en, for about a fortnight, vexed with an extraordinary heart-burn;
and none of all the common medicines would remove it, though for the
present some of them would a little relieve it. At last, it grew so much
upon me, that I was ready to faint under it. But, under my fainting
pain, this reflection came into my mind. There was _this_ among the
sufferings and complaints of my Lord Jesus Christ. My heart was like wax
melted in the middle of my bowels. Hereupon, I begged of the Lord, that,
for the sake of the heart-burn undergone by my Saviour, I might be
delivered from the other and lesser heart-burn wherewith I was now
incommoded. Immediately it was darted into my mind, that I had Sir
Philip Paris's plaster in my house, which was good for inflammations;
and laying the plaster on, I was cured of my malady."

These passages indicate a use of prayer, which, to the extent Mather
carried it, would hardly be practised or approved by enlightened
Christians of this or any age; although our Reviewer fully endorses it.
In reference to Mather's belief in the power of prayer, he expresses
himself with a bald simplicity, never equalled even by that Divine.
After stating that the Almighty Sovereign was his Father, and had
promised to hear and answer his petitions, he goes on to say: "He had
often tested this promise, and had found it faithful and sure." One
would think, in hearing such a phraseology, he was listening to an
agent, vending a patent medicine as an infallible cure, or trying to
bring into use a labor-saving machine.

The Reviewer calls me to account for representing "the Goodwin affair"
as having had "a very important relation to the Salem troubles," and
attempts to controvert that position.

On this point, Francis Hutchinson, before referred to, gives his views,
very decidedly, in the following passages: [_Pp. 95, 96, 101._] "Mr.
Cotton Mather, no longer since than 1690, published the case of one
Goodwin's children. * * * The book was sent hither to be printed amongst
us, and Mr. Baxter recommended it to our people by a Preface, wherein he
says: 'That man must be a very obdurate Sadducee that will not believe
it.' The year after, Mr. Baxter, perhaps encouraged by Mr. Mather's
book, published his own _Certainty of the World of Spirits_, with
another testimony, 'That Mr. Mather's book would Silence any incredulity
that pretended to be rational.' And Mr. Mather dispersed Mr. Baxter's
book in New England, with the character