A Witch Judge Repents—Samuel Sewall, 1697

Pastor Samuel Willard strode up the center aisle of Boston’s Third Church as the congregation sang a psalm. It was an official day of fasting and prayer for Bostonians. But for Samuel Sewall, it would also be a day of personal repentance. As Willard passed, he paused just long enough to receive a note from Sewall. Later in the service he unfolded the note and looked at Sewall, who rose to his feet. What happened next shocked the silent crowd: The minister read Sewall’s confession of guilt in the Salem witch trials five years earlier in 1692, at which he served as a judge. Twenty accused witches had been executed upon Sewall’s judgment, and all likely were innocent. None of the other eight judges admitted wrongdoing, but that did not stop Sewall from making the matter right with God. So Willard announced on his behalf, “[H]e desires to take the blame and shame of it … desiring prayers that God … would pardon that sin” (see Eve LaPlante, Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall).
The witch craze began when the daughter and niece of a Salem, Massachusetts, minister started acting strangely. They disobeyed, had fits and spasms of pain, and even made noises like animals. Worse, the doctor found no medical explanation. So the minister suspected an evil spirit and asked the girls, “Who tortures you?” They named three local women, insisting that their ghosts urged the girls to make a pact with the devil. When they refused, the ghosts forced them to act like animals, they said. One of the accused was, in fact, a Carib Indian slave who entertained the girls with fortunetelling and incantations to the devil. Yet the accusation of their ghosts committing crimes was farfetched at best. Still, that accusation sparked a senseless frenzy. Over the next seven months, Salem residents accused scores of their innocent neighbors of witchcraft.
So numerous were the accusations that Governor William Phips created a special court to try witches, with Sewall as one of its judges. Throughout the summer of 1692 the court miscarried justice time and again. Contrary to English law, the judges admitted spectral evidence—testimony of a crime committed by the ghost of a person not physically present. And a person whose ghost committed crimes was believed to be a witch. Accused witches who confessed, many of whom were coerced by torture, remained alive. The 19 who refused to confess were hanged. One man, who would not enter a plea, had boulders piled atop a door placed on his chest. In attempts to coerce a plea, local officials continued to stack boulders until he died. The trials ended only when public opinion shifted and Governor Phips disbanded the court. In total, 185 people were accused of witchcraft.
During the years following the trials, guilt weighed on Sewall. Months and perhaps even years of Scripture reading and prayer convinced him that he had violated the laws of God and those of England. His conscience was particularly stung in 1696 when his son recited Matthew 12:7, “If ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.” He knew he had condemned the guiltless, and he recorded in his diary that the verse “did awfully bring to mind the Salem tragedy.”
When repentance finally came, it generated more than a single public confession. For the rest of his life, Sewall wore a hair shirt under his clothing as a sign of contrition (A hair shirt was a rough undergarment of goat hair worn for penance because of its discomfort against the skin. It is akin to the sackcloth worn in the Bible as a sign of repentance). He also became an early champion of the victimized, writing against slavery, the mistreatment of Native Americans, and the demeaning of women. Through this, he experienced spiritual relief and renewed intimacy with Christ.
Sewall’s repentance demonstrated that contrition and turning from sin are neither easy nor painless. He also illustrated the way prominent citizens must repent publicly for public sins. Yet most importantly, he proved that God grants grace to repentant sinners regardless of how horrible their offenses.