the devil or eternal punishment is consistent with membership of the church. The right of every layman to the offices of the church is established by statute without reference to opinions, and it is not possible to say what opinions, if any, would operate to disqualify him.
The case of clergymen is entirely different. The statute 13 Eliz. c. 12, § 2, enacts that ‘‘if any person ecclesiastical, or which shall have an ecclesiastical living, shall advisedly maintain or affirm any doctrine directly contrary or repugnant to any of the said articles, and by conventicle before the’bishop of the diocese, or the ordinary, or before the queen’s highness’s commissioners in matters ecclesias- tical, shall persist therein or not revoke his error, or after such revocation eftsoons affirm such untrue doctrine,” he shall be de- prived of his ecclesiastical promotions. The Act it will be observed applies only to clergymen, and the punishinent is strictly limited to deprivation of benefice. The judicial committee of the privy council, as the last court of appeal, has on several occasions pronounced judgments by which the scope of the Act has been confined to its narrowest Jegal effect. The court will construe the Articles of Religion and formularies according to the legal rules for the interpretation of statutes and written instruments. No rule of doctrine is to be ascribed to the church which is not distinctly and expressly stated or plainly involved in the writtea law of the Church, and where there is no rule, a clergyman may express his opinion without fear of penal consequences. In the Essays and Reviews cases (Williams v. the Bishop of Salisbury, and Wilson 7. Fendall) it was held to be not penal for a clergyman to speak of merit by transfer as a ‘‘ fiction,” or to express a hope of the ultimate pardon of the wicked, or to affirm that any part of the Old or New Testa- ment, however unconnected with religious faith or moral duty, was not written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In the case of Noble v. Voysey in 1871, the committee held that it was not bound to affix a meaning to articles of really dubious import, as it would have been in cases affecting property. At the same time any manifest contradiction of the Articles, or any obvious evasion of them, would subject the offender to the penalties of deprivation. In some of the cases the question has been raised how far the doctrine of the church could be ascertained by reference to the opinions generally expressed by divines belonging to its communion, Such opinions, it would seem, might be taken into account as showing the extent of liberty which had been in practice, claimed and exercised on the interpretation of the articles, but would certainly not be allowed to increase their stringency. It is not the busmess of the court to pronounce upon the absolute truth or falsehood of any given opinion, but simply to say whether it is formally consistent with the legal doctrines of the Church of England. Whether convocation has any jurisdiction in cases of heresy is a question which has occasioned some diflerence of opinion among lawyers. Hale, as quoted by Phillimore, says that before the time of Richard II., that is, before any Aets of Parliament were made about heretics, it is without question that in a con- vocation of the clergy or provincial synod “they might and frequently did here in England proceed to the sentencing of heretics.” But later writers, while adhering to the statement that convocation might declare opinions to be heretical, doubted whether it could proceed to punish the offender, even when he was a clerk in orders. Phillimore states that there is no longer any doubt, even apart from the effect of the Clergy Discipline Act, 3 and 4 Vict. c. 86, that convocation has no power to condemn clergymen for heresy. The supposed right of convoeation to stamp heretical opinions with its disapproval was recently exercised on a somewhat memorable oceasion. In 1864 the convoeation of the province of Canterbury, having taken the opinion of two of the most eminent lawyers of the day (Sir Hugh Cairns and Mr Rolt), passed judgment upon the volume entitled Essays and Revicws. The judgment purported to ‘‘synodically condemn the said volume as containing teaching contrary to the doctrine received by the United Church of England and Ireland, in common with the whole Catholic Church of Christ.” These proceedings were challenged in the House of Lords by Lord Houghton, and the lord chancellor (Westbury), speaking on behalf of the Government, stated that if there was any ‘ synodical judgment” it would be a violation of the law, subjecting those concerned in it to the penalties of a premunire, but that the sentence in question was ‘*simply nothing, literally no sentence at all.” It is thus at least doubtful whether convocation has a right even to express an opinion unless specially authorized to do so by the crown, and it is certain that it eannot do anything more. Heresy or no heresy, in the last resort, like all other ecclesiastical questions, is decided by the judicial committee of the council.
