the rest of our brethren with you in Boston, have a deep sense upon your spirits of the awful symptoms of the Divine displeasure that we lie under at this day...give me leave to impart some of my serious and solemn thoughts. I fear (amongst our many other provocations) that God hath a controversy with us about what was done in the time of the Witchcraft. I fear that innocent blood hath been shed, and that many have had their hands defiled therewith... Paul, a Pharisee, persecuted the Church of God, shed the blood of God's Saints, and yet obtained mercy, because he did it in ignorance; but how doth he bewail it, and shame himself for it, before God and men afterwards. I think, and am verily persuaded, God expects that we do the like, in order to our obtaining his pardon: I mean by a Public and Solemn acknowledgment of it and humiliation for it [emphasis added]; and the more particularly and personally it is done by all that have been actors, the more pleasing it will be to God... the whole country lies under a curse... til some effectual course is taken by our honored Governor and General Court to make amends and reparation [to the families of those condemned] for supposed witchcraft [and those] ruined by taking away and making havoc of their estates... I have with a weak body and trembling hand, endeavored to leave my testimony before I leave the world. Wigglesworth also went a step further in exhorting Increase Mather to express a statement of contrition "to the Rev. Samuel Willard." Increase Mather had lost the presidency of the college to Willard in 1701 and retained a great bitterness about it at this time. The Mathers' Oblique Response There seems to be no record of a direct response from the Mathers, but judging from their past reactions (see controversy over formation of Brattle Square church, etc) it is unlikely they would have taken Wigglesworth's criticisms lightly. Wigglesworth had been astute in believing the end of his life was near and he passed away within a year (June 10, 1705) of writing the letter. The Mathers quickly began to assert themselves relative to their fellow pastor's posthumous legacy. Cotton Mather gained access to his diary and private papers and quoted from them in a sermon preached at Malden on June 24, 1705. The Mathers