BUT in the reign of Henry the fourth, when the eyes of the chriftian world began to open, and the feeds of the proteftant religion (though under the opprobrious name of lollardy) took root in this kingdom; the clergy, taking advantage from the king's dubious title to demand an increase of their own power, obtained an act of parliament', which fharpened the edge of perfecution to it's utmoft keenness. For, by that ftatute, the diocesan alone, without the intervention of a synod, might convict of heretical tenets; and unless the convict abjured his opinions, or if after abjuration he relapsed, the sheriff was bound ex officio, if required by the bishop, to commit the unhappy victim to the flames, without waiting for the consent of the crown. By the statute 2 Hen. V. c. 7. lollardy was alfo made a temporal offence, and indictable in the king's courts; which did not thereby gain an exclusive, but only a concurrent jurisdiction with the bishop's confiftory. AFTERWARDS, when the final reformation of religion began to advance, the power of the ecclefiaftics was somewhat moderated: for though what heresy is, was not then precisely defined, yet we are told in fome points what it is not: the ftatute 25 Hen. VIII. c. 14. declaring, that offences against the fee of Rome are not herefy; and the ordinary being thereby restrained from proceeding in any cafe upon mere fufpicion; that is unless the party be accused by two credible witneffes, or an indictment of heresy be first previously found in the king's courts of common law. And yet the spirit of perfecution was not then abated, but only diverted into a lay channel. For in fix years afterwards, by ftatute 31 Hen. VIII. c. 14. the bloody law of the fix articles was made, which eftablished the fix moft contested points of popery, transubstantiation, communion in one kind, the celibacy of the clergy, monaftic Vows, the facrifice of the mafs, and auricular confeffion; which points were "determined and refolved by • So called not from lolium, or tares (an etymology, which was afterwards devifed in order to juttify the burning of them; Matt. xiii. 30.) but from one Walter Lolhard, a German reformer, "the most godly study, pain, and travail of his majesty: for "which his most humble and obedient subjects, the lords "Spiritual and temporal and the commons, in parliament "affembled, did not only render and give unto his highness "their most high and hearty thanks," but did also enact and declare all oppugners of the firft to be heretics, and to be burnt with fire; and of the five last to be felons, and to suffer death. The fame ftatute established a new and mixed jurisdiction of clergy and laity for the trial and conviction of heretics; the reigning prince being then equally intent on destroying the fupremacy of the bishops of Rome, and establishing all other their corruptions of the christian religion. I SHALL not perplex this detail with the various repeals and revivals of these fanguinary laws in the two fucceeding reigns; but fhall proceed directly to the reign of queen Elizabeth; when the reformation was finally established with temper and decency, unfullied with party rancour, or perfonal caprice and refentment. By ftatute 1 Eliz. c. 1. all former statutes relating to heresy are repealed, which leaves the jurisdiction of herefy as it ftood at common law; viz. as to the infliction of common cenfures, in the ecclefiaftical courts; and in cafe of burning the heretic, in the provincial fynod only". Sir Matthew Hale is indeed of a different opinion, and holds that fuch power refided in the diocefan alfo, though he agrees, that in either cafe the writ de haeretico comburendo was not demandable of common right, but grantable or otherwise merely at the king's discretion". But the principal point now gained was, that by this statute a boundary is for the first time fet to what shall be accounted herefy; nothing for the future being to be fo determined, but only fuch tenets, which have been heretofore fo declared, 1. By the words of the canonical fcriptures; 2. By the first four general councils, or fuch others as have only used the words of the holy fcriptures; or, 3. Which fhall hereafter be so declared by the parliament, with the affent of the clergy in convocation. Thus was herefy reduced to a greater certainty than before; though it might not have been the worse to have defined it in terms ftill u Hal. P. C. 405. v 5 Rep. 23. 12 Rep. 56. 92. VOL. IV. more precife and particular: as a man continued ftill liable [49] to be burnt, for what perhaps he did not understand to be herefy, till the ecclefiaftical judge fo interpreted the words of the canonical fcriptures. FOR the writ de haeretico comburendo remained fill in force; and we have inftances of it's being put in execution upon two anabaptifts in the feventeenth of Elizabeth, and two Arians in the ninth of James the firft. But it was totally abolished, and heresy again subjected only to ecclesiastical correction pro falute animae, by virtue of the ftatute 29 Car. II. c. 9. For, in one and the fame reign, our lands were delivered from the flavery of military tenures; our bodies from arbitrary imprisonment by the habeas corpus act; and our minds from the tyranny of fuperftitious bigotry, by demolishing this laft badge of perfecution in the English law. In what I have now faid I