A Variety of Calamity has long follow'd this Plantation; and we have all the Reason imaginable to ascribe it unto the Rebuke of Heaven upon us for our manifold _Apostasies;_ we make no right use of our Disasters: If we do not, _Remember whence we are fallen, and repent, and do the first Works_. But yet our Afflictions may come under a further Consideration with us: There is a further Cause of our Afflictions, whose due must be given him. [7] § II. The _New-Englanders_ are a People of God settled in those, which were once the _Devil's_ Territories; and it may easily be supposed that the _Devil_ was exceedingly disturbed, when he perceived such a People here accomplishing the Promise of old made unto our Blessed Jesus, _That He should have the Utmost parts of the Earth for his Possession_.[52] There was not a greater Uproar among the _Ephesians_, when the Gospel was first brought among them, than there was among, _The Powers of the Air_ (after whom those _Ephesians_ walked) when first the _Silver Trumpets_ of the Gospel here made the _Joyful Sound_. The Devil thus Irritated, immediately try'd all sorts of Methods to overturn this poor Plantation: and so much of the Church, as was _Fled into this Wilderness_, immediately found, _The Serpent cast out of his Mouth a Flood for the carrying of it away._ I believe, that never were more _Satanical Devices_ used for the Unsetling of any People under the Sun, than what have been Employ'd for the Extirpation of the _Vine_ which God has here _Planted, Casting out the Heathen, and preparing a Room before it, and causing it to take deep Root, and fill the Land, so that it sent its Boughs unto the_ Atlantic _Sea_ Eastward, _and its Branches unto the_ Connecticut _River_ Westward, _and the Hills were covered with the shadow thereof_. But, All those Attempts of Hell, have hitherto been Abortive, many an _Ebenezer_ has been Erected unto the Praise of God, by his Poor People here; and, _Having obtained Help from God, we continue to this Day_. Wherefore the Devil is now making one Attempt more upon us; an Attempt more Difficult, more Surprizing, more snarl'd with unintelligible Circumstances than any that we have hitherto Encountred;[53] an Attempt so _Critical_, that if we get well through, we shall soon Enjoy _Halcyon_ Days with all the _Vultures_ of Hell _Trodden under our Feet_. He has wanted his _Incarnate Legions_ to Persecute us, as the People of God have in the other Hemisphere been Persecuted: he has therefore drawn forth his more _Spiritual_ ones to make an Attacque upon us. We have been advised by some Credible Christians yet alive, that a Malefactor, accused of _Witchcraft_ as well as _Murder_, and Executed in this place more than Forty Years ago, did then give Notice of, _An Horrible_ PLOT _against the Country_ by WITCHCRAFT, _and a Foundation of_ WITCHCRAFT _then laid, which if it were not seasonably discovered, would prbably Blow up, and pull down all the Churches in the Country_.[54] And we have