The Salem Witch Trials Redux - Donald Trump And 'Burning's Too Good For Him'

 Abigail Hood was burned at the stake in Salem in 1693, but not before being tortured - the water torture, the fire torture, the rack, the fingernails, the pinion...nothing made her confess apostasy or heresy, and thus she was bound, blindfolded, and set alight.  

The townspeople cheered the crackling flames, the scent of burning flesh, the agonizing cries of the dying maiden, 'Gettin' wot she deserves, she is', said one burgher to Parson Weems, at this trial and burning only a spectator, but his turn would come.  There were ten more women waiting for exorcism or death in the cells of Salem jail. 

The women in the crowd were just as jubilant as the men for Abigail was well-known as a fornicator and husband-stealer, a tart, a hussy who should have been rounded up and roasted long before this.  The children, unsure of what they were seeing but judging by their parents' reaction assumed it was just a bonfire, a community gathering of good cheer. 

Her screams subsided after what seemed to be an excruciatingly long time, and the people of Salem thanked God for their deliverance from evil.  Some said that the burning was a cleansing of her soul, a casting out of Satan, a fiery defiance to the forces of evil and the rising of a pillar of flame to the Lord. 

Pastor Jacob Allen who presided over both the trial and the burning was pleased with himself.  He had acted in accordance with secular justice and divine law.  The woman was given a fair chance to prove her innocence, but God demanded absolute, unequivocal retribution.  Both the laws of God and Man had been satisfied. 

'How about a nice cup of tea, Pastor?', said a gentlewoman in the crowd, coming up to him to thank him for his service and anxious to keep on his good side, just in case.  She had not defied the Lord, praise be to God, but had been tempted. Who in the growing followers of Martin Luther and John Calvin would condemn her for intent, when the devil was in the doing.  Yet the Church had been known to put women to death for 'immoral intent', had inscribed the sin in both liturgy and theological proceedings, so it was better to be circumspect than accused. 

Before the scorching flames had burned themselves out and turned themselves into smoldering embers, Biddy Martin and Pastor Allen went off to the rectory for a blessing and a reward. There seated among the elders of the church, they talked of God and his divine Creation.  Wasn't it fortunate, the Pastor said, that lowly Salem had been chosen to do His work? 

Biddy Martin agreed, bowed her head and recited the Lord's Prayer.  The elders followed suit and in unison prayed for God's mercy and forgiveness for their sins. Only occasionally did the eyes of Biddy and the Pastor meet, but she had accomplished what she had come for.  This man of God's head had been turned. 

The trials were necessary tribunals, for the Puritans of New England never saw themselves as arbitrary, capricious judges of morality; but bound by Scripture and Biblical Law.  Rather than burn known witches summarily, the deacons of Salem felt obliged to hear evidence and only then pass judgment.  Of course they as well as the community knew who was possessed and who wasn’t; but the trials were testimony to Puritan sanctimony and Christian justice. 

As far as Pastor Allen was concerned, the witch trials were a feather in his cap, and he had been noticed by Boston which despite early reformist rumblings in the Massachusetts Bay Colony church hierarchy had renewed their Calvinism and dedication to the administration of God's harshest, most punitive justice.  Allen had even been noticed by John Davenport who, rumor had it, was to leave the Colony and found other, more severely Calvinist communities, and he wanted to consult with Allen on this way to New Haven. 

The more witches that were discovered, tried, and burned, the higher Pastor Allen's stock rose.  Soon he would rise in the church hierarchy, and who knew, he might even be considered for important secular office.  The New Haven Plantation would need a solid religious core, but it would also need governance, and who better than he to be the man? 

 

After all, God had always assumed that Church and State would co-exist but with the state subsumed within the church, never the other way around; and Pastor Allen's brand of disciplinary Calvinism and enlightened community stewardship was highly prized. 

There would be other trials before the arrival of the Davenport mission, and Pastor Allen hurried them up except for the case of The Madwoman of Salem, the vixen, the harridan, the succubus of the North Shore.  She was known to call up the tempest which doomed a hundred whalers as they were returning from the South Seas, the fire that burned the grange, and the barbaric disembowelments of three children by wolves in Hamden Forest.  She would be tried and burned in the presence of Davenport himself, a show of commitment to the faith and the administration of swift justice. 

