Oysters are filters for the sea as each one filters about a gallon of water an hour. However, just a grain of sand that gets stuck in the oyster can become an irritant. The result is that the oyster will encase the irritant in a hardened substance that we know as a pearl—a treasure of great value. The same can be true of an irritant in a culture. What was an agitation can become a treasure of great value.
The Salem witch trials became such an irritant for the colonies. It was an enduring and humbling embarrassment, but also led to some of the most important foundations for the American system of justice, which became the most enlightened and fair in the world.
The Salem witch trials were an incomprehensible tragedy that remains a dark stain on American history. By some accounts, these went to the extreme that if one were just accused of being a witch, they would be submerged in water past the time when one could survive underwater. If one did survive, they believed it was through evil supernatural power and they were executed. If they drowned they would be pronounced innocent of the charge, but were still dead.
As is too often the case with history, there are many inaccurate and exaggerated accounts about these trials. What is verifiable was so terrible that it helped to ignite a great devotion to justice in the colonies, especially for the need of due process for anyone accused of any crime.
The Salem witch trials were not instigated by the Puritans as some historians have said or implied, though some Puritans were involved in them. Actually, it was the Puritan leader Cotton Mather who led the protests against these trials and was instrumental in getting them stopped. Cotton was joined by his father, Increase Mather, who was president of Harvard College at the time. Their demands to end the madness of these trials came with such resounding clarity that the trials were not only stopped, but a great humility and repentance came over the colonies that led to important judicial changes that we benefit from today.
The Mathers argued that the right of due process was basic to justice. They declared that it would be better for ten guilty to go free than for one innocent person to be condemned. They argued this from the Scriptures and the jurisprudence established in The Bible that overwhelmingly favors protecting the innocent over finding the guilty.
Why is biblical jurisprudence so weighted toward the principle that it would be better for many guilty to go free than for a single innocent person to be wrongly condemned? The Lord made it clear that to condemn an innocent person would bring a curse upon the land, but if the guilty went free He Himself would punish them.
Jesus demonstrated almost unlimited grace to sinners, even those “caught in the act,” but He had no tolerance for the self-righteous. The Mathers fought the great injustice of the witch trials with these truths, and the presiding judge in the trials repented publicly. The stigma of the witch trials lasts to this day, but so has the devotion to due process and raising the bar high for convictions to “beyond a reasonable doubt.” So, this madness actually resulted in a greater good—a great treasure of wisdom and knowledge.
These infamous trials also began a pattern that when significant injustices would arise in America, champions of justice would arise to confront them as the Mathers had done. To this day, those who became such champions of justice are some of our most highly esteemed national heroes. Our history is filled with folly and tragedy, as is that of every nation. It is also filled with the stories of people who would not let folly and tragedy prevail, which led to repentance and then to redemption.
The freedom of self-government and religion given to the English colonies caused them to search the Scriptures to find solutions to the great issues that emerged. This has led to many brilliant solutions to government and justice. In most nations, cries of “injustice” are seen as the poison of rebellion to be suppressed. In America, there is a default reaction to pay attention to it and examine it to be sure that someone’s “God-given rights” have not been trampled. This is a part of our national spiritual DNA.
This does not mean that we have a perfect system of justice, or that there are not still injustices in America. The term “witch hunt” may have come from the Salem witch trials, but it is still a strategy used today by those with agendas other than justice and truth. A wise enemy will use your strengths against you, and the enemies of our Republic have learned to especially use our justice system to dismantle it. We must continue with the resolve that every irritant or agitation will just end up making us better.
Even though our system of justice states that one must be considered innocent until “proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” there has been a constant battle against the tendency to consider people guilty if accused. This often leads to further injustice, and we suffer what the Scriptures warn us will be the result—a curse, or troubles, upon the land. Many of our present crises are connected to our failures with this one point that has distinguished us from the other nations to establish a greater justice.
It seems that this has been a lesson that every new generation has had to learn on their own, but there is an easier way—we can learn from history so that we do not have to keep repeating it, just as our national fathers and mothers have implored us to do. Perhaps this is a main reason why to “honor your fathers and mothers” is the only commandment God gave to His people with a promise attached—“that it will go well with you, and you may dwell long in the land that the Lord has given to you” (see Exodus 20:12). The Lord obviously cares very deeply about justice, and so must we. With all the clamor today about injustice, we must see it as an opportunity to make another pearl.
Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. –Thomas Jefferson
I pronounce it as certain that there was never yet a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous. –Benjamin Franklin
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© 2020 by Rick Joyner. All rights reserved.
