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During the seventeenth century and well into the eighteenth century, belief in the reality of witches was widespread both in America and in Europe. Thousands of people were put to death during the period; and a few people questioned the actual existence of witche ....

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.... About forty-five years after the Salem witchcraft trials, the Puritan minister, Jonathan Edwards, used the following imagery to characterize the depraved state of mankind: “The God that holds you over the pit of Hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire…” It was preaching like this which prompted John Proctor to stay away from church and explain his absence as follows: “ I have trouble enough without I come five mile to hear him preach onl ....