would not be understood to derogate from the juft rights of the national church, or to favour a loose latitude of propagating any crude undigested fentiments in religious matters. Of propagating, I fay; for the bare entertaining them, without an endeavour to diffufe them, feems hardly cognizable by any human authority. I only mean to illuftrate the excellence of our prefent establishment, by looking back to former times. Every thing is now as it fhould be, with refpect to the fpiritual cognizance, and fpiritual punishment, of herefy: unlefs perhaps that the crime ought to be more strictly defined, and no prosecution permitted, even in the ecclefiaftical courts, till the tenets in queftion are by proper authority previously declared to be heretical. Under thefe reftrictions, it seems neceffary for the fupport of the national religion, that the officers of the church fhould have power to cenfure heretics; yet not to harass them with temporal penalties, much lefs to exterminate or deftroy them. The legislature hath indeed thought it proper, that the civil magiftrate fhould again interpofe, with regard to one fpecies of herefy, very prevalent in modern times; for by ftatute 9 & 10 W. III. c. 32. if any perfon educated in the chriftian religion, or profeffing the fame, fhall by writing, printing, teaching, or advised speaking, deny any one of the perfons in the holy trinity to be God, or maintain that there are more Gods than one, he fhall undergo the fame [ 50 ] penalties and incapacities, which were just now mentioned to be inflicted on apoftacy by the fame ftatute. And thus much for the crime of heresy. III. ANOTHER fpecies of offences against religion are those which affect the established church. And these are either pofitive, or negative: pofitive, by reviling it's ordinances; or negative, by non-conformity to it's worship. Of both of these in their order. 1. AND, firft, of the offence of reviling the ordinances of the church. This is a crime of a much groffer nature than the other of mere non-confirmity; finge it carries with it the utmost indecency, arrogance, and ingratitude : indecency, by fetting up private judgment in virulent and factious oppofition to public authority: arrogance, by treating with contempt and rudenefs what has at least a better chance to be right, than the fingular notions of any particular man; and ingratitude, by denying that indulgence and undisturbed liberty of confcience to the members of the national church, which the retainers to every petty conventicle enjoy. However it is provided by statutes 1 Edw. VI. c. 1. and 1 Eliz. c. 1. that whoever reviles the facrament of the lord's fupper fhall be punished by fine and imprifonment: and by the statute 1 Eliz. c. 2. if any minifter fhall speak any thing in derogation of the book of common prayer, he shall, if not beneficed, be imprisoned one year for the first offence, and for life for the fecond: and, if he be beneficed, he fhall for the first offence be imprisoned fix months, and forfeit a year's value of his benefice for the fecond offence he fhall be deprived, and fuffer one year's imprisonment; and, for the third, fhall in like manner be deprived, and fuffer imprisonment for life. And if any perfon whatsoever shall in plays, fongs, or other or open words, fpeak any thing in derogation, depraving E 2 defpifing Book IV. defpifing of the faid book, or shall forcibly prevent the reading of it, or cause any other service to be used in it's stead, he fhall forfeit for the firft offence an hundred marks; for the fecond, four hundred; and for the third, fhall forfeit all his goods and chattels, and fuffer imprisonment for life. These [5] penalties were framed in the infancy of our prefent establishment: when the disciples of Rome and of Geneva united in inveighing with the utmost bitterness against the English liturgy: and the terror of these laws (for they feldom, if ever, were fully executed) proved a principal means, under providence, of preferving the purity as well as decency of our national worship. Nor can their continuance to this time (of the milder penalties at least) be thought too severe and intolerant; fo far as they are levelled at the offence, not of thinking differently from the national church, but of railing at that church and obftructing it's ordinances, for not fubmitting it's public judgment to the private opinion of others. For, though it is clear, that no restraint fhould be laid upon rational and difpaffionate difcuffions of the rectitude and propriety of the established mode of worship; yet contumely and contempt are what no establishment can tolerate v. A rigid attachment to trifles, and an intemperate zeal for reforming them, are equally ridiculous and abfurd: but the latter is at present the lefs excufable, because from political reasons, fufficiently hinted at in a former volume", it would now be extremely unadvifeable to make any alterations in the fervice of the church; unless by it's own confent, or unless it can be fhewn that fome manifeft impiety or shocking abfurdity will follow from continuing the prefent forms. Z. NON-CONFORMITY to the worship of the church is the other, or negative branch of this offence. And for this there is much more to be pleaded than for the former; being a matter of private confcience, to the fcruples of which our present |