In New Haven in the new, renewed Calvinist Colony, he was no less of a star than had been reported to Boston.  Davenport did not approve of burnings at the stake - he let it be known that Salem was a necessary, important phase in the establishment of God's Kingdom on Earth, but one now in the past.  His governance in New Haven would be just as severe, just as punitive, and just as respectful of the will of God, but it would move from demonic possession to immorality.  Although the Devil might be behind the misdeeds of his citizens, he and his courts would try them as lawbreakers first and foremost. 

Of course the legal system of early 18th Century New Haven always had God in its scripture, and its magistrates knew apostasy when they saw it; and besides, bringing God in as judge and prosecutor assured a quick and expeditious trial.  As such petty crime was stopped dead in its tracks; and as Davenport, Pastor Allen, and the other elders of the community came to realize, their authority was increasingly unchallenged.  God was on their side, the harsh blade of the law was in their armory, and the town could be ruled quietly but absolutely. 

By the time Davenport's children decided to expand their father's influence farther south and send an expedition to the promising new territories of New Jersey, this second generation had become less known as men of God than powerful, ambitious politicians; and when the new colonies to the south were established, the rule of law was their law. 

There was a new permeability between church and state, a fungible set of opportunities for both governors and the governed.  The new American nexus of private enterprise, complaisant government, and flexible church had begun, and the innate corruption within it began apace.   

Progressives are convinced that Trump is evil.  Not only do sexism, racism, and homophobia alone qualify him as immoral and dangerous; but no one person, let alone the President of the United States, could possibly be afflicted by all three at once; and therefore some unknown but compelling force must have lent a helping hand.

These progressives are therefore bent on applying the spectral test, the touch test,  and especially the witch cake test.  In this voodoo-inspired test, the ingredients were rye meal… and urine from the girls said to be afflicted by the witch’s evil incantations. The test had dogs eat this cake, after which the alleged witch should scream out in pain – for in the process of her cursing the victims, she sent invisible particles of herself (the embodiment of pure evil, that is), which would show up in the urine.

Donald Trump is exactly right in calling the current inquiries a witch hunt, for the investigations, far from secular, have taken on a religious tone.  Since progressives have branded the President as evil, then removing him from office and burning him at the political stake is the only possible outcome.  Whether he is hanged, guillotined, shot, electrocuted, or immolated is irrelevant.  He must be punished no less severely than the witches of Salem.

It there any truth to the allegations? Who knows and in fact who cares?  A witch hunt has nothing to do with the truth, the facts, or even good or evil.  It is, purely and simply, the act of exclusion, expulsion, and elimination of an enemy deemed unholy. 

No President has been the subject of so many irrational fears and allegations.  The progressive Left created this monster, and once he became President, they had to justify their actions and  burn him at the stake.  Nothing else would suffice.  If they truly believe what they  have said about him, then they have no other recourse than to light the fire.

Many progressives have called Donald Trump evil because the sum of his beliefs cannot be explained away on any rational basis.  While one might take each of his political positions separately and analyze them objectively and in course, it is hard to ignore that when taken together they represent a man who is profoundly racist, sexist, and homophobic.

His policies and programs, these progressives say, are tantamount to a degrading, humiliating denial of basic human, God-given rights.  Anyone who would act in such an anti-social, anti-humanistic, and anti-Christian way cannot be described in any but the most damning ways.

Media mogul Barry Diller had some harsh words about Donald Trump.

There's nobody that I've ever known, ever, that's risen to the presidency that was actually of evil character," he told CNBC's "Squawk on the Street." Anybody who attacks people in the manner that he attacks people … that's evil."

None of this is surprising. If it happened to Joan of Arc; if it happened during the Spanish Inquisition; and if it happened in Salem, Massachusetts, it can happen now.

It's worse.  The witch trial mentality, so pervasive, so universal, so inspired over centuries of Puritanism and God-bound justice, has infected the purely secular.  Progressivism has become a secular religion with tenets, codes, doctrine, and liturgy and has become the revival - the incarnation - of Salem, persecution without God present, burning at the sake for ascribed evil. 

No matter, get rid of him, and by the way burning is far too good for him.