Lollardy ) took root in this kin the clergy, avail- 
ing themselves of the king’s d title to demand an 
increase of their own power, obtained an act of parlia- 
ment, (2 Hen. IV. c. 15.) which sharpened the edge of 
ion to its utmost keenness. By that statute, 
the diocesan alone, without the intervention of a synod, 
might convict. of heretical tenets ; and unless the ti 
vict abjured his opinions, or if after abjuration he re- 
lapsed, the sheriff was hound ez officio, if required by 
the bishop, to commit the unhappy victim to the flames, 
without waiting for the consent of the crown. Ano- 
ther and subsequent statute (2 Hen. V. c. 7.) made 
Lollardy also a_ offence, and indictable in the 
king’s courts ; which did not thereby gain an exclusive, 
but only a concurrent jurisdiction with the bishop's con- 
sistory. When the final reformation of religion began 
to advance, the power of the ecclesiastics became some- 
what moderated ; for although what heresy is, was not 
then precisely defined, yet we are told, in some points, 
what it is not. Thus the statute 25 Hen. VIII. ¢. 14. 
declares, that offences against the see of Rome are not 
heresy ; and the ordinary is thereby restrained from 
proceeding in any case upon mere suspicion ; that is, 
unless the party be accused by two credible witnesses, 
or an indic t of heresy be first previously found in 
the king’s courts of common law. Yet the spirit of per- 
secution was not then abated, but only diverted into a 
lay channel. For in six years afterwards, the bloody 
law of the Six Articles was introduced by the statute 
31 Hen, VILL. c..14, which established the six most 
contested points of P , Viz. transubstantiation, com- 
munion in one kind, the celibacy of the clergy, monas- 
tic vows, the sacrifice of the mass, and auricular con- 
fession. These points, it seems, were “ determined 
and resolved by the most godly study, pain and travail 
of his: Majesty ; for which his most.humble and obe- 
dient subjects, the lords spiritual and temporal, and the 
commons, in parliament assembled, 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 first to be heretics, and to be burnt with fre 3 and 
of the five last to be felons, and to suffer death. The 
same statute established a new and mixed jurisdiction 
of clergy and laity, for the trial and conviction of he- 
retics ; the reigning monarch being then equally in- 
tent in destroying the supremacy of the bishops. of 
Rome, and confirming all the other corruptions of the 
Christian religion, 
Passing over the detail of the various repeals and re- 
vivals of these sanguinary laws in the two succeeding 
reigns, we shall proceed directly to the period of the 
final establishment of the Reformation in the reign of 
Queen Elizabeth. By statute 1 Eliz. c. 1. all former 
‘statutes relating to heresy are repealed, which leaves 
the jurisdiction of heresy as it stood at common law: 
viz. As to the infliction of common censures in the ec- 
clesiastical courts; and, in case of burning the here- 
tic, in the-provincial synod only ; or, according to Sir 
Matthew Hale, in the diocesan also. But, in either case, 
it is agreed, that the writ de heretico comburendo was 
not demandable of common right, but grantable or other- 
wise merely at the king’s discretion. 1 Hal. P. C. 405. 
The principal point, however, was now gained ; for by 
this statute a boundary is, for the first time, set to what 
shall be accounted heresy, which is restricted, for the 
future, to such tenets only which have been heretofore 
so declared by the words of the canonical scriptures, 
or. by one of the first four general councils, or by such 
other councils as have only used the words of the Holy 
HERESY. 
749 
Scriptures, or which shall hereafter be so declared by 
the parliament, with the assent of the c in convo- 
cation, For the writ de herefico com remained 
still in force ; and there are instances of its being put in 
execution upon two Anabaptists in the seventeenth of 
Elizabeth, and upon two Arians in the ninth of James 
I. But this odious writ was at length totally abolished, 
and heresy again subjected only to ecclesiastical correc- 
tion, pro salute anime, by virtue of the statute 29 Car. II. 
c. 9. The matter, therefore, is now brought into its 
proper situation, with respect to the spiritual cogni- 
zance and pine punishment of heresy, unless, per- 
haps, that the crime itself ought to be more strictly de- 
fined, and no prosecution permitted, even in the eccle- 
siastical courts, until the tenets in question are, by 
per authority, previously declared to be heretieal. Un- 
der these restrictions, it seems necessary for the support 
of the national religion, that the officers of the church 
should have es to censure heretics, yet not to ha- 
rass them with temporal penalties, mucl less to exter- 
minate or destroy them. 
The fury of persecution, indeed, has been greatly al- 
layed, both by the prudence and the humanity of modern 
times ; and the gradual ee of the savage laws enuct- 
ed against heretics, as well as the mitigation of cruelty 
in the legal punishments which were devised by bar- 
barous ages, must be considered as a natural consequence 
of the advancement of civilization. With regard to one 
species of heresy indeed, the legislature still thought it 
proper for a long while, that the authority of the civil 
magistrate should be interposed. For by the statute 9 
and 10 W. III. ¢. 82. it was enacted, that if any person 
educated in the Christian religion, or professing the 
same, should by writing, printing, teaching, or advised 
speaking, deny the Christian religion to be true, or the 
Holy Scriptures to be of divine authority, or deny any 
one of the persons in the Holy Trinity to be God, or 
maintain that there are more gods than one, he should, » 
upon the first conviction of professing his peculiar doc~ 
trines, be rendered incapable of enjoying any office or 
place of trust, civil or military, as well as ecclesiastical ; 
and u a second conviction, he should be disqualified 
from bringing any action, or from being ian of 
any child, executor, legatee, or erpee’ of lands, and 
besides suffer imprisonment for three years without bail. 
But if, within four months after the first conviction, the 
delinquent should,’in open court, publicly renounce his 
error, he was to be discharged at once from all disabi- 
lities. But even this appr eats mild law could not 
well be executed in an ightened age, and seemed to 
be retained merely in terrorem, until it was at length 
repealed in the year 1813. And itis the wish of many 
in this land of free inquiry, of knowledge, and liberal 
sentiment, that our statute books may be entirely res- 
cued from the opprobrium of penal laws in the province 
of religion, and that the rights of conscience may be for 
ever confirmed, as not controlable by human laws, nor 
amenable to human tribunals. See Campbell's Pre« 
lim. Dissert. to the Four Gospels, &c.; Suicer’s Thes. 
vol. i. p: 120, 124; Lardner’s Works, vol. ix. p. 223, 
&e. ; Blackstone's Comment b. — 4 ; TReflections Let- 
ters to Judge Blackstone, p. 30 ; Popular on 
the Frogeeed of the Principles of Toleration, &c. New- 
castle, 1814; and Edinburgh Review, No. 51, p. 51, 
et seq. () 
HERI TER, Cuanres Louts L’ pe Brutevee, an 
eminent French botanist, was seurp ic Paris in — 
In the year 1772, he was appoi uperintendant 
the Wavers and Forests of the Generalité of Paris ; and, 
+ 
Heresy. 
Heritier. 
