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In the 17th century, the word Puritan was a term applied not to just one group but to many. Historians still debate a precise definition of Puritanism. [6] Originally, Puritan was a pejorative term characterizing certain Protestant groups as extremist. Thomas Fuller, in his Church History, dates the first use of the word to 1564.
George Burroughs (c. 1650 – August 19, 1692) was a non-ordained Puritan preacher who was the only minister executed for witchcraft during the course of the Salem witch trials. He is remembered especially for reciting the Lord's Prayer during his execution, something it was believed a witch could never do.
Samuel Parris (1653 – February 27, 1720) was a Puritan minister in the Province of Massachusetts Bay.Also a businessman and one-time plantation owner, he gained notoriety for being the minister of the church in Salem Village, Massachusetts during the Salem witch trials of 1692.
The son of a Puritan minister, Hopkins began his career as a witch-finder in March 1644 [a] and lasted until his retirement in 1647. Hopkins and his colleague John Stearne sent more accused people to be hanged for witchcraft than all the other witch-hunters in England of the previous 160 years, [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] and were solely responsible for ...
"Upon the whole, it appeared unquestionable that witchcraft had brought a period unto the life of so good a man," Mather concludes. [ 5 ] Cotton Mather's book was published in 1689, only a few years before the infamous witchcraft trials of 1692 and it followed a similar book recently published by his father, Harvard president Increase Mather in ...
Witchcraft is the use of alleged supernatural powers of magic.A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic or supernatural powers to inflict harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meaning. [1]
While Puritans and the Church of England both shared a common influence in Calvinism, Puritans had opposed many of the traditions of the Church of England, including use of the Book of Common Prayer, the use of clergy vestments during services, the use of the sign of the cross at baptism, and kneeling to receive communion, all of which they ...
Increase Mather (/ ˈ m æ ð ər /; June 21, 1639 Old Style [1] – August 23, 1723 Old Style) was a New England Puritan clergyman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and president of Harvard College for twenty years (1681–1701). [2]