation they sustained to
each other, led them to preserve an appearance of harmony, especially in
whatever was committed to the press. Then, again, the views they each
entertained were in themselves so inconsistent, that it was not
difficult to persuade themselves that they were substantially similar.
There was much in the father, for the son to revere: there was much in
the son, for the father to adm