Memorable providences relating to witchcrafts and possessions a faithful account of many wonderful and…

Secondly, I think, I may rather charge this G. K. with Gross Abuses, Lies and Slanders, by him offered unto that Increase Mather whom he shows himself so much (beyond the cure of Hellebore) inflamed at. He says, Increase Mather hath showed his Rashness and Folly in some other passages of his life, if not Malice, that hath occasioned him for some time past to abscond, and depart from the place where he preached at Boston. I am sorry that this man obliges me to trouble the World with Stories about such Domestic and personal matters as these are. For me to Commend my yet living Father would perhaps be counted an Indecency. But if I should not now Defend him from such unhandsome Imputations, I were worse than the worse of the Sons of Noah, and it must be a greater Malice than what G. K. ever pretended to ⟨p. 8⟩discover in Increase Mather, that shall criminate my Vindication of an absent and a wronged Parent. My Reader's Patience must then permit me to tell him, that all New-England well knows, That Increase Mather never departed from hence, through any Rashness or Folly of his own, but through the Malice of unreasonable men. Our Charter being unjustly Vacated (which even G. K. reckons among the Judgments of God upon us) the Government of this Territory was fallen into the hands of men that immediately took all sorts of measures to make us miserable. A knot of people, that had no design but to enrich themselves on to the ruins of this flourishing plantation, were placed over us, & our Land strangers devoured in our presence. The sight of our Calamities made my Father willing to undertake a Voyage uuto England, for no other cause but merely to endeavour the Service of his afflicted Country; and not a few among the principal Gentlemen of the place, did both Advise and Assist his Undertaking. His Intent in Going he did not publish, but his Intent of Going he did; and he had no sooner done it, but one Randolph, the late Secretary, whom (like a Scavenger) our late Oppressors chiefly used in their more dirty Businesses, gave Trouble unto him to obstruct and prevent his Voyage. The Circumstances of it were these: This Randolph some time since, carried unto Sr. Lionel Jenkins, a ⟨p. 9⟩Letter which he assured him was Mr. Mather's;

Secondly, I think, I may rather charge this G. K. with Gross Abuses, Lyes and Slanders, by him offer'd unto that Increase Mather whom he shows himself so much (beyond the cure of Hellebore) inflamed at. He saies, Increase Mather hath shew'd his Rashness and Folly in some other passages of his life, if not Malice, that hath occasion'd him for some time past to abscond, and depart from the place where he preached at Boston. I am sorry that this man obliges me to trouble the World with Stories about such Domestick and personal matters as these are. For me to Commend my yet living Father would perhaps be counted an Indecency. But if I should not now Defend him from such unhandsome Imputations, I were worse than the worse of the Sons of Noah, and it must be a greater Malice than what G. K. ever pretended to