165 



bad subsided into moderation, and of the other had 

 risen to a degree of determination wiiich commanded 

 respect. 



The present state of our laws on the subject of re- 

 ligion is this. The convention of May 1776, in their 

 declaration of rights, declared it to be a truth, and a 

 natural right, that the exercise of religion sh(juld be 

 free; but when they proceeded to form on that de- 

 claration the ordinance of government, instead of tak- 

 ing up every principle declared in the bill of rights, 

 and guarding it by legislative sanction, they passed 

 over that which asserted our rehgious rights, leaving 

 th^m as they found them. The satne conventioti, how- 

 ever, wlien they met as a member of the general as- 

 sembly in October 1776, repealed all acts of parliament 

 which had rendered criminal the maintaining any opi- 

 nions in njatiers of religion, the forbearing to re{)air to 

 church, and the exercising any mode of worship ; and 

 susjjended the laws givii]g salaries to the clergy, which 

 sus[)ension was made perpetual in October 1779. Sta- 

 tutory op[)ressions in religion being lims wiped away, 

 we reiuain at present under those oidy imposed by the 

 common law, or by our own acts of assembly. At the 

 couimon law, heresjj was a capital offence, punishable 

 by burning. Its definition was left to the ecclesiasti- 

 cal judges, before wliom the con\iction was, till the 

 statute of the i El. c. 1. circumscribed it, by declaring, 

 that nothing siiould be deemed heresy, but what had 

 been so deteruiined by authority of the canonical scrip- 

 tures, or by one of the four first general councils, or by 

 other council liaving for the grounds of their declara- 

 tion the express and plain words of the scriptures. 

 Heresy, thus circuiuscribed, being an ofl^'ence at the 

 common law, our act of assetnbly of October 1777, c. 

 17. gives cognizance of it to the general court, by de- 

 claring, that the jurisdiction of that com-t shall he ge- 

 neral in all nuUters at the common law. The execu- 

 tion is by the writ De hceretico comburendo. By our 

 own act of assembly of 1705, c. 30. if a person brought 

 up in the Christian religion denies the being of a God, or 



