Losing Faith

I think that "Young Goodman Brown" ties in wonderfully with Mather's On Witchcraft, not just because of the obviously shared topic of witchcraft, but because they both tell a story of what happenes once we lose sight of our faith. Goodman Brown leaves his angelic wife, Faith, with hopes that when he returned all would be well. As if he expected that there would be no consequences to his actions. In the beginning, he knows that she suspects something bad will come of his going, but he ignores that knowledge. Basically, saying that he'll be good whenever he's finished doing bad. "Well, she's a blessed angel on earth; and after this one night I'll cling to her skirts and follow her to heaven." He abandons his faith in search of knowledge and tangible certainty without realizing that this kind of quest will destroy faith. In Hebrews 11:1, faith is described, "Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." Because Goodman Brown loses all certainty after seeing Faith there in the woods that night, it can be assumed that his "Faith" is gone. The blind certainty is gone. He went in search of knowledge, but found more doubt. His situation was ultimately worse, because now he didn't have certainty in his faith. The Bible also says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding" (Prov. 3:5). Goodman Brown did not stick to this Purtian dependency on God for knowledge or understanding. I see Goodman Brown as a warning against the life of gloom that follows abandoning one's faith in search of worldy knowledge. It warns that it isn't something you can return to. This is something people still do today. We live up our youth, without considering the consequences, and many assume that they'll have time to make condolences once the time of fun is over. But I think we all find, that we can never go back. Just like we can never return to the innocent view of the world we had as children, once we learn about war, murder, poverty, and we witness intentional cruelty. Sure, we can look back at the way we saw things as children, but never through the same eyes. The view has a darker tint. That's what Goodman Brown experiences when he looks upon his lovely angelic Faith after having seen a glimpse into the knowledge of evil. He still sees her, but it's tainted. There's no going back.
Anyway...the Puritan's did this during the witch trials. They lost sight in their principles and their faith. The let their fear of Satan over power their fear of God. If Satan was working within their society, which was something Mather's could feel and so eloquently wrote about. Yet, it wasn't the the witchcraft that signified the Devil's possesion of their society, but the way in which the Puritans lost sight of their faith in response to their fear. Mather's saw the witchcraft as a means of distraction. He really called it for what it was. He wrote, "If we allow the Mad Dogs of Hell to poyson us by biting us, we shall imagine taht we see ntohing but such things about us, and like such things fly upon all that we see....But what shall be done to cure these Distractions?" They took their focus off the fear of the lord, which according to the bible is "the beginning of all understanding." and they turned against each other, because they were afraid of the bodily harm that may come to them if they were accused so they all reached a point of histeria where they began to accuse each other. Really, the one's who died, because they refused to confess in order to spare their lives were the only one's who stuck to their faith. They may be seen as stubborn and foolish for dying, when they could have told one lie to save their life. Yet, the bible says, "Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell" (Matthew 10:28). Thus, the original "Puritan" society ceased to exist. The surviors of the witchtrials were hypocrits. A hypocrit is someone who speaks the words, but does not believe them. They couldn't return to the the faith-based society, but rather became one of self-righteousness in attempts to mask what had really happened. And the country just degenrated from there. They came off looking like a bunch of crazy assholes, which made the "christian" religion less and less appealing to posterity. The Devil won. So...I guess that's the warning I saw in Young Goodman Brown and the witchtrials. You can't go back to the faith that you abandon. If you risk the glance away, when you look back it may already be just a childhood delusion or a mocking version of what it used to be.