The English lawyers, following the Roman law, distinguish be- tween heresy and apostasy. The latter offence is dealt with by an Act which still stands on the statute book, although it has long been virtually obsolete—the 9 and 10 Will. III. c. 35. If any person who has been educated in or has professed the Christian religion shall, by writing, printing, teaching, or advised speaking, assert or maintain that there are mere Gods than one, or shall deny any of the persons of the Holy Trinity to be God, or shall deny the Christian religion to be true or the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be of divine authority, he shall for the first offence be declared incapable of holding any ecclesiastical, civil, or inilitary office or employment, and for the second incapable of bringing any action, or of being guardian, executor, legatee, or grantee, and shall suffer three years’ imprisonment without bail. Unitarians were saved from these atrocious penalties by a later Act (53 Geo. III. ¢. 160), which permits Christians to deny any of the persons in the Trinity without penal consequences.
HERFORD, a town of Prussia, capital of a circle in the government district of Minden, province of Westphalia, is situated in a beautiful and fruitful district at the confluence of the Werra and Aa, and on the Minden and Cologne railway, 19 miles south-west of Minden. It possesses five evangelical churches, among which may be mentioned the Miinsterkirche, a Romanesque building with a Gothic apse of the 15th century; the Marienkirche, in the Gothic style ; and the Johanniskirche, with a tower 280 feet high. The other principal buildings are the Catholic church, the synagogue, the gymnasium founded in 1540, the agricultural school, and the theatre. The industries include cotton and flax spinning, and the manufacture of linen cloth, furniture, sugar, tobacco, and leather. The population of the town in 1875 was 11,967.
Herford owes its origin to a nunnery which is said to have been founded in 832, and was confirmed by Louis the Pious in 839. From the emperor Frederick I. the abbess obtained princely rank and a seat in the imperial diet. The foundation was secularized in 1803. Herford was a member of the Hansa League. In 1631 it became a free imperial town, but in 1647 it was subjugated by the elector of Brandenburg. It came into the possession of Westphalia in 1807, and in 1818 into that of Prussia.
HERIOT. See Copyhold.
HERIOT, George (1563–1623), the founder of Heriot’s Hospital, Edinburgh, was descended from an old family of some consideration in the county of Haddington; and his father, a goldsmith in Edinburgh, for some time represented the city in the Scottish parliament. George was born in 1563, and after receiving a good education was apprenticed to his father’s trade. In 1586 he married the daughter of a deceased Edinburgh merchant, and with the assistance of her patrimony set up in business on his own account. At first he occupied a small “ buith” at the north-east corner of St Giles’s Church, and afterwards a more pre- tentious shop at the west end of the building. To the business of a goldsmith he joined that of a money-lender, and in 1597 he had acquired such a reputation that he was appointed goldsmith to Queen Anne, consort of James VI. In 1601 he became jeweller to the king, and on the removal of the court to London, he followed his royal master thither, and occupied a shop opposite the Exchange. Heriot was largely indebted for his fortune to the extravagance of the queen, and to the imitation of this extravagance by the nobility. Latterly he had such an extensive business as a jeweller that on one occasion a Government proclamation was issued calling upon all the magistrates of the kingdom to aid him in securing the workmen he required. He died in London, 10th February 1623. In 1608, having some time previously lost his first wife, he married Alison Primrose, daughter of James Primrose, grandfather of the first earl of Rosebery, but she died in 1612; by neither marriage had he any issue. The surplus of his estate, after deducting legacies to his nearest relations and some of his more intimate friends, was bequeathed to found a hospital for the education of freemen’s sons of the town of Edin- burgh; and its value afterwards increased so greatly as to supply funds for the erection of several Heriot foundation schools in different parts of the city. For a notice of Heriot’s Hospital, see EprxnBurcy, vol. vii. p. 666.
Heriot takes a leading part in Scott’s novel, The Fortunes of Nigel (see also the Introduction). A History of Heriot’s Hospital, with a Memoir of the Founder, by William Steven, D.D., appeared in 1827, 2d ed. 1859.
