as have only uſed the words of the holy ſcriptures; or, 3. Which ſhall hereafter be ſo declared by the parliament, with the aſſent of the clergy in convocation. Thus was hereſy reduced to a greater certainty than before; though it might not have been the worſe to have defined it in terms ſtill more preciſe and particular: as a man continued ſtill liable to be burnt, for what perhaps he did not underſtand to be hereſy, till the eccleſiaſtical judge ſo interpreted the words of the canonical ſcriptures.
For the writ de haeretico comburendo remained ſtill in force; and we have inſtances of it's being put in execution upon two anabaptiſts in the ſeventeenth of Elizabeth, and two Arians in the ninth of James the firſt. But it was totally abolished, and hereſy again ſubjected only to eccleſiaſtical correction, pro ſalute animae, by virtue of the ſtatute 29 Car. II. c. 9. For in one and the ſame reign, our lands were delivered from the ſlavery of military tenures; our bodies from arbitrary impriſonment by the habeas corpus act; and our minds from the tyranny of ſuperſtitious bigotry, by demolishing this laſt badge of perſecution in the Engliſh law.
In what I have now ſaid I would not be underſtood to derogate from the juſt rights of the national church, or to favour a looſe latitude of propagating any crude undigeſted ſentiments in religious matters. Of propagating, I ſay; for the bare entertaining them, without an endeavour to diffuſe them, ſeems hardly cognizable by any human authority. I only mean to illuſtrate the excellence of our preſent etabliſhment, by looking back to former times. Every thing is now as it ſhould be, with reſpect to the ſpiritual cognizance, and ſpiritual punishment, of hereſy: unleſs perhaps that the crime ought to be more ſtrictly defined, and no proſecution permitted, even in the eccleſiaſtical courts, till the tenets in queſtion are by proper authority previouſly declared to be heretical. Under theſe reſtrictions, it ſeems neceſſary for the ſupport of the national religion, that the officers of the church ſhould have power to cenſure heretics; yet not to harraſs them with temporal penalties, much
